Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t James Delingpole – Alice Bows-Larkin has given a TED talk, which outlines her plan for “saving” the environment from a 4c temperature rise. The gist of her idea seems to be that developed countries need to dramatically reduce their output, while developing countries raise theirs, so everyone gets a “fair” share of a smaller pie.
How deep a cut are we talking about?
10:52
So that poses very significant challenges for wealthy nations. Because according to our research, if you’re in a country where per capita emissions are really high — so North America, Europe, Australia — emissions reductions of the order of 10 percent per year, and starting immediately, will be required for a good chance of avoiding the two-degree target. Let me just put that into context. The economist Nicholas Stern said that emission reductions of more than one percent per year had only ever been associated with economic recession or upheaval. So this poses huge challenges for the issue of economic growth, because if we have our high carbon infrastructure in place, it means that if our economies grow, then so do our emissions. So I’d just like to take a quote from a paper by myself and Kevin Anderson back in 2011 where we said that to avoid the two-degree framing of dangerous climate change, economic growth needs to be exchanged at least temporarily for a period of planned austerity in wealthy nations.
Click here to read the full transcript
Why do I think this plan for aggressive CO2 emission cuts amounts to economic ruin? Lets think about what 10% per year actually means.
Imagine this reduction as slices taken away from a 5 day working week. I’m going to assume for the purpose of this calculation, that emissions are a proxy for economic activity.
In the first year, not so bad – its like leaving work every week on Friday at lunchtime. It might be uncomfortable, but a lot of people in developed countries probably have the spare financial capacity, to absorb a 10% cut in income.
By year 3, things get unpleasant. By now you are only working;
(1 – 0.10)3 years * 5 days = 3.5 days per week.
More than an quarter of your income has gone. Bills are getting tough to pay, you spend long hours in the Supermarket aisles agonising over your grocery basket.
By year 10, things are desperate. By then you are only working;
(1 – 0.10)10 years * 5 days = 1.7 days per week. 66% of your income is gone. Your mortgage if you owe money on your house is in arrears. Debt collectors are calling every other day, demanding money you don’t have. All you have to look forward to is more hopelessness and despair.
OK, so you’ve lost most of your income – but working 1.7 days per week, you would get plenty of time off, right? Wrong. The reality is you would probably still have to work your normal 5 day week. What is being degraded is not the number of hours you have to work, but the economic return those hours generate for you and your employer. Your 5 days of effort now only returns 1.7 days worth of the spending power, in terms of what you earned before the cuts started. Your employer’s profits have also been slashed – they simply can’t pay you any more, even if they wanted to.
Even at 34% of your original income, you probably still have more spending power than many people in the third world. The cuts would have to continue.
Of course, most people would probably be worse off than my simple calculation predicts. I doubt very much whether the green elite would give up their frequent flights to climate conferences, and other perks. So if the national pie in your country is shrinking, and the greens keep the full portion of their slice, your slice gets smaller even faster.
If alarmists are right about the rate of climate change, which by any reasonable evaluation of the skill of climate models is very doubtful, is all this hardship really a price worth paying, to prevent a few extra days of pleasant sunny weather every year?
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Its amazing to me that people can claim action on climate change is necessary for future generations, yet their solutions leave future generations in devastation that is far worse than what they are trying to prevent. No one who lived through the great depression would suggest intentionally devastating the economy is something we should do to prevent future generations from having to deal with a warmer planet. How can you even compare living homeless on the streets with needing to run your air conditioner more?
SJWs always lie.
But, yeah, it’s sad that the left, which used to claim to be on the side of ‘progress’, is now continually pushing for regress back to some pre-industrial utopia. They changed their tune over the last few decades when we proved to just about everyone that free people progress much faster than communists… OK, they can’t create progress, but one thing they’ve proven they can do really, really well is destroy things.
Just out of curiosity and laziness, what does SJW stand for ?
It feels like four letter word reduced to three.
If its intention escapes me, ya might wanna just spell it out.
What he ^ said.
Social Justice Warrior.
The leftist Twitterati invented the name for themselves so they could pretend they were doing something more important than posting funny cat pictures. Now they’ve started claiming it’s an insult, because everyone laughs at them when they claim to be ‘warriors’.
“No one who lived through the great depression would suggest intentionally devastating the economy …”
Unfortunately, those who lived through the great depression are leaving us at increasing rates. Most of today’s libs don’t know anything about the depression and don’t care because it happened before they were born and, therefore, isn’t real.
Has she figured out that only wealthy countries can afford the luxury of keeping third-rate academics in gainful employment?
Evidently not.
I just heard my dad saying “people are their own worst enemies”…
Liberal socialists like her just want everyone to be equally poor, except of course, socialist elites like her !!
My thoughts for “Alice” No thank you. I’m not going to begrudge developing nations their chance to gain a decent standard of livening nor myself. It is time to put her and similar thinkers on notice, their solution as unexceptionable. Either work at a means of mitigation that will recognize above projected increases, in CO2 Or get out of the way and allow wiser minds to address the issues. In sum its time to point out that these people are unfit to change a litter box.
michael
Well, I guess it all comes down to whether there can be meaningful economic activity without carbon outputs, doesn’t it? I think most of us agree that reducing economic activity per se is fairly insane, so the question comes as to whether there can be ‘better economic activity’ using decarbonised value-added activity.
