Repost from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
FEBRUARY 14, 2021
By Paul Homewood
Across the world, politicians are going out of their way to promise fantastically expensive climate policies. President Biden has promised to spend $500 billion each year on climate — about 13 percent of the entire federal revenue. The European Union will spend 25 percent of its budget on climate.
Most rich countries now promise to go carbon-neutral by mid-century. Shockingly, only one country has made a serious, independent estimate of the cost: New Zealand found it would optimistically cost 16 percent of its GDP by then, equivalent to the entire current New Zealand budget.
The equivalent cost for the US and the EU would be more than $5 trillion. Each and every year. That is more than the entire US federal budget, or more than the EU governments spend across all budgets for education, recreation, housing, environment, economic affairs, police, courts, defense and health.
Tellingly, the European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans recently admitted that climate policies would be so costly, it would be a “matter of survival for our industry” without huge, protective border taxes.
Climate change is a real, manmade problem. But its impacts are much lower than breathless climate reporting would suggest. The UN Climate Panel finds that if we do nothing, the total impact of climate in the 2070s will be equivalent to reducing incomes by 0.2-2 percent. Given that by then, each person is expected to be 363 percent as rich as today, climate change means we will “only” be 356 percent as rich. Not the end of the world.
Climate policies could end up hurting much more by dramatically cutting growth. For rich countries, lower growth means higher risks of protests and political breakdown. This isn’t surprising. If you live in a burgeoning economy, you know that you and your children will be much better off in the coming years. Hence, you are more forgiving of the present.
If growth is almost absent, the world turns to a zero-sum experience. Better conditions for others likely mean worse conditions for you, resulting in a loss of social cohesion and trust in a worthwhile future. The yellow-vest protests against eco-taxes that have rankled France since 2018 could become a permanent feature of many or most rich societies.
Yet politicians obsessively focus on climate. Growth-killing “fixes” would delight a few job-secure academics, but they would lead to tragic outcomes of stagnation, strife and discord for ordinary people.
Most voters aren’t willing to pay for these extravagant climate policies. While Biden proposes spending the equivalent of $1,500 per American per year, a recent Washington Post survey showed that more than half the population was unwilling to pay even $24.
And for what? If all the rich countries in the world were to cut their carbon emissions to zero tomorrow and for the rest of the century, the effort would make an almost unnoticeable reduction in temperatures by 2100.
This is because more than three-quarters of the global emissions in the rest of this century will come from Asia, Africa and Latin America. These nations are determined to lift their populations out of poverty and ensure broad development using plentiful energy, mostly from cheap fossil fuels.
The last 30 years of climate policy have delivered high costs and rising emissions. The only reliable ways to cut emissions have been recessions and the COVID-19 lockdowns, both of which are unpalatable. Expecting nations to stop using cheap energy won’t succeed. We need innovation.
Take the terrible air pollution in Los Angeles in the 1950s. It wasn’t fixed by naïvely asking people to stop driving cars. Instead, it was fixed through innovation — the catalytic converter allowed people to drive further yet pollute little. We need to invest in research to make green energy much cheaper: from better solar, wind and batteries to cheaper fission, fusion and carbon capture.
We should spend tens of billions to innovate the price of green energy below fossil fuels. Spending trillions on enormous and premature emissions cuts is an unsustainable and ineffective First World approach.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/09/bidens-climate-fix-is-fantastically-expensive-and-perfectly-useless/
I have a brilliant idea. Let’s just go nuclear. Even Bjorn is a bit flaky with some of his views and ideas.
I have even better one; Don come back, everything is forgiven.
I have a dumb idea.
Let’s trade the NBA for the Chinese Uygurs
I have a dumber idea.
Let’s play the PRC’s national anthem before each NBA game and watch all the players stand ridgedly at attention.
Well, that would be one way of going “nuclear”!
I would hope to get something for it, but I realize that might be too big of ask.
But anyhow, I would watch a NBA game just to see that.
Now what if CO2 is what maintains plant and microlife, which then regulates Climate stability.
Lomborg says, “Climate change is a real, manmade problem.”
Yes, it’s real, but it isn’t a problem. More to the point:
CO2 is not
a Problem
He gets traction with government central planner types as a result of stating that. And its good to have his economic evaluations considered as a result. Let’s leave him to it. His background is not in radiative quantum physics so he relies on others’ evaluation of whether it is a manmade real problem or not, just like school kids.
