Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new paper claims more shared development goals and less emphasis on wealth creation is the key to solving climate change.
Economic Equality Is Key to Solving Climate Change, Report Shows
By Jeremy Hodges
6 March 2018, 02:00 GMT+10
Economies need to reduce inequality and promote sustainable development for the world to avert the perils of runaway global warming, according to new research.
The risk of missing emissions targets increased dramatically under economic scenarios that emphasizes high inequality and growth powered by fossil fuels, according to research published Monday by a team of scientists in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change journal.
“Climate change is far from the only issue we as a society are concerned about” said Joeri Rogelj, the paper’s lead author and a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis outside of Vienna. “We have to understand how these many goals can be achieved simultaneously. With this study, we show the enormous value of pursuing sustainable development for ambitious climate goals in line with the Paris Agreement,” he said.
…
The abstract of the paper;
The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview
This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and a middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 500-1100 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than 120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: 1) the policy assumptions, 2) the socio-economic narrative, and 3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectorial extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6).
Read more: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/13280/
The paper is a little coy about what they mean by “shared socioeconomic pathways”, but the following description of their favoured scenario caught my eye;
… SSP1 Sustainability – Taking the Green Road (Low challenges to mitigation and adaptation)
The world shifts gradually, but pervasively, toward a more sustainable path, emphasizing more inclusive development that respects perceived environmental boundaries. Management of the global commons slowly improves, educational and health investments accelerate the demographic transition, and the emphasis on economic growth shifts toward a broader emphasis on human well-being. Driven by an increasing commitment to achieving development goals, inequality is reduced both across and within countries. Consumption is oriented toward low material growth and lower resource and energy intensity. …
Read more: Same link as above
The paper has a point – there is no doubt if the world killed off prosperity and rapid economic growth, CO2 emissions would stop rising. If we all lived like people do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, places which have de-emphasised material concerns like financial security and having enough to eat, our global carbon footprint would be substantially reduced.
There is no Law of Conservation of Wealth. Which never stops the utopian (read: dystopian) socialists from trying to invent one.
My wallet had an Economic Growth, then I went to see the Doctor about it and he gave my wallet an Economic Growthectomy. My wallet is feeling much lighter now.
What a brave, brave New world.
“Halting Economic Growth the Key to Solving Climate Change”
Well they have it sort of right there, although as an economist, I have always been aware that the standard solution to AGW involved wrecking the world economy (and starving everyone except the so called elite).
So the claim seems to be consistent with the standard, non Marxist, economic view of the effects of CO2 reduction, which is well documented by Milton Friedman.
Unfortunately as there is no proof that anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming, it is my belief that making the world poorer, by any means, will only have one effect, that is – it will make the world poorer.
The true economic effects CO2 reduction is something that Lord Stern would not admit, although I believe he is a politician not an economist. If he believes what he spouts, he would not even be able to pass Economics 101 at any reputable university.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
History has shown, that during a ‘Golden age’ a society can allocate resources to art, education and philosophy. But when faced with environmental or outside pressure, those resources are needed for security or food production.
So liberal arts professors should get ready for their next career in agriculture. Without oil, that plough is not going to pull itself.
Oil Horse Oxen … something needs to do the work
If you want a row broke using them it will take 20-30 professor team and knot those plow lines, you gonna need to “motivate” them.
An 8 hour work day will be a thing of the past. Hunter-gatherers have to work 16 hours or more. Assign liberal arts professors to the task, and it becomes 32 hours a day.
That is indeed about the only positive that can be taken from this piece of so-called research:
While we can collectively still afford to pay such stupid people to produce this misanthropic twaddle, there is clearly a lot of scope for it to get much worse. Small mercies…
That is truly scary. Everyone would starve if we had to rely on Liberal Arts professors. Going from teaching two or three classes a day to pulling a plow. Oh my!
That is why you knot those plowlines! Seriously, though, if anyone gets the chance at a state fair or farm show try out breaking row with horse or oxen drawn plow. It is an experience!
Which socialists have made that claim?
Socialism itself assumes a zero-sum game when it comes to wealth, since they believe it is found, not created.
Communism.
Nice one Louis – gotta run that through the subwoofers when I get home, may start at 9 b4 giving it 11
:-O
Usual rules: clear the floor, give it some stick and wrap shape around it.
Follow the brunette’s lead if you’re feeling shy.
This IS real science you’re doing here. You’re looking for the Dopamine it generates – clue being that you will come out of it bright, clear-headed and wanting more.
Rather than dizzy, muddled, forgetful and sleepy as other (chemical) sources of Dopamine provide.
Lap it up. There is no better.
WB: “Communism.”
Exactly. And, what was Communism good at? Killing people, directly or indirectly. Climate Change solved!
I thought they tried this already in Africa….
…long live Xi
They are doing it in Cuba and Venezuela right now. We lived like that during the war too. Other than ashes from the one stove, there was no need for garbage collection either. Yes, let the good times roll.
And Cambodia.
The problem is this fetish humans have for longevity.
Yes, I have a strange penchant to see tomorrow’s sunrise.
If I have enough food for breakfast, even better!
“inequality is reduced both across and within countries.” Will somebody show me what “equality” looks like for any species? Not with an abstract example, mind you, but a real example of equality existing between any living creature. I would love to see what it looks like!
Here it is for salmon:
What’s going on with the dog?
He senses something fishy is about to happen
The dog? “four legs good two legs better.”
“somebody show me what “equality” looks like“. Orwell did that in Animal Farm – “the happiest animals live simple lives” and of course some are more equal than others. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy operates unfettered under communism, and the result is always a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. That is exactly where the free world’s Green parties would take everyone, given the chance.
China just banned “Animal Farm”, and also the letter “N”! https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/asia/china-letter-ban-trnd/index.html
China also banned all references to Winnie the Pooh. Xi Jinping is somewhat irreverently known as Winnie the Pooh. (A photo of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama had them positioned just like an illustration of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger). This latest move by Xi Jinping and the ultra thin-skinned sensitivity to even the mildest comments are very very bad news for everyone. China has also, according to recent reports, almost doubled its military expenditure.
Bad times ahead. I sincerely hope that POTUS is up to the task when the S hits the F.
Oh come on, there is already way too much equality, what we need is a bit more redistribution:
http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Wealth-Inequality-1.jpg
That percentage is small compared to most socialist paradises.
1) Most of the 0.1% are athletes and performers.
2) The list of those in the top 0.1% changes dramatically every year.
@zazove;
Look closely at the notes on that curve. It’s constructed by capitalizing the income reported on income tax returns. In other words, it counts ONLY income. My parents, were they alive today, would be rather low on the scale, having only a retirement income based on Social Security. But the curve wouldn’t capture the house they live in. They bought it for $25,000 in 1961, and today it’s worth about $500,000. Tricksy little things, economists. Before they screwed it all up, when IRA’s were first started, if you contributed the maximum amount of $2,000 a year for 45 years of work and invested in a mutual fund that mimicked the Dow Jones Average, with dividends reinvested you’d have a raw ROR of about 10% and you’d have about $1.5 million in your nest egg. That graph doesn’t catch that, either.
Equality is when everybody has what our betters consider the proper amount of stuff for people like us.
Nothing more, nothing less.
it has electrolytes
Equality is when everybody has $200 (but owes $400 for their monthly electric bill)
Capitalism insists on it being their own individual $200 that they earned themselves
Socialism insists on it being the Same $200 that the government gives them (government gives $200 once and everyone passes it around)
@ gnomish March 5, 2018 at 8:19 pm
+10
… it’s what they crave 😉
RR has it right with the salmo, we’re all equal only when we’re dead. Communist despots just typically move that date up for some people.
reduction of inequality does not mean equality.
Equality means everyone has the same opportunity.
Whether you take advantage of that opportunity is up to you.
Mike W “Equality means everyone has the same opportunity.”
Too bad this is so far from the case.
No, it is the case. People do not have equal opportunity when leftists trolls like you get involved in their lives.
It is pretty close to the case. The biggest problem is those who would rather not try, then whine that they aren’t getting ahead.
… and an increase in equality does not mean inequality.
But making everyone “more equal” (the whole point) does not sell well does it?
Why don’t they strive for an INCREASE IN EQUALITY (more of a perceived good), rather than a DECREASE IN INEQUALITY (less of a perceived bad)?
Making everyone “less unequal” sells much better. Are you a buyer or a seller?
(and where’s Griff?)
While the Lowest Common Denominator does create a sense of equality, it is still the LOWEST COMMON GROUND possible
Sounds like the East German experiment all over again. From everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs (NOT!!!)
Just list to “Trees” by Rush.
Spot on.
