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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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When I was a teenager I was exposed to survivors of the holocaust. And wondered along with many others how did it come to this, and how could so many be taken in.
Deniers then were a very small persecuted group, sound familiar?
Its not that long ago in the big scheme of life, and there are people who remember, even if we are laughed at by the so called educated, degree holding experts (drips under pressure).
I don’t need a degree to remember that we are savage, or can be savage given the right set of circumstances, I think many have forgotten.
Up to this point, the debate concerning what, if anything, needs to be done about climate change has been mere kibbuke theater. That debate will never reach critical mass unless and until the Federal Government begins demanding serious sacrifice on the part of the American public in the service of greatly reducing our carbon emissions.
President Obama wants an 80% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2050. It is impossible to reach the President’s goal without raising the price of all fossil fuels and without imposing direct constraints on their supply and availability.
Nothing short of raising the price of all fossil fuels and applying an aggressively enforced system of anti-carbon regulations could ever be successful in forcing the lifestyle changes and the technology transitions needed to fully achieve the President’s 2050 goal.
The EPA has full authority to regulate all sources of America’s GHG emissions, not just those of the electric utility industry. In addition to putting a price on carbon, the goal of an 80% reduction in America’s GHG emissions demands that the full resources and authority of the EPA be brought to bear on the problem.
But so far, the Obama Administration has chosen not to use the full power and authority of the EPA in pushing its climate change agenda.
The administration has instead pushed the Clean Power Plan — a plan which is mostly gesture politics in that it covers less than a quarter of the GHG reductions needed to meet the President’s 2050 goal, and that it piggybacks on an already extant market-driven transition towards reliance on natural gas.
Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump this fall in a landslide election of massive proportions. The fall election could well see control of the US Congress revert to the Democratic Party. This is an event which could and should be interpreted as a mandate from the voters for the Federal Government to begin taking serious action on climate change.
What if a Democrat controlled Congress refuses to put a price on carbon, and what if President Clinton refuses to apply the full regulatory authority of the EPA in pushing strong anti-carbon measures?
If that’s the way it happens after Hillary Clinton is sworn in as our next president, there will be positive proof the Democrats are using the issue of climate change as nothing more than a political talking point for gaining the support of environmentally conscious voters.
The future of CAGW is dependent on the next/other crisis/crises (reality, not talk), not who does or not a win a ‘debate’. The general public and media have no idea what is coming next as surely as the sun rises in the east.
There is currently a race on which will come first significant planetary cooling or an economic crisis. Either new issue will end the climate wars. There will be no money to spend on green scams that do not work and there will be public panic and political pressure to address the real problems, not a made up problem.
The 1990s and 2000s were a weird cycle, a weird paradigm, the rise of the term deniers and other 1984 type propaganda labeling, unending new government spending on new issues which the government must spend money that it does not have on programs that do not work.
The peak of the cycle was books published such as:
Do deficits matter? http://www.amazon.com/Do-Deficits-Matter-Daniel-Shaviro/dp/0226751120
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate http://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Capitalism-Climate/dp/1451697392
The weird paradigm was possible as reason and responsibility (i.e. logic/independent thought, independent scientific, engineering, and economic analysis, the normal weighing of alternatives, prioritizing of problems, costing of proposals, the need to balance budgets) was removed from the formation of public policy. To question the pillars of the paradigm was/is to be a denier or an evil right winger.
The cult of CAGW was only one example.
The problem is there is a delay in public/political realization that there are real unavoidable consequences of governments spending more than their countries’ have to spend on idiotic schemes that do not work in addition to unbelievable waste due to ridiculously large, inefficient, and unneeded government departments/programs and super government (EU and UN) bureaucracies.
The Japanese are the leaders in deficit spending. The Japanese tabloids are warning of a run on their banks if the Japanese try to take their money out.
The Japanese accumulated debt is now 260% of their GDP. The old rule of thumb was the limit of manageable accumulated debt is 70% of GDP. The US accumulated debt is 109% of GDP however the US future unfunded liabilities, increases the total US accumulated debt to around 300% of GDP, if future unfunded liabilities is included.
The knowledgeable insiders are stating that it is better for the GOP to lose the presidential election as the next president will have an impossible problem: Ridiculous public expectations and a complete lack of public understanding of the real problems and what will be forced to be done to address the real problems. There will need to be a crisis before there is a change.
Quantitative easing (fancy name for printing more money), zero interest rates, and negative interest rates were/are the end of the road.
