Senator Kennedy sends unhinged climate cultists into utter state of SHOCK, short circuit after GRILLING them on radical climate agenda🔥 pic.twitter.com/74TF9OPINK
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 20, 2023
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He asks how much the world temperature would be reduced if all western nations including the US would achieve net zero by 2050 but China and India did not participate, and there was obviously no way of knowing this. A better question may be, how much will the world temperature be reduced if all nations achieved net zero by 2050? Is CO2 really the control knob on earth’s temperature, or has it just been selected as the convenient lever to redistribute the world’s wealth from the poor people in rich countries to the rich people in poor countries?
The answer is: there is NO “climate crisis”. Furthermore, you hit the nail directly on the head with this whole kerfuffle being nothing more than a “convenient leaver to redistribute the world’s wealth from the poor people in rich countries to the rich people in poor countries”. Also to enrich the rich folks in rich countries via the “Big Guy” method, laundering.
Just sayin’.
‘…the convenient lever to redistribute the world’s wealth from the poor people in rich countries to the rich people in poor countries?’
Rick, this is a science blog, not a forum to discuss the UN’s official mission statement. (/sarc)
He should of asked how much the Asian economies benefit at the expense of America’s and Europe’s economies if China and India refuse to reduce emissions.
Don’t agree. Remember that this whole exercise is on the basis that our Beloved Leaders recognise there is an “Existential Threat” – BUT, as they “own” The Settled Science, and don’t care a fiddler’s f*rt how much of YOUR money they spend, or how many of us die of hypothermia in their brave attempts, quite clearly they know how much reduction of world temperature the USA (or, alternatively, Pitcairn Island, for that matter) going “Net Zero” will contribute.
“Their” Science computer model will belch out a prognosis, for certain, or as many prognoses as you want.
Obviously, if Liechtenstein, say; or perhaps Paraguay, or more probably China decides it is all completely nonsensical, then the Average Global Temperature (whatever that even means) might be more than they hoped (or than would probably be optimal), but surely they will be able to justify the millions of ruined lives by saying, it would have been 0.3°C even hotter, on average, if we hadn’t bothered.
I doubt that it would really make even that much difference if the USA emitted absolutely nothing. But they must have some idea, or they couldn’t really promote all this malarky with a straight face, could they?
Unfortunately that is precisely what these evil toads are up to.
But, but, but, the big ‘0″ made a deal with Xi.
“Despite low expectations that the United States will fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement–and even less confidence in China or India to meet theirs”–AP–NORC poll
No that is not actually What China did agreed to?
From the FACT SHEET: U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change and Clean Energy Cooperation
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/11/fact-sheet-us-china-joint-announcement-climate-change-and-clean-energy-c
At the same time, President Xi Jinping of China announced targets to peak CO2 emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the non-fossil fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030.
In political spin talk, China will grow CO2 at the rate they want till 2030, then will increase the mix of non-fossil fuel (think nuclear power, thorium reactors & hydro growth of 3X the size of the Gorges Dam). Their planned growth doesn’t need what the West considers ‘renewables’. If you actually look at China Power future growth plan, Obama gave away the store to get exactly what China was planning to do anyway.
How hard will China have to go to get to the vaunted 20% non-fossil fuel share.
China has already built the world’s biggest hydropower facility at the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, with 22.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The third biggest, the Xiluodu project in Sichuan province, will be completed this year.
China said in its five-year plan for 2011-2015 that it would raise total capacity from 220 GW to 290 GW. Capacity had already reached 280 GW by the end of last year, up 12.3 percent from 2012, according to official data.
“Looking at the major projects in the pipeline including those on the Yarlong, Dadu and Jinsha (rivers), which could complete construction by 2015, China would meet and exceed its target … by as much as 5-10 GW,” said Grace Mang, China Program Director with advocacy group International Rivers.
Hydro accounted for about 22 percent of China’s total power capacity by the end of 2014.
Not quite.
President Xi Jinping only promised to review China’s needs in 2030. Not consider China’s current coal usage plans as peak goals.
That is, if President Xi Jinping is still President of China in 2030.
Replacing President Xi Jinping with a communist hardliner will change every one of China’s goals. A change that is unlikely to please climate alarmists.
Whoopee. The first time I have seen 100+ up-votes!
Net zero is far worse for human beings than any miniscule rise in northern hemisphere average temperatures.
That’s the irony. The REAL catastrophe is the Eco-zealots getting their desired policies implemented.
A small rise in world temperatures would actually be a good thing. We are still in an ice age after all.
The clip cut off before Senator John Kennedy asked the witness if he believed in the tooth fairy, comparing that to belief in the Chinese or Indians “cooperating” on climate change carbon reduction measures.