Venezuela represents the ideal, with near perfect economic equality. The society consists of the vast multitudes who are all equally poor and miserable, and a tiny elite ruling class which is rich beyond reason. Consider that in the models the rich elite are too few to be significant, and so can be safely ignored. The model result is a population which is perfectly uniform in it’s economic equality. Perfect.
Bonus #1:
Without sustaining investment, oil production in some of the richest fields around is shutting down. “Leave it in the ground”, a holy grail of the environmental movement is realized.
Bonus #2:
Without funds to conduct seasonal activities like spring planting, the entire agricultural sector collapses. This, of course, furthers economic equality. As another environmental plus, the farmland is returned to nature.
Utopia at last!
+1 famine
+2 Mass Death… Gaia Smiles…
+ 3 Hope
+1
These people believe that Venezuela is not doing socialism right. But the problem is, every time you try, you’ll soon run out of other people’s money.
By the way, Venezuela hot not run out of plastic litter yet. But if has run out of toilet paper. So only people that have friends in government have any.
Hell on Earth. But, you could argue, at least they don’t have any economic growth to speak of.
s/hot/has/g
Unix geeks unite
Hmmm…how much of a problem is “illegal immigration” for Cuba or Venezuela?
It wasn’t much of a problem for the Soviet Union either. (The Iron Curtain wasn’t built to keep people out. It was built to keep people in.)
It sounds like the goal of this plan is to give people no place to go.
The most recent report (last week) is a line 8 miles long at the Colombia border, of people trying to get permission to enter Colombia to get work. The bolivar is so worthless that some people are using bolivars for craft projects.
Meanwhile, there is no food unless you count scrounging in the trash for it.
In progressive countries, the issue is not illegal immigration, it is illegal emigration.
I remember reading a few months ago that [Ecuador] has been experiencing a problem of illegal immigrants from Venezuela. Never been to [Ecuador] — assume it’s an okay place, but wouldn’t want to live there — but how desperate does a Venezuelan from a modern city to try to sneak across the border to a poor, mountain country just so they could get a chance to get a small plot of land so they could grow a few potatoes?
[True, the Equator crosses Ecuador, but there is very little land right on that specific line. 8<) .mod]
Mod — [Blushing loudly enough to be heard in the next county] — thank you for correcting my geographical spelling. I must have missed that lesson on northwestern South American nations when I was in fifth grade.
In *any* case, the concept is valid. Ecuador has been having with people from Venezuela trying to get across the border without permission or documents. As for the land, I don’t know about that, but at least they don’t have to deal with Chavez-inspired storm troopers trying to beat them into submission.
Gunga, “The Iron Curtain wasn’t built to keep people out….” You’re right. I would recommend a book entitled “The Forsaken” by Tim Tzouliadis. It relates the little-known story of migration by Americans to the workers’ paradise of Russia during the Great Depression. Only a handful of them ever made it back, having realised their terrible mistake. The rest of them perished. The Soviets being highly skilled at media suppression, the majority of the forsaken folks and their families left little trace after the initial honeymoon period – they even set up a baseball league in those early days, competing against Russky teams. I kid you not. It’s a heartbreaking read.
The, as now, there were well-heeled well-meaning Lefties in the West who swallowed the whole Commie propaganda thing; comfortable and privileged people who saw all the failings of capitalism and none of the good things.
What makes me sad is that many people will not see this for the rather obvious pro-socialism/Communism paper that it is. Worse still, many others will see that, and agree. Having lived most of my life in or near NYC, I can say that many close friends and family members will fall into that category. I’m the “black sheep” being a veteran, conservative, and like most folks here a climate skeptic. Sigh.
I used to feel like that, then I noticed people who claimed to care had fat carbon footprints like everyone else.
Belief is a continuum.
Eric: Indeed. I’d like Kristi or any other contrarian who posts here to provide a list of trips Obama or Holdren did NOT go on to reduce carbon footprint while in office (or after, for that matter). I’m sure there would be press releases, promotion, should be easy to find. That list will be pretty short, leaving time to list the same for the top brass at NOAA, NASA, EPA. Is there a SINGLE instance where any of these climate preachers decided to forego a trip; or just turn off the AC and open a window?
Barri&posse have NOT stopped flying all over the planet since leaving office. They have likely tripled their “carbon footprint” over the last year.
Reduce everyone’s living standard to the lowest common denominator and you have equality……. except for the elites that need to make sure everyone is getting their fare share of nothing (except themselves). With nature not playing the global warming game the warmists are showing their true colors. Or color, red.
The term “sustainable Development” is code for a stable population of humans of 500 million. Oh dear, there are 7 1/2 billion of us, which means these ‘caring” Socialists need to eliminate 94% of us!!
Just who gets to make the decision who shall live and who must die????
It is worse-if we abandon all use of fossil fuels, returning to rather primitive technologies, the carrying capacity of the planet for humans is more like 7 million. The green lunacy would mean that 99.9% of us must perish to satisfy THEIR ideals. Ideals which they refuse to discuss. Ideals which have been tried and have failed repeatedly. Ideals they want to shove down the throats of ALL of humanity. Perhaps it will be the end of humans altogether.
An idea to ponder- could it be that the tribes in the Old testament that G-d wanted totally destroyed were Socialists? Socialists are a breed of perverted “humans” that want to destroy society and continually rear up from the ashes if they are not totally eliminated. Judging by the total garbage they are shoving down our throats and our childrens’ throats (LGBT/Safe schools propaganda) , one could be excused for believing we are at End of Days- Revelation type stuff.
This is why we ALL must do what we can to expose the Socialist nonsense that threatens not only our economy, but the entire species itself.
Have any of the proponents of that 94% reduction actually done some deeper thinking of the consequences?
If they’re going to bury the bodies there is an awful lot of energy and land disruption etc.
If they’re not there is an awful lot of emissions
None of which seem to be in the current modelling efforts
And wouldn’t dumping them in the ocean contribute to sea level rise? And disrupt the ecosystem as predators flock to the site for all the free food and leave the prey species to multiply unchecked?
Veto their life/death decisions. Arm up and get family and friends to join you. Go to an Appleseed event.
Now would be a good time to join the NRA or GOA.
Agenda 21 or is it 30 now? The economic growth is what keeps half of the planet alive and fed!
Dear god.
Mencken had these people absolutely nailed:
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Mencken was correct. There is a general failure to see that liberty entails free enterprise and prosperity, and that efforts to curtail the operation of free markets lead (ultimately) to totalitarianism. People may be seduced into voting for the latter but they will never again be given the opportunity to vote against it. Democratic ttempts to curtail totalitarian policies are branded ‘populist’.
I regret there is no option to up-vote you here.
Agreed 100%. And the man also penned the best description of “global warming,” “climate change” or whatever other title they apply to the ridiculous notion of human-induced climate catastrophe…
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
Poverty and starvation is the way the communist have murdered the most of their hundred million victims. This time they’re going for billions which fits nicely with goal of the depopulation loons.
From my tag line and smart remarks file:
A lot of different outfits have been able to hook their agenda to the global warming / climate change scam. Including out of control tax and spend governments who can bleed corporations and the public for billions with their carbon taxes.
Let’s not adopt this misanthropic nonsense and say that we did.
The worst they will scream is hypocrite, and I can take that as long as I am warm and fed.
I think that I like prosperity.
Risky strategy, the Kulaks tried that after the Bolsheviks took over in Russia.
Let’s not and say we didn’t.
My daughter just read “endangered animals” and they had a couple pages that blamed farms, industry and housing for killing off the animals. I had a long discussion with her about how these people really just want her living poorly if not simply dead, while at the same time they live large and opulent lives on beachfront property. Too bad 90% of parents will let their kids be indoctrinated into the human hating ecofascist view.
Once in a while, I shop in a small grocery store in the local college town. The impulse-buy shelf next to the checkout line has a series of chocolate bars prominently featuring endangered animals on the wrappers — not sure what candy has to do with “saving the planet” above virtue signalling. In any case, I sometimes take the opportunity to loudly complain, “You know, I bought that candy bar with the panda on the front and it didn’t taste a *thing* like panda.”
I am, of course, shameless.
Like painted art, photography is more enjoyable in full colour than in grey scale.
Imaginations work best unrestrained, not clamped into uniform grey. Geoff.
“…education and health investments accelerate the demographic transition..”
Hmm…I have a niggling suspicion that this demographic transition isn’t something good for the health and wellbeing of the demographic that I belong to.
This is why we’ve had the slowest economic recovery from 2009 until the 2016 election, since the end of WWII. Its part of the Left’s plan to lower CO2 emissions by restricting economic growth and thus consumption. Its one of the reasons the Sierra Club opposes Nuclear energy, because it fosters faster economic growth.
