Guest climate debating by David Middleton
4 inconvenient truths about climate change
September 7, 2019
At this week’s climate symposium on CNN, Elizabeth Warren answered a question about whether the government should be regulating lightbulbs in an interesting way. She said, basically, that we’re focusing on the wrong thing. There’s nothing wrong with more efficient lightbulbs, but it’s small beer. That’s what the fossil fuel companies want us to be arguing about, because most of the carbon is thrown up by three industries — construction, electric power, and oil — and arguing about lightbulbs takes attention away from those sectors.
The obvious inconvenient truth that Warren is pointing out here is that we aren’t going to be able to fight climate change with a series of small-change consumer choices. It’s going to require massive changes in large industries, which is a heavier political lift. Below the radar, there’s another inconvenient truth being implied: that people are really irritated by losing even small conveniences, and so focusing energy on these small-beer fights has a real cost in terms of being able to fight the bigger fights.
She’s right about both. But those aren’t the most inconvenient truths about the fight against climate change. Here are four that we need to start acknowledging more widely if we’re going to make the kind of progress we so urgently need.
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1. Demand for energy is relatively inelastic.
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2. People are selfish in their loss-aversion.
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3. America is only a small part of the climate problem.
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4. It’s already too late to prevent climate change.
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Environmentalists don’t like to suggest that adaptation is possible, because it might reduce the urgency of prevention. And it’s true that resources are limited, so every dollar and minute spent on adaptation is not being spent on some other endeavor. But, inconveniently, we have no choice.
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The most inconvenient truth of all is that a global civilization of seven and a half billion people (and rising) is inevitably going to be engaged in geo-engineering. There is no mode of living that allows us simply to exist within an environment in a natural fashion, no spiritual road back to a prelapsarian state. From now on, we will perpetually be adapting to a world that we have shaped decisively. We’d better learn how to do it well.
The Week
I love it when I get to learn new words!
The Fall of Man refers to Genesis 3:1–24. You can’t get there from here.
While I disagree with the notion that we have to acknowledge these inconvenient truths “to make the kind of progress we so urgently need,” because there is no urgency. These four inconvenient truths will doom whatever passenger in the 2020 Democrat Candidate Clown Car wins the nomination, if they adhere to the nonsense they all spouted in the CNN climate change town hall marathon.
1. Demand for energy is relatively inelastic.
Yes it is and it is perpetually growing.
It is simply impossible for solar and wind to significantly displace fossil fuels. It is possible for natural gas and nuclear power to economically displace coal, and this would reduce carbon emissions much faster than anything other than “freezing in the dark.”
Mr. Millman points out that a carbon tax would be the least economically destructive way of nudging people towards an energy transition; but that the cost might be so high that it would wreck the economy. He suggests a moderate carbon tax to fund methods of reducing the carbon intensity of our energy mix…
A further implication is that a massive research and development effort — on carbon-neutral construction, more advanced batteries, thorium reactors, carbon capture, geo-engineering, etc. — needs to be a huge portion of any climate policy, at a much higher scale than we have contemplated. Spending money on innovation can be attacked as wasteful, but we need to be willing to waste a lot of money to make multiple breakthroughs — and it’s surely more popular than personal sacrifice.
The Week
The fastest way to bipartisan legislation is tho authorize the government to “waste a lot of money”. “Carbon-neutral construction, more advanced batteries, thorium reactors, carbon capture, geo-engineering, etc.” generally all have broad bipartisan support… even if some of those ideas are really dumb, if not more dangerous than Gorebal Warming… Blocking the Sun will work… Don’t even think about trying it!
The fact that every passenger in the 2020 Democrat Candidate Clown Car, with a realistic chance of being the nominee, wants to get rid of natural gas and nuclear power is prima facie evidence that the manufactured “climate crisis” is nothing but a Trojan Horse for Communism.
2. People are selfish in their loss-aversion.
Mr. Millman points out that the passengers in the 2020 Democrat Candidate Clown Car mostly address this by coupling the sacrifices with lots of free schist…
This is an extremely inconvenient truth. The main way climate advocates have attempted to address it is to take the focus off individual losses. Progressive Democrats’ Green New Deal, for example, embeds climate change in a larger economic and social agenda — free health care, guaranteed employment — in the hopes that the agenda as a whole will prove popular enough to carry decarbonization along with it.
The Week
He then notes that most of the passengers in the 2020 Democrat Candidate Clown Car seek to place all of the sacrifices on the fossil fuel industries; somehow thinking that the costs of those sacrifices won’t be passed on to energy consumers.