So he’s a genuflecting toady along with the rest of government funded scientists. If he left “problem” off of his statement he would be a vastly more respected scientist. Has he been made to grovel and kiss the ring if he doesn’t say it’s a problem?
His Ph.D was in “political science” and he was a statistics prof, neither of which is actually science, but leaves him able to evaluate whether it is a monetary problem much more easily than a scientific one.
CO2 is not a problem but I bow to his knowledge of political science. He probably knows what he’s doing.
Bend the knee
Yes, it’s a mere shibboleth. He contradicts himself later in the article by trivializing ‘the problem’ to being ‘not really a problem’. I can forgive him that legerdemain.
“Forgive him”?!?! Oh, HELL NO! You may be willing to read the actual science and so know AGW is horse-pucky!! Most people won’t. Trivializing that **LIE** means the populace will continue to be stupidly stampeded over cliff after cliff — and all of us who pay attention to reality will be swept over with them! No, it’s NOT acceptable to lie about what’s going on in order to not get banned or shunned! EITHER the science is correct or it’s not! Lying about it is nothing to respect or “forgive”!!
It is a man made problem, men put their thumbs on scale and inve Ted the crisis.
Well, you just have to use your imagination. For instance, every time you use table salt, you are obviously being gassed by the chlorine atoms in there. Now, *that’s* a problem!
Whatever it is, it’s made in China.
The Climate change drivel AGENDA is a real and totally man-made..
But not much else about “Climate Change™” is real
Indeed Climate Change Agenda is real. Climate Change is changing as the needs of politics demand. So far Climate Change has been bad, but if the politics is right, Climate Change will change for the good.
In the mean time, use diesel, and petrol to increase CO2 to encourage plany growth and fauna. In an active plan et such as ours, it is these that might stop the coming Ice age.
Agreed Steve, that jumped out at me. Climate change is real, is manmade in only miniscule, undetectable amounts and is not a problem.
https://twitter.com/Bellamari8mazz/status/1360754214054612995
I’ve been impressed by Lomborg for many years, this is the only idea of his that I have a problem with. But on the plus side, he’s totally opposed to massive, unaffordable and ineffective efforts to stop the climate from changing.
So I’ll give him a little leeway.
However, he does say something new in this article that I disagree with – “We should spend tens of billions to innovate the price of green energy below fossil fuels”. No we should not, he should be aware that “green energy” is not green in anything but name, and it cannot replace fossil fuels, no mater how cheap it is.
Someone send him a copy of “Planet of the Humans”.
Climate change is real, It is a living planet responding to solar radiation and other external stimuli to survive as a living planet.
Leave it alone, The last thing we need is “climatologits” with no valid experimental data, and politicians, to things no one, not even an Einstien would be able to come with a realistic predicting theory with no errors.
Lomberg has already been ‘cancelled’ by Australian universities even with $4 mill being on the table for them .
He is still not left wing enough for them , despite his attempts to appease with sloppy language in his reporting .
Exactly. CO2 is not a problem. It is its removal that is likely to cause an existential one.
Despite all the doom predicted, none has happened. That is becausre only doom is predicted. No actions have been taken to avert a doom. If its just a ruse to increase taxation, no problem. But what if we are wrong about CO2 and its role in actually stabilising Climate.
If efforts are made to reduce CO2, then we have a problem, as we dont know what will happen. Its not like a weather prediction software. There are no examples. If we set off a runaway decrease in temperature that reduces life, which then reduces temperature, we are well on the way to a life exctinction Ice Age. It will not be easy to stop.
So please politicians, do not monkey around with things we have no experience off. Tax away by all means, and use it to reduce poverty. Thats all right.
We already spend $1.2+ Trillion on the poor annually. And the poor only receive $245 Billion of that. All of the $1.2 Trillion goes to buy votes for Democrats.
Read his next sentence. “ But its impacts are much lower than breathless climate reporting would suggest.” He is in close agreement with most of the folks here at WUWT.
Fantastically expensive fits with the wealth redistribution model. Perfectly useless, the greenies ideology.
That is correct. And this is behind of it.
I hope that Big Tech, Amazon, and the rest, are the ones who are made to finance 99% of the cost of Climate Change. Then use it to reduce poverty and increase education globally. Leave CO2 alone.
whether the Biden plan fixes anything is not the point, the point is for Hunter to get a cut minus 50% for the big guy
It’s sad to watch a culture destroy itself from within with utter nonsense and failure to scientifically address the issue. The dramatic onset of the next glacial phase of this Ice Age we live is possibly the only hope for returning to rational policies. Don’t wait for it.