This study does seem to admire the economic model of the Khmer Rouge, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela. The poor (or the dead) do not have much impact on the environment in their vision. The minor little fact all those places have suffered environmental degradation just gets in the way of their theory.
When you run out of toilet paper (as is the case in Venezuela), your impact on the environment (we’ll call it “degradation”) has reached rock bottom.
The hard core greens want to reduce population, so what is going on in newly third world hellholes is fitting their goals.
They should trot out Jimmy Carter and his cardigan sweater. We just all need to hunker down and eschew comfort and plenty. Bundle up and live hand-to-mouth, off the land. Of course, the killing of even a single animal for food is a sin – ours is a vegan future, strictly enforced by the Gaian Thought Police.
Why doesn’t Jimmy Carter have the good grace to discorporate?
Let’s see the authors leading by example.
As so many post eco-fascists have noted, most of the environmental movement has been taken over by communists/socialists for political ends, not for environmental ones.
@T F. The anti alarmists seems to have been taken over by libertarians and right wingers for political ends, not environmental ones.
Who gains by politicising science, certainly not the truth…_
Warmunist “science” only pretends to be science.
You conflate science with politics in the usual Alarmist way. Science tells us nothing about what we should do – if anything – about Climate Change. Asking for science to be done properly is not political.
The science was politicized long ago.
Funny you only complain about the campaign to take it back.
Leftists always complain when humans refuse to submit to their stupidity.
Digger: Nice try, but if you’re right, if right wingers and libertarians achieve their political ends, the environment will benefit; and if the eco-activists achieve their political ends, far worse for the environment. You are the one favoring politicized science, not us.
Well there is a solution to global warming.
The vast majority of the human population dies and those remaining go back to hunter gatherer life-styles. Maybe a few wheat fields can be used as well but you don’t get to cook much of that into bread.
Go back 12,000 years is the answer.
Either that, or we put an end to this myth-based political science movement.
Actually, that is NOT a “solution to global warming,” because human activity is NOT “driving” global warming. Nor is the CO2 level (as it did not in the past). Nor is the minuscule human contribution thereto (endless attempts to “blame” humanity for the supposed increase in CO2 level notwithstanding, they don’t have a good case even for that). So the mass starvation and death will do nothing but kill a lot of people. The climate will keep changing with or without industrialization and fossil fuel use.
they don’t care about GW. They just care about “A” from AGW. The ultimate gaol is restauration of Eden: a sinless man stripped of knowledge, back to animal ways, without civilization, without fire, without cloth. But a 12000 years backward in time would be quite an ashievement to begin with.
Write this down: there is nothing climate change cannot do, and no problem socialism cannot solve.
Print that on bumper stickers with O’Bummer’s mugshot and the liberals will snatch ’em up.
Rule 1: There’s no problem socialism cannot solve.
Rule 2: When socialism doesn’t solve a problem, add more socialism and see Rule 1.
May we safely assume the authors wrote this paper in a tent using solar power to recharge their laptop, when they took time off from growing vegetables, gathering wood, setting up the solar stove, etc?
Sheri, assume nothing.
They can grow vegetables and gather wood all they want. The mere presence of items like laptops and solar panels speaks to an incredibly advanced technological society right behind them, and supporting them.
They need to write their missives on clay tablets and then fire the tablets for durability.
That tent better not be waterproof nylon.
Woven Hemp tee-pees for them.
Hemp’s a no-go. They’ll smoke all the cannabis first.
I figure they can use the laptops until they no longer work. There can be no replacing them without using additional resources. They are also out of luck on the solar panels when they no longer work. I like the clay tablets. After the tent rips apart, they can live in a cave if they want to stay dry, or make shelters out of leaves and vines. They can enjoy the fruits of capitalism for as long as their individual fruits still function. After that, they’re completely on their own with nature.
“The paper has a point – there is no doubt if the world killed off prosperity and rapid economic growth, CO2 emissions would stop rising”.
This is true. It would ,however, have no effect on atmospheric CO2 growth rate as it is uncoupled from human emissions.
I agree
So do I.
It’s just the house of cards within the house of cards.
The supposed amount of increase is first of all a comparison between proxy derived “pre-industrial” CO2 levels and modern instrument derived levels – an “apples vs. oranges” scientific incompetency. Add to that the fact that all of the natural sources and sinks are not being measured at all, and the whole notion of humanity being “responsible” for the (fictitious) amount of CO2 level change is as meaningless as the attempt to blame humanity for the temperature change for which the data is crap, and for which even after all the data manipulations can be accounted for by natural forces if you bother to look for them.
“no effect on atmospheric CO2 growth rate as it is uncoupled from human emissions.”
What happens to the CO2 that we do emit?
Oh, you know…the plants eat it. It’s fertilizer, of course! And the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is because the animals are panting with ecstasy at all the new plant growth! (…Or some other reason equally benign and idyllic.)
Isn’t it fascinating how trolls have to try and convince each other that they are relevant.
Since you ask. It ends up in the sea mostly in a few years since there is a huge exchange going on at sea-atmosphere boundary.
I don’t mean this is fully relevant, but you asked. The higher the atmospheric partial pressure is, the more sea is absorbing. The whole atmosphere weighs 1e5kg/m2. The sea under it has a mass more than a hundred times larger. That’s why there is so much space for carbon in there.
A human produces about 1kg of CO2 each day through respiration. That is 7000 tonnes of CO2 each day. How can you say it is uncoupled?
Oops….left off some zeros…7,000,000 tonnes….
Human caused CO2 flow into the atmosphere is less than 1/30 of natural CO2 flow which varies more than the amount of the human caused flow. The human flow is lost in the noise of the emissions. See: https://papers.ssrn.co/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2997420
and Climate 4 You .com
There are over 7 billion people in the world. Each produces 1kg of CO2 each day, so 7 Gtonnes/day. This is about 2,500Gtones of CO2 per year. From http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget there was only 36.4 Gtonnes of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels & industry in 2016. So humans – just from breathing – are contributing 70 times the emissions than fossil fuels and industry. So, maybe human emissions are being ‘lost’ in the noise of the natural emissions?
Sustainability means the Fearless Leader, the in crowd and I need to be suitably sustained by you lot while I’m working on becoming the Fearless Leader. You just have to have a head on your shoulders to work it out.
And as world population grows, we could eat each other. Solve two “problems” at once.
Tell me donb, you would eat Scarlett Johansen?
If he won’t I will.
It seems some celebrities are more silicone than flesh these days.
at the risk of censure a better question.
For the good of the planet, would she consider eating me?
They have it exactly backward. It is the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change narrative that is the key to halting economic growth.
“…avert the perils of runaway global warming…” Again with the advertising lingo! Stir the pot! Create panic!
The sky is falling! Oh, wait – that’s the wrong play.
That old photo is so reminiscent of Monet’s ‘Gleaners’, I thought it was for a brief moment.
Have these XXXXXs ever taken a hard look at how the Amish/Mennonites manage things? No? i didn’t think so.
The ignorance of these smug, self-serving individuals is astounding. They need to get out more. They need to give up their toys and comfort zones and safe spaces. They also need their own planet. What would Elon Musk charge to relocate them to Mars?
7,600,000,000 large, avaricious, territorial apes on a fragile blue dot, what could possibly go wrong.
You’re free to leave.
Pray tell us, O Wise One: exactly what has gone wrong?
Do you guys know what a petri, ah forget it.
The number is well below the carrying capacity.
That blue dot ain’t all that fragile.
Do you know what a valid analogy is? Obviously not.
Zazove – Don’t forget manipulative and subject to propaganda. Or tribal, “groupish.” It’s always Us and Them, as you pointed out a few days ago. “The ignorance of these smug, self-serving individuals is astounding.”
“The ignorance of these smug, self-serving leftist individuals is astounding.” There, fixed it for you, a simple mistake, we won’t hold it against you.
I see that Kristi has perfected the art of mental projection.
I guess I should congratulate her on finally mastering something.
fragile my ass
well, if you fear 7×10^9 animals, be afraid, be very afraid, because an estimated 5×10^30 bacteria, forming a biomass which exceeds that of all plants and animals, with a history of complete sellfishness and disregard to Earth and its inhabitants, are also around.
So if you are right, you should consider bleaching the Earth, for safety. What you think?
This is the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone. Justifying the rationale for their existence with circular reasoning.
IOW, the climate models justify our work, and our work justifies more Climate modeling.
These useful idiots are too stupid to see that their handlers want equality of outcome, and they want governments to enforce it.
Pure neo-Marxism.
It’s a no from me.
[snip]
There really should be a middle finger icon
(not getting on your case mods, just having a laugh).
