CNBC breaks with the climate disaster narrative of MSM

Surprising Story Coming From CNBC says Paris Climate Accord is “irrelevant” and cuts would “impoverish the world”

Jack Simmons writes:

When I first started reading this story, I had to do a double take.

CNBC-climate-accord

Not only was story accurate regarding the costs of trying to live up to the Paris accord, but it was being given prominence from a news organization I would have thought was a reliable supporter of the CAGW meme.

Notice also the source of the information was characterized as a scientist not a denier. A peer reviewed scientist at that.

Is there some sort of shift going on in the MSM world?

Here is one comment made by the author:

” In order to decarbonize the power sector within the next 40 years, the world would have to invest at least $9 trillion — and an additional $6.4 trillion to make other industries more environmentally friendly.”

None of this is new to someone familiar with the costs of ‘fighting climate change.’ What is new is someone in the MSM universe acknowledging the consequences of actually trying to live up to these accords.

Full story: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/04/climate-accord-irrelevant-and-co2-cuts-could-impoverish-the-world-scientist.html

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

222 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Latitude
June 5, 2016 12:35 pm

It’s all signs of the apocalypse…
First it was CNN, then MSNBC, then NBC
Now the chief executive of wind industry trade body…says there’s not enough wind in England for windmills
…so no more windmills
England not windy enough, admits wind industry chief
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/04/england-not-windy-enough-admits-wind-industry-chief/

John Harmsworth
Reply to  Latitude
June 5, 2016 5:14 pm

Can’t they run a pipeline from Scotland? I suppose the Socialists would demand their wind back or claim it was killing jobs for the Union of Part-time Windmill Turners.

E.M.Smith
Editor
June 5, 2016 12:42 pm

Even his estimate of costs is way low. He finds $9 Trillion for electrical power and only $6.4 Trillion for everything else. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry has 806 million cars and light trucks on the road. Using a low $20,000 for replacement cost, that is $16 Trillion alone.
Transportation is something like 90% oil driven, so to ruduce oil burning it requires trashing all those cars and replacing them with what? Teslas at $80, 000 each? To deliver things to markets and factories? This is even with ignoring ships and Diesel trains…
The average car lifetime in America it approaching 12 years. That is 2028 for cars made today. We simply can not eliminate oil burning without fleet change, and we can’t change the fleet fast enough to meet the “goals”. We don’t have the money to do it, or the time to get it done, even if we were buying non-oil cars today, and we are not.
I suspect the article is reflecting the link to a comment by Jack Welch (linked in the article) that the cost is too high … Prior CEO of GE that owns NBC… so likely a safe view there, now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch

H.R.
Reply to  E.M.Smith
June 5, 2016 3:10 pm

@E.M.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

H.R.
Reply to  H.R.
June 5, 2016 3:56 pm

… which we don’t have.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Gary Pearse
June 6, 2016 8:05 am

Is this a problem?
How would you feed, clothe and transport people without the cars and trucks and businesses today?
Phrasing it differently, how many people do you want killed in squalor and poverty and illness just so the world “feels” the way “you” want it to feel so YOU feel good?

TA
June 5, 2016 12:45 pm

Of all the Leftwing tv channels, I would think CNBC (the Business Channel) would be the most likely to challange the Alarmists CAGW theory.
The people who work for CNBC do, after all, have to look at the actual numbers when reporting on a subject. Not all of the reporters on CNBC are leftwing.

E.M.Smith
Editor
Reply to  TA
June 5, 2016 1:00 pm

Note that their Dear Leader Emeritus, Jack Welch, said it was too expensive… they now have organizational top cover of a sort…

Tom Judd
June 5, 2016 12:50 pm

Geez; Trump’s not even elected yet and he’s starting to have an effect.