Mr Kennedy is a treasure of plain speech and common sense.😎
Long live Senator Kennedy! This one clip exposes the so-call experts for the ideological tools they are paid to be. “We don’t know how much it will cost [100s of trillions of dollars] and we don’t know how it will affect the world’s climate [essentially zero] but we’re the [self-proclaimed] experts and you must do as we direct.”
FJB, FCliSciFi and FLeftists.
Add in F #ClimateScientology
There is not enough data storage in the universe to add the “F” to those Leftists deserving it.
Yes he is. He keeps my faith in the idea that some politicians actually do their job.
I always post my favorite quote of his.
Reporter: Senator, both parties are aware of the spiraling U.S. debt but they don’t do anything about it. Why?
Senator Kennedy: Well, it’s like heaven, everyone wants to go there but not just yet.
Obviously it’s great someone is asking hard questions about cost and efficacy now. But they could have been asked thirty or even forty years ago.
If they had been asked back then we would have scrutinised the basis of the claims of man-made warming properly. Instead we let the claims get repeated so often they are now embeded. One can’t venture a doubt about man’s role in the very small amount of recent warming (or very much longer period of sea-level rise) because common-sense says only a swivel-eye lunatic would.
IMO, better late than never. The claims will eventually self destruct. They must, when confronted by enough reality. It is just that there is a lot of career and money momentum behind the claims now.
There is also a lot of social momentum with untold millions or billions of believers.
Rud, people become very angry once they perceive they have been duped. I hope there is a huge backlash against all of the CliSciFi profiteers in academia, government, NGOs, crony capitalists & etc.
Unfortunately, the much more common result is a doubling down with increased violence against non-believers.
Then the irrationality of the believers is much more apparent.
But when they control all the institutions, media, social media, etc, there is no recourse.
Leftists always push it too far and are proud to show off their intellect and virtue. Abraham Lincoln: You can fool all of the people ….
“I don’t know”. First almost honest answer I’ve heard from a climate scientist. He just won’t say the truth.
The real answer is, if India and China don’t also wipe out their energy systems, which they are not going to do, the total world cooling would be less than zero. Of course even if the whole world wipes out their energy systems the earth won’t cool since CO2 is not the cause of the minor increase in temperatures. It is really really hard for the increase in CO2, a lagging indicator, to be the cause of anything.🤷♂️🙄
But…But “WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!” (at several points in the video.)
Then instead of spending $50 Trillion in the U.S. to become carbon neutral by 2050, why not just broadcast a few rounds of Kumbaya to all the nations for all to sing along, and say we’re done?
They seem to forget that the elites are not “in this together” with us plebes. They are insulated from the extremely negative social and economic impacts of the drive to “de-carbonize” our entire industrial foundations. Read Vaclav Smil’s “How the World Really Works.”
Noooo
think how much CO2 would be emitted if everyone filled and emptied their lungs in gusto in a sing along. Mauna Loa would go off the scale
The common sophistry of visionaries. They cannot reason against basic reality so they switch to utopian sophistry and marketing slogans. “We’re in this together!”, “it’ll be a better world for our children!”, or “it will bring about justice!”. Useless. Sophistry.
What a hoot to watch a good ole boy treat snarky trolls like the educated idiots they are! Wait a minute…50 trillion dollars for nothing? Who wants to get them some of that?
Senator Kennedy is no slouch. He plays the good ole boy quite well but he’s brilliant. From his Senate webpage:
Sen. Kennedy graduated magna cum laude in political science, philosophy, and economics from Vanderbilt University, was president of his senior class, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an executive editor of the “Virginia Law Review” and elected to the Order of the Coif. He earned a Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first class honors from Oxford University (Magdalen College) in England, where he studied under Sir Rupert Cross and Sir John H. C. Morris.
Sen. Kennedy has written and published the following books and articles: “Louisiana State Constitutional Law,” “The Dimension of Time in the Louisiana Products Liability Act,” “The Role of the Consumer Expectation Test Under Louisiana’s Products Liability Doctrine,” “A Primer on the Louisiana Products Liability Act,” “Assumption of the Risk, Comparative Fault and Strict Liability After Rozell,” and “The Federal Power Commission, Job Bias and NAACP v. FPC.”
Sen. Kennedy served as an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center from 2002 to 2016. He regularly volunteers as a substitute teacher in Louisiana public schools. He resides in Madisonville, Louisiana, with his wife Becky and their dogs, Charlie and Jack. The Kennedys are founding members of their local Methodist church.
Thanks for the biography, buckeyebob, Sen. Kennedy is one of my favorites to watch in action.
