Josh writes: BishopHill has a great story on Lord Stern, infamous economist, on how he flip flops from rich nations having to forget about growth to this kind of idea being a diversionary tactic. Whatever suits, I guess.
Even more amusing is that the Guardian links both stories on the very same page!
“It would be absurd to underestimate climate change risks” – Lord Stern
“It is absurd to grossly overestimate climate change risk and underestimate the negative risk to world economies and their working people.” – Common Sense
It is absolutely absurd to underestimate the benefits of increase atmospheric CO2
HA! It is grossly unabsurd to understimate the overestimated climate change underestimated risk! This is nothing short of antidisestablishmentarianism I say!
I’ve been looking about trying to find the “risks” of climate change, and frankly my dear, I can’t find any.
On the other hand the benefits of climate change are clear and well documented. Not to mention the well documented benefits of enhanced CO2 itself.
Unless the change is to colder temps. The warmistas are completely oblivious to the possibility of catastrophic cooling.
It would be some dark days indeed if and when worldwide annual food production ever fell sharply.
Strange how the Guardian deplores one of Blair’s Dodgy Dossiers but applauds the author of the other.
The ‘Guardian’ cookery class.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3213631/Environmentalist-skins-butchers-cooks-dead-squirrel-live-BBC-Newsnight-seven-swings-axe.html
Reblogged this on Utopia – you are standing in it! and commented:
This is hilarious. Stern’s current spin on the costs to economic growth is contradicted by links to earlier spin by Stern in 2009; on the page report his current remarks
Moral confusion typifies the Guardianista.
He’s a real star …
Pointman
an economist advising on climate?
and we know how smart economists are
looking at global screwup now prior n far past.
useless mongrels.
It’s because climate and Equity are seen as the excuses for government planning of the economies. This 2008 MIT publication is surprisingly forthcoming about all this being an excuse for what Uncle Karl would have recognized as little c communism. http://web.mit.edu/dusp/dusp_extension_unsec/projections/issue_8/issue_8_baxamusa.pdf It is also called the Human Development Society
Stern knows all this because I regularly encounter him around the Jeffrey Sachs or Joseph Stiglitz and others pushing New Economic Thinking. Pretending it’s about Climate Change is just a diversion and gives a reason to create influential false beliefs in the children. Would you believe when I was working on the Global Education Forum’s Future Agenda they simply want children in the future to have a “natural science worldview”?
I guess we are not supposed to contradict the planning class like Stern with actual facts at the ready and an Axemaker Mind prepared to debate.
I could have sworn that the mantra was, “Only certified climate change scientists were qualified to talk about climate change.”
“Only certified climate change scientists were qualified to talk about climate change.”
Certifiable, more like.
Hey now sociologists are advising biologist! It’s the only way the left can get everybody on the same environmentalist page.
In France sociologists (not biologists, and not epidemiologists) are leading the good fight for the official acknowledgement of the (non existent) effects of radiations on workers of the nuclear industry.
(But not for workers of plane companies.)
Trust me it’s deliberate just wiki “biodiversity” and you can read from the sympathetic view exactly how they don’t think this is a corruption of science!
The stern is aft and those aren’t flip flops (nothing between big and first toes) but excellent cartoon!
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Right. It’s fore and aft, bow and stern.
However, while flip-flops generally have Y-shaped thong straps, the ones with single straps over the top of the foot are also considered flip-flops.
I think Howard Stern has a better grip on reality than the good Lord.
Stern, (d)aft, whatever…
On the one hand:
On the other hand:
Maybe Stern is just acting like any other economist:
Dont know if this has been posted elsewhere on this site..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34082405
Monbiot Eats a hedgehog
“What I would like to see is that the people that are hunting them start to sell them and we eat them.”
First, there are very few hunters that waste the meat. They either eat them, or give them to programs like “Hunters for the Hungry” where the meat is distributed to needy families.
Second, if you want to see populations of animals absolutely decimated, start putting a price tag on them. People who don’t normally hunt will start hunting in droves, in order to sell the meat and make a profit. They will not follow hunting and game limit laws, as hunters do, and kill as many as they can.
Third, if he is strictly speaking of “hunting” roadkill, and selling that meat, who is going to regulate the meat? How long after an animal is killed on the road is one allowed to pick it up and sell the meat, and who is watching?
I hunt and eat the meat, but I am not going to eat roadkill. Ever. Particularly if someone else has harvested it at an unknown time, under unknown conditions, under unknown handling and storage.
A murder of crows would be most upset if you did start eating their roadkill.
If cows were free there’d be no cows. If you really want to save the California condor, for example, offer 10,000 USD each for healthy 90-day old condor chicks sold in lots of 1000.
“If you want to see populations of animals absolutely decimated, start putting a price tag on them”.
Oh dear. Game theory is such an inteesting place. In Singapore, I think it was, there was a rat problem so the government introduced a bounty – they paid for each dead rat brought in. The people immediately started breeding rats.
Several of our Southwestern states had problems with too many jackrabbits.
This was during the depression years and the States with problems empowered counties to pay a bounty per jackrabbit.