Many years ago I heard said, “To Stop AGW, Every Human On Earth Must Be Killed. Will You Do It?”
Well, it has taken almost two decades but now the AGW fanatics are proposing the systematic killing of all humans to achieve their perversion.
Ha ha
That’s clearly a threat in some ways, but do you have any backup for your statement, JBom?
I do not recall ever coming across anything like that at any time between the late 1980s and now.
Many have longed suspected that climate change alarmism is a Trojan horse for socialism. This sort of paper throws gasoline on that fire.
Excuse the mixed metaphor.
I wonder if those who see climate change as a serious threat to human kind, and are willing to make personal sacrifices to reduce their carbon footprints, as well as try to convince others to do the same (forcibly, if necessary) ever bother to look at the leaders of their movement.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Al Gore was worth about $1 million in 2000 when he lost the election to George Bush. It seems he is worth some $300 million now. Being a climate warrior is quite profitable if you are an Al Gore, but not so lucrative if you are one of the activists living in the trenches.
The various religions of the world emphasize self-sacrifice, living modestly, and proselytizing to others to attract converts. They also vilify non-believers, being taught either to convert them, ignore them, or to destroy them. The followers of these religions vary in the extremities of their beliefs and actions, but the leaders of these religions vary little in their efforts to increase their personal wealth and power.
The followers of the religion of climate change have a lot in common with the followers of other religions. They believe in their faith, because the basic fundamantals are inarguably good, and they believe that by getting others to share that faith, that they make the world a better place.
But what they fail to see about their faith is that it is man-made. And men seldom make things except to profit by them. Here in Japan, where I happen to live, the priests who operate the larger Shinto shrines are of criticized for their wealth. They wear platinum Rolexes, and drive Mercedes Benz cars, their shrines are promoted in ways to get visitors and sponsors to part with as much of their money as possible.
While Franciscan monks are sleeping in their cells, and walking about in sandals, his Holiness and the other officers of the church live and travel in luxury. While the young terrorist is blowing up himself and his innocent victims, screaming “Allahu Akbar”! the leaders of his movement are driven around in Maybachs, dining in Paris, and spending the millions they receive from their sponsors as lavishly as they can.
While Nick Stokes is trying to argue against the obvious flaws in the doctrines of his religion, much like a Scientologist arguing with a layman against the absurdities of scientology, the usual group of culprits are acquiring unprecedented riches.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. The words to the song change with the times, but never the tune.
What Socialists fervently wish for would also turn into their worst nightmares.
The most effective way to torture a Socialist: give him what he thinks he wants, and lock the door behind him.
I don’t see them so much as a threat as I see how utterly blind these ideologues are to their lack of importance.
They are, indeed, the useful idiots that Lenin and later, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Castros, Franco, Pol Pot and whoever else there was who manipulated the fools like the current crop into doing their will and then executed them as soon as they got what they wanted. Once the destruction is underway, the dictator no longer needs the useful fools who followed his instructions, because they are the elites from the Old Order who must be destroyed first. If that doesn’t happen, they become a danger to the dictator’s plan. Pol Pot killed off everyone by having children execute their own parents.
China’s current economic growth is a threat to these moonbeam hunters. China’s goal is to be the Number One economy, and will do whatever is necessary to get there. Therefore, China does not give a whit what the climate change whiners think or say.
Sustainable development is a meaningless term. We could set off all 15000 of the worlds atomic bombs across the world and the earth would only sneeze. Sure humans and all major forms of life wouldn’t survive but the cockroaches who were here 200 million years ago would survive and thus 200 million years later humans would probably again be walking our planet.
Good point, Alan. The earth isn’t fragile – we are.
You mean the grown-up cockroaches aren’t already?
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From the very start, CAGW has ALWAYS been a political phenomenon, and NOT a physical one.
CAGW was simply a ploy designed to destroy free-market economies and replace them with massive central government controlled fascistic/socialistic economies through: massive CO2 taxes, global redistribution of wealth, massive CO2 EPA regulations, urban planning, zoning restrictions, massive government subsidies for expensive, unsustainable and inefficient wind and solar government projects, etc…
In a 2008 UN report, the UN estimated global governments could steal $76 TRILLION of taxpayer money over the next 40 years to address this fictitious CAGW sc@m….
Leftists almost succeeded, but alas, facts are stubborn things, and for all intents and purposes, CAGW is ALREADY a disconfirmed hypothesis given the HUGE disparity between CAGW global warming projections vs. reality:
When (not if) this CAGW sc@m is eventually laughed into oblivion, the blowback against the Left will be overwhelming because it ruined so many peoples’ lives on a global scale for a FAKE, contrived and non-existent “catastrophe”…
yes but why do all the politicians believe it ? This hoax has been so successful that i’m afraid we have lost the cause.
They don’t believe it. Professional liars can easily spot a big lie. It’s just about how useful it is to them. This one was more useful than its daddy – that phony socialism is really, really good for poor people. Too easy this one – scaring people with the weather since the dawn of time,
Power.
Yet another example that the CAGW crowd is made up of watermelons: green on the outside, (commie) red on the inside.
We always knew that Tom. It’s just that they knew that we sounded desperate and conspiratorial in the face of their weight of popular opinion as opposed to our weight of evidence. Age old problem this. There were probably people burnt at the stake because they could do things the church couldn’t understand.
I fear this post is badly out of thread. Sorry.
It started in our schools in the 5th century when religions decided to educate the young. They of course indoctrinated them into believing in a God (otherwise known as a pink elephant). then when the idea of constitutions entered human psyche they made sure that the constitution guaranteed certain religious schools. Of course books like the bible always preached poverty and egality. Notice I didn’t say equality. Next along came the Marxists who preached socialism and then when they figured out that true socialism is impossible the socialist governments turned into communistic dictatorships. It is amazing how many socialistic opposition parties exist around the world. The ones that have come to power have quickly turned to dictatorships. We never learn our mistaken lessons from history and are always doomed to repeat them. The world is spiraling in a downward descent into hell. Just ponder for a moment just how bad it is. 90 % of all research on cancer is fraudulent. More than 50% of all scientific papers have invalid conclusions and 43% of those 50% are fraudulent. Fraudulent papers have increased 10 fold in the last 30 years. 99% of all climate scientific reports are fraudulent because they are based on a global warming hoax and what’s worse is that global warming is now taught in textbooks to school children all over the world. Mankind has invented over 120 million different compounds and lets any new compound onto the market without being tested as to its toxicity. Many government agencies even in the wealthiest of countries have essentially been corrupted by the very industry that the agency was created to police. Mankind has turned the world’s oceans into a plastic garbage dump. We have a stone cold killer dictator called Putin who threatens the rest of the world with new nuclear cruise missiles and a smaller tin pot dictator that cant feed his own country (North Korea) who threatens to rain down nuclear weapons on anyone who criticizes him. One country of 1.34 billion people threatens to invade by force its neighbour Taiwan ‘ forcefully executes political prisoners and takes their organs to sell to doctors to perform transplants, and has its stated goal to subvert every other country with its communist party propaganda. This same country has pollution so bad in all its forms that life expectancy is expected to decrease by an average of 5.5 years. In Italy the 4 main mafia groups have revenues of over $ US 200 billion a year. There are anarchists,socialists, 1% ers, drug addicts, people who believe in at least one of the 1000s of internet conspiracies, KKK members,Hitler lovers, racists, and people who believe that welfare is their God given right in every country. Our cities are overrun (on every street corner) with homeless addicts who steal for their next fix. Many country governments in the world are actually connected to underworld mafia type criminals. Other countries are threatened by these criminal groups(Mexico and Italy come to mind). Many countries also secretly undermine every other country by stealing and hacking their computer systems. Many school children around the world are afraid to go to school Ex: Afghanistan. A few countries are failed states. There are insurrections in dozens of countries. We have a world body like the United Nations which has close to 60 agencies or committees with some of them promoting fraudulent practices and even fraudulent scientific reports. There are presently about 30 different huge scams in the world with AGW being the most costly. There is very little investigative journalism anymore because it is too costly for media to conduct and doesnt pad the bottom line. Media are failing all over the world because everybody wants their news free from the internet. In every country drug addiction rates are going up and there are even drugs like Fentanyl with some variations which are 10000 times stronger than morphine which even in the tiniest amount can kill you. In the US alone in 2016 there were 20000 deaths from it. Fentanyl patches are on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. And you ask me why am I cynical about life?
http://www.iea.org/etp2017/
The above document is the biggest threat to your wallet and well being that any government agency has ever come up with.
I disagree on this statement: ‘The paper has a point – there is no doubt if the world killed off prosperity and rapid economic growth, CO2 emissions would stop rising.’