The Order of the Coif sounds like a group dedicated to good grooming, hiding baldness or being Catholic Nuns. Maybe all three, given the trans movement. The U.S. has a female admiral suffering from male-pattern baldness.
https://orderofthecoif.org/ The Order of the Coif is an honorary scholastic society the purpose of which is to encourage excellence in legal education by fostering a spirit of careful study, recognizing those who as law students attained a high grade of scholarship, and honoring those who as lawyers, judges and teachers attained high distinction for their scholarly or professional accomplishments.
I was aware of those facts; I simply was making a humorous comment for fun.
The half-answers (or are they 1/4 answers?) to Senator Kennedy’s question regarding how much would eliminating US emissions lower the Earth’s temperature constitute an infuriating evasionary tactic employed by climate enthusiasts all the time. “We are all in this together” and “It depends on what others do” etc etc. Such statements are clearly false in relationship to the Senator’s question. In fact,the question has a simple answer: According to climate models, if the US were to completely cease CO2 emissions by 2050 or any year whatever, there will be a consequence to the average climate temperature of the Earth of a fixed amount regardless of what others do. If all non-US emissions hold constant, that value will be negative and the global temperature will be lower by that amount. If all non-US emissions continue increasing as now, the value of the US non-emission will be the same negative value and global temperature will be less high by that amount. The value for US emissions elimination is negative and unchanged for either scenario. And what is that value? It would be an unmeasurably small fraction of one degree celsius. And that would be the case only if the theory of CO2 (and methane, and, and…) induced temperature increase is correct. As of today, there are many sound reasons to conclude the theory is incorrect and the answer to the Senator’s question would be an emphatic zero. These answers are not scary hence the evasion. People like these witnesses appear to be intelligent with their gray hair, distinctive histories etc. And they probably are intelligent enough to know that the correct answer would probably cost them their jobs and the public lustre that comes with the jobs, so they evade.
How about asking exactly what the world average temperature should be. Or asking if either one of these Drs have ever tried living a week without fossil fuels. Get them to say “I don’t know” enough times and you could hardly call them experts.
The old joke applies:
What is an expert?
A squirt under pressure.
We defined it a bit different: an ex is a has-been and a spurt is what a dog does to a tree.
I liked this one: ex = has-been, and a “spurt” is just a drip under pressure 🙂
An expert: A normal guy 50 miles from home.
I doubt they have ever spent a week without the products of fossil fuels. They would have been disconnected, naked, afraid and hungry for the entire time.😱
Too bad, doing so could open their eyes and maybe they would have found some common sense along the way.
neither of those two climate jackals realize that the response “i don’t know” is not a sign of intelligence. especially since they are considered experts.
and the “it all depends on china and india” response is getting old.
Facts don’t get old.
If I pretend, for a moment, I believe anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause so much warming that we need to do something to curb them, then it really does depend on China and India. They are just getting started.
It’s a fact, and will remain so until Facts 2.0 is released. And probably even then, because it will depend on China, India, Africa, and the rest of Asia, who will all be burning their abundant coal deposits—unless they can get gas or oil.
Yes, and one should keep in mind that living standards
for the people of China and India have improved steadily and massively over the last couple decades as the use of fossil fuels and modern agricultural practices have been implemented. They will not be turning back the clock.
BS is BS, and both of these credentialed morons are in it for themselves and no one else. Just wanna ride the wave of non-existent climate crisis to fill their pockets and play with their egos. I gotta think folks with this kind of reasoning are not deserving of their “Dr.” tags.
Just sayin’.
Did the Liderman character actually say he worked for Goldman Sachs? He says that yet can’t say after studying climate for 15 years what effect spending $50 trillion would have on world temps.
The man is an out and out blow hard climate scam idiot.
But remember folks. We are all in this together.!!
He is not an idiot but is scamming the naive public.
He has outdone the ponzi scheme king, Bernie Madoff.
True Leftist scammers: They propose spending trillions of dollars but can’t describe the benefits. And some of my family and friends still don’t understand why I don’t believe a single word from Leftist politicians, Deep State bureaucrats, academics, MSM talking heads, crony capitalist spokespeople & etc. It is heartening, though, to see the increasing number and intensity of their statements and actions that are flat insane to the average person. Leftists always push too far.
We are at the top of 60 year cycle, by 2050 we’ll hit the bottom, even if underlining up trend from the last century continues, the global temperature will not change greatly and may even fall, regardless of ‘carbon neutral’ and the US$50 trillion economy degradation spending.
Thanks, CTM, for posting this. I have enjoyed listening to Senator Kennedy each time I’ve found him interviewed and in hearings like this one.
Regards,
Bob
How much do I so despise Goldman Sachs. Perfect representation there, schmuckie.
Back of enevelope. It would probably be the difference between about 50 billion tons a year in 2050 if the West carries on as now, and about 40 billion if it makes net zero.
Even if the theory is correct the difference in effect on temps is too small to measure.