So how long would it take to turn modern agricultural systems into decarbonised permaculture systems without loss of output?? I’m not the guy to answer that one, but my best guess hunch would be a few decades rather than a few years. It’s easy small-scale, but I remain to be convinced that permaculture is yet scalable without a huge return of labour to the land and out of the cities, which of course has significant implications for housing stock……
How long would it take to make renewable energy sources reliable enough, cheap enough and storable enough to power city offices? I consider this as that’s where the energy uses aren’t so great as to cause impossible challenges in the near term. Well, there’s a few factors at play: supplying renewable energy to existing buildings; reducing energy requirements of existing building through retrofits; and building new energy-neutral buildings using modern technology.
How long would it take to take domestic housing off grid through the use of solar panels, heat pumps, biogas etc etc? Again, different for different housing stock, since modern stock can be energy neutral now, whereas old stock may need rather more heating. I’m minded to say that in 50 years, you can replace the whole housing stock at which point the job is done.
Where things get more difficult are transportation, supplying construction materials like steel, eliminating all the chemicals used for all kinds of things (almost all of which require high energy inputs to be made) etc etc. The implication is that you replace cars with electric ones, which begs the question ‘how do you generate the electricity to charge them at affordable prices?’ The implication is that you stop manufacturing steel, since the energy required to produce that is far greater than renewables will ever generate (unless we finally get fusion working properly), which says that 21st century construction is a step-change revolution, not the sort of evolution we are all used to. Ditto for chemicals.
I simply can’t see any of the latter happening.
I think the danger of all these arguments are twofold:
1. Assuming that dangerous warming is actually happening and man-made.
2. Assuming on the other side that you can’t continue economically whilst eliminating carbon usage.
I’d like climate alarmists to be sacked and I’d like proactive planning for renewable energy worlds to take place too. I’ve said before that I think the world will use renewables primarily in the 22nd century, not the 21st, but that doesn’t mean that a framework of how to get there shouldn’t be put in place. One with milestones and tollgates, not a Soviet-style plan. You can’t ever do the latter, as unexpected discoveries, unexpected blocks etc etc will inevitably arise. But you can set an overall course to steer toward……..
I’m struggling to grasp the merits of this proposed “scheme”.
As we all know by now, countries that have experienced the benefits of modern prosperity, high productivity and cheap energy, have also seen a decline in birth rates.
In many countries, birth rates of the natural population have fallen below replication level, i.e. the population is numerically in decline.
That’s it -some may say – the problem has solved itself. Less people surely equates to less consumption.
Except that low birth rates are seen to be a massive problem for the countries concerned.
Because we need more young people entering the economy to work and tax – to fund our massive national debt and pension obligations, amongst other reasons.
And we need for those young people to be productive and to buy lots of taxable stuff.
So, where does the eco-left stand on this topic?
They would be at war with their own thoughts. If only they actually had thoughts of their own.
Prosperity -> low reproduction rates -> lower consumption -> sustainability.
Poverty -> higher reproduction rates -> higher consumption -> planet over-run by swarms of evil CO2 producing humans.
Of course, all of this has nothing to do with the “logic” of the eco-left, because in fact they use no logic at all. They are simply sock-puppets and “useful idiots”.
The grand scheme at the heart of this is the political, social and economic destabilization of the west.
Which is to be brought about by engendering, social division and unrest, unsustainable immigration, resistance to all forms of productive industry, including energy production, and resistance to all forms of military assets and defence spending.
The same “useful idiots” who are now explaining that we must immediately destroy our baseload electricity generating capacity – are the same “useful idiots” who, back in the 1970’s and 1980’s were out protesting in support of the miners, and thereby in support of coal mining!! Whilst campaigning against nuclear – the only low CO2 option in the UK at the time.
They are the same “useful idiots”. The Socialist/Communist leftie loonies.
People who do not seem to know who or what is planting their ideas into their heads – or why.
You forgot poverty = lots of unnecessary death due to lack of energy !!
When I was an innocent young child, new to this world; my sister, my older sister, viewed me as a human sacrifice to the gods. Each new wart, pimple, or crawling hair lice that appeared on my tender, young body was another evidence of another sacrifice impressed upon me. Each intestinal worm, bout of acid reflux, or uncontrollable flatulence that harbored within me was also evidence of the sacrifice she imposed on me. Nor, was this torture perpetrated against my tender being done to appease the gods. No, it was done to curry favor.
So, when I first started reading about the prescriptions that Dr. Alice Bows-Larkin seeks to impose on, dictate to, pester, needle, second guess, subjugate, encumber, throttle, incapacitate, and torture us with, the first thought that came to mind is that she must be my sister, my older sister’s twin.
But, then I thought, no, she can’t be. Even though, my sister, my older sister left me irreparably damaged she did at least leave me semi-functional (don’t laugh); a state of being I’m absolutely certain Dr. Larkin would not have left anyone in.
