Maurizio Morabito originally observed that the Pope’s climate encyclical was a “damp squib”.
For the most part it is harmless, but it does confront carbon credits and a “ploy”, albeit Pope Francis believes that some “radical changes” are needed. He is against materialism and consumption- nothing new there. Reading it, one can’t be certain he is advocating for reduced population or reducing CO2 specifically. Hence the “damp squib” label. He is relying on “conventional” UN science, as do most political leaders.
This from section 171 is an interesting quote:
171. The strategy of buying and selling “carbon credits” can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.
Ploy, indeed.
h/t to Paul Westhaver
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I admire and respect Pope Francis. It appears he truly cares more about people than dogma and church administration.
The Pope or any other religious leader cannot however possibly alter the cult of CAGW.
The Pope and the Catholic church have no knowledge or interest concerning the absolute failure of the general circulation models that were created to support the cult of CAGW (planet resists forcing changes rather than amplifies forcing changes, there has been no warming for eighteen years, the warming in the last 30 years has been in high latitude regions not in the equatorial region, there has been almost no tropical tropospheric warming, there is now observational evidence of cooling both poles, and so on), no knowledge concerning cyclic climate change in the paleo record (1500 year periodicity with a beat plus minus 400 years, both poles) that correlates with past solar cycle changes, the current abrupt solar cycle change, engineering and cost issues related to the green scams, the Pope has no knowledge concerning climategate type shenanigans, and so on.
Observations – significant in your face global cooling will end the climate wars in a spectacular manner – not what the Pope or any other person did or did not say.
There are now quarter by quarter new observational changes that support the assertion that the planet is cooling and that the solar cycle has been interrupted. There is now cooling of both poles, record sea ice in the Antarctic all months of the year, and now sudden cooling of the Greenland ice sheet. The Pacific Ocean is starting to cool following the cooling trend in the Atlantic.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.6.18.2015.gif
What is currently happening to the sun and the earth’s climate has happened before. There are an unbelievable number of scientific theories, policy, and political issues that are going to change due to what is currently happening the sun.
You’re probably right, darn it. Can’t we just get on with a little warming?
===============
Recent data shows what looks like cooling waters closing in on the ongoing el-nino event (which is well into the moderate category right now). It’s possible that it will end up having very little effect on global temperatures.
Also, the issue with these articles on the Catholic Church is that some throw the entire Christian faith into the exact same basket, one look at the conservative churches who actually follow scripture word-for-word (which states that Christ’s death has relieved us of the need to have earthly priests and makes no mention of needing other clergy positions, not to mention debunking the whole idea of a pope acting as man’s bridge to God) would prove you wrong.
“The Pacific Ocean is starting to cool following the cooling trend in the Atlantic”.
Really, pray tell. I’m all ears.
As well as the developing El Nino – for the uninformed, a warming event in the equatorial Pacific – we also have ….
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/mysterious-warm-water-blob-in-pacific-wreaking-havoc-150617.htm
For those who care to hear it, there is a single principle that unites all the “mish-mash”. Perhaps what is a confusing mish-mash in the Pope’s statement is instead a shrewd perception that all of those 70’s 80’s 90’s and new millenium scientific and market fads – all based in science by the way, have all been high-jacked, have all been used to disenfranchise large segments of humanity, most especially the poor. Whille highlighting ideals (the Market and Socialism, Climate Alarmists and Skeptics all claim to be defending and empowering the ‘common man’/poor) the Pope refuses to endorse any of their self-serving policies, instead the Pope subtly challenges Science to prove that there is benefit for the common man/the poor. It is this principle of benefit for the poor, empowering the poor, providing quality of life that unites the statement -and while I am not catholic, I am left thinking it is the only sane voice in elite-filled room.
Well, Jesus was a skeptic.
=========
I think that single tread is the test of sincerity of the all the chatter at the UN. What is the precise analysis of how the poor are going to be relived? I believe it is through the use of cheap energy, coal, nuke, hydro. I have not done the analysis but I accept Bjorn Lomborg’s opinion. You are right in my view. Maybe this little letter is a virus that will infect all the assumptions about the goals of green movement.