There’s nothing “scientific” in how they’re going about addressing this so-called problem. Science would have demanded that they come up with a new theory after all predictions have been wrong for last 80 years.
Think of Azimov and Foundation Trilogy. hind safe place to sit out teh crazy years and be in position to influence the restitution of sanity. We do have a few Hari Selden’s around
To tell you the truth I had put my money on Trump to lance the boil of pork barreling big government, but he failed to see that “big tech” had already castrated government. He was no Hari Seldon, but he is enough of a wild card to have created a divergence in the inertia of stupidity.
I do hope and pray that Trump will pull out several trumps. There is that stinking heap of postal ballots that need examining, and too those programmable vote counting machines.
Absolutely right. The Ice age is coming. CO2 increases life in a living planet. The only thing that might reduce or even forestall an Ice Age is a living planet. Reduce CO2 and life on earth is finished. We and the rest of the present generation wont be around.
I believe that climate can’t be modeled well enough to use models as a prediction tool. (Based only on my experience as a Professor of Comp Sci and professional systems analyst.)
There is contrarian science to suggest that the recent warming is part of a natural cycle. Cooling will dominate for a while and later reverse to warming again.
There seem to be different possibilities here. CO2 matters and we need non-CO2-producing energy. CO2 doesn’t matter but it is going to get warmer. CO2 doesn’t matter and it is going to get cooler.
In all cases Nuclear would provide (non-CO2-producing) energy. If warmer, for cooling. If cooler, for warming. Modern, latest-generation, meltdown-safe, non-polluting nuclear.
I’m not sure whether an energy source produces CO2 or not should be high on its list of objective desirable attributes.
Reliability, cost, magnitude, density are a few perhaps more important factors. Of course, this is a matter of perspective and there are those that actually think that CO2 is a pollutant, but there are probably more that are just using it as a means for control of the public.
CO2 does not matter other than plant productivity. There is no “greenhouse effect”.
There are two precisely tuned temperature control mechanisms that maintain Earth’s energy balance. One is the formation of sea ice at the poles at minus 2C and the other is convective instability that regulates ocean warm pools to 30C. The result of those processes can be observed every day of every year:
The average surface temperature is the numeric mean of the two extremes; being 14C. The number is not hard to calculate; no computer needed:
Global Average Surface Temperature = {30 + (-2)}/2 = 14C
To give you an idea of the precision of climate models I have looked at 9 CMIP6 models to produce the attached chart. There is hindcast to 2000 and forecast to 2030 for predicted annual temperature. This data is usually presented as anomalies to hide the wide variation; presently a range of 2C. The GHCN measured trace is much homogenised. If people keep looking at the actual predicted temperature rather than the anomaly then the fraud is more obvious.
When you say ‘There is no “greenhouse effect”.’, you are proving yourself to be anti-science. It’s been measured. So, all you are doing is telling everyone the rest of your comment should be ignored.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608
The real effect of back radiation from GHGs is to warm the surface. The surface has a heat capacity 1000x higher than the atmosphere. This reduces the immediate warming effect from 1.2 C per doubling to .001 C per doubling . This minute warming is then offset by a combination of natural factors that prevent the energy from having any major impact on the atmosphere.
1) The surface will still cool to the dew point at night allowing all the additional energy to radiate away without warming the atmosphere. It just takes a few minutes longer.
2) Some of the energy will radiate away due to the T^4 nature of radiation.
3) Much of the energy will enhance evaporation which speeds up the water cycle a known cooling mechanism (this is a more general description of the point you have been making).
4) An enhanced water cycle will reduce high altitude water vapor reducing its ability to absorb radiation.
When all is said and done the energy that was returned to the surface from the “greenhouse effect” gets removed quickly.
Richard,
The problem with the paper that you referenced is that Bill Nye was not included in any part of the set-up, or collaboration.
Bill Nye IS the Science Guy, and any evidence that you provide that does not confirm the ‘science’, simply shows that you are anti science as well.
(But thanks for the paper …)
And, I expect RickWill explain why “greenhouse effect” is in quotes.
Nuclear provides, what, 5% of the world’s energy? So we’d need 10x the number of current power plants to supply half?
Would you be happy to site 100s in Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA?
Nuclear is fine for some places, not so great for others
Petrol and Diesel are best for cars. They increase CO2, which is food for a living planet
The earth is a living planet. Life will sort itself out. It has done so far, without our help, and we are here.
Meanwhile, other nations are sniggering up their sleeves having obtained a free pass from the Paris Agreement and having no intention of following suit.