But, more to the point: my sister, my older sister did exhibit wisdom in perpetrating her torment. In fact, it’s the same wisdom exhibited by the ancients when they sought human sacrifices. You see, their human sacrifices were nubile, young virgins who either didn’t have a prayer of being able to fight back, or they thought such superstitious nonsense was genuine, and actually felt privileged to be immolated for absolutely no good reason at all. Or, barring any available virgins, the ancients turned conquered and captured neighboring tribes into human sacrifices. And, of course, those tribes couldn’t fight back either; otherwise they wouldn’t have been conquered in the first place. And, my sister, my older sister did the same, chose a sacrificial victim; an innocent, sweet, helpless, unblemished child – me – who couldn’t fight back any more than they could.
But, Dr. Larkin has chosen; not gullible helpless virgins, innocent children, or captives to sacrifice. Heck no! She’s chosen; well, all of us. Every single one of us: young, old; nice, nasty; innocent, worldly; weak, strong; small, big, really big; 90 pound weaklings and musclemen. Good luck with your sacrifices, Doctor!
And I thought I needed help.
Tom Judd,
I probably agree with you. But just to be sure, we’re talking about your older sister, right? ☺
Or my oldest daughter? Never heard the term parentiastion?
There are layers and layers to the cult of CAGW horror story, the descent, the race into chaos/madness.
While the developed countries are racing to mutually assured economic collapse, the cult of CAGW village idiots are shouting that we need to spend trillions of dollars (there are no surplus dollars to spend which is a fact not a theory) on green scams that do not work (regardless if there was surplus money to spend on green scams, the green scams do not significantly reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions, a complete change to nuclear power and draconian measures such as banning all air travel is the only ‘solution’ if the objective is to significantly reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions) and do triple the cost of electrical power.
The general public has no idea concerning their country’s balance sheet crisis. What will happen next is as certain as the fact that bridges will collapse when there are absurdity overloaded above there design limit.
The developed countries have all run out of ‘public’ money to spend on everything and have managed to hide this in your face crisis by borrowing money, year after year.
The end of that road is what is currently happening to Greece. Forced public spending cuts. Spending more and more deficit money on ‘infrastructure’ does not and did not create permanent jobs (big surprise jobs disappear when the public spending ends).
Japan has won the race to the end of the road. There are now charts in economic specialty magazines that show how much room is left before the cliff is reached, country by country. Japan has the highest accumulated debt of any country on the earth and faces an eminent economic collapse which is why this linked to book has written by an inner circle economic specialist.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21577348-gloomy-convincing-account-developed-worlds-problems-horror-story
More layers. The entire basis scientific basis of the IPCC reports were incorrect.
If I understand how the sun is currently changing and how the sun has caused Heinrich events in the past, it appears we are going to experience a Heinrich event. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record. Inter-glacial periods end abruptly not gradually. Big surprise the past cyclic abrupt climate change events, the glacial/inter-glacial cycle has a cause.
It just gets better, comically absurd.
The majority of the atmospheric increase in CO2 was due to the increase in ocean temperatures and an increase in natural CH4 emission from the deep earth which is caused by solar cycle changes. Atmospheric CH4 has increased step wise with plateaus of five to six years that match the step wise decreases of the C13/C12 ratio in the atmosphere (If anthropogenic CO2 has the cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2 the decrease in the C13/C12 ratio would have matched the anthropogenic emissions and would have changed gradually, continuously with time, that is not observed)
Sources and sinks of CO2 Tom Quirk
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/EE20-1_Quirk_SS.pdf
Thanks for the work WA.
I’m very curious about the accounting that is being done concerning CO2. I saved this email. Ferdinand Engelbeen claims that accounting for man made CO2 is possible. I’m still asking questions trying to understand how that’s possible considering the multiple sources. He’s been very patient, but I’m just not seeing it.
Meanwhile, I also know that CO2 is rather meaningless in the complexity of climate or should I recouch that it hasn’t been proven to me that it is meaningful. I feel baited in even perusing the understanding but it has become necessary because the US has codified it as a pollutant and attainment criteria will be the law of the land soon enough.
Indeed many layers. The amount of work you’ve done in your post indicates you’ve likely already read about SDRs from the IMF. In a diabolical winner take all move, they are set up to issue new currency when/if the current fiats fail.
The skeptics/realists movement is still young compared to the CAGW/Social Justice movement. There is time to still sway the insane wastefulness, but not with the limited tools the skeptics/realists are using. Many valuable lessons can be learned from the opposition concerning a mass information campaign. Not the least of which are feeder ngos and broader audience tools such as a WUWT Talks.
The climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. The 33 degrees C that the Earth’s surface is warmer because of the Earth’s atmosphere is all attributed to the convective greenhouse effect. 0.0 degrees C is left to be attributed to the conjectured radiant greenhouse effect. Therefor the climate sensitivity of CO2 is 0.0 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. The proposed plan cannot possible have an effect on climate.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzr6wk7FVXE&w=420&h=315%5D
I would pay good money to be standing there watching when this woman is told her plan will be put into effect, and that she and everyone who she knows or is related to will be the first subjected to forced austerity, just to see how it works for a few years before being imposed on anyone else.
