The incoming Trump administration has promised dramatic transformations on many vital domestic issues. The best gauge of this development is the fierce level of opposition his policies have generated from Democratic stalwarts. One representative screed is a New York Times Op-Ed by Professors Michael Greenstone and Cass Sunstein, who lecture the incoming president on climate change: “Donald Trump Should Know: This is What Climate Change Costs Us.”
Greenstone and Sunstein have a large stake in the game: During their years in the first Obama administration, they convened an interagency working group (IWG) drawn from various federal agencies that determined that the social cost of carbon (SCC)—or the marginal cost of the release of a ton of carbon into the atmosphere—should be estimated at about $36 per ton (as of 2015). Choose that number and there is much justification for taking major policy steps to curb the emission of carbon dioxide. Greenstone and Sunstein hoped that the working group process would draw on the “latest research in science and economics,” and establish the claimed costs by “accounting for the destruction of property from storms and floods, declining agricultural and labor productivity, elevated mortality rates and more.”
Their effort should be dismissed as a rousing failure, and as an affront to the scientific method that they purport to adopt in their studies. The first error is one of approach. The worst way to get a full exchange of views on the complex matter of global warming is to pack the IWG entirely with members from the Obama administration, all surely preselected in part because they share the president’s exaggerated concerns with the problem of global warming. The only way to get a full and accurate picture of the situation is to listen to dissenters on global warming as well as advocates, which was never done. After all, who should listen to a “denier”?
This dismissive attitude is fatal to independent inquiry. No matter how many times the president claims the science is rock-solid, the wealth of recent evidence gives rise to a very different picture that undercuts the inordinate pessimism about climate change that was in vogue about 10 years ago. The group convened in the Obama administration never examined, let alone refuted, the accumulation of evidence on the other side. Indeed, virtually all of its reports are remarkable for the refusal to address any of the data at all. Instead, the common theme is to refer to models developed by others as the solid foundation for the group’s own work, without questioning a word of what those models say.
The second major mistake in the government studies is the way in which they frame the social costs of carbon. As all champions of cost/benefit analysis understand, it is a mistake to look at costs in isolation from benefits, or benefits apart from costs. Yet that appears to be the approach taken in these reports. In dealing with various objections to its reports, the IWG noted in its July 2015 response that “some commenters felt that the SCC estimates should include the value to society of the goods and services whose production is associated with CO2 emissions.” Their evasive response has to be quoted in full to be believed: “Rigorous evaluation of benefits and costs is a core tenet of the rulemaking process. The IWG agrees that these are important issues that may be relevant to assessing the impacts of policies that reduce CO2 emissions. However, these issues are not relevant to the SCC itself. The SCC is an estimate of the net economic damages resulting from CO2 emissions, and therefore is used to estimate the benefit of reducing those emissions.”
Read the entire essay here, it is well worth your time. h/t to Dr. Judith Curry.
Sunstein, Mann, Gruber, and Mark Zandi all had their supporting roles to play when called upon, for a fee of course.
“But a credible assessment must be based on the best science and economics, not politics.”
“But the working group’s process and output have been validated by the courts”……………………
“The court responded that it had “no doubt that Congress intended” to allow consideration of the social cost of carbon and that the government’s judgments were reasonable.”
…so we will just leave it up to the courts….instead of politics
These people are sick.
Costs are something negative, so anything which is positive ( like less people getting killed by cold weather ) is, by definition, not at cost so it’s not counted in SCC . Hep. Simple.
I guess that makes it a benefit, and since we’re doing a cost / benefit study we’ll …. ignore it any way.
Hey these guys should be working for Goldman Sachs. they could turn the whole banking sector around.
oops, is Goldman Sachs a moderation trip too?
[no -mod]
I just tested “killed.” It isn’t a “bad word” either. Hm. Shrug.
Nice comment, anyway, Greg. 🙂
Our winter heating bills in Minnesota and elsewhere are down. Was that factored in the cost/benefit analysis?
Richard Petschauer December 20, 2016 at 7:15 pm …
Not enough information for a response.
What source is generating your energy?
What did it used to be?
Timeframe?
Is the weather different from the time you’re comparing costs to?
I’m sure there are other questions that should have been addressed …
It would only seem fair that if we are to account for future potential costs to society from carbon emission we should also take into account the social costs of moronic legislation.
Anyone can fabricate potential costs.
My eyes bukge at the phrase “social cost of carbon” and on so many levels.
What is the social cost of aluminum?
What is the social benefit of fossil fuels? Does it outwiegh the cost?
Why the war on pencils?
I could go on, the absurdity is so strong. I believe that the eco-fascists have themselves lost sight and sound of their words and actions. Chlorine must be eliminated. Ozone is evil. Lack of ozones in the holes is also evil. Plastic is wicked. Trees are good. Of course, the eco-propaganda is just for the consumption of the foot soldiers; no wind-soaked demos and arrests for the jet setting Tranzies who lead these organizations.
Remember the exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Through the Looking Glass:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
I am curious as to the social cost of water actually. That shit is fricken’ dangerous. We have to keep it out of infrastructure, we have to build around it, we have to learn how to swim, we have to all buy rain gear and rubber boots. That damn pollution is everywhere. I bet we could whip up an endangerment finding in no time flat.
Water is pollution!! And the best part…… we could use the image of the polluting smoke stacks and it would be accurate!.
“Social cost” is to be distinguished from “private cost.” The consumption of most things – water, aluminum, etc. – has no social cost; all costs (and benefits) of consumption are private. In such a world – a world without negative externalities – social cost is zero and market-clearing prices perfectly reflect the private costs and benefits of consumption.
It is conjectured that the consumption of fossil fuels, which produces atmospheric CO2, has unpriced effects on others (i.e. on society in general, hence “social costs”) via its effects on the climate. This conjecture, as we all know, is complete b.s.; but if you assume the “science” of AGW then it makes sense to put a price on carbon that nets out the social cost of consumption of fossil fuels. The theory is that when the cost of consumption of fossil fuel equals its price plus a carbon tax that off-sets the social cost of fossil fuel consumption, there will not be a detrimental over-consumption of fossil fuels.
Besides the little problem of the “science” behind cAGW, the flaw here is to neglect possible social benefits of consuming fossil fuels – unpriced benefits or positive externalities. For example, CO2 is plant food; it improves plant yields and biodiversity. Also, all of the conjectured warming effects of CO2 are not negative; some are positive. For example, few people get sick and die due to warmer winters. If you want to do a proper cost-benefit analysis of the burning of fossil fuels, given the questionable conjecture at the root of the matter, you still have to account for the social benefits.
I should have added that if the social benefits of fossil fuel consumption turn out to be greater than the social costs – which is almost certainly true if the AGW conjecture is rejected – then fossil fuel consumption should not be taxed, it should be subsidized to achieve socially optimal consumption.
Look … if it’s not global warming, it’s white people …. the left needs a piñata to bash and blame for all things that are wrong that they simply do not understand, let alone deal with. They are like evil, ignorant children and they are going to have to grow up some before they can ever be considered ‘leaders’ again.
So far they (the left) are the gravest danger that America faces. They would destroy America to alleviate their innate guilt for simply being on the planet and using some resources to live. That is why those resources are there, the problem to deal with is over population and local pollution. Deal with that and the rest will fall into place.
And the lives and human condition in other countries are not our business. They will have to pull themselves up like the wester world has been doing for hundreds of years.
I have read the essay, it was worth the time, but it will only have an effect if the MSM report it
Oh for an honest Newspaper or TV Station owner.
In the UK the Daily’s Mail, Express and Telegraph have all covered this issue from a sometime sceptical position. Snag is they also recognise AGW simply does not engage with the public, so in media terms isn’t box office. (I should know. I pack my Facebook feed with brilliant AGW exposes and usually get precisely no likes!) No likey, no MSM printy. So Trump will have to do the heavy lifting all on his own. It’s coming.
CR, the support team he is selecting looks set to do the heavily lifting. Oklahoma AG Pruitt at EPA who sued EPA on grounds CPP is unconstitutional. Montana rep Zinka at Interior who is on record saying the mining/waters reg that goes into effect Jan 19 is stupid and will cost 60000 jobs in his state alone. And Trump’s intelligent tweets and monster rallies neuter MSM. Just look at the extremely biased pre-election coverage and how that worked out.
CR,
no one cares any longer. In an online, UN survey of nearly 10M people on 16 things they rank as important to their lives (education, food, energy roads and internet access) climate change came a poor last to internet access. http://data.myworld2015.org/
People really have had enough especially when the returns on the constant fearmongering are non-existent, nor the massive tax income that’s hurled at it (not that I imagine anyone knows how much of their money is being wasted) people just don’t care unless they are wealthy enough to be curtain twitchers who want to interfere in every aspect of everyone else’s life.