Marcus
Reply to  Tom Judd
June 5, 2016 2:04 pm

…Arrrg ! I mentioned his name and I got SNIPPED !! LOL

June 5, 2016 12:55 pm

“Michael Kelly in fact accepts the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, in 2014 that human-generated CO2 has been responsible for more than half the globe’s warming since 1950.”
“In 2010,Michael Kelly was named by the Royal Society and the University of East Anglia to an independent scientific assessment panel to investigate the Climatic Research Unit email controversy.The panel concluded that there was “no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit.”
Michael Kelly has no qualifications in climate science nor is he an economist…

Bob Lyman
Reply to  spaatch
June 5, 2016 6:32 pm

Michael Kelly is an engineer who teaches at Oxford University. Challenge the man’s analysis, not the letters behind his name.

gnomish
Reply to  spaatch
June 5, 2016 7:12 pm

Because you are so honest and pure, spaatch, I know you want everybody to apply your argument to everything you just said so as to avoid any taint of hypocrisy.
Pwn3d.

MRW
Reply to  spaatch
June 5, 2016 7:44 pm

Michael Kelly has no qualifications in climate science.

Nor did anyone who graduated before 1979, the first year a climate science PhD was created at the University of Wisconsin.
Climate scientists traditionally had hard science degrees like physics, astronomy, geology, mathematics, chemistry.
This is M.J. Kelly’s bio: http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/network/michael-kelly/

Reply to  spaatch
June 6, 2016 2:20 pm

Prof Kelly was appointed to the panel as one of four “unbiased” members of the Oxburg Panel (NOT the e-mail Panel. Steve McIntyre highlights Prof Kelly’s notes (that were excluded from the final report) here:
https://climateaudit.org/2010/06/22/kellys-comments/
Can we please stop the circular firing squad that aims at those in agreement with our skepticism?
Prof Kelly is and has been one of the good guys:

“Up to and throughout this exercise, I have remained puzzled how the real humility of the scientists in this area, as evident in their papers, including all these here, and the talks I have heard them give, is morphed into statements of confidence at the 95% level for public consumption through the IPCC process. This does not happen in other subjects of equal importance to humanity, e.g. energy futures or environmental degradation or resource depletion. I can only think it is the ‘authority’ appropriated by the IPCC itself that is the root cause.”

Bill Treuren
June 5, 2016 12:58 pm

The big story is that the business based CNBC are starting to understand that there may be a big story in CO2 reduction through coal to natural gas usage.
leaving coal in the ground even for the US could be largely neutral if not regionally.
Secondly oils strength is market mobility gas less so but with massive LNG development this issue is less of an issue.
The oil majors would see this as a great way of shifting the supply center from the Middle East to more favorable regions. Yes the US or us.

John Harmsworth
Reply to  Bill Treuren
June 5, 2016 5:23 pm

Nat gas is in over supply right now. In a more normal price environment it sucks horribly compared to coal. There’s nothing wrong with coal in modern plants if it’s mined responsibly.

John Loop
June 5, 2016 1:03 pm

I may be stoopid, but I could not find the story anyway shape or how going to cnbc.com until I searched for the author…. Not exactly very visible? I could not find “environment” and nothing came up when I searched environment. I can see when I get there that it is cnbc.com/environment, but it looks like a hidden link to me. …I do see it popped up on their “most popular links” HOW did it ever get there?

June 5, 2016 1:12 pm

The wheels of the CAGW bandwagon are beginning to fall off around the developed world. Germany limiting the rate of wind turbine additions, UK looking at laws to reverse the excesses of mindless green tariffs, and so on.
The physical laws and economics of electric power production cannot be changed by political fiat. The “inertia” of those beautiful systems have been carrying on despite “watermelon” assaults, increased consumer costs notwithstanding. We do, however, reach inevitable tipping points where the poor freeze in the dark and die in heat waves because they cannot afford electricity and power grids exceed their system stability limits, which will result in massive blackouts. Those hard facts are now coming about in first world economies.
Power grid operators are desperately juggling their remaining assets, going to the extreme extent of actually paying huge excess tariff rates to conventional generation sources. You and I are paying for phony climate scientists and politicians’ high-flying junkets to the vacation spots of the world to pat themselves on the back for their superior “enlightened understanding.” Will we see them around to accept responsibility for their actions?
Dave Fair

Reply to  dogdaddyblog
June 5, 2016 2:22 pm

UK is in serious difficulties. I suspect the politicians who supported the strangling Climate Change Act of 2008 will shortly be held to account.

