Guest essay by Larry Kummer, of the Fabius Maximus website
Summary: The appropriate public policy response to climate change is one of the great issues of our time, driving one of the longest yet inconsequential debates in modern US history. Yet everything comes to an end, eventually. This post speculates what that end might mean for the activists and scientists on each side if they lose. The consequences of defeat might mar the lives of ten thousand people in America (more around the world), yet has been little discussed.
Are you now, or have ever been, a climate denier?
The US public policy debate about climate has run for 28 years, starting the clock from James Hansen’s famous Senate testimony. Although the results have been meager, I suspect it’s like a geological fault. Massive forces moving but locked together, with the stress accumulating year by year. People live on it, complacent since nothing has happened. Then …boom.
There are many possible intermediate outcomes, such as slow political and climate change over generations. We remember the exciting outcomes — ice ages and revolutions — but slow evolution is the most frequent outcome. But sometimes the extreme outcomes become unusually likely. I believe climate is one of them. The political debate has become a game in which nobody claims the pot. It grows to immense size as both sides bet more than they can afford to lose. Each confident of victory; neither prepares for possible ruin. It’s a commonplace in military history.
The outcome will result from a combination of weather and politics, contingent on random (or unpredictable) events. Whatever the outcome, the long-term fate of 21st century climate change might mock it. The good guys often lose in politics.
Here are guesses about some “tail outcomes”, two possible extreme outcomes that illustrate the stakes in this now deadlocked political debate. Either the climate science institutions — and climate scientists — win, or the skeptics win.
Historians might point to this logo as evidence of their self-confidence.
Scenario One: hard times for climate scientists
Climate scientists have staked the reputation of their field on an increased occurrence of extreme weather during the next few years. We have read about future climate apocalypses (amidst other certain forecasts about climate change), the end of snow, the looming monster methane apocalypse, more and bigger hurricanes, and nightmarish futures illuminated only by burning coal (based on RCP8.5). Plus the sixth great extinction (since supposedly 30 thousand species go extinct every year).
As a result Leftists frequently speak casually of our certain doom.
What if most of this proves false? Perhaps we will get continued slow warming, without the devastating increase of extreme weather and disruption of the biosphere? Perhaps people will forget the decades of doomster predictions (seldom contracted by scientists or the major science institutions). Climate scientists will reclaim their bets, without consequences.
Or perhaps the public will lose confidence in climate science (anti-intellectualism has deep roots in US history), a crash in their reputations. If so, government and ngo funding for climate science might vanish like last years’ snow. They’ll rename it (“meteorology” and “earth science” will become poplar names, as scientists rebrand themselves to avoid public mockery).
What do you call a climate scientist? Waiter!
Scenario Two: hard times for climate skeptics
If Trump wins the GOP nomination (likely), and the resulting Democratic landslide takes down the GOP’s Senate and House majorities with him (possible) — expect Congressional “investigative” hearings of skeptics. The results will be unpleasant. But skeptics cannot be easily blacklisted since the major institutions have already cut off most of their funding — and most are either in the private sector (e.g., meteorologists) or well-established with tenure. Younger scientists are protected, most having wisely chosen not to burn their careers on the altar of skepticism — no matter how esteemed it is in science lore.
That’s the mild outcome for skeptics. Their websites will close. They’ll find new causes on the Right, build new hobbies with new communities (as Leftist doomsters have jumped from one certain end-time scenario to another (pollution, overpopulation, Y2K, peak oil, etc).
What if there is severe damage from extreme weather (blamed, of course, on CO2 emissions)? For example, if two cities on the east coasts of Asia or America are hit by large hurricanes — with massive damage and large loss of life. No matter what the buttoned-down scientists deep in the halls of NOAA say (e.g., time needed for study, attribution of weather is difficult), on the next day journalists’ microphones will go to activist scientists announcing their insta-verdicts.
The public uproar might be like nothing we’ve seen since the 1950s, when the unexpected and astonishing Soviet atomic blasts and the fall of China to the red commies led to mass hysteria, “witch hunts” of suspected communists, and loyalty oaths.