Hmm so, you are unaware of the natural cycle of CO2 outgassing from warm seas? If you are a firm believer, make a forecast in how Co2 emissions would decline over time, were Humanity suddenly not present.
Here we go again. Human annual emissions are much larger than the atmospheric CO2 rise. Thus, oceans are sinking much of human emissions. So how, in fact, warming seas have been emitting CO2 in the decadal scale? The sea surface temp rises so slowly it has no big effect on CO2 balance on average, but yearly fluctuations of course exist.
This will fail for the same reason as Malthusian / Ehrlich failed. More money invested in technology provides replacements and improved outcomes.
The doomsayers always underestimate human ingenuity.
“SSP5 Fossil-fueled Development – Taking the Highway”
Sounds good to me. No more IPCC, no more “carbon” nonsense. CO2 continues to rise, benefiting all life, including man. Wait – that’s not what they mean?
Sociopaths are us!
Marxists know they are lacking in credibility. They persist because they also know it’s a human condition to be incredulous. That’s the way they designed modern education in those societies who were stupid enough to allow it to happen. Never was about the climate, science, humanity, honesty, integrity etc etc. Ghastly people.
What this shows is how far today’s socialists have fallen from the original Left. Even Lenin and Stalin wanted to catch up and then exceed the West’s prosperity. Communists wanted everyone to be equally rich, not equally poor. But the demise of the USSR showed that socialism and communism did the latter, not the former. But instead of changing their belief in high tax, large and centralised states, people on the Left kept those parts of Left wing dogma and changed the desired outcomes – hence the push for measures of “happiness” and “solidarity” and “social justice”.
This is a classic example of that combined with the “new science” of building a model using assumptions that will produce results deemed bad and then claiming the middle proves it will be bad.
Yup, barking, sniping, sneering, pontificating yet glaringly hypocritical and verbose people. Just look at the Oscars. There’s a reason why they’re called actors and actresses ( stuff their grammatical edicts). As I said, ghastly people.
Looking at the Oscars … why does kobe bryant get a bye with respect to the METOO group.
Weren’t they there on the same stage, posing together, making a statement that they are still united and won’t take it anymore. Do you have to abuse an actor or actress to be ostracized … abuse of maids & concierges doesn’t extend to the same level?
Just wondering; do most people commenting here consider a slave planation socialism? If not, why are you helping our would be slave masters sell their plan as socialism?
Good point.
However the plantation is the world, the government is the owner, and the climate extremists want to be the straw bosses and task masters.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Enter the climate repairman.
‘ Climate Repairman’. The book Orwell would have written had he stuck around a bit longer…
Some of these scientists just do not live in the real world. They live in a cosseted. protected world, believing that we should believe all they say, no matter how stupid their prognostications. Who pays them to promote such utter drivel, and don’t their paymasters ever read their ridiculous papers?
Isn’t this “better living through worse living?”
Ah! The cat is finally out of the bag!
Global Warming is a communist plot. A desperate attempt to save victory from the jaws of defeat.
I’ve know that since the 1990’s when I was the lead designer for a $28.2 million flood control project on the Grays Harbor estuary in Washington State. (I whittled the project down to $11.2 million – $28.2 was the Congressionally authorized cost.)
Here is a link to my recent Quora post that echos Mr Worrall’s story in a very compressed form. —> https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-pro-and-anti-arguments-in-favor-of-global-warming/answer/Jeff-Juel?share=afcaffd6&srid=uCM1X
Didn’t bother with your link. Could you have summarised it? What’s you point in this general and distilled discussion. Are you saying you were a public service employee who saved public money? I am seriously dubious since that’s like a species that initiates it’s own extinction.
Global Warming ( I am so glad you used that term) is the greatest most ingenious Trojan Horse ever devised. Not a communist plot because there are no communists left who are prepared to declare what they are. If you are so integral and dismissive of our concerns can I suggest you do a few years homework on the behaviour of the people and their work devoted to this fake emergency. You’re here so that’s half the battle. Simply put, no real science anywhere backs this BS. Ok. End of.
Weird, the full moon was several days ago.
Stopping global warming has just been an excused for the pursuit of their real goal, that of halting economic growth.
North Korea for all
At least the dogs will eat well.
Until they are eaten themselves . . . .
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In the past 15 years or so, there have been several episodes of panic-stricken “pandemic” stories in the media.
Bird flu epidemic 2005: was it a) swine flu or b) bird flu, a new variety or c) a recombinant new variant that occurred in the wild or d) an old strain? I’ll take d) for $500, Alex. It was the Spanish flu, discovered thanks to CDC’s using preserved tissues left from WWI patients who died from it.
Then we had the Nile fever scare; many crows died of it.
Then we had the ebola scare, but people survived it because they were treated for it, and it has run its course in its original location. It’s a virus that bats are immune to.
Then we had the zika virus scare, but the zika virus has been found to have a useful property: it destroys growing cancer cells.
None of them panicked people enough to shut down civilization and make the lot of use return to living in grass huts. We the People just went on about our business.
So those who want to Control the World cast about themselves, seeking something they could use to scare people silly, and came upon Global Warming, added words they probably can’t pronounce without stuttering, and now we have this protracted and openly political effort to Control the World through Global Warming propaganda.
This proposal to shut down civilization by destroying working economies should and does set off alarm bells, yes. But the very things these people depend on to spread the message will be unavailable to them to continue their efforts, because all those products that they use are the result of innovative thinking and a very complex, interwoven industrial society. Without it, they have nothing.
We have to be aware of what they say and try to do. That is as plain as sunrise on a clear day. If we turn away from it because it’s so obviously wrong and do nothing to dispute it, with accompanying backup, the people who are less informed will fall for that well-rhearsed nonsense like bowling pins. We must be as persistent as they are, or even more persistent, in providing accurate information that not only shows that they are wrong, but WHY they are wrong. If we don’t, then we lose.
And there in a nutshell is the entire philosophy of the Left.
I’ve got what I want, the rest of you can get stuffed.
It would be more accurate to say that the philosophy of the left is
You’ve got what I want, give it to me.
Old English folk song (to the tune of ‘Tannenbaum’:
“The working class can kiss my ass
I’ve got the foreman’s job at last”.
Not so incidentally, the British Labour Party’s song, “The Red Flag” , is ALSO sung to ‘Tannenbaum’.
Life expectancy back to 35-40. Mother the wife back into the kitchen, powering the washboard. Unbearable pollution caused by horse manure. And of course luxury for a very few of the correct green credentials.
“The paper has a point – there is no doubt if the world killed off prosperity and rapid economic growth, CO2 emissions would stop rising. If we all lived like people do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, places which have de-emphasised material concerns like financial security and having enough to eat, our global carbon footprint would be substantially reduced.”
Well not really true. If we would be to ‘go back’ 100 years we would still have enough problems with horse manure, with killing all the whales to earn a bit of whale oil and burning all forests to heat up. That will not last long, but would make greenies happy?
Whatever, the …… do not mention that a lot of ‘renewable’ that is used as energy power is cow dung that is still burnt in many countries to cook.
Should we go back to slash and burn agriculture? hunter gatherer societies?
“The main countries in which slash-and-burn agriculture is commonly used include: Bolivia, Singapore, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon ”
What is necessary is a critical analysis of all these kind of papers from the 1980s 90s projections for 201x-202x and their failed models and alarmist posts. Plus identifying of all those funds sent in Nirvana to mitigate increasing CO2 that is feeding plants.
yes. Starting with Paul Ehrlich a thorough deconstruction of the alarmist claptrap infecting the intelligentsia and academic elites is long over due.
Lars P.
“Should we go back to slash and burn agriculture? hunter gatherer societies?
“The main countries in which slash-and-burn agriculture is commonly used include: Bolivia, Singapore, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon ””
I am not sure what date this quote is from.
I suspect it is a few years ago; Singapore – even when I lived there, over twenty years ago – didn’t use slash-and-burn.
Hydroponics – probably.
Nowadays they’re making their own land – compare maps of Singapore form, say, the 1970s, with those of the last few years!
I make no comment on the other countries quoted, as I don’t know them at all well – if at all!
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form = from
Sorry – I can’t proof-read even a short comment of my own.
My bad.
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Ohmpf, sorry about that, forgot the link. It is from one warmist and alarmist page here:
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/slash-burn-agriculture-bad-rainforest-global-warming
Suppose they meant Indonesia not Singapore, you are perfectly right on that point, but this is how it is in that article. I must confess I have not used my brains reading it…
You’re a bit off there, LarsP. on the whale oil thing. That hasn’t been in used since the early to mid-1800s when petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania shale and pumped out of the ground, distilled (cracked) into kerosene oil for lamps in the houses of the eastern USA.