You might observe that Dr. Bows is no nuttier than Paul Erlich, who has had a long and distinguished career, in spite of always being wrong. What counts is not being on target with your forecasts, it seems. Her TED presentation was an interesting milestone in the march toward Paris. The frenzy builds. By the time the conference actually arrives, she is likely to be superseded by the REAL nutcases.
If we were, at this time, contemplating the colonization of Mars, she is the type of person who would argue that Mars must be preserved in its “pristine” condition, saved from environmental destruction by humans.
Please don’t give them any more liberal ideas, they think up enough on their own !!!
I would agree with this plan, but not for the stated reason.
Mars should be left alone because going there would be a waste of money.
If the goal is the stars, we need to learn how to live and survive in space first, and how to find and mine the resources needed to survive.
The obvious first target is asteroid based colonies.
Travelling as far as Mars and winding up deep in a gravity well is a suicidal plan at best…the most expensive suicides in history.
Before even trying, lets see some people land a ship on Earth, and fix and restock and relaunch it themselves, using only what they can scrounge from a cold dry valley in Antarctica.
Good luck wit’ dat.
I will not even get into the part about being outside of the Earth’s magnetic field for a few years, and then a solar storm or CME heads their way…
Perhaps she should watch another TED from Hans Rosling entitled “The Magic Washing Machine”. His conclusions are spot on.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine
Anyway, in spite of the fact that she is talking complete shit, she has read the mood of the times quite accurately and is acting perfectly in accord with her own self-interest.
I expect that she will be presenting a documentary series on the BBC, before the end of 2016.
The BBC loves this sort of anti-growth environmental saviour fare.
Importantly, she is not just a pretty face. She is also an imbecile.
Expect to see her filmed from a helicopter, standing on the rim of a volcano, or up a tree in the rainforest, or inside a Chilean astronomical observatory, within the year.
Actually, that’s not a hard prediction, it’s a projection.
Nobody knows what the difference is – but I just thought that I’d cover myself in case I am wrong!!
When is Dr. Patrick Moore going to be invited to do a Ted Talk?:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/15/greenpeace-founder-delivers-powerful-annual-lecture-praises-carbon-dioxide-full-text/
Alan Penn,
What’s your point?
I recall someone eating DDT many years ago in order to demonstrate that it was harmless to humans.
Would I eat DDT even though I know it’s probably harmless? No, I wouldn’t. But the fact that your arguments have devolved to this point simply shows you’ve lost the debate.
Because you can’t credibly argue Ms. Bows-Larkins’ case… can you?
Alan Penn says:
The video goes to Moore’s credibility.
No, it doesn’t. It’s merely a failed ad hominem attack that has nothing to do with the article.
I wouldn’t ingest lots of things that are probably harmless. So what? Is that the best you’ve got?
The video speaks for itself.
So you agree, that’s the best you’ve got.
Yep. And it shows thet Dr. Moore has a lot more common sense than you have.
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
Set ’em up, and I’ll debunk ’em by the numbers.
You’re one of the easiest foils I’ve sparred with in quite a while. ☺
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
Already done. Your ad hominem comments are logical fallacies that lose the argument.
But just so you know, some folks will drink anything.
I’m not one of them, and clearly, neither is Dr. Moore.
Some people in orbit drink their own urine.
..
https://www.quora.com/How-is-urine-processed-in-the-International-Space-Station
…
Still waiting for you to “debunk” the Roundup video
Only a fool could fail to undersatnd that the ’roundup’ video is not only debunked, it was a logical fallacy that has nothing to do with the article.
But it’s the best you’ve got, so I guess you have to use it.
And you don’t mind if I didn’t view your video. Stuff that excites you doesn’t excite me.
There are probably lots of things Dr. Moore wouldn’t drink, and for sure there are lots of things I won’t drink.
But by all means, Alan Penn, bottoms up! To each his own.
[Reply: “Alan Penn” is a fake sockpuppet name for a repeatedly banned commenter. ~mod.]
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
Clearly I’m having fun with someone who doesn’t understand what ad hominem means.
I suppose you’re infatuated with Missy Alice, too. ☺
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
The LD-50 for glyphosate is greater than 5000 mg/kg.
It is listed this way because they never succeeded in poisoning any animals to death with it.
this is in stark contrast to such everyday items as aspirin (LD-50 of 200mg/kg), salt (LD50 3000mg/kg), bleach (LD50 850 mg/kg), cola (caffeine LD50 for dogs, 150mg/kg), vitamin A (LD50 2000mg/kg), or even ethanol (7060mg/kg)
http://www.monsanto.com/sitecollectiondocuments/ito/roundup%20promax_factsheet_april%202010_final%20.pdf
http://www.rocklin.k12.ca.us/staff/lbrun/chemweb/Unit_10/Lethal_Dose_Table.pdf
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
…Moore responded. “I’m not stupid.”
That makes Dr. Moore and Alan Penn polar opposites.