Many counties with jackrabbit problems instituted a 2 cent bounty for jackrabbit scalps with two ears attached. From an official’s perspective this allowed families to eat the rabbit while providing proof.
After a few years with counties emptying their treasuries trying to pay for jackrabbit scalps and administratively handle baskets of jackrabbit scalps, the counties ceased trying to control jackrabbits.
Jackrabbits +1, Local government 0
To be fair, most of these Southwest counties were sparsely settled. In the jackrabbit’s favor is that a jackrabbit isn’t the delicacy most other rabbits are.
A large part of America has pursued the policy of bounties and open hunting when trying to control problem wildlife. A few programs succeeded, most did not.
These programs were not for edible game animals as most game animals are easily controlled because of their limited breeding seasons and slow propagation rates.
What is very hard to control are collateral kills. When poisoned bait was allowed, raptors and other scavenger populations were damaged first. Most poison baits were discontinued right about the time that the DDT scare was front page news.
Be that as it may, fur bearing animals are on the premium hunting list every year as wild collected prime furs bring top dollar. Again, limited open seasons are sufficient to control the critters.
Then there are Coyotes. Coyotes have been expanding their range every year. Coyote fur is a replacement for wolf fur for lining Arctic parkas. Yes, many of those fur lined hoods on those goose down stuffed fossil fuel sourced parkas trundling around the Arctic and up or down various mountains are trimmed with coyote fur; so valuable because it is very frost resistant. A person’s moist exhalations don’t freeze on the parka edges where it can erode or cut sensitive frozen cheeks or ears.
An animal’s full winter growth of protective fur is when an animal’s fur is best.
Most states have open season’s for coyote year round, most without bag limits (animals allowed per day, season).
A coyote’s pelt is worth a fair amount of change if properly prepared. Properly prepared is the deal killer here because most fur dealers will not buy furs with holes or poor skinning or handling marks.
Wolf fur is considered better for anti-frost purposes, but harder to come by.
Where I live is considered quite East coast; yet coyotes came to my part of the country over fifteen years ago. Now it is common to hear a coyote pack, late at night, yipping along. Coyotes fit right in with the late night owl hoots. Trouble is, coyotes don’t share their fur readily.
As Doug point out, there are a lot of issues with grabbing and eating road kill.
Besides the motor vehicle legal issues with suddenly stopping on a road, blocking and obstructing traffic while one pursues their chosen crushed rat, there are wildlife legalities with collecting road kills. Here in the states, it typically requires advance notification to the overseeing wild life division. Though most who seek to collect road kill are those who seek to collect deer that pranced in front of their car, often causing serious damage.
Hunters are warned to be very leery of animals that do not act normally, as that lack of normalcy is often an indicator of serious illness.
Animals may be startled and run in front of vehicles, but the result is the same for crazed animals believing they’re protecting territory and attacking strange beasts.
Odd how people who wouldn’t pick up a steak off of a floor and eat it will happily overcook and eat a poor crushed squirrel that was ground into the cesspools called roads.
Just handling an animal’s carcass that is infected with hydrophobia risks infection; especially if the critter is still damp with fluids normally inside the animal. Many other infectious diseases are transmitted by parasites suddenly deprived of their hosts.
Perhaps moonbat should seek rabies shots. It is a shame that there isn’t a treatment for prions and spongiform encephalopathy.
It is absurd not to realize how the fraudsters like Stern, Gore, Steyer, Musk, plan to reap fortunes under renewable energy scams and carbon trading rip-offs.
Perhaps Lord Stern should be referred to as the two faced god Janus
But climate “scientist is full of strange people.
Peter Wadhams and the fossil fuel assassinations
Sir David King suggested that the Russian security services might be behind Climategate
We should not be surprised by anything they do or say.
“Russian security services behind Climategate”.
I think so, too. Let me flesh out some details.
First: the Russian climate scientists are insulted by the East Anglia gang getting their data, analyzing it any way they like, and telling the Russians what to think about their own data.
Second: U. East Anglia wants recognition as an international center for Climate research, so acquires foreign grad students. Among these are ~30 from Russia.
Third: Like grad students elsewhere, they get part-time research asst jobs, etc, some involving day-to-day operations of the computers. These are the people who become the super-users, and know the back-ups, the passwords, etc. Some of these Russian grad students have training and connections to the professional Russian spy agencies.
Fourth: A Russian grad student/computer operator does the Climategate email data dump through a Russian server link.
U. East Anglia probably knows, but can’t speak up without being embarrased that these emails were exposed by people they had hired. The Russians aren’t about to brag. And the skeptics who applaud Climategate don’t want have to give credit to a Russian spy agency. They want to think it was by a higher-up scientist at U. East Anglia motivated by his scientific consious. But that’s unlikely as top level research scientists aren’t involved in computer operations and wouldn’t know how to covertly do such an email dump, especially through a Russian server link.
So no one involved will say that’s how it was done.