Unfortunately, Les, the Pope has signed on to the War on the Poor, which is also known as the War on Carbon. Everything that the Pope and others are doing to fight the use of fossil fuels is driving their price up, which HURTS THE POOR THE MOST OF ANYONE. The wealthy don’t feel the pinch at the pumps if gas prices go up … that would be the poor.
So while he talks a goodly amount about compassion for the poor, it’s hard to square that with his active support for anti-fossil-fuel policies that are already sentencing the poor to lives of even greater poverty, illness, and death.
And when a man’s words disagree with his actions, I know which one I go with … don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s doing it out of malice. I’m not accusing him of bad intent or of deception.
I think he’s doing it out of ignorance … which unfortunately is often both much more destructive and much harder to oppose.
w.
If the objective is to greatly reduce carbon emissions, for whatever number of reasons that goal might be be pursued, cap and trade schemes won’t get the job done. Their true purpose is to keep government bureaucrats busy and to line the pockets of those who help keep government bureaucrats busy.
The only way carbon emissions can be greatly reduced in the near to mid-term future is for governments to put a price on carbon, acting in one of two ways, either through a legislated non-neutral carbon tax, or through a framework of stiff carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
Aren’t you glad there is no need?
=============
Kim, speaking from the perspective of someone who has spent 35 years in nuclear construction and operations, a stillborn Nuclear Renaissance cannot be revived here in America unless the US Government puts a price on carbon which is high enough to make new-build gas-fired power generation less competitive in comparison with new-build nuclear generation.
That’s motivation enough for me to support levying a price on carbon, as I would prefer not to see the US covered with fracking wells from one end of the country to the other. Admittedly, others may have a somewhat different perspective on the need to put a price on carbon. .
I understand that perspective.
==========
Beta,
Given the regulatory climate, so to speak, no amount of carbon tax can encourage more nuclear plants. Only regime change can do that.
The high costs of nuclear construction are inherent in the need to do an excellent job at everything you do from the very first day of the project. The public demands this level of commitment on the part of any utility which initiates a nuclear construction project, and this means the up front capital costs of a nuclear project are significantly higher than those for a gas-fired project.
With its adoption of the Combined Operating License (COL), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has gone as far as public opinion will allow it to go in simplifying and streamlining its oversight functions. In overseeing and supporting new construction projects, the NRC cannot do things much differently than the way they are doing things today without risking the viability of the US nuclear industry.as a whole.
For those regions of the United States which support nuclear power — primarily the Midwest and the Southeast — by far the greatest barrier to an expansion of nuclear construction is competition from natural gas.
When natural gas prices were a lot higher than they are today, the total lifecycle cost of nuclear was lower, and so there was an incentive to trade the higher upfront capital costs of nuclear for lower total lifecycle costs.
The fracking boom has erased nuclear’s lifecycle cost advantage, which is why the four new reactors now under construction in the Carolinas will likely be the last large reactors built in this country for a very long time to come. (Unless of course the US Government intervenes in the energy market place to artificially raise the price of natural gas.)
Beta,
Natural gas is also a threat to coal-fired power.
IMO if nuclear power is uneconomical on its own merits, rather than via the heavy hand of regulation on the scale, then I guess I’ll have to abandon my long-standing support for atomic energy.
I cannot under any circumstances support a carbon tax.
If the subsidies accorded wind and solar power were applied to nuclear power, then I might support an alternative to fossil fuels.
This is a good discussion of a new perspective for me. By ‘no need’, though, I meant that man’s warming will be small and beneficial, and I also worry that future cooling is more likely than future warming…..and will be much more devastating.
===============
But this is precisely the problem with government involvement in the energy market. You personally have, or had, a personal stake in a particular kind of energy generation. Unfortunately, it isn’t the cheapest one available, and there are extrinsic long term risks and disincentives on top of the economics (true as you point out for fracking and gas as well). Therefore you welcome an external constraint which artificially hikes the costs of competing energy resources to the advantage of your personal favorite kind.