China is the world largest emitter of CO2. China, India, and the Third World Countries keep increasing emissions. The Paris Accords allow them to do this. Trump was right to leave the Accords.
Most people simply don’t see this attack on cheap energy as a big problem. I know some people who actually think it’s a good idea. People have this idea that it’s about fixing the climate, and I suppose that’s because they still believe the MSM and what comes out politicians’ mouths.
17 miljard people yes do it
“Perception is reality” is what politicians use to keep their jobs. Why would we expect them to do anything other than pander to the average voters perception ? When reality bites their promises, they just have their media buddies spin out a new “perception”, hence a new “reality”. When ECS proves to be around 1 instead of 4.5, the media spin will be that carbon taxes are what resulted in success, half a lifetime from now…
“Perception is a pseudo-reality.”
That is made devastatingly clear by someone who thinks that they can fly, and steps off the top of a tall building. Reality is what they smash into.
But we haven’t all crashed YET … so as these fools pass each floor safely, they crow; “see… so far so good, we must be right.”
Economies of the west have been hit hard by the pandemic, now the idiots want to finish off whatever is left and China will be No. 1 far sooner than they realise, but it will be too late.
Don’t forget that China isn’t doing as well as they want the world to believe, internally. There is an enormous ground swell of young men with no prospect of a wife and family. The old are left out to dry in China’s agrarian interior, while their children run off to the economic boom towns on the coast. China is still fundamentally Confucian and Xi is running roughshod over that tradition. More wealth will not fix the sort of problems China is facing internally.
“President Biden has promised to spend $500 billion each year on climate “
That should make the Chinese sing and dance all the way to the bank if any significant part of that money is going to go to buying China’s solar panels. The only technology worth spending that money on is nuclear, but it would not surprise me if very little of it goes there.
Riiight … and Biden also promised to cure cancer, along with all his other miracles. His party keeps encouraging him. When they installed a leader who is already demented, don’t look for rational legislation any time soon.
Plus, most will be borrowed, so we’re going to owe them a large chunk of that $500 billion.
“What a country”.
Let’s pretend CO2 is actually a greenhouse gas that causes temperature to rise on the planet. Let’s also ignore the fact that the planet is essentially a nuclear reactor and constantly adding heat.
Why doesn’t anyone ask what happens if we take too much CO2 out of the atmosphere? Far more people die from cold exposure vs heat exposure. Also, the food I eat grows and lives better on a warm planet vs a frozen one.
I thought Obama was a narcissist. I’ve heard people say Trump is a narcissist. The real narcissist is anyone who thinks we can control the planet’s weather.
“The real narcissist is anyone who thinks we can control the planet’s weather.”
I wouldn’t call that narcissism, I’d call it delusion. Or, Delusions of Grandeur, if you like.
It’s likely far cheaper to simply mitigate any problems. The rich are those that live on the coasts. If they’re homes and businesses are in danger, let them save themselves with their own problems. The government can buy air conditioner units for those that don’t have them. If coffee can’t be grown in Columbia, then the companies can adapt and grow it in Canada. I’m also not worried about heat. People in Arizona already survive when it hits 110-120. People in Africa and Australia seem to deal with it. I’m pretty sure most of world can deal with a warmer planet.
The coffee here in COLOMBIA ain’t going nowhere. I won’t let it….
“The government can buy air conditioner units for those that don’t have them.”
Well, you don’t need air conditioner units if live on the beach.
I think government should buy a beach for people who don’t have air conditioners.
Plus if had a huge amount beach, one could be less worried about losing beaches.
So, what you need low cost housing on the ocean. And this requires cheap breakwaters.
So in terms of governmental budgets, 1 foot length of breakwater is $1000.
How much beach could get per foot of breakwater?
I haven’t given it much thought, probably least 3 feet, maybe 10 or more. Lets say 3.
So government make 100,000 feet of breakwater at $1000 per foot, that 100 million, obviously this not enough money for huge Federal govt to be even interested in.
And people are spending about 2 billion dollars electing per go, the morons to represent them. Since tiny amount money, maybe could think it as paying a election- only much cheaper. Or do million feet of breakwater, 1 billion dollar might reach the edge where it might be enough for politicians could consider it worth their time.
And 3 million feet of beach is about 586 miles of beach- and have lot voters living on that beach. It seems people might happy with say 30 feet of sandy beach.