I think Trump’s lucked in, he simply has to harness that justified apathy and propagate it. It’s not really about the science, it never was, it was a hearts and minds exercise by the wealthy greens to access the political machine to dictate a belief.
They did some good, they stopped baby seals being clubbed to death, reduced whaling, but they didn’t know when to stop. Save the trees from loggers! But regulated commercial loggers are amongst the greenest companies on earth, they view forests as their farmland. Unregulated regional and local logging companies that slash and burn are the real problems, so UN and local funds were misdirected because of bungled green media campaigns.
But the greens got the taste of blood and thought their misdirection and confusion would continue to serve their political objectives so they continued. They began to understand their media messages and the power of ‘fear of loss’ to sell a concept. So they moved onto climate change. I don’t think it was deliberate or malicious, it was just misplaced success breeding more misplaced success. People swept along in their desire to feel good about helping others, whilst they continued to create the conditions of suffering.
So whilst Trump may prove the ‘liberator’ of the complacent from the grip of the greens, he is more likely to prove merely a catalyst, ultimately ineffective in himself, but an attraction to those who want the green monkey off their back so they can just get back to work.
However, the change in attitudes is, in my belief, little to do with apathetic reaction (Is there such a thing?) to the green problem. Both Trump and Brexit have demonstrated clearly, to my mind, the entire political landscape has shifted because of terrorism, and by association, immigration. The very reaction terrorists wanted but one they could never control, so it may prove costly to them.
The terrible incident in a peaceful German Christmas Market will encourage the German right wing and move the country to question the policy of open borders Merkle was determined to promote as an example to Europe. The peaceful integration of unlimited economic migrants and deserving refugees is backfiring. It turns the world’s attention to the cancer of terrorism.
I suspect that incident alone will prove very expensive for ISIS and their associated sympathisers. If Japan awoke a sleeping giant in WW2, I suspect Germany is getting out of bed right now. I also suspect the entire civilised world will welcome Germany’s determination to wipe out the scourge of terrorism instead of appeasing an enemy, a tactic historically blighted by failure. It may yet prove to be the rock that Brussels bureaucrats perish on.
Nor can incident’s of racist attacks be blamed on the right wing. Terrorist’s sheltering under Allah’s banner have exposed their own bigotry, the civilised Muslim community must deal with their internal disease, which they are patently not doing, or accept being singled out as the root cause of the problem.
In my opinion, mankind is by nature a tribal community. Artificial borders give people a sense of security. But the greens and the liberal-left converts, with the best of intentions, lost sight of fundamental, human characteristics.
They have done the same with ‘man-made’ climate change science, there are fundamental facts they manipulate and distort to achieve their objective. Dr. Tim Ball has some interesting observations on that. If you have not seen some of his recent presentations, seek them out, whilst they sometimes teeter on conspiracy, the guy makes a whole lot of sense.
Our children will laugh at our generations naivety. They will (hopefully) reflect on our gullibility at pouring unearned funds into developing countries in the hope they will emerge from poverty. Give a tramp (hobo to our American cousins) a handout and it will be spent on the very thing that made them a tramp in the first place 99% of the time. Teach a man to fish etc.
By all means, help developing countries by giving them unrestricted, but not unpaid for, access to technology to burn coal and oil cleanly, but don’t just hand them bill rolls of cash to not do something. UK agriculture has been crucified by that single EU policy.
I could go on but apart from boring everyone to tears, I’m likely to touch on some extremely sensitive subjects.
Merry Christmas.
Telegraph finally admitted all the ‘green’ coverage was at the behest of various ‘advertisers’ and ‘sponsors’ and when they stopped paying, out went the hacks …and the ‘stories’.
Essentially all climate change news is constructed advertorials or propaganda.
To HOT SCOTT …. I read your rant and liked it. You have it right as I see it. The global warming thingy will go out with a wimper as it’s already beginning to do and will do much faster under Trump. Here in the Great White North … we are in deep doodoo with the idiot we now have at the helm. We are going to go down a global warming rabbit hole with that twit and it will take a long time to recover as it did will his idiot father, Fidel
When it comes to Climate WUWT is the mainstream. The oMSM (Old mainstream media) are increasingly irrelevant and Trump would never have won if they were.
If you don’t mind I’ll think I’ll use that, OMSM, B(iased)MSM or better the BSM. I am sure you get the last one, to me it seems to fit the best as they show time and again.
The “BSM” are leaning so far forward all it takes is a little nudge: Clinton can’t loose, the Russians are coming, the Electoral College will revolt, the US can’t back out of the Paris Agreement, the EPA is too powerful to be bossed around by the President. Wait, when did the MSM ever get so interested in Democrat failures?
Will, Russians tend to both come by surprise and they also want us to be ununited. So even when MSM is BSM, RT is much much more BS than say, ABC, BBC or CBC.
Dog,
You’re miscalculating the power of the new media–including WUWT and the Deplorable Climate Science Blog.
In case you missed the recent presidential campaign, the legacy Politically Correct Progressive media (what you call the “MSM”) was 100% united in their message of denigration, mockery, humiliation, character assassination, and worse against Trump. They were, likewise, 100% united in their celebration of Hillary’s ascension to her rightful throne.
They were 100% wrong.
Normal-Americans in our millions ignored them, discounted their lies, and rejected their worldview.
So, don’t despair that the Climate Realist message is not being picked up by the PC-Prog media. They are relatively irrelevant.
Oldseadog,
“… but it will only have an effect if the MSM report it”
Surely there are still many people who look only to the Corporate mass media for news and information, and surely the owners of that media would like it to still be the effective “gatekeeper” media . . but I think that in reality-land, you might change the world more with a thoughtful comment on a site like this one, than the New York Times does with a major headline story . . now.
(Please be careful what you write ; )
Readership is what counts. Anthony doesn’t have the mass to compete with the MSM.
Besides. As good as WUWT is, it appeals to people who want to ask questions, not be given answers.
IMHO, Anthony could create a marketing site alongside this one that gives the public messages they want to hear without the debate in these blogs. Just a straight news site, easy to understand, factual and with a sequential sceptical argument that Joe Bloggs can understand and use to counter wild alarmist theories.
However, I suspect Anthony has enough work to do just maintaining this site.
HotScot,
I certainly agree about the potential for WUWT to produce a more “civilian” oriented sister site, and indeed I suggested just that on a “suggestion” post by Anthony not long ago, but I don’t believe that the only way a site like this one has influence is through direct readership. I was commenting on more “civilian” sites for years before saying much if anything on WUWT, but I was using WUWT as a learning and linking resource routinely.
There is a “ripple” effect, I believe, which renders some sites far more influential than their direct readership might suggest, since they present the sort of articles and discussions which people with influence can sink their teeth into, so to speak, so that they can feel confident enough to echo what they gather on these substantive “seed” sites. I’d bet a pretty penny that Mr. Trump has read some discussions on this very site, and that some of the things written by Mr. Watts and other contributors (including mere commenters ; ) helped form his understanding of the “climate war”.
A form of “collective consciousness” is emerging, it seems to me, that is not the occultist sort of thing “new agers” and such spoke/speak of, but something far more potent and real.
Anthony doesn’t have the mass to compete with the MSM.
Perhaps that doesn’t matter. Not does Michael Mann.
It all depends – and here I raise a question, and do not offer answer in the absence of facts – on how ideas propagate through the public consciousness.
Anyone relatively sceptical of climate change will end up here pretty fast, where a huge volume of ideas facts and opinions are available as counter propaganda. If they are committed, they will spread those ideas.
This is understood by the mainstream propagandists, but what they are concerned about is that they don’t control this medium, so they cant control this message.
The way to subvert a democracy is to control its information sources so that the information available leads naturally to the policy initiatives you want to see enacted.
The Internet has provided a brief moment of post industrial democracy: Which they will remove as soon as they can figure out how.
Myself and most of my friends, family, and neighbors pretty much ignore almost everything that the MSM reports, so it makes no difference to any of us if the MSM reported it anyway. Drudge, Climate Depot, WUWT and others have become the MSM for skeptics, and it’s working.
Oh, and it’s not just my circle-
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx
I like Dr. Patrick Moore, formerly of Greenpeace and his take on CO2 https://youtu.be/WDWEjSDYfxc?list=PL4Fgfe69FySJVHK2SMLtp2NXgXBkIbhck
That is so wrong in so many levels… After reading that sentence I don´t need to read any more. I am living on Earth. They are living on planet B, the planet that only exists on computer models.