You are basically willing to spend my money, to spend everybody’s money because everybody pays a higher price for electrical energy and since electrical energy is used in making and delivering all goods and services that aren’t provided out of a log cabin in the woods off the grid, your extra price is purely inflationary and rebounds through the entire economy. Not just in the US. Everybody on the planet gets a little bit poorer. For rich ol’ you, and rich ol’ me, an extra penny or two per kw-hr won’t break the bank, although it might provide rich ol’ me with the incentive to bite the bullet and put a 5 KW solar system on top of my roof and stop paying for even the nuclear power currently being delivered to my receptacles from Sherron-Harris, but for the poor, especially the poor in poor countries, the really poor, it can be a disaster. And we can’t really have nuclear power in most poor (and quite a few midding rich) countries or everybody and their cousin would have nuclear bombs within five or ten years and if there is anything more frightening than every single country in (say) Africa, or South America, or Southeast Asia, equipped with a dozen or so nukes I don’t know what it is. 99% of the regimes could be responsible, but it only takes one to trigger a local, possibly global, Armageddon.
Now, you might argue that if we built a lot of nuclear power plants in the long run it would make coal cheaper as demand for coal in countries with large artificial costs attached to coal drops. In that case we could end up exporting CHEAPER coal to those countries, but of course all this means is that we don’t stop burning coal at all, and besides, the Green lobby you have to partner with to get your artificial trade barrier in place through the political system are going to work just as hard to prevent the export of coal because they want it left in the ground, not exported to Argentina or to Zambia or to Burma or to India. Those same Green partners — so far — idiotically oppose nuclear with the same fervor that they oppose coal. They visualize a return to a Jeffersonian society with no centralized delivery of power at all, with everybody living “off the grid”, with cities collapsing and a return to rural existence. And in their mind’s eye, when this happens there are a lot fewer people, although they generally elide from their imaginations the process whereby we go from 7 billion living humans to (say) 1 to 2 billion in a single (their!) generation. Nobody wants to wait.
Personally, I have little problem with any of this, as long as the participants, especially the scientific participants, in the political debate are honest. If you want to see nuclear power advanced for what you perceive of as the greater good, don’t lobby for cap and trade in an unholy alliance with Green interests that directly oppose your proposal. Try to convince the American people to directly incentivize the construction of nuclear plants with tax breaks, with direct subsidies, etc. Try to convince them to pay the extra cost of power (if any, relative to coal) straight up. If you are a scientist and think burning coal is wasteful of a long-term valuable resource (I am, and I do) don’t “agree” with bad global warming science to try to fool the American people into agreeing with you. Have the courage to advance your point of view with complete honesty, and if the American people, considering their own best interests, hear your argument and disagree with you don’t ally yourself with a group that is diametrically opposed to your proposal to get your way indirectly.
Of course, none of this will ever happen because America has lost the core idealism that once motivated at least some politicians into a genuinely self-disinterested, honest, public service. Honesty is out of style, it is “politically unrealistic”. Don’t say “the science that suggests the possibility of catastrophic global warming is highly uncertain, and empirically the evidence is mixed”, point to every hurricane or heat wave or extreme weather event that happens anywhere in the world is positive evidence that the apocalypse looms. Since extreme weather events happen literally every day, somewhere on the globe, you’ll never run out of ammunition, and it is easy to shout down anyone that simply plots the frequency of extreme events against time and shows that there is no significant trend. Nobody understands statistics — they understand pictures of Hurricane Sandy. They weren’t alive when other equally damaging storms occurred back before most of the East Coast was built up when it was presumably much cooler, and they don’t understand probability either.
What is really scary, though, is the ongoing process of data adjustment to match the dialectic of the politics, ensuring that the political story matches the scientific story whether the scientific story likes it or not. It smacks of “Nazi Science” in WWII and this, more than any other single thing, will come back to haunt us if nature refuses to cooperate with the story in the long run.
A very wise man once pointed out that you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. And the American people don’t like to be made fools, especially by scientists who are supposed to be objective, and honest if they choose to engage in any political debate. Scientists are people, can vote, and have every right to support political causes, but if they choose to support them with lies or with bad science presented with their “scientific authority” then they risk the respect people hold for all scientists.