Analitik
Reply to  ristvan
June 5, 2016 9:19 pm

Denmark, too.They’re finally acknowledging that wind farms are driving up the cost of their electricity and are looking to remove one of the major subsidies. As you’d expect, the wind industry is bleating.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-05/denmark-scares-off-investors-after-energy-agenda-is-jettisoned

Reply to  ristvan
June 6, 2016 4:55 am

Unfortunately, in the UK, all but 2 or 3 politicians supported the CCA act!

Tom in Florida
June 5, 2016 1:37 pm

“Surprising Story Coming From CNBC says Paris Climate Accord is “irrelevant” and cuts would “impoverish the world””
Well, it all started when the Eagles got back together.

pat
June 5, 2016 3:43 pm

24 May: CambridgeUniversityPress: Cambridge professor says much of the effort to combat global warming is actually making it worse
As part of an open discussion on the critical issue of energy, sustainability and climate change,MRS Energy & Sustainability–A Review Journal (MRS E&S) has published a paper in which Cambridge engineering professor M.J. Kelly argues that it is time to review the current efforts to reduce carbon emissions, some of which “represent total madness.” This paper is one of a series of articles in MRS E&S that, with varying opinions, address this controversial topic.
In his peer-reviewed article, Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability (LINK), Kelly considers the lessons from global decarbonization projects, and concludes that all combined actions to reduce carbon emissions so far will not achieve a serious reduction. In some cases, these efforts will actually make matters worse.
Central to his thesis, which is supported by examples, is that rapid decarbonization will simply not be possible without a significant reduction in standards of living….
For a counter viewpoint to this article, see Energy and sustainability, from the point of view of environmental physics (LINK), by Micha Tomkiewicz…
http://www.cambridge.org/au/about-us/news/cambridge-professor-says-much-effort-combat-global-warming-actually-making-it-worse/
2 Jun: CNBC: Matthew J. Belvedere: Jack Welch says Obama’s ‘wacky’ climate-change agenda hurts the US economy
Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, said Thursday the Obama administration’s heavy focus on combating climate change is “radical behavior” that’s holding back the economy…
The result, he said: “You get an economy that won’t move. You get ozone regs that are wacky.” …
Welch said he’s not a climate-change denier, just pointing out the “cost of doing it; it’s got to be more balanced.”…
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/02/jack-welch-says-obamas-wacky-climate-change-agenda-hurts-the-us-economy.html

pat
June 5, 2016 3:54 pm

24 May: CambridgeUniversityPress: Cambridge professor says much of the effort to combat global warming is actually making it worse
As part of an open discussion on the critical issue of energy, sustainability and climate change,MRS Energy & Sustainability–A Review Journal (MRS E&S) has published a paper in which Cambridge engineering professor M.J. Kelly argues that it is time to review the current efforts to reduce carbon emissions, some of which “represent total madness.” This paper is one of a series of articles in MRS E&S that, with varying opinions, address this controversial topic.
In his peer-reviewed article, Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability (LINK), Kelly considers the lessons from global decarbonization projects, and concludes that all combined actions to reduce carbon emissions so far will not achieve a serious reduction. In some cases, these efforts will actually make matters worse.
Central to his thesis, which is supported by examples, is that rapid decarbonization will simply not be possible without a significant reduction in standards of living….
For a counter viewpoint to this article, see Energy and sustainability, from the point of view of environmental physics (LINK), by Micha Tomkiewicz…
http://www.cambridge.org/au/about-us/news/cambridge-professor-says-much-effort-combat-global-warming-actually-making-it-worse/
2 Jun: CNBC: Matthew J. Belvedere: Jack Welch says Obama’s ‘wacky’ climate-change agenda hurts the US economy
Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, said Thursday the Obama administration’s heavy focus on combating climate change is “radical behavior” that’s holding back the economy…
The result, he said: “You get an economy that won’t move. You get ozone regs that are wacky.” …
Welch said he’s not a climate-change denier, just pointing out the “cost of doing it; it’s got to be more balanced.”…
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/02/jack-welch-says-obamas-wacky-climate-change-agenda-hurts-the-us-economy.html