Anyone with an inkling of deductive reasoning can see the scam when they use these bold lies to support their conclusions. If you are going to be a liar and cheat, you’ve got to be smart or deal exclusively with idiots to get away with it. They are doing neither.
plant some trees!
Stop burning them for ‘Biofuel’! Then you don’t need to plant them!
what’s wrong with doing both?
JC, no problem, but not burning them in the first place is more effective. Burn coal and oil instead.
HotScot December 20, 2016 at 3:38 pm
Hi HotScot I use Pellets as well as wood in my wood stove. It is one of the type you can use both.
I would rather not use coal. In a old style Franklin stove you can, but unlike a modern coal plant with filters one tends to pollute.
To many regulations on wood stoves.
michael
Rocket stoves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove) burn small sticks, and can produce so little smoke they are sometimes sneaked in where local zoning prohibits regular wood stoves.
be amusing to see any uncertainty analysis on this number of $36 per ton.
Here are some things that are certain. The discount rate is below OMB minimum which overemphasizes the future. The future ‘costs of carbon’ are grossly exaggerated, mostly model speculations out hundreds of years with IPCC models that have been disproven already. And the benefits were explicitly ignored. So trying to pretend there is an uncertainty bound dignifies the politicized junk analysis with a pseudoscientific patina it does not deserve.
I have my own theory of how the number was arrived at. It was not a careful addition of all the ‘excess weather damage’ that might happen in a modeled future. It was much simpler.
First they established the SCC by taking the number $1,250,000,000,000 and dividing it by the number of tons of CO2 emitted from AG sources each year. Then they set about creating a narrative around the number to ‘justify it’. The result of that calculation is about $35.
And you thought the Copenhagen Agreement’s $100 bn was a lot! No, no, they plan to raise $1.25 trillion in carbon taxes PER YEAR. Goldmann Sachs has volunteered to help collect and transfer it and managed the trades and speculations and futures and short selling of a vibrant, utterly artificial, unproductive ‘carbon trading market’.
It would be great if you could join the administration in some role to help it navigate the legal and scientific thickets that the miscreants have created.
I certainly agree with Reasonable Skeptic that the SCC of water is so high that it should be eliminated. People drown, we have to constantly build & repair bridges, repair roofs, create drains. It is obvious the SCC of water far exceeds the SCC of CO2, and it is so obvious that massive government funds need to be given to these scientists (HO HO).
What a political game is going on instead of science.
Trofim Lysenko is alive and well and working on climate studies for the Obama Administration.
This is the type of ludicrous bullsht that will take Trump a nanosecond to recognize as NWO/Marxist political science and will make him an even bigger skeptic. The whole system should be audited and the criminals exposed.
Good point. But the ability to look at oneself with some degree of detachment has never been these people’s strong point. So watch them dig themselves in deeper and deeper.
I am hoping they will. So far, so good. Popcorn future up limit trading.
What about the social benefit of carbon?
Declining agriculture, my dirty boots!
Social benefit of Carbon?
What, like life itself? There can be no Carbon Based Life Forms (all life on Earth) without Carbon Dioxide.
Yes. Life. And more carbon dioxide, ie plant food, in the air is better for living things, not worse. Demonstrably so.
If people weren’t already enriching our atmosphere with CO2, we would be well advised to do so. Better than 400 ppm would be 800, and 1200 ppm best of all, as in real greenhouses.
But we’ll probably have to settle for under 600 ppm. Good, but not great for C3 plants. If that level should also make the world a little warmer, which is debatable, that too would be a bonus benefit.
Chimp
“But we’ll probably have to settle for under 600 ppm. Good, but not great for C3 plants. If that level should also make the world a little warmer, which is debatable, that too would be a bonus benefit.”
Thanks.
A decent, even significant, bonus.
I don’t know if it is true.
Certainly the difference between our current ~ 400 ppm and a possible 600 ppm – in warming – will not be great: less than a degree F, I think.
But a bit warmer will be better.
And remember that at under 490 ppm, we can say that the concentration of CO2 – the ‘evillest gas’ according to Gina Thingberry, EPAnaut extraordinaire, totally misquoted out of context – is
– to the nearest one-tenth of one percent – nil.
Nada.
Zilch.
Zippo.
Auto
Battle with Southern Trains, again, tomorrow.
Auto,
From just CO2 alone, the doubling from so-called “pre-industrial” 280 ppm to 560 theoretically should produce 1.2 degrees C of beneficial and much needed warming. If net feedbacks are slightly positive (which I doubt), then call it 1.6 degrees warmer, of which maybe (which I also doubt) one degree has already occurred.
Sounds good to me, here in the wintry NH.
They really did say that they are going to ignore the benefits that CO2 provides. The only benefit they acknowledge is that of reducing CO2. Big Brother would be proud.
I believe they include the benefits of CO2 because they use the word net.
“The SCC is an estimate of the net economic damages resulting from CO2 emissions,”
In this context, net damages are the benefits minus the damage costs. Now I severely doubt they accounted for the benefits correctly. (They don’t account for the “damages” correctly…)
J, except when you read the SCC details, they did no such thing and admitted it in the response to comments. The ‘net’ is just another lie, no different than ‘if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor’.
Likely they meant “sum of economic damages.”
Net, sum, sqrt., sine, 2nd derivative: What difference does it make? Math is hard.
The points in the post about SCC are valid; WE has been making them on his blog. It can and should be redone. The Endangerment finding can be redone also but that is a slow laborious process that must follow CAA ‘ruls’ and will result in court challenges. Should be undertaken, but is not IMO a high priority. Get a new Supreme, then let the CPP and Wotus unconstitutional suits already in process land in SCOTUS. Eliminates both regs while setting an important precedent the Dems cannot easily erase. Best and broadest would be reinterpretation of the interstate commerce clause in light of 10th amendment.The Interior coal mining Stream reg can be done away with by invoking CRA within 60 days of Jan 19 when it goes effective. In Parallel, revise CAA and CWA. No need for further use of the nuclear option; Reid invoking it for all appointees except Supremes will now backfire, a lesson that should not be lost on Republican Senators when the pendulum swings the other way. There are likely enough Dem Senators from coal country and farm country to overcome fillibuster with 60 vote cloture. Especially those up for re-election in 2018. Manchin of West Virginia, Heitcamp of North Dakota, McCaskill of Missouri are specific examples. Politico counts 5, which with 52 republican senators means you only need to find 1 more Dem senator from badly impacted states that Trump carried to make simple definitional amendments to definition of pollutant and waters, respectively.
ristivan, I’d welcome a longer essay from you on this topic.
IMO, the EPA seems to be currently in the position of introducing a modern version of the British Enclosure Acts, but on a continental US scale. They appear to be introducing and enforcing regulations which make distributed and rural economics increasingly untenable for the people who live in such regions. This will lead to further economic decline and depopulation in the affected States. Those States know who they are, and the EPA certainly knows who they are. The EPA doesn’t follow an electoral-college type of agenda.
MH, I might put together a longer guest post citing statutory law and case precedent if I can find the time to do the work involved and AW is interested. Been making more focused simpler blog comments on this and the Paris Accord for many months now. The very short summary is that most of this stuff is legally more complicated and precedented in the US than people think, so some of the ‘obvious’ stuff like ‘just redo the EPA endangerment finding’ are probably not the best means at Trump’s disposal.
An example for you. The CPP is based on a poorly worded circular definition of an air pollutant being ‘that which pollutes’ in the Clean Air Act of 1970 as amended in 1990. The EPA endangerment finding boils down to them finding CO2 pollutes. The resulting CPP reg the CAA says the EPA can now issue is justified (a statutory requirement) by the jacked up Obama SCC that came first. But none other than the US foremost constitutional expert (Larry Tribe of Harvard Law [who taught me con law many moons ago]) wrote a powerful brief for Pruitt’s Oklahoma lawsuit against CPP finding it unconstititional in three separate ways: long established statutory interpretation precedent, 4th Amendment, 10th Amendment. So, get a sensible new Supreme appointed by Trump, meanwhile get the definition of pullutant amended by Congress. Then the current stayed CPP reg fails in 2018 when Pruitt’s lawsuit when it reaches SCOTUS because SCOTUS finds it unconstitutional, and the EPA meanwhile has no power to start on a new one. (The current stayed CPP can probably not be retroactively attacked by a future change in the CAA definition; the mere fact Congress changed it means the EPA had congressional authorization at the time the current CPP was finalized.)
Btw, it is the EPA WOTUS reg (also stayed as likely unconstitutional) that most resembles the British Enclosure Acts IMO.