The Left is eager to start. They talk about banning them from the news media and suing them. In their fantasies (occasionally displayed to the public) they imagine killing them.
“With climate change becoming increasingly threatening, and decreasingly talked about in the media, we wanted to find a way to bring this critical issue back into the headlines while making people laugh. …Many people found the resulting film extremely funny…”
“The film may have been somewhat tasteless, but it was an imaginative attempt to challenge public apathy over climate change.”
— Statement from the Guardian, a backer of 10:10.
Vengeful Leftists leading an angry public is a combination to fear. Prominent skeptics might be harassed and demonized on a scale far greater than anything seen in generations. “Lukewarmers” might be grilled — “were you ever a skeptic or associated with skeptics?”
History suggests that the only choice Congressional committees will give skeptics is poison or the knife (metaphorically speaking). Fortunately skeptics can easily prepare for these inquisitions by study of medieval confessionals and the accepted forms of self-criticism in Mao’s China. At least they will have lots of company in the dock.
Often unemployment will follow, as companies and universities in self-defense cut them lose (tenure has failed to provide protection in the past, and it is weaker today).
Conclusions
There is no reality-based community in America (as discussed in scores of posts on the FM website, such as Facts are the enemy of both Left and Right in our America). This leaves us ungrounded, liable to extreme and irrational responses to events (as we have seen in our mad wars since 9/11).
The debate about the public response to climate change might provide more evidence if one side wins decisively. With the stakes so high, the reaction of both winners and losers might be dramatic. Oddly, neither side shows any awareness that they might lose — or takes any measures to protect themselves. Time might prove that one side was unwise.
“I offer a toast to the future, the undiscovered country.”
— Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
“.
{A}s I stood sadly at my country’s boundary and looked longingly into the unknown country, which was so near me and yet so far away, some little revelation might be vouchsafed to me…
— From Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1843).
For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, My posts about climate change, and especially these about the policy debate…
- How we broke the climate change debates. Lessons learned for the future.
- My proposal: Climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
- We can end the climate policy wars: demand a test of the models.
- There will be little public policy action by the US to fight climate change – until the weather decides the debate.
- How climate change can help the GOP win in 2016.
- Why skeptics will lose the US climate policy debate.
Larry Kummer has consistently misinterpreted the climate debate as strictly political. That is an impoverished representation, in that there is a large group that is skeptical by reason of analysis.
That is especially true here at WUWT, where a large community of rational — not political — skeptics can be found.
Among the population at large skepticism is produced by the fact that many people see clearly that nothing peculiar is going on with the weather. This is a common-sense approach to the issue, and one that cannot be fully negated by the incessant drumbeat of alarmist propaganda.
The obvious disparity between experience and propaganda serves merely to harden this commonsense skepticism. Neither of Larry’s politics-only scenarios seem credible.
It seems more likely to me that the serious consequence of climate alarm will be that all of science loses credibility, not just climate science. The reason is that all of institutional science has loudly and publicly bought into the doomsday scenario.
We’re going to pay a big price for that willful and large-scale betrayal of scientific integrity. After it’s all over, expect everyone from anti-vacciners to creationists to make hay from that betrayal. ‘They lied about climate, and they’re lying about (vaccines, autism, evolution, chemtrails, etc., etc.) too!‘ So will the cries be against science and scientists.
From my own work, I know that the claim of a huge CO2 effect on climate is unsubstantiated by any science. There is no particular prospect that this state of ignorance will change in the foreseeable future.
There is also no particular visible indication of an impact of CO2 on climate. I.e., the engineering approach to the climate problem cannot find a problem. See Mike Kelly’s recent open-access paper about the lack of any change in frequency of extreme weather (pdf).
The likely outcome is that climate will warm or cool or cycle around however it chooses. Even though climate alarmists will yell more or less loudly, depending on positive or negative trends, respectively, in air temperature, the public will lose interest; as it should.
