Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Clark University Professor Edward Carr, Biden will struggle to truly transform society, though restoring California’s control of automobile environmental standards and re-imposing Obama era methane rules will help.
Biden’s climate change plans can quickly raise the bar, but can they be transformative?
November 11, 2020 6.20am AED
Edward R Carr
Professor and Director, International Development, Community, and Environment, Clark UniversityThe day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change. The question is whether he can match the magnitude of the challenge.
If his administration focuses only on what is politically possible and fails to build a coordinated response that also addresses the social and economic ramifications of both climate change and the U.S. policy response, it is unlikely to succeed.
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To start moving the country back toward its obligations under the Paris Agreement, Biden can recertify the waiver that allows California to implement its fuel economy and zero-emissions vehicle standards. The Trump administration had revoked it. California is a big state, and its actions are followed by others, which puts pressure on the auto industry to meet higher standards nationwide.
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The administration can also limit climate-warming greenhouse emissions by regulating activities like the flaring of methane on public lands. The Trump administration rolled back a large number of climate and environmental regulations over the past four years.
There are even legislative actions that could get through a divided Congress, such as funding for clean energy technology.
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One of the big challenges – and the place where Biden needs to start – is the lack of understanding of systemic risks, opportunities and costs of both climate actions and inaction.
Right now, there is no federal agency tasked with developing a systemic understanding of climate change impacts across society.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/bidens-climate-change-plans-can-quickly-raise-the-bar-but-can-they-be-transformative-149355
Who is Edward Carr? In February this year he was named climate adaption advisor on the Global Environment Facility, a well funded multinational UN affiliated body established in 1992 in the wake of the Rio Earth Summit, According to his university bio he’s an anthropologist. I get the impression he’s more a vision guy than an engineer.
My thought, it is easier to talk about transformation than to actually come up with a detailed costed plan to do it. We all love the idea bountiful free energy which doesn’t hurt the planet. As long as you don’t stray too close to engineering reality this fantasy renewable energy transformation thing all looks so beautiful.
Oh, yes, please. Create a cabinet position for saving the planet from CO2,the climate control knob, and funnel $trillions into worth less than nothing wind, solar and storage to “jump start the economy
and create millions of jobs”. Ideally, this critical action will be the first item of business in the first 100 days of the new administration. Horror of horrors here we come.
Yes, I call CO2 the God Molecule…
And I guess Methane is Jesus !
This whole thing is Hogwash!
– JPP
Not N,N-Dimethyltryptamine?
Re-sublimated Thiotimoline?
There’s no agency tasked with finding Bigfoot either.
I’m going to work hard and Trump is going to use his bully pulpit to get rid of ANY Republican who does this next year: “ There are even legislative actions that could get through a divided Congress, such as funding for clean energy technology.”
The RINOs ought to speak with Speaker Cantor and Senator Crist first before they do dumb things, like take away private property rights from landowners who oppose more fake energy projects’ transmission. Trump tweets plus his voters will make the 2010 primaries look like a Girl Scout picnic.
Edwin Carr: Boy, he’s dreamy. If I were so inclined…
Though it looks like he spends more time on his hair than on studying climate.
Based on that picture, I would say too much petroleum based hair product has rotted his brain.
Alas, you can’t rot something that doesn’t exist.
Toupée
Self correct, Edward, not Edwin. Same diff..
According to The Conversation anything that will ruin western civilisation will help, but, obviously, will not be enough.
“he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change”
What a truly IDIOTIC statement .. a true Billy Maddison moment…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c
Only an extremely ignorant person would make such a statement.. and having made it, deserves no further reading !
NOTHING Biden does will have any effect on the natural climate variability WHATSOEVER !!!!!
And reductions of plant-feeding CO2 in the US will be MORE THAN balanced by the increase in China and the rest of the world.
Only a physicist can explain how the earth’s climate changes. An anthropologist has no clue about the physical forces driving the climate, so it is not surprising he makes idiotic statements.