CommieBob, you did not know I was SVP global head of strategy at Mot at the time the FRAND wars started. So I can also say with some assurance that Groklaw is at best an oversimplification, and at worst just wrong in their opinions about judicial opinions. Regards.
That’s interesting. I, and now my two children, are open source activists so you could say I had a dog in the fight. 🙂
PJ was a paralegal, not a lawyer, so that probably weakened her opinions. On the other hand, she did some things well. In particular, she gathered the legal documents and, if nothing else, the site, which is now archived, is a wonderful resource for anyone wanting to research SCO vs The World.
My, admittedly activist, opinion was that SCO was conducting a scorched earth campaign, which they had no hope of winning in the long run, to create FUD and slow the adoption of Linux. It seems to me that IBM was betting the farm on Linux which explains why it was willing to fight so vigorously. Is there a better explanation?
Tester (MT) and Donnelly (IN) might be the other two.
Trump should have appointed all five to minor cabinet posts to get rid of them and, where legally possible, replace them with Republicans.
In a show of bipartisanship, of course.
I agree but wonder, perhaps just in my dreams, how a “laborious” and very public unwinding of the endangerment finding could be an education for our renewing America and the planet. I’m not just interested in turning the ship; I’d like to kill the beast. Best chance I’ve seen in about forever. No idea of the political strategy or wisdom (lack?) of that.
I’m with michael hart on expanding your writing on this.
BC, I’ll see if AW is interested. Gets very technical in a hurry, so explaining for non-lawyers is a laborious task. Simplifications won’t do because the devil is in the legal details.
I think the endangerment finding should be undone. The public comments brouhaha that will create is the educational ‘silver stake’ that eventually kills the beast via the now public and honest debate warmunists have sought to avoid. Just understand it is a multi year process, must be done with utmost attention to information quality information fairness, and reasoned responses to counter comments and also must scrupulously follow the legally set process. It takes 3-5 years. Then for sure expect court challanges from warmunists: California and NY AG’s, Massachusetts’s children whose future children are affected, adding another 3 or more years. It will not finish until after the DOTUS ends his second term.
Which is why I favor the fastest, surest means to results even if they don’t slay the warmunist belief system monster. It seems to be dying of its own accord through disinterest, failure of recommended remedies (renewable clean energy), and increasing exposure to the hypocrisy and dishonesty of its high priests.
Groklaw was dedicated to a series of legal cases which were the result of a scorched earth campaign by a company which was called SCO for most of the decade that the cases took to unwind. IMHO Groklaw is a good exemplar of how to communicate legal ‘stuff’ to a mostly lay audience.
A few lawyers, a couple quite experienced, posted on the blog. What struck me is how often they were surprised at the outcome of motions and cases.
Quickest and cleanest is don’t include funding in budget.
The Climate Establishment has created a hydra. A many headed monster.
The SCC is the first head that must be lopped-off.
Then the WOTUS and CPP regs via death by neglect.
Then the recent fracking ground water report needs retraction.
Then restart Yucca Repository.
Then remove fed sudsidies for renewables, solar first.
Then ensure regs allow competition between all generation sources.
Then work on eliminating the CO2 endangerment finding.
The hydra’s demise will take years.
Obama’s EPA hydra:
Fighting the hydra:
http://www.rolang.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/hydra-engraving.jpg
I would be delighted if the hydra was only that big and only had 7 or so heads. In reality it is a huge network creature with hundreds of heads attacking out of government, the media, academia, education and the environmental movements as well as the U.N. and many foreign governments that stand to gain from the decline of the West.
I don’t think this heavy undergrowth can be cleared without a determined brushfire. I hope for the assignment of a group of neutral examiners, (physicists?) to study the most relevant papers and listen to opposing presentations before releasing a report. What the IPCC should be if it wasn’t co-opted by third world bureaucrats, U.N. politics and environmental lobby groups. It’s way past time to go on the offensive.
I like your ideas. I’d go just a bit further if I were Trump, and just declare in Obama-like fashion that no member of his administration will enforce or prosecute CAA CO2 regulations until the Endangerment finding is cancelled, irregardless of any Supreme Court rulings.
Also, I’d like Trump to propose, and Congress to pass a bill that prohibits the Federal code from changing without explicit Congressional approval, with line-by-line acceptance required. This will slow future administrations from setting bureaucrats to the task of making new regulations without a new bill authorizing them to do it, and stop the actual enforceable specific law from being disassociated with our representatives. It would discourage presidents from setting up “working groups” that function as legislators. It would discourage much lobbying, and force them to go back to Congress, instead of working on the bureaucracy.
Creative accounting. Governor Jerry Brown used this method to balance California’s budget.
In their faith, all global warming is evil, and caused by CO2 and other GHG’s. So of course one only counts the costs. How much evil is a benefit?
Same old same old. As with the IPCC, the clue is in the title and description of remit. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is there to examine how dreadful human-caused climate change is, not whether it actually occurs to any measurable degree, or whether it might actually be beneficial. That discussion is off-limits.
Similarly, the social cost of carbon is a spurious number invented to provide ‘economic’ covering-fire for political decisions. It is a predetermined axiom that CO2 emissions must be a bad thing, so contributing factors that weigh towards the conclusion that it is actually a good thing must be ignored or marginalised. Such concerns are simply dismissed with a wave of the hand and a “yes, we did that”, when it is clear they did not make any serious attempt to “do that” because that is not what they were being paid to do.
✅
✅
At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list.
The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor … .</b
(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/23/health/veterans-dying-health-care-delays/index.html )
… West Australia has ‘licensed’ a family farm out of operation … it all started when Matt Thompson started doubting global warming and talking about it publicly. ***
[Ed. Here is a video of Janet Thompson, in October, 2011, apparently, still hopeful that they can get their operation going again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lv-RJmeirQ. In that video you will hear that the “Lindley” referred to in Ms. Thompson’s comment above of 9/21/10 was their operations manager, a talented, dedicated, problem-solver. Driven to despair by his inability to counter the bureaucrats’ actions, he committed suicide. …
(Source: WUWT 10th Anniversary anthology summary at 827, summarizing this article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/20/urgent-a-call-to-action-for-the-wuwt-community/ and referring to this comment in its accompanying thread, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/20/urgent-a-call-to-action-for-the-wuwt-community/#comment-488369 )
*****************************************
But for
AGW propaganda;
utterly indefensible economically (or, ad arguendo, CO2-wise) windmills and solar “farms;
and
billions wasted on subsidizing negative ROI windpower and solar sc@ms:
a little bird would not have burnt to death,
a magnificent eagle would still be soaring through the sky,
and Lindley and veterans who served “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” would still be
alive.
And that is only a small sample of the numerous examples of poverty, misery, and death caused by “climate change” pr0paganda — all done for one thing, ultimately: MONEY.
Donald Trump should know this.
And act accordingly.
It’s not money that ultimately drives a social hysteria. Money just follows the warped incentives that are set up. (More on this in the future.)
It’s not money that ultimately drives a social hysteria. Money just follows the warped incentives that are set up. (More on this in the future.)
Correlation is not causation:
Its a classic example of real positive feedback.
A meme appears, and has money making or political potential. Before long money is being invested in it, to make even more money, and a Social Movement is born.
Eventually reality asserts its ugly head, and the movement dies, and no one who claimed to believe in it can be found to support it ‘I was just following orders/what the scientists said/what my employment terms were’ etc. etc.
Its the fashion du jour and on everyone’s lips, until it either becomes incorporated into the consensus view of reality, or people become bored with it. AGW has had both facets as we have seen a massive split in the public consciousness between those who believe the MSM, and those who disbelieve just about everything.
…++ 1,000
v’
Wow that quoted answer contains deceptive wording, circular reasoning, and obfuscation that should raise the suspicion of any reasonable person. Sadly those types of people do not seem to be very common in this Administration.
At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list.
The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor … .
(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/23/health/veterans-dying-health-care-delays/index.html )
… West Australia has ‘licensed’ a family farm out of operation … it all started when Matt Thompson started doubting global warming and talking about it publicly. ***
[Ed. Here is a video of Janet Thompson, in October, 2011, apparently, still hopeful that they can get their operation going again: {See quoted article for link} In that video you will hear that the “Lindley” referred to in Ms. Thompson’s comment above of 9/21/10 was their operations manager, a talented, dedicated, problem-solver. Driven to despair by his inability to counter the bureaucrats’ actions, he committed suicide. …
(Source: WUWT 10th Anniversary anthology summary at 827, summarizing this article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/20/urgent-a-call-to-action-for-the-wuwt-community/ and referring to this comment in its accompanying thread, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/20/urgent-a-call-to-action-for-the-wuwt-community/#comment-488369 )
(cont.)
