Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
The title question is rarely, if ever, asked of people who are skeptical of human-induced global warming and climate change…for obvious reasons. If persons are skeptical of a future filled with climate catastrophes, regardless of whether they are caused by nature or by emissions of manmade greenhouse gases, then there should be few reasons for them to be fearful of future climate.
For example: some persons may most fear the future possible rise in sea levels, understanding that surface temperatures are above the threshold at which the seasonal mass losses from glaciers and ice shelves exceed those of seasonal mass gains and that those temperatures have been above that threshold since the end of the last ice age; but they temper that concern with an understanding that even the UN’s political report-writing entity, the IPCC, acknowledges the oceans will continue their inland march regardless of whether or not we limit the emissions of manmade greenhouse gases…that it’s just a matter of time. (See Figure 13.27 on page 68 of 80 of Chapter 13 of the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report. The blue curve is for the “optimistic” RCP2.6 emissions scenario and the red curve is for the worst-case RCP8.5 scenario.)
What scares me?
My fears are that:
- activist climate scientists and agenda-driven politicians who fund climate science have tainted all related fields with unjustifiable certainty of a future filled with pain and suffering,
- to manufacture those predictions of gloom and doom, the sole focus of climate science has been and continues to be on human-induced, not naturally occurring, global warming and climate change,
- the climate science community will come no closer to understanding the natural contributions to global warming and climate change until there is a total change of mindset, and
- it will take decades of that completely new mindset to overcome the present groupthink.
With that said, what are your fears about global warming and climate change?
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I’d have thought antibiotic resistance is probably more of a threat to humanity than climate change. If governments had spent the amount of many they’ve wasted on climate change instead on healthcare, new research on bacterial and viral infections the world would be a better place?
It should be a punishable crime to use an antibiotic when it is not needed.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
“The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.”
“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
– H.L. Mencken
Hypothesis:
1. The next act of this farce will be characterized by global cooling starting by about 2020 or sooner, cooling that may be mild or severe. Global cooling will demonstrate that climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 is so small as to be insignificant. The scientific credibility of the warmist gang will be shattered and some may face lawsuits and/or go to jail.
2. The scientific community will gradually accept the fact that CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, and that temperature (among other factors) drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
3. The foolish green energy schemes to “stop global warming” will be shelved and dismantled, but not before they contribute to a significant increase in Excess Winter Mortality, especially in Europe and to a lesser extent in North America, where energy costs are much lower (thanks to shale fracking).
4. The warmist thugs will still be bleating about a warmer world, wilder weather, etc., all caused by the sins of mankind, but nobody will listen.
Regards to all, Allan
I wish I could share your optimism. But with many Trillions of dollars, pound, and euros on the line, I can’t see th e Green Blob going away quietly.
Maybe we can shift their efforts to productive ones. There are REAL threats.
My current favorite book is “Cows Save the Planet” by Judith D Schwartz. Most greenies should love it and it has a little warmist nonsense in it, but its recommendations are constructive instead of harmful.
In general people may not believe in global warming. The problem is the leaders in government who are listening to “qualified people” (NASA for instance) and “every scientific organization on the planet” (warrenlb) that supports global warming by co2. No matter what happens, CAGW isn’t about to change their tune. Have you seen anywhere where they address the issue of the LIA or the MWP? * Zero, zip, do da, nothing.. a non event. Have you seen them address the origin of co2? Nope, zero, do da, nothing. For years they claimed the LIA and MWP were local and not world wide. A world wide drilling program laid that to rest. Not only world wide but many other events as well. They shouted loud and clear that they could tell from the ratio of co2 isotopes where co2 came from. Now it comes out that they can’t. Hence the satellite they launched shows a very disturbing amounts in the southern hemisphere. (After all they’ve made a big deal at 0.01 increase in temps) And if the data continues to be against AGW, that’ll be the last time you see any public information on that.
Kids will grow up believing it’s warmer even if it is much colder because they have nothing to compare it to, and the warming is happening somewhere else, not where you are. “And abnormal cold that’s allowed under CAGW because that’s weather and not climate. “…
* They could possibly come up with dozens of reasons for the LIA and not change their chart showing the relationship between co2 and temp. The MWP on the other hand is going to be next to impossible. One explanation for the LIA is going to make it that much harder to explain the MWP, The entire AGW theory falls apart there. Volcanoes made it colder and co2 levels were flat, then the MWP (warmer than the CWP) the co2 levels were flat?? What made it warmer if temps follow co2 levels and the IPCC chart shows level temps and co2 levels? First the chart is wrong on temps, and second if they adjust the co2 levels to correspond to the change in temps, then they have to address where or how the co2 levels changed. They are, scientifically speaking, in deep do-do.
What I think I see unfolding is the steady disappearance of the middle class. I heard on the news that the “ruling class” gathered in Davos with two main items to discuss – climate change and world-wide wealth disparities. As for the first item, my guess is that they will discuss just how they can get new tax streams on-line and how they can profit from getting in the flow of that money stream. As for the second item, what are the chances that the people who flew in on private jets will agree that they should share their money with the world’s poor? Rather, they will discuss how they will be the “good guys” and help us in the middle class share our wealth with the world’s poor. I’m afraid that the last seventy years or so have been an anomaly, and not something that will be sustained, much less grow. The middle class is seen by the ruling class not as something to protect and foster, but as a cash cow. The end result appears to be much more wealth equality – except for the people in Davos who wish to rule the world.