You’re exaggerating things in your statements, and the whale oil reference is only one of them.
Well, the whale oil point is just a reminder of what really saved the whales.
I am unhappy to see how trees are being cut to be burned as pellets for some ideology.
The slash and burn agriculture happens nowadays mostly for palm oil production which is again one of the greenie induced idiocy.
Greens postulate their theories and push these without thinking at the harm they do, the unintended consequences, without accepting different points of view or critics. One of the most blatant examples with the greens is the case of DDT. Just search the malaria cases trend before and after the ban on DDT.
Not sure what other “exaggerating things” do you find in my statement?
Attention: Warfare Super Computers confirm Area 2266 has suffered a devastating attack. All area inhabitants must report to the disintegration chambers immediately. Failure to report will result in a breech of the UN Plan of Action on Global Population Control and Climate Change Mitigation.
The United Nations, Implementation of Sustainability for a Better World…….
So, their basic premise is communism will save the world. Really? Perhaps they should tour the ecological disasters that are the former USSR, Warsaw Pact and then toddle on into China and drink several glasses of untreated ground water. What a bunch of pinheads.
That’s the real purpose of this business
Didn’t Joe Stalin and Mao already try this?
They “controlled” the emissions of millions of innocent people…..permanently.
AARGH63,
“Didn’t Joe Stalin and Mao already try this?”
Sure, and it worked out great for them . . Held on to “absolute” power till they died.
The notion that we are up against fervent ideologues is just plain silly to me . . we’re up against people who want power over us, I am convinced, who merely use “ideologies” for PR purposes. As in; whatever talk-talk worked well to help get control over large numbers of people before.
You might call it a scientific approach to organized crime . . if you happen to have scruples about such niceties as the rule of law (and not strong-men) . . Criminals don’t, so it does nothing to deter what to me are simply large criminal gangs, to be pointing out that at times they use BS they lifted from things like communist regimes/ideologues and so on. If they thought BS lifted from Attila the Hun would work, they’d be feeding us his talk-talk.
I would assume he got paid with grant money for writing this paper, did he give his money to all his neighbors or did he go buy a new Prius? I’d like to know.
‘Economies need to reduce inequality and promote sustainable development for the world to avert the perils of runaway global warming, according to new research.’
Destruction of Western Civilization is the goal. ‘Runaway global warming’ is a meme to get us to accept our destruction. It has been surprisingly effective.
The unmasked face of climate extremism is truly ugly. This latest reveals the lie at the heart of the so-called “climate consensus”.
If the earth was actually facing dangerous “climate change”, the last thing we would to do is to have fewer resources and less wealth to deal with the problem.
At its heart climate extremists are misanthropic self declared elites, prescribing cruel suffering and destruction on humanity…excluding themselves of course.
Re: ZAZOVE please give a source for the wealth inequality chart. Thanks
I believe this has been the unspoken attitude of our rulers for 30 years. Which explains the otherwise inexplicable no growth economic policies they’ve adopted.
I wonder if any of these oh so smart academics realise, that if they take us peasants back to the lifestyle of Aussies at federation, 1901, that there will only be a need for the same number of academics we had then. That would be a reduction of about that magic number 97%.
Never was there a more vaguely understood concept than “equality,” when applied to humans,who are excessively unequal in every conceivable way. I guess there will be need for massive plastic surgery if we are all going to be equal. What does a person who is equal to you look like or behave?
Sardines in a can are all equal – and authors see us that way.
Haven’t you heard, everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
Read “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, where everybody is equal every which way – or else!
Obviously the authors of the paper never read the “Tragedy of the Commons.” If they even know about it they probably believe that its is just another archaic historical document with no relevance in the modern world, like the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
One young socialist tried to convince me that the Tragedy of the Commons was that greedy capitalists got rid of them.
Of course they want to eliminate growth as it is the primary impediment to the zero sum economic model the left so desperately needs to justify their positions.
HAS IT EVER BEEN ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE?
January2015 Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer IPCC co-chair of Working Group 3, Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer, November 13, 2010 interview [H/t Dr. Charles Battig]”…we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
Peter Menzies in the Calgary Herald, Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister for the Liberal Party of Canada, said in 1998 that: “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Read the paper (Open Access) if you can understand it. Looks like it may be for replacing ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’
“Finally, both the narratives and the associated projections of socio-economic drivers were elaborated using a range of integrated assessment models in order to derive quantitative projections of energy, land use, and emissions associated with the SSPs.”….“The resulting storylines, however, are broader than these dimensions alone –”
46 authors from 16 organizations, 3 in US including this one–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO, United States. My sample size is small, but I have never read one from this journal (Global Environmental Change) that made sense.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016300681?via%3Dihub
I have always been a proponent of immigration to rural Africa. I think if we just managed to get the Alarmists to buy in and demonstrate their commitment to this, the rest of us would follow suit.
Growth comes in different forms. If policy directives stunt investment growth and productivity gains, the economy is misdirected back into a resource scavenging mode instead of resource efficiency. In other words inefficiency is promoted with lack of growth and wealth. The rewards and the means of attaining greater efficiency are held back by decree, mismanagement, or most often by corruption.
This article has a foolish title. The study is not about equality, it’s about lowering/avoiding inequality. Even so, I’ve found that people often just as foolishly equate “less inequality” with equality, socialism, communism or Marxism.
Those who are so vehemently disgusted by this proposal must think it a good, healthy thing for the top 1% of a population to make 40 times that of the bottom 90% or the top 0.01% to make 200 times that of the same. The U.S. has high poverty, infant mortality, homicide, and incarceration compared to most other developed nations. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if there were more equality of income in the U.S., but I’m still a capitalist.
Everything is in black and white around here. The faintest whiff of not being a gung-ho, anti-regulatory, anti-tax free-market capitalist (or if you don’t favor oligarchies in the developing world), and you’re automatically a commie or socialist.
U.S. income inequality:
“[I]f the US had the same income distribution it had in 1979, each family in the bottom 80% of the income distribution would have $11,000 more per year in income on average, or $916 per month….
“…Americans are not generally aware of the extent of inequality or recent trends.[32] There is a direct relationship between actual income inequality and the public’s views about the need to address the issue in most developed countries, but not in the U.S., where income inequality is larger but the concern is lower.[33] The U.S. was ranked the 6th from the last among 173 countries (4th percentile) on income equality measured by the Gini index.”
– Wikipedia
If you hate America so much why are you here? Venezuela could certainly use your level of self delusion for,,, well, something. Why don’t you toddle on down there and find out.
I love my country. That’s below the belt.
You’re doing exactly what I’m talking about. Black or white thinking.
And yet you hate America and spew your vitriolic hatred with every comment. Why are you here? Is it purely a function of your own self loathing? Straight out laziness, you just can’t be bothered to find somewhere you would be happy? Or is the root simply that NOTHING will ever make you happy? Is attempting to drag the rest of the world down into the pit of misery you “feel” your life is the only thing that gives your dreary, miserable existence meaning? I have known far too many leftists in too many countries to even entertain the notion you love anything, most especially yourself. That is really sad, and nobody can fix it except you.
Let me give you a small clue, humans are not causing the climate to change, humans can not stop the climate from changing. Reality is out here waiting for you, all you have to do is accept it. Tying yourself to lies is never going to make you happy.
Kristi, the NAFTA trade bill that was passed years ago had a net zero impact as scored at the time of the final vote. Do you think the losing half of that impact was equally divided across U.S. income groups? That’s not even getting to the fact that NAFTA was then used as an end run for all other countries to invest in Mexico and Canada in order to bypass U.S. workers, protections, and income attainment. It’s also not even getting to the question of who benefits and who loses from massive trade flows from China over those decades. I’m not picking sides here but merely pointing out the data elephant in the room.
Most of the factories that moved to Mexico, had already been scheduled to move to Asia.
Yes, some people lost their jobs, however everybody benefited from the lower prices that trade provided.
Everyone benefited from lower prices for goods but significant segments of jobs, skills, and rewards for experience vanished in relatively short order. The assumption of just-in-time human adjustment did not happen equally across income groups or at all in a lot of cases.
No economic advancement has ever benefited everyone equally, and none ever will.
Should we ban economic advancement because the benefits aren’t spread equally?
Kristi would argue that we should.
Sorry, I don’t know a thing about NAFTA. Where does NAFTA fit in? I don’t understand.
Wow. Just, wow.
She lives in Oz, boys, under the spell of the wizard(s). Reality elsewhere in the world has no place in her emotion-driven, Gaian ecumenism.
That wealth isn’t equal is neither a good thing or a bad thing. It is an inevitable thing, because wealth comes to those who work harder, work smarter, or have a skill that is highly in demand.