Lord Stern is just making the UK ‘just like home’ for the hundreds of desperate dieing migrants heading for Europe.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/migrant-tragedies-land-sea-claim-hundreds-lives-095433930.html
Both tragedies were a result of a renewed surge in migrants seeking refuge from war and poverty that has confronted Europe with its worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
===========================
but, but, but … aren’t refugees the result of climate change? don’t we simply have to pay a carbon tax and all our refugee problems will be solved? it seems to be working here in BC. we pay our 30/ton for CO2 and we are guaranteed the oil patch refugee’s from Alberta will stay where they belong. Lured by the promise of cheaper gas at the pumps.
What Stern ignores is the power of compound interest to destroy the wealth of a country. Either you have economic growth, no debt, or inflation. This rule exists because you must service the debt somehow.
now, you can go bankrupt, thus cancelling the debt. or you can have inflation, which reduces the value of the debt to zero, or you can have growth.
in the short term you can of course borrow and use the borrowed money to service the debt. but ultimately the house of cards will come crashing down. countries must either grow or die.
however, the notion of continued growth is “not sustainable” because nothing can grow forever. thus, the notion of sustainability is to condemn all countries to certain death via debt.
ferdberple – your statement that growth cannot continue for ever looks correct if we can’t find another planet within a couple of billion years or so. But growth can continue for a very very very long time. It’s just that right now the western democracies are showing end-of-empire symptoms, namely the rise of top-down thinking, and the growth may have to come from the next lot.
Forgive me if you’ve seen this already, it applies to Lord stern.
Coming out on climate
Authority figures, foretelling
Hot doom (and our “myths” dispelling),
Cast great dispersion
Upon skeptical versions
(Which keep carbon credits from selling)!
Now, shriller and louder they’re yelling,
To drown out the doubters’ rebelling!
New taxes are “just”
When you’ve gained public trust,
So “the questioners” (quickly) they’re quelling.
I’ve arrived at this realization;
Our industrial civilization
Can only be “sin”
If the green parties win-
On their platform of demonization!
Excellent, Dawtgtomis. It’s nice to see them again but many others are seeing them for the first time. Thanks!
In the alarmist camp, you CAN have it both ways. CO2 causes global warming AND extreme cold weather. For some reason, we denialists cannot seem to grasp the clear logic of it.
Yes, we keep forgetting about how we are all supposed to engage in Orwellian doublethink—the definition of which was provided by commiebob above. We skeptics need to continually remind ourselves that Orwell’s novel “1984” is an instruction manual, not a work of fiction.
Lying, propagandizing bastages!
Is there an independent economist not working for the Cato Institute or Heartland who is outraged enough at this Stern recipe for extinction to come forward and challenge this stuff? Have people lost all their integrity or even pride? I know they are out there somewhere. I recommend Mark Stein do a “disgrace to the profession” on Lord Stern. I’m sure economists have commented on this load of junk economics.
By the way, with his “Disgrace to Profession…” book is selling up there with the Naomis’ popular new world order books and it hasn’t been released yet. I bought it from Mark’s store and it gave me a surge of hope – I was despairing of there being any integrity left in the science. I believe Mark’s book is going to be more potent a force in bringing out climate scientists with some integrity in their make up and outrage in their souls from climategate, Mann’s attitude and behavior, Karl’s (not the other Karl of history) adjustment out of the ‘pause’, and more. The book shows that these things are sticking in the craws of a large number of practicioners and now that they have been outed en masse, they may muster more courage in numbers to express even more outrage. Surely the universities and institutes have a limit on how many prominent scientists they can dismiss.
How ’bout it Mark? I’m sure you could dig up a load on Stern’s disgrace to the…I see the possibilities for a giant series: economists, psychologists/psychiatrists (surely Lewandowsky doesn’t get a free pass from his profession), social scientists (although this group is pretty much corrupted into groupthink already), probably news media also is fully corrupted but, when the tide turns, they will be on the new story like jackals on antelope bones and guts.
As of this morning:
Klein’s book has been out for a year so its ratings have probably slipped. Even so, it’s impressive that Steyn’s book hasn’t even been fully released yet (I got my copy from his web site). The alarmists should read this book so they can understand the damage Mann has done to their cause.
There must be a handbook somewhere “Roolz for Climate Science and Climate Economics”. Maybe even a college course on the subject.
So the label “climate economist” (applied in this article to Stern), now has a clear meaning:
“A person who neither understands economics nor anything about what drives the climate.”
Hey, he looks like Jonathan Gruber’s brother!
It’s obvious that Stern has flipped his opinion just in time for the upcoming climate talks in Paris. He will flop back to his previous position after the talks are over. He just doesn’t want the fear of economic harm to get in the way of an agreement to take strong action on climate change. He knows he’s lying, but when has that ever stopped these people from promoting the ’cause’ by any means?
Lord Stern has predicted the future climate.
I would give his predictions of the future more credence if, as a world leading economist, he had predicted the world financial collapse in 2008. Unfortunately he rather missed that one, as did every other world leading economic expert! A few brave souls did warn that 125% mortgages et al were perhaps not such a good idea, but experts like Stern were blind to the obvious.
Nothing Changes