*****************************************
But for
AGW propaganda;
utterly indefensible economically (or, ad arguendo, CO2-wise) windmills and solar “farms;
and
billions wasted on subsidizing negative ROI windpower and solar sc@ms:
a little bird would not have burnt to death,
a magnificent eagle would still be soaring through the sky,
and Lindley and veterans who served “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” would still be
alive.
And that is only a small sample of the numerous examples of poverty, misery, and death caused by “climate change” pr0paganda — all done for one thing, ultimately: MONEY.
Donald Trump should know this.
And act accordingly.
http://ornithology.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Oiled_Bird_-_Black_Sea_Oil_Spill_111207.jpg
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/140319173806-exxon-oil-04-restricted-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg
http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/oiloncanvas/data/images4/steve_abel_1.jpg
Toneb
December 20, 2016 at 1:11 pm
Millions of birds and bats are massacred each year by windmills and solar plants. Why don’t you care about them, far more numerous than those damaged by oil spills?
Of course, if you work in petroleum, and three ducks die on your land, they’ll try to put you in prison.
“Millions of birds and bats are massacred each year by windmills and solar plants. Why don’t you care about them, far more numerous than those damaged by oil spills?”
Really?
Some links to scientific investigation of numbers?
So what to you reckon was the ecological effects of the Gulf following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (just FI)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Environmental_impact
And cumulatively of numerous others.
Care to hazard a guess at how many birds are shot out of the sky as they traverse the Mediterranean on their migration routes as a comparison?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/599738/Map-Bird-killings-Europe-North-Africa-Robins
NB: Not justifying killing of birds by wind-turbines at all but look at what humans do.
Oil spillages such as the above and many more that I have not listed affect whole ecological systems, not just one species.
Toneb,
I should have said in Spain alone:
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/releases/spanish-wind-farms-kill-6-to-18-million-birds-bats-a-year.html
The job of a neighbor of mine, besides servicing the vast windmill forests in my AO, is to pick up the dead birds and bats which pile up at the base of towers not patrolled by coyotes or other scavengers.
The Gulf is healing itself rapidly. Such disasters are rare and can be controlled. There is no way to stop windmills and solar arrays from clubbing, slicing, dicing and burning alive birds and bats, to the great benefit of harmful insects and rodents.
How could you possibly doubt the slaughter of our feathered and furry friends? Some environmentalist you are.
To which I should add the negative effects on agriculture which the service roads and concrete pads have, along with more pesticide required to kill the bugs and rodents not eaten by the folded, bent, spindled, mutilated and massacred birds and bats.
My family and friends benefit greatly from the subsidies, just as they do from the ethanol scam, all the while knowing what a hoax the whole corrupt enterprise is.
But the coyotes thank you. Of course their populations were booming even before the renewables catastrophe struck.
Figure might be 40 million in the US just from windmills:
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html
The carnage has been covered up, even by groups which should care about wildlife, like the Audubon Society, which cites phony, flatly absurdly lower figures, such as a “mere” million birds and bats annually. Such is the political power of the government-academia-Big Green industrial complex.
So besides being a blot upon the land, wind and solar power probably kill tens of millions of birds and bats worldwide. Maybe more than 100 million, since China has more windmills than the US.
Toneb
Agreed that some creatures in the sea – whales, birds, otters, fish and the rest – die because of oil.
Why are not tankers hydrostatically loaded?
USCG doesn’t like that it seems.
Yet EPA seems – like our energy ministry [once the Ministry of Power, but ‘name changes baffle brains’ (have I the Latin tag right?)] – content to chop bats and birds [and never mind the noise that some folk find unbearable – at least in the geographically constricted UK – suffer from].
Auto.
Toneb
December 20, 2016 at 1:11 pm
Millions of birds and bats are massacred each year by windmills and solar plants. Why don’t you care about them, far more numerous than those damaged by oil spills?
—————–
hello Ton
From my point of view, your raised point shows what the actual problem with the AGW mind set is, and with what is propagated as a precautionary principle in relation to it.
It even shows the validity of the point raised in this post.
The precautionary principle propagated and claimed as a must do in relation to AGW, in principle must be considered as an insurance policy.an insurance act, because that is what suppose to be, if valid.
But among many other ways and factual evidence, it is not shown to be valid.
In many ways that precautionary principle, is not in accordance with what known as an insurance policy, while more than not it contradicts it.
Among all this your point raised, clearly shows, modestly actually, the bizarre AGW mind set when it comes to loss and damage and the human way of life.
The loss of life, animal life, or even human life, through and because of accidents, is an inescapable given, which we the humanity try to compensate and over time correct for the better through the concept and the principle of precautionary and insurance, which actually is very much widen to date in its application in every day aspect and actions of humanity, with all its ups and downs…….
The loss or damage of bird and animal life you show and try to compare it with the one Janice has shown , is due to accidents which in one way or another are covered and dealt in a way by policies and insurance structures that suppose and exist to better the situation in the future similar conditions propagating a way to a far much lees loss and damage, by imposing the burden of more security and safety in the operation and the operator of such given processes, and the probable accidents related to.
The life loss and damage shown by Janice, in contrary to what shown by you, is a loss and damage not due to accidents but a loss and damage through a routine, which is dismissed as a problem by the AGW mind set, which in essential and principle shows in a way, how perverse and paradoxical the take of that particular mind set is when it comes to precautionary principle and insurance towards actions and outcomes.
It is a loss and damage of life with no any regard to correct it or to actually compensate it.
The AGW mind set, every thing goes, is ,excused and justified, regardless,and with no due diligence, when the “call to arms” for saving the planet is shouted all over the place as the main “heroic” and “noble”. act of the time, where even human life does not count much anymore…….Let alone that of birds and animals….
A weird and contradictory mind set…would.t you say! ..
cheers
Whiten, a very nice distinction between occasional accidental slaughter and deliberate everyday slaughter. Many thanks for that ‘new to me’ thought. Just trying to simplify into another skeptical ‘sound bite’.
Highest regards.
ristvan
December 20, 2016 at 3:49 pm
Thank you, ristvan …
Appreciated …
Whiten, and Rudd,
That’s Just a long-winded version of the Progressive mindset that the end justifies the means.
Get out of their way or become roadkill.
Tonyb
Just a small example of a single wind farm
The Altamont Pass wind farm project has 4900 wind turbines. Their own surveys count over 4700 birds killed annually with 1400 of them being Raptors. Per WIKI. This equates to just about 1 Bird per turbine per year every year.
Yes, Oil spills from drilling rig and transportation accidents do occur and are ecologically deviating but don’t occur at every drilling rig or oil tanker once every year.
Given the total number of wind turbines world wide of 310,000 http://www.gwec.net/global-figures/wind-in-numbers/ it is easy to extrapolate that well over 300,000 birds are killed every year or 3,000,000+ per decade
In Germany, about 12 dead bats are found per year near a wind turbine. (plus those which ar not found or eaten by predators.
BryanA
Altamont is one of a handful of damaging windfarms – it should have been torn down years ago…
It was built in the 80s to an old design of many small turbines on open lattice towers, across a narrow migration route, in a wintering ground for eagles, with utility poles which due to their design often led to large birds electrocuting themselves. birds were attracted to perch on the lattice towers…
Because of Altamont, 99.9% of all other wind farms are of different designs and sited so they do not damage birds like Altamont…
and yet, you will find the figures for Altamont applied to every wind farm on some websites…
If you take the US eagle population estimates (Bald and Golden) at any point in the last 10 years and compare them to the Altamont derived figures, you’ll see all the eagles have multiple times been made extinct…
So these figures are actually 84% higher than mine were indicating that there are almost 2 bird deathe per year per turbine
I just know Griff is going to aks for sources and I forgot to include the link
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/license-to-kill-wind-and-solar-decimate-birds-and-bats/
Well, guess what, ToneB? Your examples are inapposite, thus, a very weak counterargument.
The ENORMOUS benefits of the positive ROI (and EROEI) petroleum industry FAR outweigh the damage caused (as sad as that damage is) by that industry.
You lose.
Further, you are weighing the worth of birds against the priceless worth of human beings (the ones who are so greatly benefited by petroleum).
Pitiful.
“You lose.”
If you say so Janice
IOW: What we get from ToneB (the name confusion troll — Tony B is a longtime, science realism commenter on WUWT) is: more propaganda.
Propaganda: a twisted version of the truth designed to deceive.
Persuasive Argument: the truth presented in an emotionally compelling and honest way to promote truth.