“Phillip Bratby November 12, 2020 at 11:35 pm
Only a physicist can explain how the earth’s climate changes.”
Wrong. No-one *KNOWS* that, just guesses, hypotheses and theories.
The outdated capitalist laws of physics should be replaced by a new set of climate justice driven regulations.
…which would rapidly impoverish the earth and destroy humanity.
Otherwise you make a compelling case.
In the British empire these sorts of people are called Royalty. We have several of them unfortunately.
A now thanks to Harry, so does the US!
The royalty in the US is the deepstate. The unelected bureaucrats who attempt to increase regulations for the growth of their kingdoms.
We don’t consider those fools royalty. Only the tabloids pay any attention.
Question – What’s more important than Trump winning?
Answer – Jared Kushner losing.
Yes, we can’t have any more Middle East peace deals, can we? How embarrassing that the president who actually achieves unprecedented peace and is nominated for multiple Nobel Peace prizes is awarded nothing because he’s orange.
That has to be the most racist thing on the planet.
Too many carrots maybe and purposeful manipulation of the colors.
Biden will never be president. His campaign will forever be considered a blight on our republic!
Lin Wood makes it perfectly clear that the Democrats and Red Communist China colluded to pull off the most massive voter fraud in world history.
They were discovered primarily because their rigged voting machines, called Dominion, couldn’t keep up with the landslide in votes Trump was getting!
Maybe the perpetrators could provide some comic relief if they were hung from the spars of a windmill farm in a slow, gentle breeze.
The failure of their Dominion will be on full display.
Don’t be surprised if the deep state is able to suppress all voter fraud just like they suppressed all of the bad deeds involved with the Clinton Foundation and Biden crimes.
He stole the election fair and square. He is the next commander and thief. I’m just shocked that there is no mark by the counting machine to tell how many times they’ve been counted. When I did data entry, everything was numbered by the mail room stamping machine.
Meanwhile, can anyone explain to me what the hell is a “systemic understanding of climate change”?
Thank you.
It is simply the erudite professor showing off and seeking to convince the rest of us plebs to believe his BS. This is why he also keeps using the words transformative, transformational (catalyzing the transformational changes), transforming. This article is simply a pile of steaming and stinky BS. Heaven help our poor students who choose men like him to enlighten them.
The learned IYI makes a Freudian slip in the use of “systemic” versus “systematic.”
The day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change.
The correct response is to insist on an answer to a simple question: by how much will these actions slow climate change?
Start by making the speaker say by how many tons they will lower global emissions. Then go on to ask by how much this reduction will lower temperatures.
The answer will be minimal for emissions and too little to measure for temperatures.
The classic sign of a nonsense policy is when it makes no sense in its own terms. That is, concede the rationale, that CO2 warms, even that it warns catastrophically. The proposed policies make no sense even then.
The Guardian recently published a piece saying that Biden could lower global emissions by something like 75Gt between now and 2100. This would cost something like $1.5 trillion and would lower temps by 0.1C below what they would otherwise be.
The conclusion was, what are we waiting for?
That question was always pertinent, but has never done Andrew Bolt any favors. I don’t see any Alarmist anywhere willing to come out an definitively state that it’s all stuff and nonsense, from a practical perspective.
As usual, progressives demonstrate their belief that their presidents should be allowed to rule as dictators.
The day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change.
With the writer’s opening sentence and article littered with various forms of the word transform I expect politically correct hogwash. Carr is hiding rubbish behind words and phrases which he does not qualify or define. There is no amorphous or shapeless and undefined thing as climate. Our world has various climates or climate zones and these do not simply switch around. Those who think they can engineer a better climate – better for whom? – are self deluded.