Would any one trade .1 acre of lawn for .01 acre for sandy beach. You don’t need to mow the lawn. So I am not going give a lawn, but you could have public grassy parks or baseball fields. So 30 feet beach, $30,000 / 3 = equals $10,000 for governmental breakwater per low income housing unit {which is the “land” part of real estate- and have all other infrastructure costs- buildings, etc.}.
The Biden Regime’s efforts are NOT useless. They serve to destroy the US economy – make your own guess as to why he wants that….
Could you give me a clue, because I have no idea why ??
It’s called the Great Reset. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. They are totally up front about it. Apparently Biden has mentioned it in his speeches. The Republicans should be screaming from the roof tops in opposition to it, but they aren’t. It’s complicated and boring and nobody is paying attention.
I realize it usually comes as a shock when politicians do what they promised to do, but I am afraid it will happen and it will go very badly indeed.
Most people are neither educated nor intelligent enough to actually understand the ramifications of “the great reset”. To most it sounds like a good idea. To all those educated during the past two to three decades, they truly believe it will herald in a ‘Brave New World’. They welcome the collective because they have never read anything but revised and corrected history.
You bet it will go badly … and will they be shocked. Remember, they’re not exactly a resilient group. They’ll all be running for safe spaces that will no longer exist.
When I was a teenager, I read just about all the science fiction in the local library. It means I can imagine possible futures that 99% of other people can’t.
Most people think their lives will automatically continue in the same manner they are folding out at present. That’s probably dreaming in Technicolor. The correct way for most people to think about the Great Reset would be something akin to the Russian Revolution. There was no safety for anybody. Even people decorated as Heroes of the Revolution would later find themselves in a prison camp in Siberia. link
I too read every bit of science fiction, some science fantasy and a massive amount of history. That combination seemed to be the best grounding for my studies in hard science. There’s a solid reason why so many sci-fi plots are dystopian … people forget to remind themselves that the past tends to repeat … unexpectedly and not always for the same reasons.
I visited the Soviet Union shortly before it ended when there was a pretext of freedom and openness (early ’70s). No one trusted anyone else. There were no safe spaces. It was very bleak. Fast forward to the present … both China and Russia are toying with revisiting those times and our utterly lost politicians are encouraging them.
You forgot Build back better 🤓
When one is well placed, huge fortunes can be made from collapsing civilizations.
That’s temporary, maybe very temporary.
I revel in the fact that I have a standard of living that exceeds that of even the greatest kings and emperors of history. If society collapses, technology collapses. Anyone who thinks they’ll be one of the fortunate few better think again. Even the fortunate few won’t be able to live as well as the average middle class slob now does.
You know … that truth needs to be in bold faced type and dispersed in every corner of the world (especially among socialists and the self-satisfied, entitled progressives).
…….. but of course you know that! We live in interesting times.
“We need to invest in research to make green energy much cheaper: from better solar, wind and batteries to cheaper fission, fusion and carbon capture.”
Actually, we don’t “need” to do any of those things because “carbon” isn’t a problem – in fact, it is beneficial. What we need, have always needed, and will continue to need, is affordable, reliable energy. None of this “green, carbon-free” crapola.
C’mon man, Climate Change is a political problem, and to tackle politics, you need to build a coalition, even if every coalition member is not agreeing with you 100%.
Mr. Lomborg is saying that economic growth trumps (to excuse the pun) any minor economic impact under any realistic and foreseeable CO2 emission scenarios.
I say we let him inside our Big Tent, and I think our fine host Anthony Watts agrees or he wouldn’t have posted this.
Grow, baby, grow!
Sure, he gets a lot of stuff right, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still call him out on the stuff he gets wrong.
Couple of problems with your comment.
1) Anthony didn’t post it, Charles did.
2) Can Mr. Lomborg provide any evidence that CO2 is warming the planet, or that any warming (natural or otherwise) parts of the planet have seen is a catastrophe in any way?
Anyone is welcome inside the tent, just need to present your evidence.
Agree It should be a broad church anyway like all the war-badgers, hobbits and elves uniting against the Dark Lord . There are a lot of orcs out there
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
Who will take up the ring and throw it into the mountain of Doom
nobody…
griff bites it off the finger of somebody and, in his excited glee, falls in.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/23/nyt-slams-bjorn-lomborgs-new-climate-economics-book/#comment-3039290
Phil – to be clear, I like Lomborg’s economic analysis, but he is still dead wrong on the science.
I have quoted his good points and as I said above, he is better than the rest. I do find it difficult to tolerate studied indifference to scientific fact – there is NO real global warming crisis.
