Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Don’t mention the “N” word – top economist Joseph Stiglitz has urged the US government to impose economically painful taxes to penalise fossil fuels, to facilitate a switch to renewables and energy efficiency technologies which have not yet been developed.
Nobel-Winning Economist to Testify in Children’s Climate Lawsuit
Joseph Stiglitz writes in a court brief that fossil fuel-based economies impose ‘incalculable’ costs on society and shifting to clean energy will pay off.
BY GEORGINA GUSTIN
JUL 11, 2018One of the world’s top economists has written an expert court report that forcefully supports a group of children and young adults who have sued the federal government for failing to act on climate change.
Joseph Stiglitz, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize for economics in 2001 and has written extensively about environmental economics and climate change, makes an economic case that the costs of maintaining a fossil fuel-based economy are “incalculable,” while transitioning to a lower-carbon system will cost far less.
The government, he writes, should move “with all deliberate speed” toward alternative energy sources.
Stiglitz has submitted briefs for Supreme Court cases—and normally charges $2,000 an hour for legal advice, the report says—but he wrote this 50-page report pro bono at the request of the attorneys representing the children. It was filed in federal district court in Oregon on June 28.
…
Although the report repeatedly mentions and references former NASA GISS director James Hansen, who is a fan of nuclear power, Stiglitz himself does not directly mention the nuclear option, instead urging carbon taxes and “support” for the development of renewable alternatives to fossil fuels.
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Moving the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels is both feasible and beneficial, especially over the next 30 years (as technological and scientific evidence discussed below makes clear). Defendants could facilitate this transition with standard economic tools for dealing with externalities, for example a tax or levy on carbon (a price on the externality) and the elimination of subsidies on fossil-fuel production. Relatedly, decisions concerning the transition off of fossil fuels can be reached more systematically and efficiently by revising current government discounting practices, the methodology by which future costs are compared to present costs. Current and historical government decision making practices based on incorrect discount rates lead to inefficient and inequitable outcomes that impose undue burdens on Youth Plaintiffs and future generations.
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There are many reasons to be optimistic that emissions could be curtailed further than previously thought. These benefits are a result of continued technological development in the renewables sector. Because of technological improvements, the costs of renewables and storage are decreasing. The price of solar panels has dropped by more than half in recent years (80 percent reduction from 2008 to 2016). In 2016 alone, the average dollar capital expenditure per megawatt for solar photovoltaics and wind dropped by over 10 percent. As these technologies continue to improve and the efficiency increases, while manufacturing costs drop, these technologies will more easily substitute for existing fossil fuel infrastructure.
…
With the oil crises of the 1970s, recognition of the risks of dependence on oil was developed (though these risks were markedly different from those with which we are concerned today). Even then, it was clear that there were viable alternatives, and with the appropriate allocation of further resources to R&D, it is likely that these alternatives would have been even more competitive.
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Read more: https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blog/document_cw_01-2.pdf
In my opinion there is a lot wrong with Stiglitz’s effort – surprising given his reputation.
Stiglitz seems to be committing the economic sin of treating future projections of technological advances and climate impacts as if they were high confidence.
Extrapolating renewable costs into the future is risky. Renewables may never achieve anything resembling cost parity with existing technology, or even large scale viability. In 2014, Google researchers discovered to their horror there was no viable path to a 100% renewable future using anything remotely resembling current technology. Betting the future economic wellbeing of the nation on solving serious problems which may not be solvable is a wild gamble.
Stiglitz claims substantial fossil fuel “subsidies” are arising due to inadequate treatment of externalities. Externalities are costs which don’t show up on your balance sheet. For example if your business keeps costs down by dumping trash on your neighbour’s property, you aren’t paying the true cost of dealing with with the trash – the cost of dealing with the trash is an externality, because it doesn’t show up on your balance sheet, at least until your neighbour figures out who has been dumping trash on their property.
But the claimed externality costs of CO2 only apply if CO2 emissions cause future harm. We’re not talking about trash which causes an immediate smelly mess, we’re talking about an invisible trace gas which may or may not cause a future problem.