“Further, you are weighing the worth of birds against the priceless worth of human beings (the ones who are so greatly benefited by petroleum).
Pitiful.”
No, second thoughts (sarc) – you lose…
Well yes, pitiful.
I was calling out your hypocrisy that’s all.
It’s amazing to me that you didn’t twig.
IOW: What we get from ToneB (the name confusion troll — Tony B is a longtime, science realism commenter on WUWT) is: more propaganda.”
No, it’s called scince.
That you and most denizens call it “propaganda” is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Try linking to some, just as I do, or even read some.
You do not find science here unless it comes from me, Nick, Leif or a few others who can be bothered with the likes of your hand-waving bawling, and waiting for the hugs and kisses to come your way.
Toneb , I sense some desperation. The scam is coming to an end because subsidies to wind and solar are coming to an end and NO ONE will spend 1 dollar to install anymore of this type of renewables until at some point in the distant future in becomes viable.I grant that in some instances when people want to live of the grid or it is to expensive to bring in electricity there is a small corner for them but unless you are fairly well off even those are generally replaced with fossil fuel run generators.
“No, it’s called scince.”
Is that the new spelling for the latest release of quasi-religion from the acaemic science elite?
acaemic? meant to say acanemic it think.
I’d better find those glasses.
I’ll respond to Janice and Toneb here.
Janice, to cite bird kill as a reason against windmills is madness. It will always be beaten down by the images Toneb has posted. Please stop doing it. It paint’s you as no better than a green zealot. The arguments against windmills and solar are economic, they cannot provide the energy resources we need as you very well illustrate frequently.
Toneb.
You are right, the number of animals killed by oil spills is appalling, but huge funds have been spent to both stop spillage and clean it up when it happens. Janice is also right when she compares the benefits of fossil fuel use relative to the decreasing damage it does to our environment.
It’s not perfect, but we have only been burning the stuff for 100 years or so (to any meaningful degree) and you are tapping on a computer, probably entirely reliant on fossil fuels. We would not be where we are today, a mere 100 years on from routinely using candles for lighting.
On the other hand, we are now killing people by depriving them of cheap energy, not only in the civilised western world, by the thousands per anum, but by the million per anum in developing world.
There is no reason for it. There is no proof anywhere, by anyone, that concludes empirically CO2 causes global temperature rise. The experiments have only been conducted in laboratories which, necessarily exclude the thousands of other variables in our atmosphere.
You may be correct in your belief that CO2 causes GW, but as man’s annual contribution to atmospheric CO2 is around 0.000004% of the atmosphere, is it really credible? The most prolific greenhouse gas, water vapour is several hundred times that of man-made CO2, but no reference is made to it in the GW discussion.
Posting emotive images of dead animals does no one any good, that was proven with the Polar bears whose numbers have burgeoned since the ban on shooting them was introduced. Their numbers have multiplied fivefold since then. Climate change has no impact on them, nor oil spills.
Climate change isn’t the problem you imagine it is, in fact it may not be the problem we all imagine it to be.
Dear Scot,
“Madness.” Strong words deserve a strong response. It is rational to cite bird kill as evidence of wrong when the killing is done, NOT for a GREAT net benefit (as petroleum is) to humanity, but, rather for nothing but MONEY alone (for the enviroprofiteers pockets). Money which could be better spent keeping veterans healthy. Money which funds wicked litigation against farmers like the Thompsons. Money which could improve the lives of many of the poor of the world.
But — for — taxpayer and conventional power ratepayer subsidies, wind power could not even exist. It is, given the current technology that is even LIKELY to happen within the next 50 years, negative EROEI and negative ROI.
That you could not care less about birds killed doesn’t mean the average human being does not care. Emotional appeals based in facts and promoting truth (wind is a SC@M — so is solar) to persuade and move people to action on behalf of what is right are good. Their effect is: liberty and health and life.
You falsely equate TB’s false premise-based visuals to mine.
Killing birds, and in the case of solar, painfully, for an ECONOMICALLY FOOLISH endeavor is WRONG.
Once again, to be sure you understand what I am trying to say: that wind and solar are foolish economically is what makes killing birds to keep them going WRONG.
Finally, yes, I do love animals (birds included). Very much. One can do both, you know. Be a rational economics thinker and love animals. Note, too, there is a reason that the Hebrews considered the seat of wisdom to be the heart. Our understanding is INFORMED and enhanced by our rational emotion. There is a clear distinction between irrational (or “madness” as you describe my thinking) and NON-rational. Fact-based emotions, simpliciter, are NON-rational. That the “green zealots” are ruled by their emotions need not prevent the rest of us from making emotions our servant. You ignore what makes humans human. If we followed your view of emotional appeals, we would not play patriotic songs to encourage our troops, tell no touching (true) stories of children in need to motivate ourselves to give, and ignore the plight of the dogs living their miserable lives in the cages of puppy mills.
We would all be Ebenezer Scrooge if our hearts were as cold as his, hearts impervious to healthy, truthful, emotional appeals.
I wonder where you would be today, but for a relative, a teacher, someone who was motivated solely by love to help you?
Wishing you a Merry Christmas (mad as that may sound (smile) coming from me….),
Janice
Toneb, you put here and there a piece of information, but never discuss a topic to the end or to get a full picture.
No true, unfortunately. In this year congress extended them for five years.
Paragraph 9: “Indeed, for what it is worth, the CFACT report notes that the ice mass in the Arctic is now about 22 percent greater than it was at its low point in 2012. This fact helps explain why there has been no recent change in the rise of sea levels, and certainly none that can be attributed to the relatively modest level of temperature increases in the past 100 years.”
We’ve gotta do better than that! –AGF
It isn’t.
Ice volume of the arctic sea ice is at a record low for the satellite record period.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
“November 2016 sea ice volume was 7,800 km3 , about 2500 km3 below the 2015 value and the lowest for any November on record exceeding the prior record set in 2012 by about 400 km3 . This record is in part the result of anomalously high temperatures throughout the Arctic for November discussed here. 2016 November volume was 61% below the maximum November ice volume in 1979, 48% below the 1979-2015 mean, and about 1.1 standard deviations below the long term trend line.”
Nope! It is at a record low for the date. Not for the record period. Record low for the modern period was 2012. Strive for accuracy in your b.s., Griff.
Sea ice has no effect whatsoever on sea level. Doesn’t raise it, doesn’t lower it.
If I were Trump, I’d find someone to redo the federal social cost of carbon (SCC) study to account for greening caused by CO2, and a lower, more realistic, CO2 climate sensitivity. The old cost will turn into an actual benefit with new evidence.
A 33-Year History of the Productivity of Arctic and Boreal Vegetation
So 20.9 – 1.2 is about a 19.7% overall gain in productivity.
Full paper, on greening, available here: Changes in growing season duration and productivity of northern vegetation inferred from long-term remote sensing data, Park et al, 2016
Mark4: Your idea is well-founded and a good one.
However, if I were advising Mr. Trump, I would tell him to say this:
“Until you AGWers prove that human CO2 emissions are a genuine problem,
all, and I mean ALL, regulations limiting economic growth based on “climate change” justifications are
repealed.
The business of America {once again,} is business. (Calvin Coolidge)”
***********************************************
The burden of proof has always been and has never shifted from the AGWers. They have yet to make even a prima facie case. Game. Over.
A ruling like that may do for the USA yet … unless you refute the old SCC study with a better one, alarmists will forever rant on about how you don’t care about the environment. I think a Trump administration has no choice to to redo the SCC.
Sadly, in Europe, alarmists have the precautionary principle, PP, to hide behind. This idea is almost be tailor made to by-pass cost-benefit arguments. I think we’ll need political change in Europe to knock the naked emperors off their thrones before we can do anything.
@mark4asap”
“………Sadly, in Europe, alarmists have the precautionary principle, PP, to hide behind……”
Perhaps I am wrong here, but it has been my understanding that science cannot prove a negative—that something has no (zero) risk. If that is so, then the Precautionary Principle is irrational because it demands exactly that from science, does it not?
Q: How many climatic trends, “severe” weather, or weather-related events have EVER been proved to be A) outside natural variation or B) caused by human-emitted CO2?
A: ZERO. Zip, zilch, nada.
The level of hysteria over NOTHING is astonishing and absurd.
Exactly. It takes a lot of work and money to find the evidence of climate change problems. Which means that the claims of unprecedented hazard are bogus. One cannot have an apocalypse and subtle symptoms.
Evidence CO2 is not regulating temperature
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/observational-evidence-for-a-nonlinear-night-time-cooling-mechanism/
Micro (from your blog)….