Years ago, I tried to get Lomborg to meet Henrik Svensmark – don’t think it happened- they are both in Denmark. a country the size of a football field – I mean, how hard is that?
Dumbledore and the Hogwarts team can fix all of that
While I agree with the general tenor of Lomborg’s essay, here, to expect that “innovation” will solve this problem is, itself, idealistic and misplaced in ways. Yes, we could generate “green” electrical energy with nuclear, and this, in turn, could run some transportation needs. But electrical energy will never run farm equipment, construction equipment, aircraft, ships, over-the-road trucks, and is inconvenient for long-haul trains. Electrical heating of homes is wasteful in a thermodynamic sense if based on resistance heat, and really doesn’t lead to comfortable heat in cold climates using heat pumps, which approach the efficiency the 2nd law of thermodynamics allows.
Perhaps we will eventually make fuel cells for transport based on lithium or potassium. But the idea that more technology will come to our rescue is a sort of magical thinking that has become ingrained through a very shallow understanding of technology and its under-pinning in some deep universal laws. It isn’t much different than the idea that technology would rescue us, risk-free, from SARS-COV-2.
With very few exceptions, every advance of technology that has brought us to the point that we live the longest, healthiest, safest, wealthiest most comfortable lives in human history, has been due to innovation, usually by private capitalist individuals or organizations. It is the only game that has ever consistently produced anything.
Obviously you read into my post something I didn’t say. I did not disparage innovation. I said innovation cannot solve all problems. If you wish to argue, start by explaining how innovation would circumvent the second law of thermodynamics. There are physical limits to things and no amount of innovation changes those limits.
A lot of people on the left side of the political spectrum hear the term “economic growth” and believe it means more despoiling of the environment, more raping of Mother Earth, more people and more resources being stolen from the commons.
And ALL those people are WRONG. Most of the time, economic growth means taking steps by innovation to make production more efficient. It is this point that defeats all green energy Utopianism at a single point of failure. These nutters pretend that you get more money, more jobs, and closer to perfection by making things less efficient.
Meanwhile in Texas:
Texas, you’re being Californicated.
“Meanwhile in Texas:” ERCT might have also added “no PV solar.” Here in south central Texas we haven’t seen the sun in three days and probably won’t for 2 more days.
Wasn’t griff telling, record breaking electrical demand was necessary because of a heat wave ?? 😀
After the storm of “free” money passes there is the little matter of growth drivers to pay for it. Each growth driver experiment that does not work out and each unintended consequence (cost) will flatten the growth curve and make things tougher on everyone.
How many aircraft carriers will China get from this and how many large pipelines and oil platforms for Russia?
Joe Biden has already received both his mRNA vaccinations. Yet he keeps wearing a mask and has been seen recently wearing two masks.
Why is Joe Biden afraid? Doesn’t he believe the vaccine will protect him? He must be taking advice from antivaxers.
To be safe he stay in the basement of the White House in a safe chamber where he can communicate the the rest of the world via the Internet.
Not to worry, Medicaid which is totally free care using the world’s most expensive system will sink the US long before year four.
My wife and I pay 1000 dollars per month premiums for that free health care.
Let the great reset begin.
Just after you get your stimulus, turn quickly into shut down mode and stop spending, hiring, or turning any profit. They need a quick kick in the rear with no capacity for more stimulus.
A mile high, all of them.
Perfectly drunk on their own power and self importance
Buoyed up by legions of Scientific Zeroes, a MSM screaming out for ‘More More More’ and even/ever greater legions Fawning Cronies.
And as we all know out here in the Real World, getting involved with those sorts is NEVER a good idea, especially the drunks. Simply too unpredictable.
Post says: “Climate change is a real, manmade problem.“
First of all the above is totally wrong. It is not a problem and it is not man made. Playing in somebody else’s sand box means they win.
Second, there is NO climate problem! Any warming is not man made!
People like like Lomborg who try to play the middle only help the far left. If you agree with them how can you really argue against their solutions.
I get angry when I see quisling stuff like this. People will die from warmist solution to a nonexistent problem.
Griff and Loydo you both bear responsibility for wanting higher energy costs for the millions of minority folks that live in property.
The opposition tolerate in their ranks no dissent from their creed. Most in this forum I consider to be scientifically more literate and ethically more honest. We don’t need witch hunts to sniff out the impure in our ranks and anyone who considers “the science is settled ” is in either camp fool, a rogue a Villain or all three in many cases.