As climate scientists themselves occasionally admit, the climate models which predict future harm are not scientifically falsifiable – they cannot be adequately tested except by waiting to see if they do a good job of predicting the future. Older models are not doing a good job of predicting future climate – as the controversy over the failings of James Hansen’s models demonstrates, relying on expert opinion in place of scientific falsifiability simply isn’t good enough.
Stiglitz solutions, even if they were viable, would be economically painful. Carbon taxes hurt poor people worst of all – a fact Stiglitz admits, though he qualifies his admission with claims that short term harm is worth the future benefit.
Nevertheless short term harm is no laughing matter, particularly when the harm is visited on society’s most vulnerable. You would want to be absolutely certain of the desperate need to impose increased hardship on people who are already struggling, you would want to thoroughly explore possible alternatives to hurting poor people, before concluding hurting the poor was the only available option.
Which is why Stiglitz’s omission of direct mentions of nuclear power is puzzling.
France converted 75% of their electricity to nuclear power in the 1970s. They kept costs down by standardising and mass producing nuclear plant components, and reprocessing nuclear fuel. French electricity is affordable, dispatchable and produces very low CO2 emissions. The cost of low emission French power doesn’t hurt poor people.
According to the EIA, US power plants emitted 1744 million tons of CO2 in 2017. Nuclear power currently produces just under 20% of US electricity. Copying the 1970s French nuclear programme, raising nuclear power to 75% of US electricity production, would reduce power plant CO2 emissions to 1744 / 80% x (100% – 75%) = 545 million tons per annum, saving over a billion tons per annum of CO2 emissions.
For shame Joseph Stiglitz. If CO2 is the serious issue Stiglitz claims, ignoring the possibility of avoiding harm to poor people by converting US electricity production to affordable nuclear power seems a very curious oversight.
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As soon as we find a good source of unobtainium all our energy problems will be solved. Or then maybe that perpetual motion machine being built in Cadarache France will come online and save us.
Or some super genius/complete whacko breaks the unified field theory and turns our modern concepts of matter and energy into quaint notions of yesteryear. 😉
Nikola Tesla
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
(but it is much harder to control We The People if he can dispose of free energy)
Of course Stiglitz doesn’t imagine for a second that the poor and vulnerable will be hurt due to increased cost of electricity and energy. Nope, “the rich” will pick up the tab. It sort of already happens with mobile phones in the USA. Thereby “the rich” will be doubly taxed first for their own use and then pay not just the additional tax but actual total supply coast for the use of some ill defined economically disadvantage group.
Appreciate who the Left considers rich. As a world standard it is everyone in the EU, Canada and the USA. Within the USA it is any family making more than $100K. That came down from $200K a decade or so back when the Left figured out that that increasing taxes on just those making over $200K would not pay for all their “neat” projects to save the world.
In my experience, the left defines “rich” as anyone who has more than I do.
Coincidentally, that’s the same definition that they use for “greedy”.
And anyone who has less money than I do is poor? 🙂 Kind of like when you’re driving a car… anyone driving faster than you is a maniac, and anyone slower is an idiot 🙂
National Public Radio, Feb.16, 2005
Interview: Dirk Forrister in the U.K. on emissions trading.
It’s all about the money.
http://courses.aplia.com/problemsetassets/micro/fuller_kyoto/article.html
Stiglitz claims substantial fossil fuel “subsidies” are arising due to inadequate treatment of externalities. Externalities are costs which don’t show up on your balance sheet.
This is complete nuts brought to you by pseudo economists.
The fossil fuel companies are not paying the “cost of their product puts on the enviroment” and therefore should pay a tax for those costs.
This the same concept that farmers should pay a tax to cover the cost of disposing of the bowel movement caused by eating food.