This is why, even though this site is so popular, fighting this movement is probably fruitless. There is too much money involved. As a lawyer once said to me (in a camp at a high mountain lake in the Brooks Range when he temporarily let his guard down), it’s easier to take money from someone than it is to make it.
My biggest fear is that the massive wanton and wilful damage done to the world’s economy by the Green/Left will bring about exactly the disaster that they claimed climate would do.
A self-fulfilling prophecy, I believe it’s called.
“The only thing to fear is fear itself”
It is the fear of “climate change” and what people will do because of that fear that is of most concern.
Government funding damages most organized human activities when applied to areas which are traditionally **not** the domain of the state — and now we know how government funding is ruining science. Big Science administrators (those responsible for raising money to fund their research groups) have found that the real money comes from censoring the scientific media and launching publicity campaigns to promote alarming points of view in the popular media. Actual research is of secondary importance and may even be counterproductive because, from their point of view, it could lead to unwelcome new discoveries.
What really disturbs me is how naturally these anti-scientific developments follow from the need to spend lots of money to perform large-scale experiments which are connected to complicated theories or computer models that only a few insiders really understand. It will be hard to prevent institutionalized science from turning into a new and oppressive form of religion…
I don’t have any
My concern is that the lies of the Climate Liars will win out over truth.
Living in northern Illinois and growing increasingly elderly, my greatest fear is cold and governmental policies that give me reason to fear the cold. Looking at all the evidence, I’m convinced we are approaching another downturn in temperatures and the CAGW crowd has convinced government knotheads that we ought throw out existing energy generation before reliable replacements are in place. Last winter was a warning that we should be increasing, not decreasing, our energy production capabilities. I’m also convinced the whole
CAGW hypothesis is nothing but a ruse for seizing control of energy, imposing a one-world government and, ultimately, massive culling of humanity. CAGW advocates are truly dangerous people and I fear, not for myself, but for my grandchildren
I totally agree..my fear is what would happen if the greenies get their way and close down fossil fuel and rely on solar and wind.
What worries me ? The SMOD (Sweet Meteor Of Death)
Social progressivism embraces CAGW alarmism merely because it offers a means to an end. Whether they succeed or not depends on maintenance of a state of ignorance in the public to their energy and economic control schemes, of which the grand deceptions embodied by the IPCC reports and UNFCCC agreements are central.
A continued state of ignorance of the public toward climate change deceptions will be severely threatened if global temps remain flat. Even worse for the UNFCCC lie is if temps begin to head downward before the next IPCC can attempt a further coverup of the a glaring AGW failure. This fact underscores the Socialist Progressives recent, very aggreesive attempts to force economically destructive aCO2 emissions, to get out in front of a coming, all too likely natural cooling of global temps, in order to maintain a cause-effect lie.
Toward these deceptive means, several outcomes will be predictably necessary.
1. shutdown recording of the continuous Mauna Loa CO2 readings. Defunding of this government-run, very visible falsification of CO2- temp linkage seems likely.
2. Elimination of, or gross manipulation of, the coming OCO-2 satellite data, which if proceeds, threatens to severely undermines man’s fossil fueled CO2 emissions as a significant source of the observed CO2 rise in #1 above.
3. Even more aggressive manipulations of surface temperature datasets to maintain an appearance of “global warming” until a Climate change covention can be imposed on western economies.
It’s the reason I’m obsessed with the topic. I fear that governments around the world will pass draconian regulations that will impede human progress to an unacceptable level causing all sorts of world-wide unpleasantness. And they will do this based on flagrant propaganda.
Actual downside to a warmer world? There should be more floods.
I’d say sea level rise except that as pointed out, it’s been happening right along and human activity will cope with it.
Floods come from agricultural mismanagement. Read “Cows Save the Planet” to understand how and read up on Italy’s Arno River for a repair case example.
“What are Your Fears about Global Warming and Climate Change?”
1). That IF it turns out to be a net negative that we’ll discover it’s indeed NOT caused by man leaving man without control. If mom nature wants to make it a bad thing, there is not a darn thing we can do about it.
2) Man will waste inordinate amounts of money on the right “mitigations” for the wrong problem costing improved standards of living and peoples lives.
3) Folks will continue to self polarize while blaming the other side. Politics is a tough sport, but it can be “gentlemenly”.
At 6:31 AM on 30 January, Danny Thomas asserts:
Like hell.
Politics – in the sense that it is concerned with getting and keeping control of governments – is entirely a matter of exercising the police power in civil society, the ability of coherent factions to perpetrate “legal murder” in commanding and controlling the lives, liberties, and property of other people.
Find me the taxpayer under I.R.S. audit who considers the extortion he’s suffering to be a matter of “sport.”
Tucci78,
I did say it CAN be, but it’s not always. There are extremes in all circumstance (IE Climate debate) but there are mutually beneficial compromise positions which can be excluded in addressing “climate” issues. Things such as land use (urban planning, no till,) and the like can have alternative societal benefits and meet the needs of all sides. If we stake out postions of “there’s nothing we can do” to improve our society, sure it leads to polarization. But that’s an extreme position and it’s the extemes which lead to vitriol to the benefit of none. This was the intention behind my point.