[Reply: “Alan Penn” is a fake sockpuppet name for a repeatedly banned commenter. ~mod.]
I remember seeing Ted Talks when it was new, and there were many interesting and thoughtful presentations. I watched (what the hell’s her name-I had to scroll to the top to find out) Alice Bows-Larkin’s talk and it was so boring that I bet half the people in the congregation fell asleep. Who knows what she was talking about. Not a very inspiring speech to say the least…
“Long Term Toxicity Tests
Long-term toxicological studies have been conducted to determine the effects of prolonged exposure to glyphosate. High doses of glyphosate were administered on a daily basis for the average lifetime (two years) of rats and mice and for one year for dogs. Few effects were observed in rats and mice in these studies, and when effects were observed, they were present only at very high levels. No treatment-related effects were seen at any dose in the dog study.”
Few substances have been studied for proof of toxicity as much as Roundup(Glyphosate), and yet no one has ever found any harm of note to any animals or insects. In any amount. Over any interval. Ever.
Even in the concentrated form which is highly corrosive, people have drank it in large amounts and suffered little harm…although a some died when they did try to kill themselves with…but again…this was with the concentrate, which is corrosive.
I think it was far more problematic to ingest a fatal dose of this concentrate than it would be to eat a fatal bottle of aspirin, or container of table salt, or handful of rock salt.
Menicholas,
Now that we’ve both debunked Alan Penn, I have to side with Dr. Moore. He’s not stupid. I wouldn’t drink something not intended for human consumption, either.
But I guess some folks will drink anything.
Alan, do you understand the difference between knowing something is safe to do, and being willing to actually do it?
Dissolving a persons morning vitamins or any other sort of pill or medication is a glass of water is safe to do, but only a jackass would do it, if only because it tastes really very awful.
We use Roundup extensively, along with many GMO crops, on my farm. Now, drink a glass is not recommended. Come in from spraying a bit drenched, happens all the time depending on wind direction. Our field contours go every which way. You know not of which you speak. Glyphosate is much more benign than the herbicides we used to use. Blocks a single enzyme. Moore’s credibility is very high. Unless you show up with some real science, yours is not.
Just a farmer who calls BS on a non-farmer know-nothing.
Alan Penn October 25, 2015 at 3:30 pm
“What’s your point?”
Well what is it. In some situations people must drink urine to survive. Must someone drink some now just to prove to you that under the certain circumstances they would do so? Or take for an example the flight of soccer players that crashed in the Andes years ago. If someone where to say they would make the same choices that the soccer players made would you insist that they demonstrative it for you? If so be careful what you ask for you may get it!! (Grin and Laugh!)
michael
DB and Michael.
Exactly.
Wading through waste deep raw sewage will not kill anyone. And if there are no open cuts or sores on the person’s body, you may not have any harmful effects from it at all.
Ditto for falling face first into a fresh cow flop.
You will not die.
Will I do it to prove it is so?
“I am not stupid”.
BTW, if you ever need to drink urine to survive a bad situation…drink it right away…right away.
Still hot.
Because fresh urine is generally almost sterile, having been filtered through the nephrons which are very small and selective.
But it will not stay sterile for long, and can be quite toxic after a time.
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/Gift%20of%20God%20Rosner%20Markowitz.pdf
“When asked by a reporter if it was dangerous to spill the chemical on one’s hands, Midgely dramatically instructed an attendant to bring him some pure tetraethyl lead, in which he proceeded to wash his hands. “I’m not taking any chance whatever,” he announced to reporters who were present. “Nor would I take any chance doing that every day.”
That didn’t stop the environmentalists from getting leaded gasoline banned, eventually. Strangely, since we were all saved from leaded gasoline, standardized test scores of high school students in the US have continued a decades-long decline, with no indication that they will spike back up to where they were during the era of leaded gasoline.
Kind of like how the CFC ban saved us all from the ozone hole…
http://realclimatescience.com/2015/10/obamas-climate-plan-the-ozone-model/
The environmentalists are always quick to declare victory, but never follow up to show that their new regulations provided any of the claimed benefits.
This woman appears well
nourished and expensively
dressed, not in rags.
Not exhausted by ongoing hard labour –
Doesn’t follow her own instructions.
Nonetheless the loaded audience applauds their criminal intentions – for
others.
‘Climate Change’ is stagnant, while madness accelerates.
Hans
audience applauds their criminal intentions
read
audience applauds her
criminal intents.
Thx – Hans
I love people like this woman. She paints a picture of something that is so obviously impossible that only the most naïve among us would fail to throw up their hands and say “Why bother?”
Me…I’m just going to enjoy myself.
I used to watch a lot of TED talks – they were short and informative back then. But now they are a parade of left leaning apologist trying out-wacky each other with their ideas! (There are a few exceptions of course). So I have given up watching them most of the time.
Has anyone else noticed this trend?
I’d listen to more if they were longer, my attention span this late in life, is greater than 15 minutes.
I love any story well told.
TED talks have been co-opted by the same clique that has co-opted most scientific journals.