There seems to be a full court press for 100% “renewables” and this law suit isn’t the only action. Colorado Democrats are trying to elect their version of Jerry Brown for governor of Colorado . Congressman Jared Polis has proposed a 100% renewable , by bla, bla, bla. Here is my response to his pitch: The difficulty I have with your statements, Congressman, starts with my uncertainty that you have a clue how this can happen when in fact the energy requirements are large, must be reliable, and have to be inexpensive. We are faced with over seas competition that has already committed to both fossil fuels and nuclear, none of which meets your definition of renewable. You can’t run trains, ships, or aircraft, smelt iron or produce steel and aluminum, heat and operate factories and hospitals and schools, or provide reliable on demand emergency services with 100% “renewable” energy sources. The requirements for wind turbine space or ground covered with photo-voltaic panels will overwhelm the land space we have. Furthermore, both require serious source site location strategies and transmission problems to be solved. Your idea, such as it is, is a fiction. Can you imagine having to evacuate a city like Houston with all electric cars? Or Boulder, in the middle of the night when all the cars are being recharged but a flood coming down the canyon requires everyone to run! No, obviously you haven’t even thought that far out of your fantasy. What you are proposing is nothing more than a 100% renewable BLACKOUT for everything we need.
I think the problem is that there are a great many people who make their living in non-manufacturing and non-energy industries. These people do quite well and can afford higher energy prices. They feel no obligation to the millions who make their livings ( or try to ) in other ways.
The fact that these self centered individuals brand themselves as “friends” of the disadvantaged is ignorant and disgusting. They are in fact elitists! They are the enemies of equal opportunity.
On what basis do you declare that other people have some kind of obligation to take care of you?
On what basis do you claim that those who have more than you do don’t care about others?
Anyone who has more than you is evil and an elitist.
You really do sound a lot like the communists.
I wish Polis would withdraw from politics, just stay home and rear his two little boys along with his husband.
I read his drivel as “my expertise in Economics (called the dismal science for good reason, excuse being off topic) allows me to ignore the laws of thermodynamics, which I am sure can be repealed if we just confiscate enough resources from productive society.”.
The ignorance is strong.
The true trend (noise removed) in global temperatures says doing anything for climate would be a waste of money. We really only have high quality data from satellites starting in 1979. To get a good picture it is best to start after the 1979-80 El Nino.
The average global temperature for April-August 1980+1981 was -.06 C in UAH and +.03 C in RSS. So far in 2018 the it is .20 in UAH and .27 in RSS.
Both of these periods are reasonable absent of climate noise (ENSO and volcanoes). They are comparable in non climate forcings. Hence, we get a total warming of .24 C (RSS) and .26 C (UAH).
That’s it folks. I know this is a simplistic view but it only shows a warming of .25 C in 38 years. That is only .067 C / decade.
Why would any society waste trillions of dollars to reduce warming by about half a degree in 2100? This guy is nuts.
And the AGW fools /liars would have us believe that even this paltry warming couldn’t possibly be due to natural causes.
An amount that is superseded everywhere on Earth in about 5 minutes every day. Eco-Socialist fantasy/frenzy.
Regardless of his credentials, he’s addressing the wrong audience. If he wants to argue that the US government should impose massive new costs in the form of taxes to avoid climate change, he should be addressing the US Congress, not the courts.
Imposing a new tax on “carbon” is not within the authority of any government agency; new taxes must be authorized by Congress in legislation and approved by the President. With recent changes in the Supreme Court, there is actually a decent chance that process will be respected.
Most alarmists have given up trying to win over the people. The new strategy is to use the courts to impose their plans on the rest of us.
“Nobel-Winning Economist to Testify in Children’s Climate Lawsuit”
I’ve read about such efforts… much like the priest who organized a ‘children’s crusade’ to the holy land. Nothing like leading a bunch of brainwashed minds that that think they know something that the rest of us don’t. The only people I see leading this are people past prime.
Except for the “crusade” being neither of children nor lead by priests, you’ve got it pretty well covered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade
It’s the same. Then or now, slavery is still slavery, pied piper, age of faith revisited, regardless. ( Since you read the article) And that’s what they’re doing. Maybe you got the irony, or maybe you didn’t. The high priests in the Holy Religion of AGW are well known. Self appointed spokesmen for the “children ” to save the world.
Most Americans would rather fight than switch.
“Nobel winning economist” There’s a meaningless credential. Firstly Nobel prizes are given for specific contributions, not for overall ability. Secondly, the prize in economics is one of those that is given for contributions that advance leftist causes, not for actual truth or accuracy.