June 5, 2016 3:54 pm

CNBC’s Javier E. David reported,
“”” In peer-reviewed research, Kelly argued carbon dioxide should be considered the byproduct of the “immense benefits” of a technologically advanced society. Cutting carbon, he added, could result in a dramatic reduction in the world’s quality of life that would usher in mass starvation, poverty and civil strife. Massive decarbonization is “only possible if we wish to see large parts of the population die from starvation, destitution or violence in the absence of enough low-carbon energy to sustain society.” ’’””

Kelly’s reasoning and observations provide the necessary and sufficient intellectual anti-venom against the poisonous Malthusianism advocated by intellectual leaders who are supporting the CAGW movement. Those Malthusian advocates are trying to achieve the end product of a near term drastic reduction of human population and also advocating termination of any human technological advancement which has any impacts on ‘nature’. Their planned means of reducing the population and removing technology is to use government force; government force that cannot avoid being highly lethal in effect.
The Malthusian advocates supporting CAGW movement are legion and they have been clearly identified by those climate focused intellects having a well-developed and rational skeptic skill set
John

Buck Wheaton
June 5, 2016 4:38 pm

The fact that every single demand by every one who advocates that humans are destroying the climate all seem to converge on imposing socialism. So, this is not driven by science, it is driven ideology. Socialism is evil, and in its extreme forms it cost some 100 million lives in the last century.

John Harmsworth
Reply to  Buck Wheaton
June 5, 2016 5:27 pm

The Socialists would have you dig up the corpses for autopsy and then argue the results.

Reply to  John Harmsworth
June 5, 2016 8:35 pm

Say John – I am not sure where in Saskatchewan you are but I am curious if you know if the experimental vertical axis turbine on the edge of the Qu’Appelle Valley near Lumsden is still running or if it has been decommissioned. Haven’t been through that way in years but it was always an attention getter – giant eggbeater on the valley rim. (I searched on the Internet but didn’t find it.) Just wondering.

gnomish
June 5, 2016 5:58 pm

guys- that article has 1446 Comments so far.
and a number of familiar voices are ripping up the warmists.
you should see it.
they’re down and getting the boots put to em
it’s nice!
i signed up for disqus just for this article.

Bob Lyman
June 5, 2016 6:29 pm

$9 trillion over 40 years! Where in the world did he get that figure? According to the estimates prepared by Mark Jacobson, Mark Delucci, et. al., the authors of the Water, Wind and Sunshine (WWS) Vision that is the basis for most of the claims that the world can achieve 100% renewables energy by 2050, the global cost will be a round $100 trillion. The G20 Finance Ministers meeting in February, 2016 announced their commitment to “mobilize” (i.e. raise taxes and force private industry to invest) $6 trillion per year for the next 15 years to meet the 2030 goal. That $90 trillion would just be a first instalment. $9 trillion would not even cover the U.S. costs of transition. One has to really stretch one’s imagination to comprehend the magnitude of the economic insanity being conte,plated here – all to avoid a potential problem in 2100 the evidence for which lies in shady climate models.

Ian H
June 5, 2016 7:44 pm

At this point if we are honest we should admit that there is going to be no real problem caused by CO2 for the next hundred years or so, and therefore the best thing to do is simply to do nothing and put a reminder on the global calendar for our descendants to revisit the issue in the year 2116.
Any warming before then is likely to be slight and beneficial. The sea level continues to do as it has always done and in any case reacts extremely slowly so there is likely to be no real change over the next 100 years. Arctic sea ice is not a real problem and seems to be going up anyway. Polar bears are thriving. Coral bleaching is now understood to be a natural response of coral to change. Ocean acidification has turned out to be a mythical threat. Ocean organisms like coral are tolerant to saturation levels of CO2 in water as evidenced by the fact that CO2 is bubbled through aquariums to promote coral growth (it is where the coral gets its carbonate from). CO2 is absorbed by the biosphere in the oceans just as it is in the air. So far the benefits of CO2 fertilisation seems to be the largest observable effect.
Meanwhile as a species we have much higher and moire urgent priorities, like eliminating poverty, war, superstition, ignorance, terrorism, and disease; and keeping the instruments of mass destruction out of the hands of fruitloops and nutjobs.

Snarling Dolphin
June 5, 2016 8:57 pm

I see. So we shouldn’t do anything then. Please.