Four thousand years of recorded history record numerous examples of people adapting successfully even to the harshest of climates. An ant may dream of becoming the world’s greatest engineer but the height of arrogance is for a man to think he can play God and engineer the climate zones of the world. Man has “created” micro climates in small areas like he does in a green house or irrigating and greening some areas in a desert but this in no way changes climate zones. A small fraction of the countless billions squandered on climate change would make our world a cleaner and more livable place if spent on adapting to our environments.
A ‘climate adaption advisor’. Must be something like ‘cigar humidor consultant’. Lets ask Bill Clinton.
I used to be a Petroleum Distribution Engineer as a side job in High School.
Eric, I like your last paragraph.
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In all the rest of the statements, very typically, he avoids evaluation of inaction.
This is a point not least Monckton has made so many times. Even soft warmer Danish professor Bjørn Lomborg acknowledge that “action” doesn’t make any economical sense.
But, the politicians see an opportunity in blindly believing what Greta and the selected scientists say.
In my opinion what the politicians see is this: Pandering to the socialist elite on social media, opportunity for big projects with lots of jobs both ongoing maintenance and every time a new windmill park is built and last but not least by any means: At some point – the sooner the better (in their opinion) – carbon tax!
Carbon tax is SO needed in lots of countries – with the COVID debacle the coffers are so close to EMPTY.
Why can these clowns get so much attention?
Naomi Seibt recently produced a two minute video explaining that now the chat from live stream are turned off. She doesn’t know why, suggesting ironically that maybe the stream is not child friendly.
Naomi just made a livestream today and the chat was working. It’s really interesting, as she talks about the Trump Election – and she knows stuff !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faGKy3TXFbE
Her connection was F’ed up in the beginning, but she seemed to get it straightened out.
– JPP
“To start moving the country back toward its obligations under the Paris Agreement, Biden can recertify the waiver that allows California to implement its fuel economy and zero-emissions vehicle standards.”
Well here in South Australia we don’t want Morrison and the feds interfering in understanding the costs of EVs either-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-11/controversy-over-south-australias-plans-to-tax/12874068?nw=0
https://evcentral.com.au/south-australias-ev-tax-smashed-by-opposition-but-nsw-keen-to-follow-suit/
Well that certainly brought the Tesla owners out howling as they’d be the predominant number of the 3000 registrations in SA at present even though it was mooted by the State Govt to only charge an extra $300 on their registration.
You see at present the Feds collect 42.3cents/litre on petrol and diesel but on top of that is the 10% GST earmarked for the State’ coffers although the fuel excise can come back in tied grants to them. Ipso facto with red ink everywhere naturally the States are keen to shore up any potential loss of GST revenue and leave the Feds to deal with what they’re going to do about indexed fuel excise loss as EVs supposedly take over. The EV fan club can sense the thin end of the wedge here but never come between pollies and a barrel of money particularly while you’re a rich minority. LOL.
“To start moving the country backward
toward its obligations under the Paris Agreement, Biden can recertify the waiver that allows California to implement its fuel economy and zero-emissions vehicle standards.”Oops. I corrected it!
“To start moving the country back toward its obligations under the Paris Agreement…”
“Obligations”? Er, no, they are more like suggestions. The American people never agreed to any so-called “obligations”.
+1000
“Right now, there is no federal agency tasked with developing a systemic understanding of climate change impacts across society.” Good.
IF Biden ultimately wins, there’s that pesky Constitution thingy that may get in the way. The 10th Amendment unambiguously makes it clear that the federal government is limited to sticking its nose into only those areas and activities that the Constitution explicitly enumerates, and this word appears nowhere in the Constitution:
“climate.”
Constitution doesn’t matter any more.
I understand from Naomi Seibt that the German constitution is on its way out. Previously you needed a judge’s content to invade a private home – not any more: Now a superior law called “the health protection law” gives the police right to invade a home, where they anticipate too many people are assembled. Think funeral, birthday party or any other meeting. Not 100% sure if it has passed parliament.
Have we learned absolutely nothing from 87 years ago?