A billion here, and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about some large sums of
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
Todays politician doesn’t really care about the long term results of anything they do, same as the dumbed down activist ”expertise” they take their advices from.
Its all about the here and now, the power and the prestige, and thats it, whatever will keep them in the game for as long as possible.
Why would they care about 40/50 years time they will be dead or very old sitting on their stash of ill gotten gains, nice houses nice pension nice lives why would they possibly give a shit about your grand kids future, they will virtue signal about the future but its only pound shop virtue
In addition to that and worse still, Biden himself and all his other policies will be fantastically expensive and perfectly useless.
Welcome back to the 1970s with a more volatile economy and colder climate. Jimmy Carter included.
“Climate policies could end up hurting much more by dramatically cutting growth.”
That’s the entire goal, to cut growth. Prosperity is the enemy of the Left.
Only two days after the election, Biden promised to deliver a slow recovery. He’s a follower of the national socialist Klaus Schwab, promising a slow recovery make Leftists like him very happy.
Global socialist Klaus Schwab – there will be no place for national or self-identity in his totalitarian dystopia.
They tried something similar in ‘Yugoslavia’ and that ended well…
his narrative that co2 is in any way negative will on the one hand get a few listeners that otherwise would have branded him heretic,
otoh i personally think the entire notion that co2 is harmful must be
unconditionally rejected. even if co2 is indeed going to take us out of this ice age, its still a whole wide world better than staying
You need to be very clear – Earth’s surface energy balance is thermostatically controlled. It simply CANNOT be influenced by CO2. It is just fantasy. The “greenhouse effect” is fantasy.
There are two vital process that control Earth’s energy balance – formation of sea ice at the poles and cloudburst over the tropical ocean warm pools. Both are high precision temperature control mechanism you can see in action every day of every year:
While all three oceans achieve a warm pool of 30C at least annually and the two poles form sea ice at least annually, the average surface temperature is easily calculated:
Average Global Surface Temperature = {30 + (-2)}/2 = 14C
The only climate change currently occurring is not altering the surface temperature. The oceans are still rebounding from the last glacial and most glaciers are still in retreat from the last glacial period.
To help save the planet and help keep him awake, sleepy Joe as initiated a program to develop solar-powered pace makers.
Play money is not expensive, bad outcomes on the other hand are very expensive.
At least the next Jimmy Carter style windfall profits tax on big oil won’t work this time because of their carried losses from before the price spike.
Call it the cash for policy clunkers plan and the stimulus for union potholes like NJ and Illinois.
I believe Joey is going to fix America up….just like Castro fixed Cuba and Maduro fixed Venezuela…..and he likes the CCP model too.
A completely baseless claim. There is no “real” climate change on the surface of Earth. There is real measurement system flaws and fraud.
The fraudsters cannot even agree on the current temperature. Nine climate models offer a choice of global average surface temperature over a 2C range. There is only one correct model based on physics but the Chinese FGOALS model is not far off despite still being based on a fantasy that CO2 affects the global energy ballance – utter hogwash.
NO. There is nothing “green” about green energy. Stop buying into this BS.
Climate change a man made problem! NO. How about a man-conceived problem.
It isn’t even that. “Climate change” is the default setting of our planet’s atmosphere and always has been. The term is nothing but equivocation … a tautology. Furthermore the idea that this planet has A climate is an utter absurdity. Climates are local, not global. You can’t average a complex concept and pretend a single compound (CO2) is its engine.
People need to stop pretending that “The Biden Administration” has something to do with China-Joe Biden. Joe is hors-de-combat, out-to-lunch and present-in-name-only. Anyone who would sign over 50 executive orders in less than 2 weeks isn’t in charge. They have made congress irrelevant. In fact the US government could easily be under China’s control and no one would know.
While Bjorn is correct about the costs and the little effect of the spending on supposed pollution the facts are that all the expenditure on CO2 mitigation is unnecessary. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says basically that heat only flows from hot to cold so if CO2 in the atmosphere gets warmer from convection and radiation (only at a wavelength of 14.8 micron) it will only radiate to cold space and not to the Earth’s surface or the atmosphere close to the surface. Secondly, the Earth surface on average (293K) radiates at around 10 micron wavelength. CO2 only absorbs at 14.8 micron at a temperature level of about 200K ie very high in the atmosphere (note the lapse rate of about 6K/1000m). Thirdly, calculations of heat balances have been put out incorrectly. The radiation window is 66 w/m2 as shown by satellite measurements. Dr Tremberth has admitted that he knows this but has not altered or withdrawn his paper. In the heat balance there is no room for so-called back radiation which is unphysical.