We chose to play the game where we play it (in the US) and therefore either accept the rules (IRS) or work to change them. Our entire constitution is a set of rules. It’s the approach to which I’m referring.
At 9:16 AM on 30 January, Danny Thomas responds:
Yet again and always, like hell.
You fail to appreciate the fact that “Politics” is ever and always – from the level of the municipal dog catcher and tax assessor to that of the Indonesian illegal immigrant presently infesting the Oval Office, a matter of armed deadly coercion, “Politics” being undertaken for no purpose other than to determine who controls the effective monopoly on “legal” violence in American – and most Western – societies. “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
How is it that anyone can presume that “Politics” – and therefore government control, always undertaken at gunpoint – is the route through which “societal benefits” (however in hell THOSE are supposed to be defined!) can or should be legitimately or even viably pursued?
It must be appreciated – in this forum more emphatically than anywhere else on the Web – that the conceits critiqued by sound students of purposeful human action (e.g., Dr. Thomas Sowell in his The Vision of the Anointed [1996]) regarding “experts” and “authorities” cock-crowing their “settled science” from the dungheaps of their politically-funded Cargo Cult science have never been anything but elaborate maskirovka in a principally left-“Progressive” campaign being waged against the individual human rights of innocent people.
There is no benign purpose behind these activities, no “noble cause corruption,” as this corruption has never in even the remotest way had anything “noble” as to its perpetrators’ motivations.
There is certainly much that “we” can do to improve “society” (that nebulous abstraction which cannot be treated as a concrete entity without consequences fatal to right reason and a lucid appreciation of reality, not to mention the fates of the people who engage in that “society” for the sake of their very lives – not to mention the lives of their children), but however in hell d’you conjure that aggressive normative government thuggery can serve in that improvement?
Has government a legitimate purpose in the “society” you’re discussing?
Sure. By maintaining a credible threat of deadly retaliation against those freelance criminals who violate the individual rights of the folks participating in that “society.”
I’m a physician. I tend to analogize the immune system when I think about government. T-cells and neutrophils and macrophages.
But brain tissue? Hardly!
And when the “immune system” of “society” goes out from under control, not only failing in its functions but co-opting resources from the body which can and will result in death (the analogy is to leukemia and lymphoma), government becomes a disease, itself threatening “society” and the people involved therein with catastrophe far more genuine and imminent than any “climate crisis” you or any of these preposterous progtard jackwad warmists could ever conceive.
Tucci78,
Been traveling so not able to respond till now.
First, can you cut back on the strawman approaches to this discussion?
Example: ” “climate crisis” you or any of these preposterous progtard jackwad warmists could ever conceive.” Do NOT presume to KNOW what I think. You would be seriously mistaken. I am here to learn, bounce ideas off others, get alternative perspectives SPECIFICALLY because I do not perceive a “climate crisis”. I cannot be more clear.
Out of “gentlemenly” respect, I chose to leave the previous strawman w/r/t the IRS and some fictitous “audit”. For all I know that could be your strking out due to some personal negative transaction with the IRS. But an “audit” has nothing to do with politics. Now, having written that, the delay of so 501c3’s ………..But these are off topic.
“How is it that anyone can presume that “Politics” – and therefore government control, always undertaken at gunpoint” is well off the mark unless by chance you’re incarcerated. Keep in mind, that in the US, and I presume this conversation is still about the US, you have every right to relocate should you so desire. It is a choice to remain. I chose to remain and do all that I can as an individual to modify that which I’m capable of modifying should circumsatances not be what I beleive to be in the best interest of our country.
There is much needing correction with our politcial workings. But going back to my previous post, our constitution is a set of rules. If we’re to improve our circumstance, we chose to accept those rules as a foundation and proceed from there. One can take to combat if one chooses but as a matter or course diplomacy first and violence last. Ever heard “speak softly” (I will not insult you by continuing the quote as I’ll accept and respect your education and intelligence).
“Has government a legitimate purpose in the “society” you’re discussing?”
I’ll state that renewables should be persued but only if the playing field is level. And for the reason that FF will not last forever. I see good reason for the 4th estate (and that includes sites such as this) is needed for oversight. Further scientific research is needed, but should any with a “skeptical” track record wish to be “in the game” funding should be available. No resources that do not fit “mutually beneficial” (urban planning, no till practices, and the like) should be funded “at this time”. EPA’s mission creep should be evaluated via bipartisan review. I do not trust (having lived thru the 60’s and 70’s) states to be left in charge of pollution control as my incoming river becomes another’s waste disposal system. So, my answer is yes. As you responed “sure” to this self asked same question, I perceive common ground (with the exception of approach).
Reasonable folks can make reasonable compromise.
At 5:20 PM on 31 January there was Danny Thomas observing that
…while thought-blocking on the pikestaff plain fact that these preposterous progtard jackwad warmists have proven themselves thoroughly to be no goddam kind of “Reasonable folks” willing to engage in lucid argument aimed at getting to either an honest appreciation of factual reality or any kind of “compromise” other than the sort that has their opposition agreeing to take half a beakerful of supersaturated potassium cyanide solution rather than the 500 cc they’d originally tried to force upon each of ’em.
And there’s nothing of the “straw man” fallacy in that post to which Danny Thomas had belatedly replied. Were that so, Danny Thomas would have been able to show same. He simply didn’t read what I’d posted.