I resent that. Most scientists are, in fact, quite honest. A lot of scientists who work in climate science are honest. But honest or dishonest, by giving up the writing of the summary for policy makers into the hands of the manifestly dishonest, people who substitute confidence as in confidence game for confidence as in axiomatically defensible applications of statistics in science into the report, they become dishonest by proxy. “We were not Nazis, we were just Germans. We hated the Nazis. But what could we do?”
Right.
rgb
rgbatduke, moving way from fossil fuels and towards a combination of nuclear and the renewables is strictly a public policy decision. It is not a decision the energy marketplace would naturally make of its own accord in the absence of active government intervention to reshape the marketplace for whatever purposes government may have in redirecting normal market forces.
Many economists make the valid point that the most effective and economically efficient approach to encouraging a near-term transition away from fossil fuels would be for government to put a stiff price on carbon.
Repeating what I said in response to WUWT reader ‘Khwarizmi’ below, President Obama’s goal of a 28% reduction in GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050 cannot be met unless the US Government puts a stiff price on carbon and unless the nation’s electric utilities make a substantial commitment to nuclear power. Since nuclear power could not expand as rapidly as would be needed to replace most of the nation’s fossil fuel power generation by 2050, a combination of energy conservation measures and adoption of the renewables would be necessary to make up the difference.
Higher prices for energy are necessary both to promote energy conservation measures and to pay the cost premium for incentivizing an accelerated adoption of nuclear power plus the renewables.
If President Obama isn’t using the authority he already has in his hands to directly and indirectly raise the price of all carbon fuels, then he isn’t truly serious about achieving a 28% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050. Here is a strategy for how President Obama and the EPA could legally and constitutionally raise the price of all carbon fuels without asking for new legislation from the US Congress:
1) Make full use of the Clean Air Act to its maximum legal authority, using the 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon as the EPA’s regulatory basis.
2) Set a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon pollution at either 400 ppm CO2 equivalent, or at some larger concentration which is consistent with some specified acceptable rise in global mean temperature between 2015 and 2100.
3) Develop a regulatory framework for carbon pollution which directly constrains emissions of GHGs and which imposes a corresponding system of EPA-administered carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
4) Design the EPA’s regulatory framework so as to equitably distribute the economic and social burdens of making the necessary GHG reductions as evenly and as fairly as possible among all classes of GHG emitters.
5) Assign all revenues collected through the EPA’s system of carbon pollution fines to the individual states, thus giving each state a strong incentive to voluntarily adopt the EPA’s standardized GHG regulatory framework.
The basic point to be made here is this: A clear pathway towards achieving the President’s ambitious GHG reduction goals currently exists, one which is legal and constitutional and which does not require another word of new legislation from the US Congress to be implemented — but one which the Obama Administration has chosen not to pursue.
Those in the green press and in the environmental community who are raising vocal concerns that effective near-term action isn’t being taken in reducing America’s GHG emissions should be pointing their finger of blame at President Obama rather than at the so-called climate change deniers. He and he alone has the necessary legal authority and the necessary regulatory tools needed to make those near-term GHG reductions happen. If he doesn’t do it, it won’t be done.
— UPDATED REPLACEMENT FOR A COMMENT NOW IN MODERATION —
Mr. Rgbatduke, moving way from fossil fuels and towards a combination of nuclear and the renewables is strictly a public policy decision. It is not a decision the energy marketplace would naturally make of its own accord in the absence of active government intervention to reshape the marketplace for whatever purposes government may have in redirecting normal market forces.
Many economists make the valid point that the most effective and economically efficient approach to encouraging a near-term transition away from fossil fuels would be for government to put a stiff price on carbon.
Repeating what I said in response to WUWT reader ‘Khwarizmi’ below, President Obama’s goal of a 28% reduction in GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050 cannot be met unless the US Government puts a stiff price on carbon and unless the nation’s electric utilities make a substantial commitment to nuclear power. Since nuclear power could not expand as rapidly as would be needed to replace most of the nation’s fossil fuel power generation by 2050, a combination of energy conservation measures and adoption of the renewables would be necessary to make up the difference.
Higher prices for energy are necessary both to promote energy conservation measures and to pay the cost premium for incentivizing an accelerated adoption of nuclear power plus the renewables.