Politicians will continue to pose as the opportunity arises. But the price will be paid by science, because the scientific establishment knowingly, consciously, and willfully politicized itself. This is the true offense, and it is nearly mortal.
Consequent discredit of science and scientists is where the negative outcome will be concentrated. The existence of those of us who spoke out probably won’t ameliorate the negative impact.
When it’s finally revealed how dishonestly, or incompetently, or both, establishment science has behaved for the last 25 years(!) and counting, the public is going to rise up in disgust. Once that happens, my guess is that it will take generations of strictly ethical behavior to regain the stature science had among the public before this all started.
Pat, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I for one am already in that boat. I find myself on the brink of sharing some astounding or interesting science news with someone – even things from the past – and as I form the words, “scientists have found,” everything crumbles, my enthusiasm especially. Instead of launching into what I had thought of as an interesting topic, I have to admit that I don’t know anymore because I don’t know what funding was involved or what the motive was to produce such a paper.
I hate that because I know that on sites like this one, it’s the scientists who are working so hard to put it right again. Real science is so important and real scientists so vital to what we know and learn, but already I doubt everything every one of them has ever claimed. Yes, I know there are good and honest ones. I meet a lot of them right here, and yes, it’s wonderful that I am prompted to dig in and check it all out myself, but I do hate the distrust that has developed and the way it is the first response to spring forward now.
I understand your point exactly, A.D. I’ve lost my joy in science because of the betrayal all around us, especially by physicists.
My faith in the tough-minded integrity of scientists is gone. I still carry out my own work with pleasure, as before. But the greater vision of the community of science as the unfailing hope of the future has corroded into rust.
At the risk of repeating the responses of others; hammer, nail, head.
And you’re quite right, it won’t simply be climastrology degrees being quietly dropped due to ‘lack of demand’ from university curriculums, science in general will be tarred with the untrustworthy brush for a generation.
I guess it will take the urgency of a general war before any branch of science is getting much funding once the odious gullible warming dust has settled.
I’m interested to see though what other casualties will be added to the butcher’s bill once public apathy for gullible warming turns into something more vengeful.
How will corporations who climbed aboard the band-wagon fare with respect to public reputation; will a disgruntled public decide that since Google were milking the gullible warming cause for all it was worth, they’re probably dodgey so-and-sos who are best avoided with your personal information?
How about oil companies who claimed to ‘care’ about climate impacts when it should be obvious to all and sundry that they opportunistically exploited stupidity to try and earn an extra buck at the expense of coal? Maybe much maligned ExxonMobil will emerge as the trustworthy good ole’ boys since their CEO publically said “ExxonMobil won’t fake it on climate change” in response to the collective Euro companies’ two faced declaration prior to Paris; the one urging world bureaucrats to ‘put a price on carbon’, you know, to save the planet. And while they were at it, switching power generation to gas would be good for the children’s children…
Will any of the financial institutions who have advocated a policy of divesment from reliable energy investment be sued for loss of earnings by pissed off investors in under-performing funds who moved their capital into ‘clean’ energy companies?
How long will Elon Musk stay out of gaol once it dawns on joe public that the guy really is a snake-oil salesman who not only ripped off politically gorrect punters, but ripped off taxpayers en-masse by means of the subsidies and tax breaks his company has scammed?
Will the Catholic Church have extra trouble raising money in collection plates after trying a political hat on over the top of their god botherer’s hat?
Will any political, lobbyist or advisory bodies be crucified in return for their posturing on gullible warming? IPeCaC will of course be disbanded, but how will the UN in general fare? (hopefully poorly, that’s another crippled old ass that should have put out to pasture long ago), if the EUssr even survives that long (which seems rather unlikely), will the collapse of the gullible warming cause be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back?
How many mainstream political parties will finally go to their long homes once voters realise they’re bang-out of fresh policy ideas and newer ‘insurgent’ parties at least have some new thinking?
Will the International Energy Agency finally be laughed out of existence?