My point is that these caterwauling climate catastrophe bastids – those, at least, who are not simply Gruber-qualified flaming ignoramuses readily panicked and herded by such con artists – are politically motivated to conjure up and ram down the blatant bogosity of “man-made global climate change,” their motives having nothing to do with either benign intent or genuine concern with the good of the human race.
They’re out for their own purposes and benefits, and the overlay with left-“Progressive” authoritarianism in its socialist guise is uniform. They’re all “Liberal” fascisti, and they’re all in it to advance the cause of statism in the violation of individual human rights.
And also to get personal wealth, perqs, and power along the way, of course. Let us never lose focus on the Algore.
Ain’t nothing “gentlemanly” about those diseased sons of jackals except the mannerisms they adopt while gulling their victims, and Danny Thomas should wipe the … stuff … out’n his eyes to see those enemies of the human race for precisely the pack of predatory bastids they’ve always been.
The great gaudy “global warming” – er, “global climate change” – crapfest has never been anything BUT “politics,” with the agency of civil government being employed by the alarmists as their vehicle of choice for riding roughshod over the lives, liberties, and property of innocent people.
Now and always.
Now, make a “straw man” outta that.
Tucci78,
So do I understand correctly? Your approach is to be exactly that which you rail against? By being an ANTI “caterwauling climate catastrophe bastids”. You double down by posting ad homs (“They’re all “Liberal” fascisti”, “those diseased sons of jackals”) in wide group format (lucidly to your credit) entirely lacking of substance but inclusive of juvenille name calling.
“Reasonable folks can make reasonable compromise.” My quote from earlier. Inherent in that quote is that at least one could be reasonable. And, being presumably well educated as a “Doktor” and all I mistakenly presumed you’d have the capability of being that one reasonable one. My mistake.
Lacking evidence to the contrary, this tree is the wrong one for me to “bark up”. At least the reasonable folks in the room can have a reasonable discussion. Energy spent here evidently would be better spent elsewhere.
Have a great day!
At 11:04 AM on 2 February, Danny Thomas fails (predictably!) to understand that the expression argumentum ad hominem is NOT a pretentious Latinate synonym for “insult,” posting:
…but rather denotes a specific type of logical fallacy in which “an attack on the man” is substituted for clear description or reasoned argument.
On the other hand, calling these “caterwauling climate catastrophe bastids” what they are – uncomplimentary though it is – can only be taken as an emphatic stress upon what those lying, grasping, domineering sons of dogs have proven themselves repeatedly to be. As for Liberal Fascism, if the diagnostic criteria are met, MAKE THE GODDAM DIAGNOSIS and to hell with them.
Heck, calling them “Progressives” seems oncologically appropriate. In clinical medicine, we speak of a cancer as “progressive” if it continues or resume growing in bulk and spread after a treatment protocol – surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, whatever is included in the “best practices” regimen – has been completed.
This, of course, means that the malignancy is “progressing” and will kill the patient.
We’re not particularly polite in our consideration of cancers as “noble cause corruption” opponents. Nor is the average human being especially polite in his response to freelance home invaders, street muggers, rapists and extortionists, as long as said victim has effective means of deterrence and retaliation in hand.
Whyever in hell should any honest man reading here treat political progtard “climate catastrophe bastids” as anything but the thieving, extortionate, lying, vicious enemies of social comity, good civil order, and individual human rights they ever-so-goddam-truly keep showing themselves to be?
Tucci78,
Good doctor. Once again you (predictably) lack any substantive discussion and “resort” to the attacks “to the man” in lieu. Then, feel some need to feebly attempt to deride my understanding of the term ad hom when in fact it’s quite simple. As your words indicate your use of the ad hom “is substituted for clear description or reasoned argument.” Clearly, this type of approach is utilized when substance is unavailble (or by choice which it even worse to the viewer).
Do you truely feel the need to continue to justify your “less than gentlemanly” behavior? If your goal is to prove how “low” the side against whom you’re “arguing”, then is stooping to such tactics the best approach? Double down and call them “cancer”? Even in your choice of description of an insult as opposed to an ad hom, how does this strengthen any supposed argument you’re (not) offering?
In no way have or am I suggesting you compromise on your principles. My attempt is to suggest you hold up a mirror and see if you’re not actully done that yourself. Or, and I’d find this to be more derogatory, if your principles are already under compromise as (using your preferred description) you’re ‘only’ insulting and not making an ad hom. Self evaluation might be appropriate here. Either way,it matters not to me how proud you wish to make you parentage.
Lacking any forthcoming substance from yourself, I’ll leave it to you. Again, wishing you the best of the rest of the day.
At 6:21 PM on 1 February, either confused (if one is interested in treating him charitably) or duplicitous (if one acknowledges the behavioral markers honestly), Danny Thomas evades the point that in a thread where the Ur-topic is fear about the great anthropogenic global warming pretense – an arrant fraud as all and sundry reading here know (even the vicious lying little weasels supporting the premise in the face of all evidence contrary thereto) he and I have made the subject of our particular exchange the excoriation of Danny Thomas‘ priggish blather about treating politely with those superbly well-demonstrated politically motivated leftist – are they still calling ’em “progressives” now, or might we revert to “socialist’ and “communist” and “fascist,” for all most assuredly apply to these “Watermelon” enemies of the human race? Y’know, “green on the outside but red to the core!” – thieves, liars, charlatans, quacks, embezzlers, extortionists, profiteers, hypocrites, grafters, pimps, molesters of children and the elderly, and generally posturing, bloated frauds.