“… 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). …”
___
Is this different?
The story of the Emperor’s New Cloths was not invented from thin air. It’s resounding commentary on the human condition, its social spectrum-disorder, its illusions, its ubiquitous mechanism and desire to imposing fear to coerce and force with lies.
Fooling others by hook or by crook is situation-normal, and having a majority of frightened fools is likewise situation-normal.
Believe nothing, don’t react to hype, test everything, don’t accept things that you don’t actually know, don’t let others ‘lead’. Don’t live in fear of people, words or concepts, steer clear of political clamors, people who represent government and other emperors are mercenary, disingenuous, antagonistic and exploitative. If they express a desire to ‘help you’, there’s a better than even chance they’re about to do you grave personal harm.
Never smile at a crocodile
No, you can’t get friendly with a crocodile
Don’t be taken in by his welcome grin
He’s imagining how well you’d fit within his skin
I dunno, but to me the posts by Benben, Seth and SImon appear to be nothing short of cut and pastes from pre-loaded alarmist sites.
An entire article about our Rulers and no mention of the Bilderberg gang? HAHAHA.
Larry, there just isn’t going to be any troublesome climate change. The idea was a political invention in the first place, a poor place to start a science on. However, proof is not a factor in the game. Propaganda and lies supported by government funding is all you need. Besides, some of the alarmists have morphed from opposite positions (Ehrlic, Holdren from ice age to thermageddon in their lifetimes, both theories supported by the same cause!) We are really fighting for freedom here and that is the scariest and most probable scenario. There is not going to be a gentlemen’s agreement with apologies all around if the CAGW keeps going the way it has – not in the warmist’s favor. The left has a naturally imposed timeline to give one last shot to a world socialist government. The population is going to peak (its already 80% there) and prosperity will ensue. This is the worry of the totalitarians. There won’t be scary futures peddle, at least convincingly once we reach this plateau (and it starts to decline naturally to a below peak level.
Scenario 3: Climate Scientists publicly ignore the mounting evidence that they’re wrong while incrementally moving out the timeframe and severity of the “crisis”; never admitting that this climate crisis is just like the population bomb and all the other dooms that came before it. The public attention shifts further and further from the climate scaremongers and they shout louder and louder until they’re shouting into a vacuum. The skeptics don’t fare much better as the attention wanes from climate they’re left congratulating themselves with no acknowledgement from any authority or institution unwilling to admit they were duped.
Both climate scare and skeptic books collect dust in forgotten places while the world moves on to the next crisis: Tay attempting world takeover.
When Trump wins he’ll neither support nor oppose CAGWers – nothing to gain, and their fundings melting fast with their apparatuses that will be fed.
Clinton the same: green voters my have some ambitions, but whatfor go into conflict with more then half of the people, not to say approximately half the senate.
Either way silence comes soon.
Don’t no what persons he surrounds with, FabMax fits his nom de guerre with that unbased fantasies.
Does anyone see a resemblance of Benben to Caitecaite?
I see a resemblance to our next door neighbor’s 12-year old…
They make good lab rats too.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160331105728.htm
benben: “The mechanical stresses on wind turbines are if anything lower.”
Oh dear,
Funny thing, a good friend of mine in the engineering industry is rubbing his hands in glee having just landed a very lucrative contract rebuilding broken wind turbine gearboxes and knackered bearings which have failed at less than half their design life.
The biggest problem is with bearings which are running right at the corner of their envelope due to the dreaded square-cube law and a phenomenon called “false brinelling” generally caused by an incomplete understanding of the harmonic effects caused by blade flutter.
Some offshore turbines are starting to suffer from “scour”, due to they didn’t bother consulting the oil rig boys before they designed the supporting piers.
Sounds to me like liberals have their own special kind of engineering. They believe it will work therefore it does. It comes complete with a 97% consensus, an endless supply of taxpayer funding, and special non-scientific laws that are beyond debate and they have computer models to prove it. It doesn’t work with the exception that it is really good at transferring authority from the people to the government with fully funded University approval.
The scientific communities are all setting up for catastrophe when reality overwhelms grant-seeking schemes to save the world from the end of civilization du jour their “research” predicts.
Every scientific association, with the possible exception of IEEE, has gone “all in” in the government grant boo-ray game. The others have all fallen into what Harry Browne, two-time libertarian presidential candidate and investment advice author called the “prior investment trap.” —
“I know I am in over my head and have a losing hand, but I have so much invested that I can’t afford to quit now!”