If President Obama isn’t using the authority he already has in his hands to directly and indirectly raise the price of all carbon fuels, then he isn’t truly serious about achieving a 28% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050. Here is a strategy for how President Obama and the EPA could legally and constitutionally raise the price of all carbon fuels without asking for new legislation from the US Congress:
1) Make full use of the Clean Air Act to its maximum legal authority, using the 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon as the EPA’s regulatory basis.
2) Set a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon pollution at either 400 ppm CO2 equivalent, or at some higher concentration which is consistent with some specified acceptable rise in global mean temperature between 2015 and 2100.
3) Develop a regulatory framework for carbon pollution which directly constrains emissions of GHGs and which imposes a corresponding system of EPA-administered carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
4) Design the EPA’s regulatory framework so as to equitably distribute the economic and social burdens of making the necessary GHG reductions as evenly and as fairly as possible among all classes of GHG emitters.
5) Assign all revenues collected through the EPA’s system of carbon pollution fines to the individual states, thus giving each state a strong incentive to voluntarily adopt the EPA’s standardized GHG regulatory framework.
The basic point to be made here is this: A clear pathway towards achieving the President’s ambitious GHG reduction goals currently exists, one which is legal and constitutional and which does not require another word of new legislation from the US Congress to be implemented — but one which the Obama Administration has chosen not to pursue.
Those in the green press and in the environmental community who are raising vocal concerns that effective near-term action isn’t being taken in reducing America’s GHG emissions should be pointing their finger of blame at President Obama rather than at climate science critics. He and he alone has the necessary legal authority and the necessary regulatory tools needed to make those near-term GHG reductions happen. If he doesn’t do it, it won’t be done.
Beta Blocker June 19, 2015 at 9:04 am
Yes, and many people here (including Robert Brown just above) make the more valid point that doing so would shaft the poor. So I fail to see why you mention that path unless you support it for unknown reasons.
I fear I don’t understand your willingness to throw the poor to the wolves, but I’m sure you explain it to yourself somehow … so how about explaining to the rest of us why the lives of people without money seem to mean nothing to you?
w.
Willis, every time you decide to purchase one product or commodity in lieu of buying some other product or commodity — or if you decide to completely stop buying some product or some commodity which you are currently buying now — there are winners and losers as a direct consequence of your decision.
In theory, a competitive free marketplace will produce greater numbers of winners than losers at the end of the day, or at the end of the year, or at the end of the decade.
But regardless of how efficiently that free market works, the economic losers who lost as a consequence of your personal decision to buy a Stihl chain saw rather than a Husqvarna chain saw will still be losers. Similarly, there will be economic winners and losers if you decide not to replace your chain saw every ten years and decide to purchase a plane ticket to Honolulu instead.
Honestly Willis, are you greatly concerned about the welfare of those people who manufactured a brand of chainsaw you did not choose to purchase because you liked a different brand better?
President Obama is selling a public policy decision to reduce America’s GHG emissions 28% by 2025 and 80% by 2050. He obviously believes America can afford to pay for this kind of public policy decision. That decision will produce economic winners as well as economic losers, depending upon which brand of energy production method he chooses to favor. (Right now, President Obama favors natural gas over coal, neither of which is a carbon free energy resource.)
OK …. at the end of the day — or at the end of the year, or at the end of the decade — will there be more economic winners as a result of President Obama’s public policy decision than there will be economic losers? Moreover, will there be more economic winners than losers if the energy marketplace chooses nuclear power over the renewables as its preferred means for achieving President Obama’s ambitious GHG reduction goals?
Whatever estimates of the resulting employment gains and losses one might come up with, the fact remains that President Obama’s goal of reducing America’s GHG emissions 28% by 2025 and 80% by 2050 cannot be achieved unless the US Government actively intervenes in the energy marketplace to raise the price of all carbon fuels. Taking any other approach is a guarantee of failure.
Of COURSE it is a “ploy”. Al Gore was going to make a bazillion dollars. Kyoto was to be the impetus for a massive CO2 trading scheme that Enron was going to build an exchange for and manage. And over time, it would result in shortages in electrical power which would have resulted in more activity on the electric power exchanges that Enron was running.