Will Greenpr!cks, WWF et al see the writing on the wall and put sufficient distance between themselves and the cause to maintain a loyal donor base or will they go down with the ship?
I agree with Catweazle, this could be a mildly entertaining implosion and it’s not so much longer to wait.
It’s such an appalling shame that the cost of admission was gob-smackingly expensive though.
So Gore wants to prosecute his ‘foes’ – when he ‘wins’. The man is not fit to lick the boots of a far greater man, one who knew a lot more about struggling and winning: Churchill – who said:
Imagining the Warmists winning is like imagining ISIS winning.
The results for the losers will be similar.
The religious tenets of the two groups differ, but their political aims are the same: destruction of western civilization.
Two posting ago you promised that would be your last posting on this topic, yet you demonstrate you are as reliable as all in Climatology.
Sorry Larry but option 3 applies,
The costs come home to roost on the bill payers,shoving them into real poverty they see how they are receiving a lot less for very much higher costs and boot the politicians concerned.
Academia fades away, claiming we never said that, the media left out our caveats and we always knew climate was cyclic and or chaotic…
The media will pick a new doom to sell, denying ever having pushed CAGW/CC/ C.C.C
The costs are coming home, even Hawaii is apparently finding wind too expensive to maintain.
We are collectively about to reap the rewards of uncontrolled spending by governments worldwide,the cost of which will be born by the taxpayers and savers in every liberal democracy.
Being impoverished by a massive scheme to rob the many, for the enrichment of the well connected few, using planetary doom via pixie dust as a cover.
Great scheme until the marks get angry.
In case you have not noticed, the signs are abundant that the marks are very angry and “Good enough for government” no longer cuts it.
The notion that the end game will be extreme is absurd.
If we take the case of skeptics being “silenced” by force, it would mean that the political elite no longer has any reason not to act, and enormous pressure from “scientists” to do so. They won’t, because they understand the economic calamity that would result, and which would sweep them from power in the next election. Actions against skeptics are just for show. Without skeptics to blame for their inaction, the political elite cannot drag their feet on the issues they know would sink them at the polls (or in less civilized countries, via revolt)
It does raise a different question though. How far does this show boating go before Big Fossil actually drops the gloves and puts some real money into the public debate?
“How far does this show boating go before Big Fossil actually drops the gloves and puts some real money into the public debate?”
It remains eminently possible that the insanity has even infected Big Fossil itself. As we’ve seen, virtually all large bureaucratic organisations inevitable support the politically correct mantras of the day. I don’t think it’s totally all about grant money but seems to have a dimension of all organisations when large enough are by default liberal and progressive. It is literally inconceivable that a significant institution would ever turn around and say global warming is a crock – and furthermore we don’t believe mass Muslim immigration into Western cultures is a particularly good idea. Consequently nothing will be done about these things unless there is a major popular uprising and overthrow of the establishment. Hate to say it but cannot see any other rational path out of the nightmare.
And yet someone who just might be the next president is saying exactly those two thing.
I agree, the outcome is unlikely to be extreme for either side. There won’t be any purges or gulags. But I do think that things will get quite uncomfortable for client scientists. Firstly, because the activities of some scientists have caused many people to associate the whole field with scaremongering and exaggeration. This will make it an easy target for politicians and university administrators looking to cut research spending or close down a source of bad publicity. Secondly, the politicians who have endorsed alarmist positions will need an “out” when it becomes inconveniently clear that any potential dangers from AGW have been grossly exaggerated to serve political goals. Once they decide that it’s a major political liability they will make climate scientists the scapegoats for their own actions. Climate science will lose the majority of its funding and will spend a couple of decades as an obscure and somewhat embarrassing specialism that’s seen as the last resort if you can’t get into anything better. Then a new generation of scientists for whom this is all ancient history will get excited about the big unanswered questions of the Earth’s climate, and climate science will return to prominence without all the political baggage.
Oops, that should be “climate” not “client” in the third sentence.