3. America is only a small part of the climate problem.
I, naturally, look at this a bit differently. America is the solution.
The US actually leads the entire world in total energy production.
- #1 in total energy production
- #1 in oil production
- #1 in natural gas production
- #1 in nuclear power
- #1 in geothermal power
- #1 in biofuels
- #2 in wind power
- #2 in solar power
- #2 in coal production
- #4 in hydropower
Source: Robert Rapier, Yes, The U.S. Is The World’s Top Energy Producer
The degree to which human activities are affecting the climate is really irrelevant so long as we retain the economic robustness to deal with whatever the weather is like in the future. And these tangentially United States are better positioned to deal with the future than any other nation on Earth… Because abundant, affordable energy helps to secure liberty and prosperity.
4. It’s already too late to prevent climate change.
It’s always been “too late to prevent climate change.”
This was reality in the mid to late 1970’s…
The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
— The Clash “London Calling,” released in 1979
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear era, but I have no fear
’Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river
Thank God for climate change… Or maybe we should thank man for climate change… According to the sacred climate models, if not for The Climate Wrecking Industry, the planet would be colder than “The Ice Age Cometh”…
This proud member of the Climate Wrecking Industry says, “You’re welcome.”
Who’s up for The Clash?
Conclusion
If the survivor of the 2020 Democrat Candidate Clown Car Crash attempts to make climate change a central issue and runs on the basic tenets of the Green New Deal Cultural Revolution, he or she will lose because of Mr. Millman’s “4 inconvenient truths about climate change.”
From the article: “It’s going to require massive changes in large industries, which is a heavier political lift.”
It’s an impossible lift. Anyone who thinks the American people are going to put up with the Green New Deal is delusional. It will never be implemented. It won’t be implemented even if the Democrats did manage to win the presidency.
Tom the problem is that the General Public does not understand that “massive changes in large industries” is absolutely necessary in the eyes of the NGD advocates to achieve their promises of Utopia. Anything less would just be a severe anchor on our economy for the sole purpose of virtue signalling. (Just do the math.)
Most “greens” I know say they favor the NGD, except for the extreme recommendations. They’ll go along with separating plastic, using LEDs etc. NONE of them, even those old enough to remember, understand what they’d be in for if the government mobilized and focused “just like WWII”.
Most think it is just a proposal that the government spend vast amounts of money and resources and they wouldn’t be impacted in their daily lives. (Cute lil’ Miss Sandy is clearly one of those – “Just print more money”. Bless her Heart.)
David, I was glad to see you link climate alarmism to communism as the Democratic Party is blowing past socialism to full scale communism. Wasn’t it Lenin who said that the purpose of socialism is to get to communism? The liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which is growing, already wants to disarm the USA population and stifle free speech which are the hallmarks of communism. With those tenets in place, communists can control people’s lives by telling them what they can eat, how and where they can travel, what they can read, what entertainment they can view, how many children they can have, how much energy they can use, how they can be educated, who they can vote for, and by requiring neighbors to report on each other. And, the current contenders for the DP presidential nomination are running over each other to see who can “out-left” the most and, in total, have espoused disarming the population, controlling speech and controlling our lives. All in the name of fighting a nonexistent crisis (never let a crisis go to waste as Rahm Emanuel “retweeted” Churchill’s quote).
Communism is evil and socialism is just a step away, paraphrasing Lenin. And how many millions of people will die when we relearn the next great tragedy of communism?
And, just in case I wasn’t clear, there are no upsides to communism. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Communism is slavery pure and simple. Evil.
JPF, your list is good of what the communists can do, but forgot one thing — be able to round up disarmed citizens from their homes, schools, towns, businesses, etc, without those people being able to resist. We already see schemes in the works to make it harder and harder to buy arms and ammunition using methods getting around violating the 2nd amendment.
Yes, beng, communism uses many methods to control the population and additional “sins against the party” are resolved in the millions who are “disappeared”. History has shown the absolute failure of communism, the millions (maybe as much as 100+ million) who lost their lives and the economic toll that system has taken.
But if only they would then learn to STFU and go do something more interesting instead.
As to The Fall, there’s a lot of madness in this area.
The US might be the world’s leading energy producer, but it is far from being the most dependent on the production of fossil fuels.