When dozens of journals emit the exact same talking points — repeating the Narrative that ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ is a big problem — rational folks understand that it’s just a tactic.
In honest science, there is always pretty heated disagreement. So when these journal Boards (typically six Board members) take exactly the same public position, we know they’ve been bought and paid for.
It’s easy when you know how, and when you have the resources. It’s an effective tactic, too, since the gov’t .edu factories have dumbed down two generations of students, to the point that critical thinking is never used, or even understood.
DB
“Narrative”
I saw this word in the above post. It’s a pet peeve of mine because it shows how far the conmen have come. It bothers me when I see it in much the same way Carlin ranted about downsizing replacing being fired. We don’t tell stories anymore, we tell natratives. Ugh, can’t get used it. Makes me feel like I need to wash up.
It’s not a big deal in the wide wide world of issues. Just thought I’d get it off my chest.
DB
“TED talks have been co-opted by the same clique that has co-opted most scientific journals.”
The market is ripe for WUWT Talks.
Sunny TV is fun, but in all seriousness, WUWT should produce a few gems.
As I’ve learned from watching this site, the best work is when you show critical thinking skills without falling into “ism” traps.
Oh, and be nice. You don’t have to be creepy like Mr Rodgers, but be nice. You’ll inspire those fenceriders to think instead of being scared.
Knute writes : “We don’t tell stories anymore, we tell natratives.”
I have this theory about the difference between a story and a narrative that goes like this: A story is something you can relate to, it echoes and affirms personal experience. It carries a meaning you can already relate to and clarifies it. Robert Pirsig got that.
A narrative on the other hand is still folksy, but it’s marketing. It’s an attempt to cast an unfamiliar message or experience in common terminology, but it doesn’t always work. It’s carefully concealed propaganda. Some people call it “spin”.
S
“A narrative on the other hand is still folksy, but it’s marketing. It’s an attempt to cast an unfamiliar message or experience in common terminology, but it doesn’t always work. It’s carefully concealed propaganda. Some people call it “spin”.
Agreed annnd I suggest that genuine folks try to avoid using it. It’s a bit of a sign that you’ve been co-opted in your thinking. Not a big one, mind you, but a clue … an erosion.
In a nutshell, I think the difference between a story and a narrative is a story is about something you saw, did or had happen to you while a narrative is what you thought about it. A story is a chronology or history, a narrative is an interpretation. Both have their place but narratives get abused when they’re presented as stories. They’re often more amusing though! 🙂
Margaret asks: “Has anyone else noticed this trend?”
Yes. Very much and I don’t like it unless I’m deliberately watching a humorist like Maher or Colbert. I do enjoy spin when it’s obvious and funny. I don’t like it in news reports and it’s really started to get obscene.
TED appears to now be the medium of choice for purveyors of scam pseudo-innovation.
Here is such a heap of nonsense. Another Betz limit defying wind turbine!!
Currently sucking in millions of dollars from the rich and gullible, no doubt…
I wonder how much do taxpayers spend on this fine lady, and what is a Return On Investment for the enlightened Tyndall Centre?
“I’m going to assume for the purpose of this calculation, that emissions are a proxy for economic activity.”
wrong.
Actually, that’s accepted by most folks.
Only folks that don’t take the time to think and/or understand that economic activity CAN and DOES increase without an increase in emissions.
In fact, continual process improvement strives to increase production while decreasing energy use.
There are some fairly strong limitations on how “efficient” many key processes can be.
For example, consider Aluminium. Aluminium is ubiquitous – everything from the corrosion resistant frames of your double glazing, the flashing which stops your roof leaking, soda cans, TV dinners, foil you use for cooking, lightweight car components – Aluminium is everywhere.
Yet Aluminium smelting is incredibly energy intensive. Yet hasn’t been any real improvement in efficiency for decades, though not for lack of trying.
High energy prices have forced a lot of first world Aluminium smelters to close, and a lot of smelting is now done in places like China, which values cheap energy. But we still use Aluminium, just as much, if not more than we ever did. Offshoring our energy use is not the same as finding a way to reduce our energy use.
Karl,
Emissions are an indicator of economic activity. They may not track it in lockstep, but they are an indicator, and a pretty good one. Just compare emissions and economic activity between N. Korea with S. Korea.
There is no economy that doesn’t produce CO2 emissions. None anywhere.
The U.S. has reduced its CO2 emissions, mainly due to fracking and natural gas use. And you cannot tell us how much better the economy would be doing without restrictions due to the stupidly-named “carbon” scare. Because you don’t know. All you see is one side of the issue.
No only Aluminium, cement too is a high consumer of energy and producer of CO2. I have yet to see a solar powered Bessemer converter. Most I have seen are in the region of 90MW.
Companies are already trying to make their processes as efficient as possible. It’s their money they are wasting when the processes aren’t.
There is a limit to how efficient a process can be made, and for most processes, we are getting pretty close to those limits.
Sure we can make cars even smaller, however you have to force those cars onto people. Most people would rather have a life, than be a little bit more efficient.
However people such as yourself can’t tolerate others not living up to the standards of the do gooders, so they use govt to force others to live how the do gooders want them to live.