Danny Thomas wants to make nice with these critters on some sort of idiot presumption that they’re reasonable human beings and entitled to tender treatment, whereas I’m for calling criminality – however perfumed and privileged – just precisely what the hell it is, and treating the perpetrators and advocates thereof as public enemies, to be regarded at all times and everywhere (at least figuratively) as were the James boys, the Younger brothers and their associates when they rode into Northfield, Minnesota, on 7 September 1876.
The principles of justice derive from a reasoned appreciation of the facts of events in human affairs, and the political left in these United States (indeed, all over the world) have for decades fastened upon the pretense of “science” in which the great horror of “Man-Made Global Climate Change” (friggin’ ridiculous ab ovo and ever-more-obviously demonstrated to be specious down to the present day) to leverage this fraud as a vehicle for “cork-screwing, back-stabbing, and dirty dealing” in the lives of innocent people ever since.
The political left is execrable, their motives vicious, their tactics invididious, their effects destructive, their purposes damnable. In the great gaudy “Global Warming” scare, we’ve seen all that of them and more. Does Danny Thomas deny this?
Might as well say call ’em what they are, and treat the bastids accordingly, whenever and wherever they show.
Think of it as an obligatory public health measure, like killing rats.
Tucci78,
But you see, “they’re” not rats. “They’re” humans. “They’re” neighbors, friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, fathers, and so on. GET IT? Fellow human beings.
So, yes, damn me if you will for my preference to chose to treat fellow humans as …………..humans! Shocking, I know.
I don’t wish to censor you in any way. That’s not up to me and I wouldn’t if I had that capability. In fact, I want your ability to speak freely. It’s kinda a “right” where I live and follks have fought and died for that right. I wish you’d realize about whom you’re speaking. There’s some sort of “golden rule” out there that I prefer to have in the world in which I live. The world in which you chose to live is a world of your making. Maybe you’re too “educated” to learn and understand that. Either way, it’s a choice YOU make. I choose differently than that which you offer. No biggie.
The “last word” I leave to you.
Once again, have a great day.
At 11:50 AM on 2 February, of the “man-made global climate change” fraudsters in particular (and, doubtless, left-“Liberal” fascisti in general, which set reliably and all but uniformly overlaps with the vicious bastids pushing the AGW hoo-raw), Danny Thomas writes:
Of course. Rats, after all, are innocent vermin with no capacity for morality.
You kill them nevertheless.
These progtard friggin’ liars, con-artists, strong-arm thugs, thieves and predators must be considered to have full capacity for criminal mens rea, and are therefore knowing and willfully plotting and acting against the lives, liberties, and property of innocent people.
What must a society – any society – offer the innocent, the law-abiding, the helpless, in the way of protection to preserve them from such enemy action?
At the very least, we can discern the criminality, speak to the prevalence thereof, and condemn it.
A pretense of kindly politeness is not only friggin’ ridiculous but it’s a clear dereliction of the citizen’s duty.
D. Thomas,
I’ve only lurked this long exchange, but I want to make a point. You say:
…“they’re” not rats. “They’re” humans. “They’re” neighbors, friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, fathers, and so on. GET IT? Fellow human beings.
You sound like RACook, and me, and lots of other skeptics. But your conclusions are wrong.
It is a proven fact that the use of cheap fossil fuels like coal are the most certain way to help the poor. There are no exceptions. When energy is cheap economies grow, and when economies grow everyone benefits — the poor most of all, since they finally have some assurance of enough to eat, and food takes a smaller bite out of their very small income.
When governments cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket, as they have just about everywhere, the poor get whacked, and whacked hard. They are literally starved to death in many cases. I could go on, but the fact is that cheap energy is the best way to help them, and to protect the environment. Compare the environment in any rich country with a poor country. The more wealthy a country, the better it’s environment is. No exceptions.
Everything else you read, and everything counter to that fact, is pablum. Coal, as produced in modern plants, meets all regulatory emission requirements. It does not pollute any more than any other power source, with the possible exception of nuclear. And it typically costs well under 10¢ per kwh for retail customers, compared with 25¢+, where windmills and other ‘alternative’ energy sources must be subsidized.
If that alone does not push you off the fence and make you an anti-green, then nothing will. Either you have their interests at heart as you claim, or you’re just another hypocrite wringing your hands over “the poor”. If you were one of them, it would be a no-brainer. It is for almost all of us here.
Have a great day. Eat well.
DB,
Thank you. I’d really like to be able to talk specifics with you as I think we have more common ground than you’ve previously been willing to see. Once we reach a level of mutal respect, I think we can actually communicate.
To your point, I don’t think you’ve ever seen me be anti FF. If so, please point it out as I’d like to correct it.