I wouldn’t worry to much about climate doomsters. Their party, in partcular, exhibits (to quote Emerson) “a surprising fugacity in creeping out of one snake-skin into another of equal ignominy and lubricity.”
State attorneys general prepare to wage lawfare, using the nation’s legal machinery to harass and damage their political foes
“NY AG Schneiderman, VA AG Mark Herring, Former VP Al Gore, Other AGs Announce Effort to Combat Climate Change“
An example of an activist dehumanized by two decades of the climate wars
There are lots of these people out there.
Or, just another nutjob, fruitbat expressing his own personal opinion. There are lots of those (nutjob fruitbats) out there FM. It doesn’t prove any of your points at all.
And the AG’s had a meeting and pledged their undying support for the presidents Clean Power Plan. They filed a brief to “defend the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan” against legal challenge.” They filed a brief Larry, that doesn’t do anything at all except show which side of the issue they support.
It’s against the LAW to attempt to stop it from being legally challenged! And according to the NCSL:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/states-reactions-to-proposed-epa-greenhouse-gas-emissions-standards635333237.aspx
“In fact, various research shows that the Clean Power Plan is the most heavily litigated federal environmental regulation in U.S. history.”
It’s a little late to try to defend it against legal action!
the “debate” will go on ad infinitum, because the case for CAGW is axiomatic, rather than empirical. It can’t be refuted by any amount of evidence or argument. No matter how much time passes without catastrophe, some will always claim that the catastrophe is just around the corner, that the tipping point is nearing.
So it’s more a question of how long will it take for one side of the other to be so marginalized as to be either politically or scientifically insignificant. I would say that will hinge on two factors. One is a lack of warming, even cooling, over a period of decades. People lose interest when nothing much happens that actually effects them. The other factor is that something of far greater interest and immediate import replaces these vague and insubstantial concerns. Already, despite warnings from the usual suspects, Climate Change is among the least vital of public concerns. At some point even environmentalists will move on to other causes. But they will face no consequences.
The current threat of legal consequences is merely a move to shift the debate away from facts of science towards facts of politics, where facts are far more malleable and can be voted on rather than backed by evidence. It’s a sign of desperation, and not a winning strategy.
This is an interesting essay.
For one thing, maybe they will have to finally give a definition as to what a skeptic is vs. what a lukewarmer is. I wonder what that definition will be, and if it will match my personal definition of same.
On net, I think that the issue will fade away over the next 20 years since we are headed into a cooling time or a time where there is very little warming much like the last 20 years. I think the public gets tired of hearing about climate and since the alarmism was only ever supported by the government to make it stronger (to “protect” us) it will fade away as terrorism has taken its place as the big threat requiring you to trade away all your freedoms (as if any were left) for a little security. (cue Ben Franklin)
Obama will go out with a lot of sound a furry over “skeptics” (he will use the D-word of course) but the next person will not feel compelled to keep walking down that tired old road.
One warning though; we live in a police state and if the federal government decides to cage, fine, torture, or kill people based on their scientific beliefs don’t look to a worthless piece of paper called the Constitution to protect you. After all, the state itself decides what that piece of paper says. And hell, GITMO is just sitting there underutilized.
~Mark
I would demand my CO2 footprint be weighed against my accusers as proof that my opinions didn’t impede the reduction of CO2. In fact you might find that the footprints of 100 top sceptics weighed massively less than 100 prominent campaigners for CO2. You don’t need to be very abstemious to beat DiCaprio or Gore or Prince Charles. Or did I get it wrong and the whole AGW thing isn’t about CO2 at all?
If sceptics vanish then there will be no excuses left to not reduce CO2. They’ll have to admit they have no idea how to do it other than by embracing horrible hardship. If they want the West to act unilaterally, why not the half that believes, acts first? Not one sceptic would stop them from paying for the alternative energy out of their own pocket. They can stop flying, become vegetarian, downsize, insulate their homes, clothe their kids in recycled garments and walk everywhere. What’s stopping them?
“In fact you might find that the footprints of 100 top sceptics weighed massively less than 100 prominent campaigners for CO2. You don’t need to be very abstemious to beat DiCaprio or Gore or Prince Charles.”