A proxy? Yes of course, just as inspiration and expiration are proxies for life. If you disbelieve, check with NASA and the trace gasses they search for when evaluating the atmosphere of exo-planets for signs of life; in our experience life equates to carbon and the presence of CO2 in an atmosphere is a sign of life, as is methane. There’s not much getting around it, we’re carbon based and it’s the only example of life we have to work with. It’s possible we may encounter life that isn’t carbon based in the future and if we do we’ll need to re-write the book. In the present though all we know is carbon based life.
Did you have a competing example that shows empirical evidence of life on a planet absent carbon dioxide? I haven’t seen it myself but I would be very interested? I don’t get around that much anymore so please excuse me for my ignorance.
It’s reasonable that growth in atmospheric CO2 is synonymous with growth of life, so CO2 makes a very good proxy for gauging it, at least our kind of life. I don’t think it’s “wrong” to use it. If you have an alternative, more accurate, indicator this would appear to be a good forum to present it in. It seems there are quite a few very knowledgeable people who read it and respond politely and in detail. I personally have come to value this forum highly for those reasons.
S
“It seems there are quite a few very knowledgeable people who read it and respond politely and in detail. I personally have come to value this forum highly for those reasons”
Well put Scott. I too have arrived at the same place.
I would encourage this imbecile to return all her research money and practice what she preaches. Also, she should forsake all products that depend on fossil fuel for any part of putting it to market. I trust said imbecile understands that includes what she eats and what makes her toilet flush. It is also what allows her to publish rubbish. People like this who hate poor people and wish to heap even greater misery on them by driving a wedge between them and prosperity need to be examined under RICO laws.
Menicolas on October 25, 2015 at 7:55 am, gives that Alice Bows-Larkin’s CV like this:
” …Alice is a Reader in Energy and Climate Change as part of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and based within the School of Mechanical, Civil and Aerospace Engineering (MACE), University of Manchester. Alice trained as an astrophysicist at the University of Leeds, did her PhD in climate modelling at Imperial College, joining the interdisciplinary Tyndall Centre to research conflicts between climate change and aviation.”
What can I say to this? First, stupidity annoys me. Second, it takes both stupidity and irresponsibility to create such “higher education” specimens. It looks like the green inquisition is gradually destroying our higher education institutions and academic societies, starting with the Royal Society and NAS, and going down the ladder to lesser known associations and schools. What this does to me is to start suspecting that our “academic leadership,” if it deserves to be called that, is nothing more than commoners dressed up in the emperor’s new clothes. I used to look up to my professors but with this gang in charge I cannot do that any more.
This still leaves me with having to settle some scientific issues. First of all, that hand wringing about 2 degrees or 4 degrees by 2100 has nothing to do with reality. The warmists have a superstition that future warming can be determined if you know what happens when you double the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Carbon dioxide sensitivity they like to call that. For your information, carbon dioxide sensitivity is exactly zero. How do I know this? From actual observations of nature. You must have heard that we are living through a period of so-called ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ of warming. At the same time, atmospheric carbon dioxide keeps increasing as shown by the Keeling curve. You may even know that IPCC uses the Arrhenius greenhouse theory to tell us what future temperature to expect. It is built into their climate models. That is why their climate model predictions, starting with the very first one that Hansen himself introduced, have predicted more warming than actually happened. Such an unbroken string of failures in private industry would lead to a quick shutdown of the system. But the warmists seem happy to accept the false predictions and pass them on to politicians. The systemic fault of these models is that the Arrhenius greenhouse theory is incorrect. There are a number of greenhouse gases in air besides carbon dioxide, but that one is the only one Arrhenius can handle. The most important GHG left out of it is water vapor and that makes all the difference. The only greenhouse theory that can actually handle water vapor is MGT, Miskolczi greenhouse theory. According to MGT, carbon dioxide and water vapor, both greenhouse gases, form a joint optimum absorption window in the infrared whose optical thickness is 1,87. Miskolczi showed in 2010 that the optical thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere remains invariant when the amount of carbon dioxide is varied. If you now add carbon dioxide to air this will increase its optical thickness. But when this happens water vapor steps in. Its amount in air begins to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing, but reduction of water vapor in the joint absorption window has reduced its absorptivity to the point where no greenhouse warming predicted by Arrhenius can take place. An outside observer will note that carbon dioxide keeps rising but there is no parallel warming that Arrhenius theory predicts. As a matter of fact, there has been no warming at all for the last 18 years, sufficient to send the Arrhenius theory into the waste basket of history. Lack of this warming means that addition of more carbon dioxide will have no influence on global temperature. Even if you double the added CO2 you still get no warming, the reason I told you that sensitivity is zero. There have been numerous papers published trying to prove that the hiatus does not exist, to no avail. They are looking for that “lost heat” everywhere, even in the ocean bottom. Somehow they missed the fact that it had absconded into outer space before they even got started. Several papers have used falsified temperature curves to prove the non-existence of the hiatus. But the biggest falsification of all is to wipe out an entire hiatus that existed in the eighties and nineties. I discovered it accidentally in 2008 while doing research for my book “What Warming?” using satellites. It lasted from 1979 to 1997, 18 years like the present one. But when I went to cross check with official data I discovered that they had disappeared it and were showing a false warming called “late twentieth century warming” in its place. That fake warming is still part of the official IPCC temperature curve, eighteen years later. There is no chance that this fake warming was put in accidentally because I have proof that NASA knew about lack of warming in 1997. The boss at NASA then was James Hansen himself. As to future warming, the anti-hiatus people have dreamed up an El Nino warming for this winter to save them from that hiatus. I can tell you right now that they don’t know what they are doing. It isn’t going to happen.