I’m light green. Why do I define myself that way? I’m not against FF at all. I see no need (at this time, subject to change based on receipt of future evidence) to not rely on the currently most economically and widely available energy source we have available world wide. I’m for alternative energy research and exploration as FF won’t last forever. I’m not convinced CO2 is an issue, but it has my radar up as a candidate to keep evaluating. I see warming and have concern that we’re not prepared for “yesterday’s weather” as Steven Mosher suggests (that makes great sense to me), and unitl we’re prepared for that why worry about what “might” (or might not) happen in the future. I think we need to improve urban planning. I’m for no-till for numerous reasons we can discuss if you’d like. Coal, I’m waffling on. It creates other pollutions that cause me concern, and frankly when a mountaintop is removed it’s ugly. It’s a land use thingy. Wind farms are ugly and kill animules. Solar is ugly. I don’t have answers to all of those and the obvious alternative energy desire vs. praticality.
I live about 150 miles from one of many large nuke plants that has had zero problems since beginning constuction in 1975. I can think of two nuke issues and one was related to an earthquake and the other was management. I’m willing to spend a bit more for my energy, but I’m not poor. I’d frankly be willing to subsidise (details, details, details?) by my paying a bit more so “poor” can move up in their standard of living. I’m a believer that technology will improve all of our living standards until it doesn’t (that whole AI thingy makes me wonder but that’s a long way off–I hope)
Just so ya know, I drive a one ton diesel dually pick up!
Let’s talk, and not throw barbs. Can we agree and bury the hatchet?
I don’t know answers. I’m truly here to learn and I don’t know how else to prove that other than to continue to stick around. I’ve learned and broadened my horizons just by sticking around. I don’t agree with all, but do agree with some. I feel that good discussion and good communication cannot be obtained without effort. Hopefully I’m showing you my effort. I’m modded consistently and hope that’ll end someday. I can’t see how my comments are more inflamatory than “some others” but so be it.
Work with me?
Why is it that this post reminds me of the joke: 6% scientist are Republicans. Scientists trying to understand why that number is so high.
Pippen Fool, that is an idiotic joke, even for you.
A pic of Pippen Fool’s 6%…
…surrounded by PK’s fellow True Believers.
The sad history of the German chemist and physicist unions in the 1930’s shows all to well how scientists are easily politicized for both reputation and profit.
From:
http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i37/Chemistry-Nazi-Germany.html
Progressive science is today in action under the guise of the consensus rhetoric, silencing internal critics and squashing any “non-compliant research from publication wherever it can. No one should think that today’s “consensus” scientists are much removed from that seen in the 1930’s opportunism in the German science academies.
Very good Joel. One of the toughest arguments a warmest gives is their disbelief that many scientist would lie or do bad things. To show good examples of where they have is very helpful in trying to persuade a warmist.
Furthermore, If one cannot see the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that exists in the current US President, one is simply closing his/her eyes to reality. Scary shades of 1930’s happening here and in Europe.
Pippen have you ever actually met any hard scientists? Like mathematicians, chemists, geologists? There seems a direct relationship – the harder the science: the more conservative the scientists. So there’s an easy answer to your ‘joke’ – there aren’t enough soft ‘sciences’ like climastrology and ‘social science’ to make scientists look like total idiots, but there are still far too many.
What really scares Bob?
Bob real fears are that:
(1) Climate scientists will become more certain of a future filled with proportionately more pain and suffering,
(2) Climate science will find that human-induced global warming will continue to be the major component of total global warming,
(3) Climate scientists will come closer to understanding that the natural contribution to global warming will be a very minor component to future global warming and climate change, and
(4) Climate science will take several decades-centuries-millennia to convince Bob that the climate science contrarian mindset is abject groupthink.
You mean that in a millenium or so they will come up with a model that actually predicts something?
Point 1 is about the beliefs of other people. It has nothing to do with the real world. And why should anyone object to their freedom of religion?
Point 2 is obviously wrong about the warming from 1850 to 1950 as the emissions from man were so small then. There is no warming from 2000 to now so there is nothing to continue being the fault of sinful man. So how can we continue to be in the second half of the last century? It makes no sense.
Point 3, climate scientists will find that absorption effects of gases do not decline logarithmically? Not in this universe. And as natural effects are dominant so far this century this point is actually refuted (over any timescale that requires extra expenditure on adaptation, at least).
Point 4 Maybe? But a priori reasoning (that is that, you are right because you say so, so there! Now go to your room) is not actually conclusive. It’s also unpersuasive.
Why come here just to say “I’m right. You’re wrong” without any evidence?
First, the damage done to the lives of the poor before the climate house of cards falls under its own weight.
Second, the damage done to the reputation of real science. This may be the worse result since two generations of kids have already been snookered and, once they realize it, support for any kind of science will be dead for decades (hopefully not loonger).
My main fear is that people – such as ‘you lot’ at WUWT – may start to think that all science done within academia is at the same level as climate science, and thus may come to distrust anything that any scientist says. That’s why I think it’s important that scientists should speak up about climate science, and reassure people that most university science is good solid (though usually not groundbreaking) work.
Another worry that’s been in the news recently is the really nasty witch-hunts by the activist thugs, against people like Matt Ridley and Willie Soon.
This exactly Paul Matthews. When it is promoted endlessly that most scientists support a catastrophic view of the climate (which they don’t) and the catastrophe doesn’t materialize… science is tarnished. And yes we have the Pippen Kools and ICUs anonymous ready to serve their ‘king’ and rid him of those troublesome priests.
They are opportunity thieves.