If you are a politician the recipe is simple: Invest in SomeCo then lobby hard for some regulation that will greatly benefit SomeCo and make a killing. Federal politicians are 100% exempt from insider trading regulations. Until THAT changes, nothing else will.
sweet home vaticana.
The pope feel civil rights disrespect concurring dogmas.
His Holiness is smarter than you may think, when it comes to carbon credit trading:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/mafia-caught-laundering-1-7b-through-renewables/
Italian police have seized assets worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) from a Sicilian renewable energy developer in the biggest ever seizure of mafia-linked assets.
The assets, including 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts, belonged to Vito Nicastri, a 57-year-old businessman dubbed the “Lord of the Wind” for his prominent role in the business.
“This is a sector in which money can easily be laundered,” Arturo de Felice, head of Italy’s anti-mafia agency, told local media. “Operating in a grey area helped him build up his business over the years.”
The anti-mafia agency in a statement said it was the biggest seizure of mafia-linked assets.
to:
kim on June 18, 2015 at 6:22
am
Recognizes bought absolution.
Thx – Hans
At 165 he writes: “Until greater progress is made in developing widely accessible sources of renewable energy, it is legitimate to choose the lesser of two evils or to find short-term solutions.”
I didn’t understand that one, Jeff. Which “two evils” is he talking about?
w.
Buy your CO2 indulgence here. Absolution from your carbon sins can be purchased via taxes.
Francis is either stupid or evil. I don’t think he’s intensely stupid.
The Pope is evil Eh?
And that actually makes sense in your mind??
Toneb,
Yup. Sure does. Many if not most of them have been unspeakably evil men.
Makes sense to me
What else can you be if you give lip service to asking the world to help the poor while also demanding that the world stop using fossil fuels “without delay.” He has to know that replacing fossil fuels with expensive, inefficient, and unreliable alternatives will only drive up the cost of energy, which will hurt the poor most of all.
The Pope also calls on businesses to put people and jobs first before profits. That sounds good until you ask yourself how a business can maintain jobs or hire anyone new without profits. Asking people to consume less also sounds good until you realize that recessions begin when people panic and cut back on spending. Then businesses have to cut jobs to compensate for fewer sales. Which is better, unequal prosperity, or abject but equal poverty?
Yep that figures.
The above is sarc BTW.
While I have many fine Catholic friends, I find it somewhat difficult to believe the above quote – especially after seeing many travel programs through and about the Vatican City and noting the extreme sumptousness of those “humble digs.”
I notice at least one of stormtrooper’s comments were deleted in the newer post.
There are several here that should be sent to /dev/null for the sake of this site’s diminishing credibility.
“Diminished credibility”!
You’re all on a race to the lowest common denominator.
The pope would be well advised to curb his own wealth and excessive consumption first.
The Pope also put the kibosh on fossil fuels and air conditioning:
The Pope can have my air conditioning after prying it from my very pleasantly cooled fingers…
Louis,
Francis needs to visit Vegas in July. He can stay outside since he hates air conditioning so much. At least his white man-dress (as we called them in Afghanistan).
I see that he, like Mother Teresa, thinks suffering is good in and of itself, as long as endured by others and not himself. He can join the overthrown Benedict in Castel Gandolfo when Rome gets too hot, even in the high-ceilinged palaces of the Vatican.
Francis is a shameless hypocrite of Goreian proportions.
Dress is white. Sorry.
As an after thought, does anyone know if they have air-conditioning at the Vatican?
Louis,
Yes, to protect the Sistine Chapel frescoes, so they say:
http://www.designntrend.com/articles/23880/20141102/vatican-air-conditioning-frescoes-sistine-chapel.htm
Betablocker…
========================
Kim, speaking from the perspective of someone who has spent 35 years in nuclear construction and operations, a stillborn Nuclear Renaissance cannot be revived here in America unless the US Government puts a price on carbon which is high enough to make new-build gas-fired power generation less competitive in comparison with new-build nuclear generation.
That’s motivation enough for me to support levying a price on carbon, as I would prefer not to see the US covered with fracking wells from one end of the country to the other. Admittedly, others may have a somewhat different perspective on the need to put a price on carbon.