If you want to help the poor, teach them how not to be poor. 80 years of welfare spending has proven that you can’t help the poor by just giving them money.
If government were to seize every penny of wealth and divide it equally amongst the planets inhabitants, within 20 years, the people who are rich now, will be rich again, and the people who are poor now will be poor again. This is because most of income inequality boils down to life style choices.
When you were in school, did you study, or did you party. Did you do whatever it took to go to college?
Once you started working, did you show up on time, every day? Have you done what you can to learn new skills?
That’s how to get ahead, and most people can’t be bothered.
Ahh, did your mommy and daddy not give you anything? Here is a hint, when you die you leave your accumulated wealth to whoever you choose. Don’t like that? Tough.
[Snip. We’re just going to end this now. -mod]
If you look at something other than your red diapers, you would find that what you believe isn’t even close to true.
I live in South Africa (Ex-pat from the UK), where ‘inequality’ relates to skin colour, and is reinforced by crappy education (Worse under the ANC than the Nats). Talking to a couple of black colleagues some years ago, I was accused of being rich, because I was white. They could not believe me when I told them that my mother was a shop assistant, my father a commercial traveller, one grandmother a domestic maid, and my grandfathers a labourer and a sailor. “But you’re white, and thereby rich!”. I tried to hammer home one of the things that Nelson Mandela said – liberation is through education.
Rob Bradley: If I concede that some people inherited wealth, will you concede that some people earned wealth? Your statement is so, you know, “black and white”, and Kristi Silber thinks that’s bad.
Kristi,
Whereas I agree with you that sometimes dissent is not handled as well as it could/should be here, and in addition, it can be fairly acknowledged that discussions about inequality do not necessarily imply equality/marxism/communism…well, I still “vehemently” disagree with your basic premise.
“Inequality” is one of the rare topics that induces an immediate emotional response on my part. Your good intentions do not excuse your philosophical ignorance and apparent lack of global perspective. Furthermore, any discussion which tries to compare the “richest” with the “poorest” is bankrupt from the start and is predicated on several misconceptions.
First, freedom, true freedom, implies a higher high and a lower low than the alternative. There is a gap. It has always existed. And the degree or size of the gap is not the relevant point. The difference between rich societies and poor ones is the freedom to move between rich and poor. Again, the size of the gap, however you’re defining “rich” and “poor” that day, is not the point.
Secondly, economics is not a finite pie to be divvied up between all parties. One can easily infer, then, that simply because “the richer get richer” does not necessarily mean the “poor get poorer”. (At least, not in a capitalistic society which is free from government-created/protected monopolies.) It is simultaneously possible, and has been shown to occur repeatedly, that as the rich get richer, the poor get richer too. (Caveats apply, as with anything.)
Finally, let’s put things in perspective. Do you honestly believe that the poor in the U.S. are truly poor by any sort of global standard? Seriously? Please!
You want to help the lowest and the poorest? It’s exactly by reducing regulations that prohibit the free exchange of goods and allow people the most freedom possible (i.e. to take the product of their own labor, free from coercion or control, and trade it for that which they find valuable). This includes, by the way, not forcing communities to erect expensive alternatives to cheap energy…something which you seem to advocate for based on a precarious lack of real evidence for its need.
Focusing on how rich certain people are, or certain segments are, is nothing more than envy. And no amount of justification, however prettily worded or noble sounding, will change this.
So, sorry, not sorry. Your plea falls on completely deaf ears with me!
rip
Oh, Kristi, you incredible nit. The questions you pose!
Answer this question.
If I work at a job that requires a high degree of skill and occasionally requires extra hours, why should someone who does nothing but ask you if you want fries with your sandwich get the same wages as I do, or even a small percentage more?
The correct answer is: skilled labor is more desirable than unskilled labor, and is therefore worth a higher wage. That’s how that works, Kristi, whether you like it or not.
It’s the reason McDonald’s is replacing its counter people with kiosks where pushbutton menus are available and only two or three people are needed to do anything at all, and no skills are involved at any level higher than cleaning off tabletops.
It would be nice if you came down off your high horse occasionally. Most of us live in the real world, something that seems to escape you.
Would you like fries with that?
What advocates of wealth redistribution probably have never realized and probably don’t understand is that poverty is not exactly a problem per se, it is a SYMPTOM of a problem. The problem is that people are different and don’t all put the same amount of education, effort (or work) and intelligent thought into our lives. We all don’t have the same work ethic. We don’t all have the same skills like a pro athlete in MLB, in the NFL or NBA or talent like famous actors or singers in the entertainment industry. In the absence of a rare and valuable talent, we are likely to only get out of our lives what we put into it outside of a Marxist or Communist society.
Expecting redistribution of wealth to solve the inequality issue is a little bit like taking an over-the-counter medication for your cold or flu and expecting the medication to attack and kill the virus that causes your illness. It only alleviates the symptoms–it doesn’t address the problem. That is all that wealth redistribution does.
The problem for Marxist or Communist ideologists is that these ideologies have a history of failing to respect democratic political systems and individual human rights–and they still don’t respect them today in places like North Korea and Cuba. The democratic Western nations have made efforts to find a middle ground between free-market economies and one end and Marxism at the other end with their (sometimes very generous) social welfare safety nets while retaining a mostly free-market economy along with democratic institutions. Whether they are rewarding failure with such safety nets is still very much a matter of debate.
The authors of the paper posted above, as usual, attempt to sell the world Marxist thinking through the back door of environmentalism, sustainability and climate alarmism as though they all have some history of compatibility and are all just one big happy family of ideological thought. I suggest that the history of the Soviet Union and its East European satellites says otherwise, and China (as a society still ruled by Communists) still does today. From what I’ve read, the free-market economies in the developed West have far better environmental policies than China and other non-democracies do. The lack of environmental standards and land clearance for agriculture in the Developing World are what environmentalists should primarily be concentrating on rather than on what the the Trump Administration is doing.
I suggest that there is no simple, easy answer to wealth equality if one cares about democracy and human rights. The more that leftist thinkers want the former, the more of a threat it could be to the latter as the history of Communism has shown us. The middle ground that the Developed West has been pursuing is probably the best that humanity can do if we do not wish to live in an increasingly totalitarian society.
[The mods would like to point out that Kristi explicitly stated she was not (trying) to advocate for marxist/communist ideology. It feels like your post affirms her point that any discussion of inequality leads WUWT commenters to immediately begin talking about them. -mod]
Moderator: Now that I’ve given it some thought, you are probably right. I should not have mentioned Marxist/Communist ideology in response to Kristi’s comment. I apologize. She explicitly stated that she supports a free market economy.
I suppose that the extent and degree of generosity of a social safety net within a democratic society is more to the point here for those whom inequality is a serious social issue. I do have doubts that Kristi is willing to advocate for Marxism in response to inequality, and that is why I should not have mentioned it.
Again, my apologies.
CD and mods:
It’s interesting that we WUWT subscribers and commenters seem to be immediately going to the Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist/Xi-ist (is that the right term?) models to explain the worldview and arguments from the human-origin global warmists. If you look at the record, the Marxists/etc. have a *terrible* record on conservation (see, for example, a detailed book on the subject, “The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union,” published about 30 years ago, or look at the deforestation of Laos under the communists or even travel to Beijing and take a 15-minute stroll outside, just as a few obvious examples).
I think there’s something much darker here. After some detailed investigation, I believe that there is a deep, abiding hatred of humanity behind this movement. It just seems to me that there is profound yearning for the extremists — and their “useful idiots” in the press, Hollywood and all the rest of the usual suspects — to return to a Paleolithic existence, where people were in harmony with nature, left a light footprint upon Mother Earth and died of some easily preventable disease by age 38.
Two popular culture examples: The motion picture “Day after Yesterday” (is that right? or was it “Day After Tomorrow?”) I just remember a ridiculous premise about a sudden onset of a mega-Ice Age, and at the end the survivors are dressed as Inuits wearing (*shudder*) fur coats, mushing off into the pure snow of the future and — getting eaten by polar bears? Probably. Then, there was the Nature Channel’s series, which can be best be described as “anti-humanist pornography”, titled “Life After Man. Ah, yes, Gaia returning, healing, overwhelming the evils of mankind.
That’s the way it looks to me, in any case.
Antipathy toward the rich is hard to sell. So they carp about inequality.
Ms Kristi is too low on the totem pole to know that when she talks about ‘inequality,’ she’s really just hating on the rich.
“Those who are so vehemently disgusted by this proposal must think it a good, healthy thing for the top 1% of a population to make 40 times that of the bottom 90% or the top 0.01% to make 200 times that of the same.”