Liberty is the primary factor in the creation of the largest middle class in history. The discovery of carbon based fuels and the ability to distribute and utilize them is the foundation for our improved health and lifestyles. Faux environmentalists utilize the excuse to undermine economic freedoms individuals need to improve their own lives and ultimately the state of humanity. It is in the process of stealing opportunity away from our and future generations to come. They hide behind the mask of “greater good” leveraging ignorance to force their beliefs upon the individual. They exhibit their hypocrisy by standing upon the dais built from carbon based products and spouting their anti oil rhetoric. They deny individuals pursuit of happiness in order to appease their warped sense of justice and their need for external affirmation on their beliefs. When they don’t get voluntary affirmation, they need to force it because we “aren’t as brilliant as they are”. If it was just a bunch of eggheads drumming up excuses for funding, I probably wouldn’t give two hoots. But the extension of the false menace into most politicians insatiable desire for our money and activists need to rule what they can’t achieve through the paths provided by liberty represent the most significant threat to everybody’s freedoms.
My fear is they will destabilize the energy supply and infrastructure in America and destroy our industry and jobs.
You can’t run a semiconductor plant or any high tech manufacturing with intermittent electricity or expensive fuels and feed-stocks.
Free trade already did most of this.
I fear the impact on our young people of those who dismiss Scientists and the Institutions of Science as ‘incompetent’, ‘fraudulent’ , or ‘in a conspiracy’ to defraud the public, while making their own absurd claims that they are akin to a ‘Galileo’ or ‘Einstein’ ….misunderstood, under appreciated, or even unjustly smeared for proclaiming their nonsense.
Will we be raising a generation of Science Deniers if such views of Science infiltrate our schools?
The best antidote is to challenge such views at every turn. Or perhaps more simply, ask them to publish so we can see their gibberish exposed to critical examination by Scientists engaged in the research. Of course, we see very little of their dissembling submitted to peer review, because they know it can’t pass muster.
warren- give us an example of what you call science de(nial). Just one example will do.
@warrenlb:
Give us just one example of one of a professional society’s polling of its rank-and-file members, asking them:
Are human emissions the primary cause of global warming? Yes / No (circle one)
Oh. You don’t have any examples? I can’t find any, either.
So it’s A-OK for warrenlb’s cronies to presume to speak for the 99.7% who are never given a say in the matter? How is that credible?
Also, it seems the Einstein analogy really stings warrenlb. When 100 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed an open letter to Albert Einstein stating that his Theory of Relativity was scientific nonsense, Einstein replied that it didn’t take 100 scientists, but only one fact.
They did not have a single credible fact that withstood scrutiny. Same with warrenlb and his ilk. Their entire global warming scare is based on vague assertions, shoddy science, appeals to ignorance, and — mostly — on piles of easy money.
Alarmists have no credible facts. They have been 100.0% wrong in every scary prediction they ever made. Planet Earth is making fools of them and their bogus conjecture, and as year after year passes without the predicted runaway global warming, their arguments devolve into anti-science. How is that not exactly the same as the Einstein analogy?
warrenlb has never had any credible arguments. Everything he posts is a product of hisTrue Belief. Confirmation bias rules him. He will never submit an article here for publication, because he knows that everything he writes is bunkum. Instead, he personally attacks people who do write articles; the ad hominem fallacy and the Appeal to Authority fallacies are all he’s got. Take those away, and warrenlb gots nothin’.
Finally, going by the time stamps in warrenlb’s comments, he doesn’t have a productive job, either. It must be nice being able to post comments all throughout the work day, Monday thru Friday — unless his paid job is posting his discredited alarmist nonsense. Either one may well be the case; my mind is open on the matter. Why is it that the tiny handful of wild-eyed alarmists posting here all seem to have being unemployed, or cheating their employers, in common?
@ur momisugly warren
Yea, Einstein did some good work, the morons at climate science aren’t. Still following the talking points of AGW I see. Combining or comparing AGW to real science. Did they hand out those again in the hopeless attempt to revive the hysteria on climate change? Are you hoping that the number of people who didn’t know and didn’t care aren’t going to remember the horrific predictions that didn’t happen? You’re probably busy right now making up a new list… for 2030 or 2050… ??? Is that the new time frame now. ?
Science Deniers indeed!!! Did you miss the fact that co2 levels have increased, and the temps well, didn’t?? Critical examination is always necessary. By the way, everything I’ve asked has been done. The satellite that measures co2. The drilling that was done that confirmed both the LIA and the MWP. Accurately measuring the so called rotten ice in Antarctic, which turned out to be 3 to 5 times thicker than the IPCC thought, and many others. All that’s left is for the IPCC to answer how since co2 and temps were both level during those time periods to explain it….. You can’t pass muster, that’s the bottom line. It’s the IPCC’s chart and evidence, it’s the IPCC’s predictions, all wrong.
You’re not talking to a bunch of uninformed or uneducated people here.
“You’re not talking to a bunch of uninformed or uneducated people here.”
No, but when such educated people accuse the PhD scientists of ALL the World’s Institutions of Science of being morons, it seems their accusing finger should be directed towards themselves.
Then answer me: Explain the the MWP in terms of co2 and temps.
warrenlb,
I fear that there are too many people like you, who no little about Science and don’t understand the Scientific Method, are trying to dictate what is taught in schools from a position of ignorance or political belief system.
Sorry, Science and Engineering Technology is my profession, and I want to see the highest quality of science teaching in our schools.