HA! After reading this article I was sure Stiglitz was a socialist and not a fan of the Chicago school of economics. Reading his wiki bio, I found this: “Once incomplete and imperfect information are introduced, Chicago-school defenders of the market system cannot sustain descriptive claims of the Pareto efficiency of the real world. Thus, Stiglitz’s use of rational-expectations equilibrium assumptions to achieve a more realistic understanding of capitalism than is usual among rational-expectations theorists leads, paradoxically, to the conclusion that capitalism deviates from the model in a way that justifies state action – socialism – as a remedy…… And the Sappington-Stiglitz theorem “establishes that an ideal government could do better running an enterprise itself than it could through privatization.”
‘Paradoxically’ my rump! He created an economic ‘theory’ to support his own socialist beliefs!
Any theorem that relies on “an ideal government” is relying on pixie dust and pocket sized fusion reactors. Capitalism thrives because it works even when there is no government at all. It works despite government.
Right up until the most successful capitalists realize they can enlist the power of government to shield them from the risks of the market, in exchange for their helping shield government heads from the risks of an election.
Agreed wholeheatedly. Few things are as distasteful to me as rent-seeking businesses using the public’s largess to line their pockets. Private/Public collusion should be prosecuted vigorously and (somewhat) unmercifully. Those perpetrating these crimes against our society do so willingly and with cold calculated intent.
Unfortunately, it’s a difficult thing to ferret out and even more difficult to prevent. Combine that with the rather huge personal incentives and it’s easy to see the structural weaknesses within our “system”. (Which is not to say we should abandon it…how does the quote go, “Democracy is a horrible form of government, but it’s the best one we’ve got.”) It’s merely to point out that we have to maintain constant vigilance to prevent those seeking to abuse their positions of authority and spheres of influence to benefit at the expense the general good-faith generosity of the American citizen.
rip
In a free market system (capitalism) products will become cheaper and better (competition) except if government intervenes. If government intervenes we no longer live in a free market system but in a socialist system like the U.S. and most Western World countries. It is always the poor who suffer most when government intervenes.
Big everything is bad for us as individuals.
Big government- bad!
Big labour-bad!
Big business-bad!
Big Green-bad!
Big science-bad!
Big religion-bad!
Big just enables blind dominance.
Big business contains the seeds of it’s own destruction.
The only way big business can survive is by politicians in order to hamstring all competitors.
In which case, the problem is that government is too powerful, not that capitalism is flawed.
And how’s that working for us so far?
The Western world is awash in debt to feed a throwaway consumer economy that ships boatloads of money to China to make our crack/consumer goods while millions are underemployed here.
Where do we get the idea that these idiots have any intellectual currency whatsoever.
It’s always interesting how the new Puritans know what everyone else needs and is willing to condemn anyone who buys stuff the Puritan doesn’t believe they should want.
Those who are unemployed here fall into two categories.
Those who don’t have and don’t want the skills needed to keep a job.
Those who have been made unemployable via actions of government.
Like the minimum wage.
Ahhhh, the Joys of Socialism!
That businesses have to deal with imperfect information is a given.
The idiocy is the assumption that government will have better information.
Nuclear power is unlikely too because the same people who hate fossil fuels also hate nuclear power.
Thing is.. if WE want to mandate-government-edict a change in the fuel-consumption patterns of Americans (first) and the rest of the world too (problem: how to prevent simple cheaters?), then using exhorbitant taxation, tariffing if you will, if a product that won’t be outright banned, but will have a seriously imposing socio-economic deterrant added, well … taxes and tariffs are the way to go.
I always use the example of the 1973 Oil Embargo.
It wasn’t OUR governments doing per se, but rather that of the Mideast War and Saudi/coalition embargoing of crude oil exports from the major OPEC countries. I watched overnight as gasoline-at-the-pump skyrocketed from under 50¢/gallon to numbers above 100¢/gallon … so quickly that tens-of-thousands of gas stations didn’t have vending pumps that could handle more than 99.9¢/gallon, so charged “half-at-pump, double-at-register”. Lots of printing houses got sign-making business from that.
Gasoline rose rather quickly to well over 150¢/gallon. Less than 4 months.