All of these guys will claim carbon neutrality through supporting tree planting or some such whereas you putting your kettle on are a planet killer.
There is always great information discussed on this site. But I am curious when will the real reason for all of this actually begin to be discussed. The patterns all lean toward 2020 through 2030. Even when the present weather patterns are expected to show a turn around 2020. is this truly just a coincidence. hmmm
Up here in Canada the politicians are pushing CAGW, our new prime minister sunny boy Trudeau is looking at a country wide carbon tax. Ontario shutting down coal plants, carbon tax, pushing wind and solar as a result energy costs skyrocketing. Alberta shutting down its coal plants, carbon tax also pushing wind, energy costs rising. British Columbia carbon tax while trying to export oil and gas, wacko. Then add Australia with its carbon push.
David Suzuki that angry little old man wanting to jail sceptics and he having spent time in a Japanese relocation camp. Oh he and his sea level homes.
I don’t see the religion dying just yet.
David Suzuki is going to be ranting about the temp in hell pretty soon where it really is kinda warm
Last week Mr Editor boldly stated that the skeptics will lose the policy debate and that his prediction success rate was “quite high”.
He also predicted that essay “Why skeptics will lose the US climate policy debate” (re-framed as ‘could’ for WUWT consumption) was the final in his climate series, a prediction that has been falsified within a week.
Skeptics out there take heart, your chances of being burned at the stake are, well, quite low.
You and I and several others have openly pointed out the flawed logic and strange biases in the unsupported opinions of a certain editor. I tend to think we are not a minority except in our vocality. Of course, I have the ability to recognize and openly admit that is nothing more than my own unsupported opinion. 🙂
If Trump/Drumpf gets the Republican Ticket Hillary will be president, soooo dump Drumpf, pleasssssse
Hmm surly you mean human caused “climate change” or anthropogenic doom of some description, you gave me the impression that you have no clue what you were rambling on about.
Why would you? your opinion suggests that some people believe that earth has a stable climate that humans are changing, this sir is your imagination, humans look after their environments believe it or not we do no harm and our intentions a good.
Germany and England are now building new coal plants and increasing subsidies for renewables.
England is phasing out all coal and reducing subsidies for renewables
1. I also believe that the most likely result for a Hillary/Trump race will be a landslide for Hillary, a Democrat Senate, and perhaps a Democrat House. But, I don’t think that there will be much action like Mr. Kummer describes. Those majorities will be evanescent. 2018 will be like 2010 and 2014. Further, the Senate is for structural reasons unfriendly to environmental legislation. There are too many farm states, and mining states. Obama couldn’t get a carbon tax through the Senate when he had 60 votes to pass Obamacare.
2. I think that it more likely that we have seen peak temperatures with the El Nino in 2015, than that temperatures will continue to increase. But, I also think that the world will be a happier place it is warmer. Crop yields are far more likely increase than they are to decrease. Growing seasons will be longer, and plants love having more CO2. Tropical diseases have nothing to do with the temperature. They are a result of poverty and poor government. As for weather, it seems more likely to become less violent as the temperature difference between the arctic and the tropics, which is its primary driver, decreases. Further, weather related deaths are also produced by poverty and poor government.
When the Left can no longer use global warming/climate change to push their agenda, it will fade away, as if it never happened. The Left will find new causes to push the same agenda.
Skeptics win, nothing changes. Except the name of the New Terror. Ocean acidification or whatever. This whole deal is politics, not science. And politics doesn’t change.
I should add that there are a number of looming crises that could push climate completely out of the arena and onto the back pages.
1. The Muslim war on Europe continues to grow and spread. Bombings and mass rapes become the new normal.
2. The US southern border collapses completely because of deliberate weakening by Hillary, who has promised it to garner Hispanic votes.
3. The attack on policing combined with a flood of illegal immigrants produces increased gang warfare in US cities.
4. There is a major recession. We average a recession about every 8 years. The last one was in 2007-2009. The last recession pooped a housing bubble. A new one is forming to replace that one.