Zenreverend
Reply to  Snarling Dolphin
June 5, 2016 9:12 pm

Snarl all you like. Just read, learn and get the picture.

Richard
June 5, 2016 9:23 pm

It’s a fluke. Heads will roll, then those responsible will be replaced with proper, right-thinking, unbiased journalists.

Dr. Strangelove
June 5, 2016 9:26 pm

Cow fart can easily break the emission cuts of Paris accord. 87x more potent than CO2, atmospheric methane increased 3x faster than CO2 since 1800. While world leaders struggle to keep the Paris commitments, the cows are happily farting their way to global warming. It’s futile world leaders, the cows win.

Reply to  Dr. Strangelove
June 6, 2016 12:58 am

There is only Ippm of CH4 in the atmosphere – the cows can go on farting till the cows come home and still not have any effect.

Brian H
Reply to  Dr. Strangelove
June 8, 2016 3:09 pm

Methane oxidizes rapidly into H2O and CO2 in the presence of free O2. Of which there are 200,000,000 ppbn in the atmosphere. Trivial.

June 5, 2016 10:20 pm

I’ll be surprised if .Javier E. David still has a job at CNBC tomorrow…

gnomish
Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
June 5, 2016 11:45 pm

that article probably got more eyeballs than any 10 other ones today.
he’s fed the bottom line better than anyone else there today
i notice, too, that the usual gang.green is virtually absent from the comments.
that suggests that the money for astroturfing may be drying up too.
i may be excessively optimistic but it appears the curtain is coming down- from which i infer they have shot their wad as far as propaganda to justify taxing your breath prior to the act.
it may be that they will now focus on palliative propaganda after the act – or it may be they’ve given up for the season until the election sorts out a new bunch of players.
but there have been no more nobel prizes for dismantling america’s economy since gore and obama and ipcc.
perhaps they are unwilling to risk more on speculation or they just don’t care if you don’t like it any more.

Sleepalot
Reply to  gnomish
June 6, 2016 6:18 am

It’s called “Agenda 21” for a reason: there’s still 80 years to go, during which a great deal of history revision will be done.

John West
June 6, 2016 6:20 am

Is that a tolling bell I hear?

June 6, 2016 8:46 am

When CNCB finds it’s making more money, the rest will jump in with all their clothes on.

Amber
June 6, 2016 5:17 pm

Congats to the CNBC for not being intimidated . Yes climate changes , yes it is warming and yes humans
have some roll . BUT … A warming planet is over beneficial to plants ,forests and animals. It is not the big scary that promoters like to pitch . Wasting $$Trillions in a vain attempt to set the worlds thermostat is the height of human arrogance and self importance . The world is greening as NASA pictures prove . Why are Greens promoting policies that would reduce the greening of the earth ?
1. Scary global warming propaganda has given them free advertising and helps fill those cash registers .
2. Scary global warming acts as cover to impose other beliefs . For example They know if the planet is more habitable population will grow and that is a very big problem for extreme green .
3. Green Parties can’t compete because they are seen as single issue and unelectable. Trying to galvanize
the public like rounding up cattle is a lot easier with the real or pretend threat of an evil external force .
Look at those pretend drowning polar bears and other pure fiction stories whipped up to throw a lasso around their target market .

Brian H
Reply to  Amber
June 8, 2016 3:13 pm

role

June 7, 2016 5:49 am

Climate Realism breakout day.
#1 FT Renewables conference, most delegates, stood up and said we are on a fantasy path – see NotAlot
“Today, June 1, we will consume the equivalent of 270 million of oil, and most people imagine that you can replace that pretty quickly and seamlessly with wind, solar, electric cars whatever. But of that 270 million, 75 million is coal, 65 million is gas, and 95 million is oil. Nine million of that is wind and solar, and biofuels. So before we delude the world that it is going to be easy to replace it we’ve got to have a realistic debate about the cost.”
#2 Mainstream US Media CNBC has picked up Kelly’s ‘CC policies actually cause more damage report’ see WUWT (Kelly’s report in Climate Etc)
#3 Jack Welch (GE mega business oldtimer) spoke up against the myth that GW is priority #1
also on CNBC video : Jack Welch says Obama’s ‘wacky’ climate-change agenda hurts the US economy