There were long-lines at the stations (out of fuel, waiting for tanker trucks). There was talk of government imposed quotas and ration cards. Instead — at least in the US — we let macroeconomic and microeconomic principles work out the “fairness” of the reduced-supply.
That too turned out to be a bit of a disaster; the news was full of stories of “gougers” (just executing their Constitution-given right to exact whatever price the market would bear in difficult times…). There were endless sob-stories of poor people not being able to afford the fuel to get to work, making them poorer. There were endless pölïtical calls to “do something” for the poor, the single parents, the product delivery working stiffs, the vendors of emergency vehicle services and so on.
But in the end, it was equivalently an exhorbitant tax added to the price of gasoline, but an external foreign sovereign compact. Economic war, as it were.
THE AFTERMATH of the 1973 Oil Crisis was that with no exaggeration, millions of Americans (and i cannot speak for Europe or others around the world) clamored rather precipitously to get rid of their Big American Cars, and replace them as quickly as possible with tiny Japanese “tin can” vehicles. 3 and 4 cylinder jobs that’d be laughed off the road today. But cars that were getting well over 30 MPG and moreover — at least initially — had sticker prices that were attractively low.
CVCC (“Civic”) was born in this era. Transverse engine, 1,169 cc (70 in³), $2,200 out the door at the dealerships. In a matter of weeks, they were sold out. Nationwide. Japan simply couldn’t make them fast enough to get over here and satisfy demand. A HUGE success.
_______
That — to me — is the “moral of the story”. The moral that artificial product taxation can significantly change broader consumer buying patterns, almost overnight.
People with cars new enough to not warrant replacement (but otherwise “gas guzzlers”) very often had their huge trunks retrofitted with 20 gallon compressed propane liquid fuel and their carbeurators modified to suit. By comparison to roadway motor fuel, mile-for-mile, propane was ⅓ the price.
Know what?
In the context of today’s prices of fuel, imposing a $5/gallon-and-increasing–50¢/quarter gasoline and diesel fuel consumption tax would just as rapidly redirect consumers to non-petroleum fueled vehicle purchases.
It’d be a boon (and boom!) for the electric-car lines.
And it’d be a boon for lithium miners and refiners.
And the propane retrofits would again soar.
Or compressed natural gas mods.
Even ethanol alcohol (or methanol-ethanol blends) would take off.
Renewable. Exempt.
Because the government REALLY CAN moderate and redirect the flow of consumer capital demand through egregious — but politically expedient — tariffing and taxation.
Just saying
GoatGuy
So you advocate putting the development roadmap in the hands of government ( the most incompetent wayfinder there is), when the market is the only successful one we have ever seen.
You lost me there, man. God help on that path. The politicians only care about getting through the next election. If we can fix democracy, then maybe.
You forgot to mention how government took a short term crisis and turned it into a long term crisis through the use of regulations that sought to protect consumers from the true cost of the shortage.
It takes money to build more drilling rigs. It takes money to send out train, equip and support geologists who hunt for more places to drill. It takes money to hire and train people to operate all those new drilling rigs. However government, restricted how much companies could profit from all the new oil they found and they capped the price of all existing fields at pre-shortage levels.
There was no money and no incentive to go out on a limb and search for more new oil.
His expert report is a serious joke
Constantly references ” subsidies ” that the fossil fuel companies receive – toture of the term subsidy – a tax deduction for out of pocket cash expenses – seriously.
References to subsidy calculations is to advocacy studies – all with numerous errors –
Very little of his own work in expert report – reads like an advocacy paper, not an expert report.
competent lawyer will rip him a new one – except the court is in eugene oregon – so jury will disregard logic.
I’m surprised at your surprise at the weakness of Stiglitz’s arguments. It appears to me there is an inverse correlation between academic intelligence and belief in climate change. Steve Hawking regarded as a genius makes some insane comments on climate change. An inability to fully understand climate change is even more likely for economists who practice in a discipline which seems to specialise in an I exact science and who when predicting future trends are unlikely to be correct no more than 50% of the time . Ask 10 economists the level of the Dow or the currency in 12 months invariably they don’t even get it in the range. Ironically it is the less educated and hard working Joe averages of the world who seem to understand the lack of credibility that the global warming story really has. In 20 years time when the Global warming / climate change mania has been fully exposed as the scam it is people will be flabagatered that a generation of intelligent beings could be so stupid in inflicting such major self harm which has been occurring.