5. The Fed loses control of interest rates and they jump back to levels they were at a few years ago. They could blow a huge hole in the Federal budget just at the time when flexibility is needed to cope with the recession.
6. Social Security Disability exhausts its trust fund and must cut payments. It only has a couple of years worth of money on hand, a recession could kill it.
7. Chinese brinksmanship in the South China sea results in a war that cuts off trade.
8. Terrorists obtain a crude nuclear weapon and destroy a large city in Europe. Terrorists hold governments hostage, populations panic, world economy collapses, …
9. Unstoppable deadly new virus, worldwide pandemic, billions infected …
10. Iran …
11. N. Korea …
…
XX. The Chicago Cubs win the World Series
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Not worried about XX
To establish a “scientific consensus” the federal government needs to first register all relevant scientists and have them vote on the AGW conjecture. If such consensus establishes scientific fact, then the Ptolemaic model of the universe should be taught as established scientific fact and all who believe the contrary should be burned at the stake.
I have a problem with BenBen concept of a civil debate. I am an engineer in the power industry but I will lose a debate with a Sierra Club lawyer every day of the week. I offer BenBen as proof. Wind and solar is not a viable technology to replace fossil fuels but he thinks it is for some reason or other.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
I would suggest doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing. BenBen likes to provide links. That is a plus for winning a debate but is a minus for knowing what the right to do is because the links are junk science.
“False. Dead wrong.”
Well actually I think that BenBen is more accurate than RACook in this case. RA gets a plus for the use of hyperbole for winning a debate. RA is just making stuff up. The ignorant debating the ignorant.
It is easy to provide examples. For example, Columbia Generating Station tripped monday afternoon as can be seen here: http://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
You should be writing Op-Eds, Kit P. Or analytical articles for professional journals. The considered views of expertise like yours is in serious need of public exposure.
Retired Kit P
What “stuff” do you believe I am making up? Please be specific. Your own link for Canada’s wind deliveries over a 6 day period shows ONE period of near 4000, one-half day at 3000, and the rest at zero. Wind is useful only for generating subsidies for wind power advocates, wind power companies and academics, and their government-sponsors and the donations and publicity those advocates give to their government bureaucrats who continue funding those subsidies.
“look for life cycle assessments”
LCAs are a good reason to build coal or nuke plants and not windfarms. I am still waiting for wind and solar to live up to performance in LCA academic exercise.
CO2 is a very insignificant factor. Wind and solar have the same amount of hazardous waste as nuclear.
If Co2 was the demon it’s made to be and the worlds climate is changing because of it why are they changing past temps to prove their theory ??
Burn me at the stake come judgement day , medium rare thanks
It’s not a debate, Larry. The term “debate” implies a level of restraint, of mutual respect, that is totally absent from the climate scrum. There are a few polite scientists; they are mostly sceptics and some of them hang out at WUWT, but their civilised, rational arguments tend to be drowned out by levels of acrimony and verbal abuse coming from both sides, that are more consonant with a religious or political conflict than with a scientific debate. Which of course it is – both political and religious (the “pro” side involves a very strong element of belief without the need for supporting evidence). You don’t have debates between opposed religious or political factions, you just have groundless assertions “I’m right” “No, I’m right” – and the faction that shouts the loudest and gathers the most adherents, is the one that prevails.
Also, Larry, not only is it not a debate, it’s not an American “debate”. It is a global phenomenon that seems to have permeated countries to levels that can be roughly correlated with their level of wealth. The USA does exert an influence because of its size and power, but it by no means controls what happens elsewhere.
How will it end? Who the heck knows. But I suspect it will gradually fade from the consciousness of the public and the political class as more years go by without any substantial warming trend, possibly with undeniable cooling even, and as other issues become more pressing. The most obvious candidate for a future pressing issue is the rise of Islamism of course, but who knows what concerns will arise in the future. Nobody has a crystal ball.