Note water vapour and clouds also do not back radiate They act like a permeable barrier which only radiates to space but at a large range of wavelengths.
How then do you explain this experiment?
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608
They measure an increase in back radiation.
That is radiation moving from cold to hot. The GHE is real. Don’t deny it, just understand the effects are mitigated by other factors.
A few things about the experiment 1/ none of the authors had any engineering qualifications in the engineering subjects of Thermodynamics and Heat& Mass Transfer 2/ The atmosphere is not closed at its top or at its sides3/The atmosphere is colder the further one gets from the surface (note lapse rate) 4/ outside the atmosphere of the Earth is space at less than 1K. The experiment could at least have had a thin conductive layer at the top with say solid CO2 ice or liquid oxygen which could absorb radiation. Internally they have not avoided convection. Anyway if one puts Co2 in an enclosure (by itself or some partial pressure in a mixture of gases) the CO2 will absorb radiation at 4.3 micron (with a hot source of 1000C or another source emitting at 14.8 micron). That does not prove back radiation. Put a cold surface on one surface with a near vacuum (say partial pressure say 10Pa) and see the direction of the heat flow.- all the heat will go to the cold surface.
A botched experiment by persons who assumed the answer they wanted.
Where will the cuts be made?
Health, education, equality issues, housing for those in need, backhanders, government salaries?
(I know the answer – it’s the same answer we always get from the left)
It certainly isn’t useless: the US Government can then justify why there’s no more money in the treasury and why social security is bankrupt… The middle class will then be “taxed” accordingly.
“Climate change is a real, manmade problem.”
Of course it actually isn’t. And the base premise is false. None of these “climate strategies” have a damn thing to do with the climate. All of them have to do with wealth redistribution to entities and people who are in bed with our federal government and its corrupt political class. Warren Buffet owns the railroad that the oil from Keystone will travel on instead. I heard, but have not confirmed yet, that Gates has an interest in the trucks. This is always about laundering our tax dollars while we get poorer and certain others who are actually already rich get richer. They invest their money in federal elected officials just the same as they invest in their companies and the markets. Trump, and by extension “we the people”, was and remains an existential threat to that extensive, yet insidious, money laundering scheme.
“Climate change is a real, manmade problem”
So how do you explain all the climate change that has gone on for billions of years before humans evolved?
I respect Lomborg, but, taken in isolation, ”Climate change is a real, manmade problem” would seem to be off the rails, unless reading between the lines he is really saying two things, (1) climate change is real [agreed, nothing arguable there] and (2) climate change is a manmade problem [true, but not because of man’s very minor influence on climate; instead, a problem because of man’s stupid policy responses to this non-problem].
Having read a number of Lomborg’s writings, it appears that he really believes we are having some influence, as do I, but don’t stop reading there. He hastens to add the next sentence, “But its impacts are much lower than breathless climate reporting would suggest.”
I have always categorized this as high, medium and low change believers. I am in the “low” category that basically says, “move on, nothing to see here.” Energy policy should NOT be based on climate fears. Lomborg seems to be close to my position.
Working in higher education administration, I see the academics sucking on the government teat who have to be high change advocates (even if they don’t believe it), or they will have no future in higher education. It is a sad ethical dilemma, forcing honest scientists out ( e.g., Peter Ridd; Judith Curry; Susan Crockford) and keeping the charlatans who are ready to compromise scientific integrity to keep their lush jobs. Even my beloved, formerly conservative alma mater is gradually succumbing to this group think in science, along with assimilating all of the other SJW tripe infecting college campuses. Just this past week, they were crowing about their 2020 research expenditures, most of it federal government funding. There is much good about my institution, and it is a great place to work and make a difference for the good. However, before I retire soon, I am sure to say or publish something that will get me cancelled. Maybe this very comment.
Everything our Leftists touch is Corrupted and everything they say (MSM included) is a lie.
The theory promoted by Climate Science that warming was initiated by CO2 increase is false.
Water vapor change can be calculated from the saturation vapor pressure of the liquid water. The saturation vapor pressure depends only on the temperature of the liquid water. The actual average global water vapor is measured using satellite instrumentation by NASA/RSS. The measured WV increase trend is greater than the WV trend calculated from the temperature of the liquid water. The WV increase is mostly (about 90%) due to irrigation. This demonstrates that CO2 does not contribute to warming. The slight warming attributed to increasing WV is self-limiting.