Rilly? This is a thing?
“The U.S. has high poverty, infant mortality, homicide, and incarceration compared to most other developed nations.”
Lie much?
By this standard,Venezuela gets the award for the greatest contribution to solving climate change. Where are the useful idiots from Hollywood now?
Was it ever about anything else?
January2015 Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer IPCC co-chair of Working Group 3, Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer, November 13, 2010 interview [H/t Dr. Charles Battig]”…we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
Peter Menzies in the Calgary Herald, Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister for the Liberal Party of Canada, said in 1998 that: “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Equal outcomes, not equal Opportunity, is what the leftists want, but not for themselves, the elite. See Das Kapital.
It always amuses me when people are “shocked” by whatever doom-crier of the moment is exposed for the fraud they truly are, simply because these leftists ALWAYS come right out and say what it is they want to do from the start. Like the revelation Russia And Saudi Arabia are the primary financiers of the anti-fracking and anti-pipeline protestors, people are shocked, SHOCKED I say, that they are doing that. And yet they said they were doing it in the mid and late 1990s. They were on cnn and BBC and at Davos and gobs of other economic gatherings telling everyone they opposed US gas and oil development and were fighting against it. And yet now it is a shocking and Earth shattering revelation. Oy!
So we can expect our climate envoys to reduce their carbon footprint from elephant size to my and most people I know Cinderella size one they tell us we must reduce still further. I will not be holding my breath waiting for “The crappio” to come down off his high horse and get real.
Economic equality is childishly easy to produce – via taxation. confiscation, etc. – just make everybody poor – Voila!
HONEST AT LAST!
Sorry to get late into the conversation, but, you know, I was working hard hard all day to warm the heck out of the planet and trying to flood vertically challenged Pacific islands, so I didn’t get around to replying to the post until this afternoon.
Here are my two cents, for what it’s worth: Doesn’t it seem very interesting that the Warministas are finally, at last, coming out from behind cover and behind honest (for a certain value of “honest”) and actually displaying their real — really-real — goal behind this whole global cooling/global warming/climate change/oh-dear-God-we’re-all-going-to die agenda — and finally saying what’s always been behind this whole nonsense? As in “capitalism is evil, socialism is good” sort of thing?
I think that they are tipping their hand just a *bit* too early, but it shows their confidence in their belief that they have finally tipped the scale and have the majority on their side. The whole Cultural Revolution they are trying to engender is now so overt that it’s no longer a “discussion” but a true drawing a line in the ever-warming sand.
A long time ago and far away I learned a very great lesson in a certain organization (Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, some called us): When the opposition gets all overconfident, that’s when some interesting things become possible.
All references to North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe and California are on spot.
Some of it, Bryan, has to do with NOT winning the US elections in 2016. Some of it also has to do with the currently floundering attempts to stop DTrump from continuing to do his job, and being scared silly by his most recent lawn dart about Xi jinPing’s attempt to become China’s ‘ruler for life’. That scared the heebie jeebies right out of them!
And then there is also that whole thing about religion and attempting to create a new Temple of Climate Worship, for people who have no religious leader (Obama’s gone now) but desperately need one. That’s kind of beginning to fade, too, because there are no immediate results that they can point to. When you try to create a faith-based religion out of whole cloth (e.g., Gaia worship), you have to have some “miracles” to point to and there aren’t any.
They were SO-O-O-O-O close, you see, to mowing down the opposition, but the attempt failed and now they’re floundering, trying to cover their losses, plug the leaks, stop the erosion before it goes further, etc. You get the drift.
We must be vigilant, nonetheless. There are many of them who can sneak in through gaps in the perimeter.
Sara,
Thank you for your answer, but with all due respect I believe they are *already* through the wire. It’s back to the fall-back position and hoping that enough of the 65,000,000 voters a year ago are going to be willing to put toes to the big orange line and just say “no” (to re-phase William F. Buckley some years ago).
I’m not quire there with John Derbershire – the author of “We’re Doomed” — but I’m not really positive about the future.
The best signal is that the best signal of the past week is that the Oscar television program was a signal disaster. That is part of the map that we should look at for the future of the Cultural Revolution.
Let’s just them, as you say, flounder and trip over their own statements.
No argument from me, Bryan. The reason for a large standing military is not to make war, but to prevent it. The reason to keep a vigilant, watchful eye on the perimeter, despite those who may sneak ‘inside the wire’ is to expose them for what they are – always in a reasonable way, of course.
WE can’t afford to take for granted that if they slack off, we won. I know better, and so do you. I also cook. 🙂
One of my favorite lessons from USA,IS,RC was to appear weak, disorganized and ready to collapse, draw them in and then hit the clacker and pop the claymores in their faces, figuratively speaking in this context, of course. DJT has been hittin’ the clacker on them for a year and they still keep rushing in. Too funny. Now the environwackadoddles are lining up to rush the wire and methinks they will not like the results. I will.
Are you okay?
Doing just fine, love watching leftards implode, and DJT is running the pressure up everyday. MAGA!
Hey, 2hotel9,
Remember the basic lesson: The Claymore has stamped on the front: FACE TO THE ENEMY. Use the clacker carefully, buddy. The gomers can easily step on their, um, Johnsons long before they get to the wire. Use the flares and call in support. It is much more effective that way.
Just saying, Mac.
The left has massively over played their hand, the backlash is just beginning. People are far more concerned about economics than climate change, and the endless caterwauling about the world ending with no actual end ever happening has undermined their position in the eyes of more and more people.
And yea, I know which side. As they pull back dragging their wounded you call in redleg, when the steel is done flying its mop up time. Sandinistas never could figure out to stay back, over played their hand and got burned over and over. Some deficiency in the leftist mind, they just don’t learn.
Ah, just saw, this comment did not fall where it should, was supposed to be a response to Bryan above. Gotta love wordpress! 😉
DC Cowboy, 2hotel9 is employing metaphorical prose, as is Bryan.
Personally, I like the broken wing maneuver sometimes seen in ground-nesting birds like some geese, quail and pheasants. The predator follows the seemingly injured bird away from the nestlings, which the bird doubles back along a hidden pathway.
Planned Parenthood and immigration reform (i.e. redistributive populations) are two more.
It is my hope that fewer people will believe our would-be masters are bound and determined to make socialism/communism work this time . . and more come to realize they are just liars, promising what they think suckers will believe of them.
Now, if only I could get the suckers who have believed them, and are bent on defeating them by arguing they really are bound and determined to make socialism/communism work this time, but will fail to do so, to realize that’s exactly what our would-be masters are counting on, perhaps my hope would not seem so in vain . .
“The risk of missing emissions targets increased dramatically under economic scenarios that emphasizes high inequality and growth powered by fossil fuels, according to research published Monday by a team of scientists in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change journal.”
Men not having the same capabilities, if they are free, they will not be equal, and if they are equal, then they are not free.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
My interest in “global warming”
started in 1997
after 20 years of writing
an economics newsletter
as a hobby.
A war on fossil fuels could only be
bad news for economic growth,
… and I also worked in an industry highly
dependent on inexpensive fossil fuels.
It probably took me two days
to stop believing 100 years
average temperature forecasts.
I didn’t write my first climate change
article until 2007, when it became
obvious that the global warming
in the 1990s had stopped.
At first, global warming
seemed like a UN / Maurice Strong
plan to make the UN a “world government”
over energy use / climate change.
But national politicians soon realized
they could use climate alarmism to enlarge
their own powers — and just use the UN’s IPCC
as their “scientific back up”.
There is no doubt that Maurice Strong, and
others in the beginning, were socialists
who wanted a lot more government spending
as a percentage of GDP (just like all
socialists do).
After the collapse of Communism in USSR,
and eastern Europe, it was not easy to
“sell” bigger government / socialism.
Capitalists would counter by saying
no one wants the slower economic
growth, higher unemployment rate,
and more people living
on the goobermint dole,
that comes with socialism.
The fake “climate crisis”
created a new way
to “sell” socialism:
‘We in the government
need more powers
to save the Earth
for our children!’
And when capitalists complained about
slower economic growth
expected under socialism,
they could be told
that slower growth
= fewer CO2 emissions
= good news for the planet,
not bad news!
So the worst aspect of socialism —
the slower economic growth rate —
has been cleverly morphed
into (fake) good news
— slower growth will slow the
destruction of our planet from CO2 !
The CO2 crisis is all nonsense,
of course,
but it is a clever way to “sell”
slow growth socialism!
The not so funny part,
is the global warmunists,
at any time, could declare
that they have solved
the CO2 crisis … because
it’s just an imaginary “crisis”.
My climate change blog,
with over 15,000 page views so far
— common sense and simple science:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com