Someone recommending a government of a country resort to regulations that will basically destroy one class, the middle, and further increase another class, the poor, all in the name of global warming, is not an economist. He is a dyed in the wool socialist.
‘sued the federal government for failing to act on climate change.’
The government has no duty to act on anything. When you call the cops, they can choose not to come.
And the judicial certainly can’t compel the legislative nor the executive to do anything.
Any court should reject the suit instantly.
A few decades ago, the judge in charge of the “desegregation” plan in (I believe) Kansas City, ordered the city council to raise taxes so that he could have more money with which to “improve” the schools.
An educational note for Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:
Dear Dr. Stiglitz and Members of the Royal Swedish Academy,
How do I put this politely? Energy is my expertise, and it is clearly NOT yours.
Your comments on energy, Sir, remind me of this scene from the film “Billy Madison”:
“Mr. Madison, what you just said is the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone is this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjxFJfcrcA
Here are the two key points of our predictive track record, from the Rebuttal that Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Tim Patterson and I published in 2002 in our debate with the Pembina Institute on the now-defunct Kyoto Accord.
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
…
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
The above two conclusions, published 16 years ago, still stand strong today, and refute the two most important falsehoods of the fractious global warming/green energy debacle.
In summary, any warming that might result from increasing atmospheric CO2 will be minor and beneficial, and intermittent grid-connected green energy schemes have proven to be a costly failure. The only measurable impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 is greatly increased crop and plant yields, which are highly beneficial to humanity and the environment.
In comparison, not one of the very-scary predictions of the IPCC and its minions have materialized – the IPCC and its minions have a perfectly negative predictive track record.
Reference:
2002 DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Other than that, Sir, I found your paper quite interesting.
Your humble servant, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
Nothing about the benefits of fossil fuels. I guess there aren’t any. What an A..H…. This country is in a heap of trouble if people like Stiglitz are representative of the caliber of people teaching future generations. Having been awarded a Nobel prize has become meaningless in my eyes after our former dear leaders was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
If the U.S. adopts a crash program of green-ification, it won’t save the planet as Stieglitz imagines. It’s a non sequitur. The rest of the world will go its merry way. The U.S.’s emissions reductions will merely delay the trump of doom by a year or two (or a month or two, as some have calculated). So why bankrupt ourselves trying? Were not going to inspire the ROW by our example. Thinking that we will is foolish—it’s a case of trying to hustle the East.
Economic whiz, maybe. I’ll assume that. Knows Shist about technology. Idiot.
Stiglitz’s 15 minutes of fame has come and long gone. Just trying to regain some former glory in the spotlight. Sadly, it demonstrates his ignorance that 17 years on, the observations on climate have moved beyond alarmism.
Even then, it was clear that there were viable alternatives, and with the appropriate allocation of further resources to R&D, it is likely that these alternatives would have been even more competitive.
_____________________________________________________
This “appropriate allocation of further resources to R&D, ” for decades where sunk in never existing climate change concerns.
What a Stiglitz.
And what clients to pay him $2.000,- per hour for “legal advice”.
When Bjorn Lomborg said the same thing : “invest into R&D“, they said he was a traitor, denier, liar, … I can’t see Stiglitz getting the same treatment as Lomborg, because he’s sympathetic to anti-Capitalism, and a climate campaigner now.
Why is it that the alarmists who so regularly prophesise the End of Times unless we do as they instruct us , always seem to be completely immune to the disastrous outcomes that arise out of their very own own predictions.
They shake the climate bones, read the omens as predicted in their climate modelling, prophesise in large print the end times unless we do as they say and then climb into their SUV’s or what ever they drive and head off to the airport for another conference in Vanuatu or Bali or where ever so long as it is exotic [ I almost posted erotic ! ?? ] and exclusive and expensive as the proletariat are the ones being forced to pay for such leisurely experiences.
They as the climate shamans are obviously completely protected from the catastrophic outcomes and disaster scenarios they weave for us, the common man, by the Gods of what ever Hades type climate they are promoting today.