Arno, good rant. 🙂
One thing that gets me (this is pure politics) is the media have lately pilloried Christoper Horner for his oblique but professional relationship with Alpha Naturals, who apparently paid him about $19,000 for legal council before going bankrupt under existing and proposed federal regulation. He’s accused of “corruption” for representing an oil company against warmist claims they were evil and needed to be shut down. Needless to say the warmists won that argument and Alpha Naturals no longer exists.
What intrigues me is no one seems to beef about the association of James Hansen and Al Gore. Gore was Hansen’s boss for eight years while Gore was VP of the US and the amounts of money transferred to Hansen under Gore’s direction exceeded $19,000 by several orders of magnitude, though the media seems uninterested in that fact. Instead they focus attention on the “corrupt” practices of a lowly corporate attorney in his legal representation of a bankrupt oil company. As if Mr. Gore wasn’t an attorney using tax money to pay Dr. Hansen to promote the theory of AGW? Where will this nonsense stop?
May I suggest a more liberal use of paragraphing in your future writing? No criticism of content intended, but it’s easier to read if you separate major themes with paragraphs. Just a suggestion, keep the home fires burning, good work and all that!
Thanks for your effort!
Scott.
I have, at last, read all the posts here and am astounded at how many posters refer to Professor Alice Bows-Larkin as “Alice”. I find this very disrespectful as I am sure that these same posters have never been formally introduced to Professor Bows-Larkin and so most certainly has either not been invited to “Please call me Alice” or developed an intimacy that allows them to assume that they can address her as such!
James,
So then, I suppose you disapprove of my referring to her as ‘Missy Alice’? ☺
How about, “Alice, the imbecile”?
I actually referred to her as “Ms. Anita Bonghit” at one point.
So what?
What is your point, Jimmy boy?
Calling her Prof. or Dr. would demean real Dr.s and Prof’s. It’s intentional and deserved for someone like her who is either pure evil or seriously deluded.
I’ll cast my vote for “seriously deluded”.
What you demand we say what we really think?
Alice in the diminutive is at least polite.
Mindless do-gooder encouraging death for all poor people in colder climes is a bit longwinded.
Dear Alice clearly displays the malice of her ignorance and arrogance.
She is Alice Bows-Larkin. She may be a PhD, or whatever, but she is still Alice Bows-Larkin regardless of any study.
James – you are an imbecile. What do you know about intimacy with Alice, the other imbecile in this thread?
We got plenty of imbeciles on this thread. Allen and Karl for starters.
(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)
Mocking ang chiding are not exactly the same as name calling.
Besides, the arguments above are over…you lost.( Or else, go back and make your next comment.)
This is more along the lines of telling jokes while walking home after the game.
How very British of you to defend the Lady’s honor James, most especially the part where you imply some of the commentators have slept with her. Good show!
James Fosser but you can all call me James Fosser
Okay you call it disrespectful. For you. Not me. Respect is earned ever hear that?
In this world with the technical and scientific training required for many of of the merely entry level positions, Alice’s degrees aren’t worth a cup of coffee.
Jimmy, its not the education in any field that entitles you to respect, but rather what you do with that education that sets you apart.
michael
Respect has to be earned. By making the idiotic pronouncements that she has made, she has lost all claim on other people’s respect.
So take your false piety and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Where I live and where I come from, except for in certain formalized situations, people are called by their name, and no one complains about it.
After reading Jimmie-boy’s comment again, I am wondering where the hell he is from, or why he thinks some honorific is called for in this here setting?
His comment seems too snotty to be sarcasm, which is the only way I can see his comment making any sense.
M
Sarcasm/ribbing/jousting among friends who have a solid relationship is a great joy. It is often best between brothers.
It is a high risk form of communication between strangers. In some cultures it’s considered an act of cowardice.
32 Strategies of Warfare by Greene does a much better job of explaining. Essentially, Greene describes how competition has evolved to be subtle vs overt. If I remember correctly, he calls it the feminization of warfare.
Wot? If you don’t subscribe to AGW (or CAGW?), then for what purpose do you ascribe to lowering emissions, and maybe the better question is, which emissions? IOW, why would you care about emissions then (as distinct from pollutants)? Or are you simplistically using emissions as a measure of efficiency…?
Emissions are waste and inefficiency — lowering emissions by more efficient use of energy, and/or by more efficient production of energy means less waste.
What emissions? Only CO2? If so, you are talking rubbish!