“An analysis of nightly cooling has identified non-linearity in cooling rates under clear sky no wind conditions that is not due to equilibrium with the with the radiative temperature of the sky. This non-linearity regulates surface temperature cooling at night, and is temperature and dew point dependent, not co2, and in fact any additional warming from Co2 has to be lost to space, before the change to the slower cooling rate.”
Micro (as I’ve told you before elsewhere):
Congratulations! you’ve discovered the radiative formation/effects of fog.
It is no surprise to science that RH regulates cooling at the surface.
Fog forms (generally) at 100% RH and radiation from the ground stops.
BUT: it continues to radiate from the fog top. Even if it were 1000’s feet thick.
And that radiative cooling will dissipate down to cool the fog below.
It is the bit above the fog that makes CO2 important, especially at higher/drier atmospheric levels and in dry climates such as Polar/desert ones.
Do try to think 3 dimensionally and hold in you mind that there can be more than mechanism acting at the same time.
But the temperature series that you use as proof, comes from 2 meters, not 5,000 foot, and the satellites which don’t measure the surface also don’t show any warming that is also not in the surface data. So, as usual all you have is some hypothesis that is yet to be found. And BTW, when you look up on a clear night at 3 in the morning, do you see any fog? I know the telescope I use all night never sees any. Tone, just more bs I’m afraid.
“But the temperature series that you use as proof, comes from 2 meters, not 5,000 foot, and the satellites which don’t measure the surface also don’t show any warming that is also not in the surface data. So, as usual all you have is some hypothesis that is yet to be found. And BTW, when you look up on a clear night at 3 in the morning, do you see any fog? I know the telescope I use all night never sees any. Tone, just more bs I’m afraid.
Micro, I din’t post a temperature series “proof”. It’s just basic meteorology.
Micro I spent many, many, night shifts watching weather at both military airfields and at a centre advising gritting teams about surface temps/conditions re road ice. I do know about radiative effects.
“when you look up on a clear night at 3 in the morning”
Yep indeed – 32 years of night shifts doing that my friend.
“Tone, just more bs I’m afraid.”
Yep – the usual.
What a surprise.
Micro: IF YOU SAY SO.
More on the Social Cost of Carbon
* The Bogus Cost Of Carbon. Blog by Willis Eschenbach
* Why the UK gave up on the SCC, by Dr John Constable, at GWPF
* Climate Change Act Has Cost Us The Earth, by Matt Ridley, at GWPF
Should be the social cost of the green religion of climate change , faith can’t be estimated in dollars only personal self fulfilment .
+1
Translation: The IWG is founded on the fundamental premise that we are eradicators of the CO2 pollutant. By definition, then, we do NOT recognize any benefits whatsoever of CO2, and so to consider benefits would violate our mission.
The United Nations seems to play the same game, as evidenced by a report I came upon a couple days ago (can’t seem to find it again), in which the language of “cost/benefit” analysis was terribly misappropriated to characterize a benefit analysis were there was none, … where, in fact, benefits of zero additional CO2 was the actual gist of the “analysis”. In other words, the flaw in these sorts of organized appeals is the hidden assumption that CO2 has zero benefits, and so the only benefit considered is the benefit of eliminating the cost of its evil.
Instead of “hide the decline”, they hide the benefits.
Thee Tax Shalt Be – $36 per MMCC Libra.+
Or $1.26 trillion world-wide. Now that should get a lefty’s heart a flutterin’.
I agree that putting lots of carbon in the air is probably bad but the more CO2 the better.
When all solutions that advocates of climate change are examined, they all strangely converge, not on a cohesive solution to the alleged problem, but instead they converge on socialism. That tells me that even when such people might have a point of truth, they only tell it to advance the broader lie.
As for me, when I see that less than 25,000 years ago where the city of Chicago currently sits was under almost a mile of solid glacial ice, I know that the climate is *always changing*. I also know by looking at the records from the Vostok Station that the trend in CO2 trailed the trend in temperature by about 800 years. I can plainly see who is really in denial, and it isn’t me.
Agreed, and I’ll keep repeating my new tag line with pleasure, as you pointed out – “Observation TRUMPS theory.” ;-D
Climate change has been taking place for eons, long before Mankind started using fossif fuels. Even if we could somehow cause climate change to stop, under our current global climate sea level rise would continue to rise and extreme weather evernts would continue to happen unabated. There is no economic benefit to be had by haulting climate change. The climate change we have been experiending is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of sceintific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero. We must also consider that CO2 is necessary for life as we know it on this planet and the amount of CO2 currently in our atmosphere is historically low and well below the optimum for plant growth. So the additional cost to society of adding CO2 to our atmosphere is currently zero. The real concern is that our supply of fossil fuel is finite and burning up this finite supply just as quickly as possible may not be such a good idea. Before the supply runs out, Mankind must convert to alternate sources of energy and we must lower our population so that these alternate sources of energy will meet our needs. So there are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. Our real problem is Mankind’s out of control population. If Mankind does not control his own population then Nature will, catastrophically.
Human population isn’t out of control. It will stabilize under ten billion. That’s baked in the cake.
The UN estimates 11.2 billion in 2100, but that’s just idiotic extrapolation. When the Muslim world undergoes the demographic transition that the rest of the world has already undergone, “problem” solved.
On the UN’s unwarranted alarmism, based upon unrealistic assumptions about Africa and China:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-population-global-united-nations-2100-boom-africa/
I see zero evidence that anyone in the fantasy Muslim world cares about anything or anyone else in the real world.
Chimp- With a little luck you will be proven right but I believe that steady progress on population control is dependent on steady progress economically. That progress, in turn, depends on political stability, education and energy cost and availability. That’s why your numbers aren’t ” baked in”.
There is nothing actually controling population except misery and catastrophy. Where I live the population density just keeps increasing.
Ironically, it is the increased use of fossil fuels that will stave off population growth. History shows us that industrialization and economic development decreases population, it does not increase it. So “conservation” is a fools game. Encouraging Africa and other developing portions of the world to access and use their coal, oil and gas, and to industrialize and modernize their economies, is the way to ending overpopulation, misery, famine and death, not “conserving” fossil fuels as if no future energy breakthroughs will ever occur.
Bingo!
So someone needs to work out what the social cost of decarbonising (SCDC?)would be.
What factors would that include?
Reduced plant fertilisation, 3rd world poverty, lack of economic progress?
https://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/what-is-the-social-cost-of-reducing-carbon/
The root, the axiom, of their logic is that anything Man does is harmful. In this context it is Man’s CO2 that is harmful.
Both are yet to be proven yet their political-science says it is true therefore Man must be controlled to save him from himself. The proposed controls rarely, if ever, are of any actual benefit to anybody but the proposers and their friends.
“The proposed controls rarely, if ever, are of any actual benefit to anybody but the proposers and their friends.”
Exactly. And the only people that think they’re “saving the world” by pushing CO2 emission reductions are those that completely take for granted all that they have BECAUSE OF said CO2 emissions.
I think there is an advantage that Trump is a Twitter guy. It would be good to have pithy bullet point condensed reports of significant research findings that he could be informed about with a link.
Gary, I have been comment contributing sound bites linked to graphs, charts, papers, whatever, for ages here. Wrote three rbooks, the last of which does much that you ask, but in short essay rather than Twitter form. You have a great idea. Get me funding and I will make it operational. Else not.
I’m concerned that Ivanka has drunk the CACA Kool-aid. But maybe her outreach to ecoloons is just for show. She and her husband are liberal, but on many issues, so is The Donald.
I’m going to the inauguration, but that’s not the time or place to discuss such issues. Maybe I’ll be able to grok some answers without being as obnoxious as usual.
Despite Tillerson’s mouthing CACA platitudes, over all I feel pretty good about Trump’s appointments so far.
The Californian snowflakes want to secede their state – my long experience with Americans leads me to think that most would support them eg Texans for a start.
Toneb; a bit more study will learn you that water phase change and ad/convection plus radiation up to over 70,000ft, render CO2 irrelevant. Water has near-limitless spare capacity for that.
“The SCC is an estimate of the net economic damages”
If they don’t look at both negative AND positive effects of CO2 emissions, then they do not know the meaning of the word “net”.
“…declining agricultural … productivity…” This is bad. Vegetation loves CO2. Glad to hear someone from Stanford stand for good science.
Gunga Din December 20, 2016 at 3:15 pm
+10
Apparently for people like Gore, Greenstone, Sunstein, Mann, etc., global warming is a “get rich quick” scheme that really works!
Now that they’ve solved the “social cost of carbon”, they should move on and calculate the “social cost of humans”.