========================
Let’s make hydrocarbons artificially expensive so my favorite industry can compete!
At least you’re honest. 🙂
President Obama’s goal of a 28% reduction in GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050 cannot be met unless the US Government puts a stiff price on carbon and unless the nation’s electric utilities make a substantial commitment to nuclear power.
Since nuclear power could not expand as rapidly as would be needed to replace most of the nation’s fossil fuel power generation by 2050, a combination of energy conservation measures and adoption of the renewables would be necessary to make up the difference. Higher prices for energy are necessary both to promote energy conservation measures and to pay the cost premium for incentivizing an accelerated adoption of nuclear power plus the renewables.
If President Obama isn’t using the authority he already has in his hands to directly and indirectly raise the price of all carbon fuels, then he isn’t truly serious about achieving a 28% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050.
for some reason, the Reuters page for the following has the headline only!
Edenhofer second guesses the Pope and the EU won’t be happy!
18 June: Eyewitness News South Africa: Reuters: Pope: Emissions trading can undermine climate efforts
***Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a consultant to the Vatican in the run-up to the encyclical, said the pope’s comments should not be seen as an outright rejection of emissions trading.
“The pope is more or less asking scientists to check if this is an instrument which will provide a solution,” he told Reuters.
Edenhofer speculated that the issue was included in response to concerns from Latin America…
“I assume it has been mentioned because many people in Latin America are quite suspicious about this market-based instrument,” Edenhofer said…
***The European Commission declined to comment but the International Emissions Trading Association said the pope’s view on carbon trading was “out of step” with the views of most economists and analysts.
The European Union operates the biggest emissions trading scheme in the world…
http://ewn.co.za/2015/06/18/Pope-Emissions-trading-can-undermine-climate-efforts
“Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.”
But mostly just another way for the money-shufflers to rip off the rest of us without providing anything useful in return.
However, if anyone IS interested in buying some carbon credits then please feel free to contact me ASAP.
For a minimal downpayment (plus VAT, GST and various city, county, state and federal taxes) you will receive a fully certified certificate from one of my rather respectable and probably legitimate agents based in Lagos (The Zurich of Nigeria, as we call it!).
Roll up! Roll up!
Numbers are strictly limited. Maximum $100,000 purchase per person. Time limited. Get in quick.
The Australian MSM are all over the Pope’s climate encyclical like a rash clmaining it to be a “stern warning”. Trouble is Abbott isn’t paying too much attention, it seems, to it, but Turnbull is. Now that is a worry. Turnbull maybe planning a leadership challenge for the next election, which may be called early. That would be a disaster for Australia.
Sorry mods, spelling mistake on my user name.
No, not “all”, but the moderation needs to be stronger. For whatever reason – I can think of some benign and otherwise – any post even mentioning “Catholic” brings out these absurdly off-topic rants that belong in a Jack Chick tract.
John Tetzel, a Dominican monk in Germany in the 16th century and a contemporary of Luther, was an aggressive marketer of indulgences for which he used this sales pitch:
“There is no sin so great that indulgences cannot remit. And even if one should, which is doubtless impossible, ravish (rape) the holy Virgin, Mother of God, let him pay, only let his pay well for an indulgence, and all shall be forgiven him! Ye priests, ye nobles, ye wives, ye maidens, and you young men, hearken to your departed parents and friends who cry to you from the bottomless depths. ‘We are enduring a horrible torment’, they scream, ‘a small alms from you would deliver us. You can give it now if you will’. Thus they cry to you from purgatory. The very moment that the money clinks against the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory and flies free to heaven. Now just pay off, 0 senseless people! Almost like the beasts who do not comprehend the grace so richly offered. This day heaven is on all sides of you. Do you now refuse to enter? When do you intend to come in? This day you may redeem many souls.”
It was reaction against such religious corruption and abuse that motivated Luther’s reformation.
We are at a similar moment when the cynical manipulative use of pseudoscientific AGW scare stories for financial and political gain, need to be resisted by a reformation of the scientific establishment and an alternative movement set up with a transparent and honest ethos, an alternative to catholic (small c) environmentalism.