Earlier this year I did a little graph to with the estimated gross value of fossil fuel production for the top 20 producing countries. (I excluded Venezuela in 16th as there is a lack of reliable data)
USA is top, with China second. If it were CO2 emissions from the burning of those fossil fuels, China might lead the way. However, both the US and China have vast economies. Expressed as a percentage of GDP the picture looks different.
The largest three producers dependent on fossil fuels for a significant part of their national income are Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Making the planet carbon-free will seriously affect the economies and relative political power of these countries. Best of luck with that guys.
Another way of putting this is that the US and China are the world’s largest fossil fuel producers *and* consumers. It’s a different sort of dependency. Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran are dependent of revenue from oil & gas exports. The US and China are dependent on revenue generated from activities powered by fossil fuels.
When oh when are the realists who understand climate change, stop talking about climate change as though it is unusual. It is eithe , current climate change ( it’s a continuous process) or, climate changes, plural.
By not expressing this , the meddling media use it for dispensing false information to those folk who believe everything they read!
Help them and bury the dangerous misinformation.
How I despise the weak/greedy people pupporting to be politicians, and therefore servants.
The word that describes the state of being Leftists enter when they think of all the power they can accumulate by forcing the Green “SCREW” Deal on civilization is PRIAPISM
Dang, I had to look that up …..(PRIAPISM).. NOT a problem I have anymore…..lol
Warren is wrong about almost everything she talks about.
So its not surprising to me that she is even wrong that lighting is small potatoes. Of course, it is small potatoes if your goal is to nationalize the energy sector and impose Soviet-style control over people’s lives, like her and most of the other Democrat candidates aspire to do.
About 6% of US electricity consumption is used for lighting. LEDs use 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs and so a complete switch to LEDs could save up to 4.5% of electricity consumption. Ok, its single digits, but that is still significant. I live in MA, which has the highest electricity rates in the country because they refuse to allow the building of new gas powered plants or gas pipelines. I’ve saved a bundle switching to LEDs. They paid for themselves the first year.
Of course I’m not saying it should be mandated. I’m just saying it is helpful if you want to conserve energy and save money.
Typo
“Figure 2. There is mo way back to before Genesis 3:1–24″
I think you meant:
“Figure 2. There is no way back to before Genesis 3:1–24″
Since “The Fall”, the “Original Sin”, had absolutely nothing to do with fossil fuels or Man’s CO2, well, talk about “Barking Up the Wrong Tree”!
Excellent point, “The Fall”, the “Original Sin”, had absolutely nothing to do with fossil fuels or Man’s CO2, but the same “serpent” who tricked Eve with the Lie that changed mankind’s fate for all eternity is still at it today.
The author of the article referred to it as prelapsarian times. Prelapsarian means before the Fall of Man. I was poking fun at his literary device.
And it’s worth mentioning that the LEDs you can buy today are the result of 50 years of worldwide development and innovation. A whole bunch of very smart people beat their heads (metaphorically speaking) against a bunch of brick walls while spending piles of R&D money chasing down one idea after another. Where we are now, there is no downside to LEDs for just about any home use and most commercial uses, and cost savings are just one of their upsides. Which means nobody has to mandate LED lighting — the advantages are obvious to anyone who pays attention.
But it took 50 years to get here.
It’s perfectly understandable that politicians will claim all we have to do is wish upon a star and we can replace our entire energy sector — after all they sell fantasy for a living. But it gets scary when a good bit of the US population start to believe them.
Alan, do you know of a good dojo for climate denialism? I would like to attain a highly ranked belt in the discipline and thus spend a lot of time lurking and occasionally commenting on WUWT. My current fav argument is that CO2 levels have been fallin for the last 150,000,000 years, reaching levels during the last period of glaciation that were near death for many plant species, especially alpine and mountain genera.
The Progressives obviously don’t believe their own lies (Obama and Gore have purchased ocean-front properties) but I am certain they will pull every trick in the book to defeat VSGPT in 2020. How do we convince low info voters and prevent the massive voter fraud that the Progs and their LSM lackeys are sure to pull off where possible. America is truly the shining city on the hill with liberty and prosperity for all who are willing to work for it. I pray this will still be true in 2021!
David, regards light bulbs:
Wanna look up who owned the patents on the “new-tech” lightbulbs (dig deep, dig until you find NASA)?
I’d freely speculate that there is a very good explanation as to why these light bulbs were mandated and cost an arm and a legg: Something needed financing.
Perhaps a FOIA-request is due to find out how much money NASA made on the patents and also on what these revenues were planned to finance?
No answer required (it will be entirely by chance if I return to this particular article.)
Oddgeir