Intelligent Design, ‘Man is not Warming the Planet in spite of what all the World’s Institutions of Science find’ ‘, ‘Earth is 9000 years old’ — are all in the same bucket of anti Science garbage. I say keep them out of our schools.
Those endorsements were lobbied for by warmists. Critical, informed, unbiased thinking was not employed. Those institutions asked for volunteers to join a committee to write a position statement on AGW. The volunteers were nearly all alarmists–the examples of the APS and GSA are type-cases. No “red team” was appointed.
Finally the APS has appointed skeptics to its latest committee, and the Australian geological society has listened to its membership, and things are changing.
You want published here’e published for you.”Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model”, by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, Willie Soon, David Legates and Matt Briggs
That the focus on dubious “carbon pollution” will distract from real and ongoing environmental impacts. It is clear this is already the case in terms of research framing and regulatory focus. Mitigation strategies are given an environmental free-pass.
My Fears ?
The way in which indoctrination (brain washing) has been applied for 20 years and more to children growing up in the western world in relation to ‘climate change’ and left-wing politics – and how that will be developed and used politically in the future
The change in political structures being created by the scare and what is intended to be created; the erosion of democracy as a result – Global Government by the unelected, initially on environmental matters ; and that this will end badly as people eventually see the light and seek to recover democracy
The way in which food and land are turned over to bio-fuels on the whim of green activists – ostensibly to save the poorest people on earth from ‘climate change’ but in reality forcing them to starve to death as millions each year are now doing ……
The elevation of NGO green pressure groups to parity with policy makers and advisers – in the EU they are now funded to ‘advise’ and develop policy for the EU, the UN does likewise and my fear is how national and global legislation is being or will be made on the whims of green activists with a very narrow and often deeply unpleasant hidden agenda.
The growth in politicians’ minds that the electorate are incapable – despite vast knowledge resources available to them – of making the ‘Correct’ decision and that decisions must be made outside of democratic accountibility (EU structure for policy making) – again that there will be a very unpleasant backlash to this at some point when people realise they are no longer in functioning democracies
The growth of left-wing socialist and marxist ideology underlying the ‘green’ agenda and the way in which so much of mainstream media and particularly publicly-funded broadcasters (BBC and ABC etc) are active propagandists for all things of the left. I fear they have forgotten, or never learned, that the worst atrocities commited on mankind (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot) have all been done in the name of socialism, marxism amidst the control-freakery of left-wing thinking.
The destruction of honesty and probity in certain areas of science – notably climate change – and the growth of the political doctrine of Post Modern Science that encourages scientists to hide or distort results and even to lie about them if it is in a ‘good’ political cause. I fear science will take a long time to recover from this evil philosophy.
Finally I fear that those who have been the greatest perpetrators and promotors of the ‘global warming’ scam will not be held to account and will not be punished.
+++ 🙂
A very good summation of our current situation, Old England. Since we transitioned from “the next ice age” in the 70s (caused by soot or particulates of burning stuff) to global warming with little damage to anyone’s reputation, I am pretty sure there will no punishment for those who caused so much economic harm. Berni Maddoff swindeled a few rich people and he gets life in prison. My father told me about 40 years ago that the doomsday people have always been around but no one believed them when he was young. One of the things he remembers was the fear that the electricity flowing in the tranmission lines that were springing up across the country would get into the corn and then we would be eating it in our corn flakes.
Ron White said ” you can’t fix stupid”. I think he is right.
All that new CO2, I fear having to cut my grass more often.
Mrs Git cuts ours, so that is not a fear I share 😉
My main fear is the damage to science education, understanding and institutions.
Science education (in the UK at least) has been hijacked to promote the belief in CAGW. To do this it has had to deprive a generation or more of the ability to ask “Why?” Science is now about evaluating sources and recognising the correct authority: “Why does every Academy disagree with you and your thermometers?” That doesn’t lead us closer tot the truth. It let’s the truth be what yesterday’s winners say it is.
Science understanding is a requirement in a technological democracy. People need to be able to say “that doesn’t sound right” and thus affect or at least object to policy. Would you trust a democracy where no-one knows your history, foundations and fought for liberties? Of course not. Democracy with no shared historical understanding can’t debate it’s future. But we aren’t just a culture of art and literature. we are also a culture of gadgets and concepts. W need a scientifically literate populace who can debate. But any debate is now ridiculed as “pseudoscience and shilling”. Thus the national infrastructure is exploited by anyone after the main chance; no-one in power can tell a scam when the # hear it and no-one can force the fools out.
Science institutions are the repository of our accumulated wealth of knowledge. They defend the scientific method from abuses by gathering the champions of the method in one academia. They propel the implications of new discoveries into the public sphere by being the point of contact for the media. And they have found the simple narrative of “we’re all going to die” very easy to communicate.
So they lost nuance. And then the lost balance. And now they have become what they were meant to prevent. Lobbyists in white coats. “And now the Science bit” may sound persuasive but is persuasive the same as honest? “Defending the Orthodoxy” is a the phrase the GWPF use. It is accurate and the opposite of “Interested in Truth”
That is my fear of CAGW. They are all fears for society not the physical world.
Because the physical impacts of AGW are unclear and indiscernible from what happens anyway.
But the cultural impacts are great.
Great comment. Forget my original answer, I’m switching to yours.
Well, your comment was like mine but in less verbose bullet points.
Brevity is far more readable, after all.