And with 5 conservative justices on the SCOTUS the 10th amendment may again mean something. John Roberts is not conservative.
“…The day Joe Biden becomes president, he can start taking actions that can help slow climate change. The question is whether he can match the magnitude of the challenge…”
It never ceases to amaze me when someone from the climate alarmist camp raises the President of the U.S. (in this case President-elect Biden) to the status of a demi-god in the belief that he has the power to affect the climate. I question the intellectual capacity of the such a person. And when that person is a PhD university type, it is even more amazing, especially if his background is not in a climate or a climate-related field.
Elevating the president of a major economic and military power to the level of a climate-altering demi-god certainly must demonstrate just how intellectually challenged academic types really can be these days. In centuries past, kings, queens and emperors were considered God’s representatives on Earth. In numerous cases, they probably still are today. At least Prince Charlie in the U.K. doesn’t claim to be able to alter the climate himself, at least not that I’ve seen. But I wouldn’t put it past him to at least try.
Elevating powerful politicians to demi-god status demonstrates that the climate alarmist narrative really is a religion today, replete with its high priests and priestesses, its Pope in Al Gore, an evil vs. good belief system, its Satan with fossil fuels and CO2, etc, etc. The union of church and state may be unconstitutional in the U.S., but a neutral, casual observer who is new to all this would never know it.
Perhaps because, other than in the models, there isn’t any appreciable “climate change”. Maybe we can appoint a “model czar” to keep track of it, at least until it’s an effect that can be measured as larger than .01 degrees, as measured on a thermometer that only goes down to .1 degrees.
Relegating concern about global warming to a single federal agency would be a capital time saver. I nominate the CIA as the receiver, it’d give them something to do to keep them out of mischief. Plus, since their entire history is dominated by failure to predict what did happen and failures of their predictions of what would happen, CAGW would be right up their ally.
A systematic look at “climate change impacts” would actually be a good thing, since the current state of the industry tends towards only looking at negative impacts, and often inflating negative impact by assuming no adaptation whatsoever. I believe I read every non-paywalled impact paper referenced in AR5 and I wasn’t impressed by any of them; though the estimated economic damage was still far from catastrophic when applied to the much richer world of the future. A systematic look at the costs of mitigation policy *now* compared to future adaptation would be very welcome — the ~1C warming since 19th century has been adapted to easily with no cost at all.
Biden loses train of thought mid sentence and Harris can’t stop laughing with shaking body long enough to do anything but ask where are we.
Climate change covers it all just in case we are going into a deep freeze or world wide Death Valley. Even if it is neither they will have nailed it because it’s about to happen. Their problem is they don’t know enough math, they should start with fractions.
Phillip
Through the the internet some 15 years ago, there was a PhD in physics who was an ardent warmunist.
He had articles included in the big IPCC summaries.
He even thought that he was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Very nasty liberal he was.
With just a BSc in geology and geophysics I had no Street Creds.
“Right now, there is no federal agency tasked with developing a systemic understanding of climate change…”
Wait, I thought the “Science was Settled?”
“California is a big state, and its actions are followed by others, which puts pressure on the auto industry to meet higher standards nationwide.” Obama’s fuel economy standard, 54.5 mpg for cars and light trucks by 2025 was nothing but a hidden tax scam. It is not achievable by any means except the complete elimination of all SUVs, light trucks, and larger cars. It isn’t even achievable by increasing the sales of EVs as there is insufficient battery production capacity to be able to produce any more than 5% of new car sales for EVs by 2025. That bogus standard would only result in consumers paying a fine/fee on the sales of almost all new cars. It would cause a financial disincentive to upgrade our old fleet of cars (the average car on the road is now 12 years old) to newer cars that get better gas mileage and thus is a stupid, backwards regulation.
All we need is more anti-matter mines.
I love those! Superior hull penetration in a compact nearly invisible package.
Black Lives Anti-Matter?