+
I never understood the phrase “social cost of …” . What does it mean? I would have thought the lack of fossil fuels has a greater ‘social cost” than the provision of cheap energy from them.
See Robert? That’s why you’ll never get ahead in Ottawa!
Robert of Ottawa,
IN RE “I never understood the phrase ‘social cost of …’ . What does it mean?”
To answer, I am an economist
Social Cost is a term in welfare economics. It is the amount the social surplus (or combined producer and consumer surplus) is not maximized. It is a measure of allocactive inefficiency. It is often an excuse or justification for government interventions abet government intervention can also cause inefficiency as in the case of price controls. The social surplus is usual maximized when marginal social cost equals marginal social benefit at that level of production consumption or transforming scare resources into a higher valued output for society. Normally free markets will get to the allocative efficient result, but this depends on social costs equaling private costs and/or social benefits equaling private benefits, i.e.no spillovers or externalities in production or consumption, and there is a laundry list of other things including informational failures which can cause inefficiency or social costs relative to what id deemed optimal maximizing societal welfare. Honey production is an example of a positive externality of spillover since the bees pollinate a neighbor’s crops so social benefit is greater than private benefit of consuming a quart of honey,and markets will have honey production where private marginal cost equals private marginal benefit for a less than optimal level of honey produced for society. Pollution is the textbook example of a negative externality since the producers and consumers of an item does not bear the cost of say a polluted river because of a paper factory dumping waste in the river. There is a marginal benefit to society of having one more say paper cup, a private marginal cost to produce it in terms of the necessary resources to make one more cup which the factory purchases, but also an unaccounted spillover where say an extra cup makes it so less fish are caught down stream for fishermen or it is marginal more polluted reducing the benefit of swimming downstream. Here marginal social cost is higher than marginal social benefit. Markets only tie together marginal private costs and benefits.
In the case of CO2 or fossil fuels, is is ASSUMED that there is a negative spillover or cost being global warming which would hurt third parties including future generations. I and others would personally dispute human CO2 emissions is a negative externality since it does not cause the planet to warm, and it the planet did warm, then it would be a social benefit (e.g.longer growing seasons).
The textbook way to fix an externality is to add it back in the private costs by a tax on CO2 emissions,similar to a tax on leaded gas which causes brain damage to urban dwellers as a pollutant which is not paid for at the pump (abet a tort claim for damages would mimic a Piquovian tax). This is why some economists want to estimate the marginal social costs of CO2 per GTon as to establish the proper tax level to maximize the social surplus. The estimation in my opinion,it outdated based on bad models, is politically based, ignores benefits such as fewer people dying of cold or increased agricultural output or grossly exaggerates costs. Similar to scientific models of climate, social scientists are making a bunch of assumptions with a wide degree of error. Merely changing something such as a discount rate massively changes results. The AGW crowd assumed CO2 had a negative spillover 25 years ago before they even took a deeper look at it since it sort of made sense on assumption, e.g.sea level rising due to warming,such also justified more study and jobs to study it. If someone turned in the IPCC report on social costs as a college term paper,it would be a D paper or be given back for a rewrite.
see theeuroprobe,org and type CO2 into the search box MG
From: Watts Up With That? To: mickgreenhough@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 20:07 Subject: [New post] A must read: Obsolete Climate Science on CO2 #yiv7178224867 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv7178224867 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv7178224867 a.yiv7178224867primaryactionlink:link, #yiv7178224867 a.yiv7178224867primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv7178224867 a.yiv7178224867primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv7178224867 a.yiv7178224867primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv7178224867 WordPress.com | Anthony Watts posted: “Obsolete Climate Science on CO2by Richard A. Epstein, Stanford UniversityTuesday, December 20, 2016The incoming Trump administration has promised dramatic transformations on many vital domestic issues. The best gauge of” | |
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
This one paragraph of a “must read” essay by Stanford University’s Richard A. Epstein, IMHO sums up the “climate change” aka “global warming” fiasco/scam/scientific scandal that has snowballed into an out of control ideological behemoth. The new fashionable religion of our age, with its High Priests and clergyman ruthlessly dismissive of counter-evidence, new or contradictory ‘science’ and viciously scornful of real-world observations that mock the holy (corrupt/overheated) computer models that underpin the faith…
“This dismissive attitude is fatal to independent inquiry. No matter how many times the president claims the science is rock-solid, the wealth of recent evidence gives rise to a very different picture that undercuts the inordinate pessimism about climate change that was in vogue about 10 years ago. The group convened in the Obama administration never examined, let alone refuted, the accumulation of evidence on the other side. Indeed, virtually all of its reports are remarkable for the refusal to address any of the data at all. Instead, the common theme is to refer to models developed by others as the solid foundation for the group’s own work, without questioning a word of what those models say.”
“The group convened in the Obama administration never examined, let alone refuted, the accumulation of evidence on the other side”.
This seems to me to be extremely telling of the political motivations that the Obama people brought to office with them. Who, as an honest broker, confronted with a multi-trillion dollar problem, chooses all the most expensive solutions, with no attempt whatsoever, to quantify or qualify the issue? In fact, using all available resources and creating some new ones, to further exaggerate the problem when voters prove indifferent.
“lecture the incoming president on climate change”
I think a better word is HECTOR.
By controlling population numbers, we would decrease the chances of people giving birth to more people gullible enough to believe that CO2 is a “pollutant”, thereby increasing the number of people smart enough to know that it is not.
Seriously, though, I think the bigger problem with number of bodies on the planet is not so much the number itself as it is the DENSITY. Our problem is how we cram ourselves together into collectives, how we fill up space, how we undervalue large clearances or breathing room between our structures, and how many people fail to respect the FLOW of movement within the whole system of civilized structures.
Of course, very few people would consider this a proper focus on a problem, because it would be regarded as some crazy theory that no rational person could possibly entertain. It would entail trying to undo a chain of bad habits that has ruled developing civilizations from the very beginning of civilization.
l WA
If you want to read a joke on made-up whatever costs they could find or imagine ignoring benefits, see the IPCC reports on economic cost estimates. It is laughable. They loss of tourism jobs due to ski resorts closing … at what? 1/8 degree C per decade forecasted which they also say should be unnoticeable to humans? Also agricultural output falls, when we know now almost as a fact now that added CO2 aids photosynthesis and helps plant grow increasing output (we can see how greener the planet is by satellites which is a shock to some lay alarmists reading fake news in the NYTs or Guardian) not to mention the longer growing season (if it did warm as forecasted by their crap models). It is complete garbage. Newspapers too have added social costs hype of added wars, increased murders and kidney stones, so see what is next. What about all the climate change increase in hurricanes, storms, fires, and droughts which never happened or did opposite?
If anything, increased CO2 has a positive net benefit to society, not a net cost,and is not a negative externality, more likley a positive one, and still positive even if hypothetically true that temps rising a tad.
[I am an economist. If you want to see another joke, look at federal regulations and the cost of a life the feds use which is a multiple overestimate of the true number. This justifies thousands of regulations and government regulatory jobs from air bags to warning lights at rural railroad crossings few people use. Thousands of federal employees would not have a job if they used a more accurate estimate as opposed to the overestimate which evolved. Even on the state level same, we have mandatory sprinkler systems in all new residential houses built where I live to save lives where the cost is much bigger than the benefit.]
Does one ton of carbon equal 3 tons of CO2 (more or less) or does one ton of CO2 = 1/3 of a ton of carbon?
I meet this lazy acceptance of green misinformation frusrating. Up here in the Great White North, Trudeau wants to introduce a Carbon tax and nobody supposedly knows what it will cost. With bafflegab over the term “carbon” it’s not surprising
The fundamental, and almost universally unrecognized, and suppressed, problem here is that there simply is no hard-data evidence in support of greenhouse warming. A search by a colleague of over 10,000 climate-related, peer-reviewed journal articles amazingly revealed only one hard-data-based study of greenhouse warming, that of Knut Angstrom in 1900, and Angstrom’s result was negative, i.e., there is very little effect on temperature from an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Astonished by this, I conducted my own hard-data-based study in 2015 (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/10/interesting-climate-sensitivity-analysis-do-variations-in-co2-actually-cause-global-significant-warming/), which arrived at essentially the same conclusion, but confirmed the likelihood that my colleague’s suggestion that ozone depletion by chlorine derived from CFCs and basaltic volcanoes might be the actual cause of global warming.
This wanton exclusion of hard-data-based studies from climate “science” is professionally inexcusable, and, in my opinion, should be the focus of all attempts to debunk the insidious and completely unsupported theory of greenhouse warming.