Of course when we get to New York proposing to go to net zero because climate, or the UK at 450 million tons a year trying to do the same thing, it gets even more ridiculous.
These guys were spectacularly unprepared for questions that one would assume “experts” would have at least have some memory of their past investigation into “the numbers” that they must have used to justify their conclusions. They could have quoted some IPPC numbers based on RCP 4.5 to awe-slam the audience with the usual smoke and mirrors of not really knowing whether ECS is 1.5 or 6 degrees per 2xCO2…..
Will anyone be swayed by this testimony? Any opinions or positions changed?
wow, robert litterman is a total fraud and liar.
he is an economist.
I knew this was coming in the northeast. They crow about renewables planning and closing nuclear plants with the knowledge they will just order out like all the other needs of NIMBY.
Hydro-Quebec Posts Record Profit With Soaring US Export Sales (yahoo.com)
I love the new description of entities that import their energy requirements: Order Out.
50 Trillion, divided by 338 million US citizens, equals about $148,000 per citizen, or nearly $600,000 for a family of four, all in tax money. Think that will fly? If they take a bunch from corporations, that will raise the prices of products and services and we pay for it anyway.
Leftists don’t do math.
But it is over 25 years or so, so it is only $24,000 per year (family of 4). $2,000 per month or $2.78 per hour (although about $12/hr for a 40 hr week)
Simply raise the minimum wage to $25/hr, assume a proportional increase in non-min wage people, and we are set. (I checked with Paul Krugman … he agrees with my economic analysis)
(I also checked with Nancy Pelosi. From a political standpoint, $2.78/hr is just crumbs and there will be no blow-back)
Hopefully you can see this, just to give some idea of what you’re in for…
(The New Statesman bit at the bottom = in just 9 years the cost has nearly quadrupled)
I think the Aussies win hands down with their money-burning Snowy Hydro 2.0 project.
I’d like to see this Kennedy living in the White House – provided his vacated senate seat would be safe.
Brilliant, it’s amazing how simple questions trip ‘experts’ up
What I find so revealing is… the fact that the experts testifying have so obviously given absolutely no thought to their the costs associated with achieving “Net Zero”, or the benefits that might accrue if successful.
They simply worship the idea that “carbon dioxide is evil”. And that’s pretty much all they have to offer.
Kudos to Senator Kennedy for helping to expose just how shallow these so-called experts really are.
To be fair, although that’s true of Litterman, that he obviously had given no thought to the cost, it’s not true of Holtz-Eakin. He had a ready answer when asked what the cost would be.
The $50 trillion cost which he estimated was more than ten times projected total federal revenue from all sources in FY 2023. So spending that much money on the climate scam in just 28 years is obviously impossible.
Litterman’s mantra, that it all depends on what the rest of the world does, was disingenuous. Sen. Kennedy didn’t ask what temperature change Europe’s €105 trillion or Japan’s ¥2.5 quadrillion would buy. He asked what the $50 trillion spent by the U.S. would buy.
The answer is that our $50 trillion expenditure, if it really managed to get us to net zero, would reduce global temperatures by less than 0.05°C.
The point that somebody should have made is that the assumption that CO2 emissions and global warming are harmful is not supported by the best evidence.
Geologists call the warmest climate periods “climate optimums,” and agronomists have proven and measured the large benefits of elevated CO2 for crops and other plants. The scientific evidence is compelling that CO2 emissions are beneficial, manmade climate changes is modest and benign, and the “social cost of carbon” is negative.
I can’t tell if the expert witnesses are supreme con men or psychopaths. Or both..
Useful idiots.
Litterman is making money, Period; He is also trying to enhance his appearance as whatever he is.
Not a useful idiot.
It would be reasonable (and moral) to punch him in the nose.
These two knuckleheads need to be held personally responsible for scaring the bejesus out of folks for no good reason. The fact that they are well educated makes their crime even worse.
One more thing, it is so refreshing to finally have a Kennedy we can look up to.
To put that supposed $50 trillion price tag (to be spent over 28 years) into perspective, the U.S. government’s total revenue from all sources for 2023 is projected to be $4.71 trillion.
So let’s figure out what Drs. Litterman and Holtz-Eakin apparently could not: just what that USD $50 trillion is supposed to buy.
Total U.S. carbon emissions in 2022 are projected to be about 5.6 Gt CO2 = 1.53 PgC.
Consider two scenarios:
A. 1.53 PgC / year for 28 years. (Continuation of current emissions with no reductions, to 2050.)
B. 1.53 PgC / year phased down linearly to zero in 2050 (i.e., in 28 years), at a cost of $50,000,000,000,000 (fifty trillion USD).
The effective residence time (“adjustment time”) of CO2 is only about fifty years, because CO2 is removed from the atmosphere into the terrestrial biosphere (“greening“), and into the oceans, at rates which accelerate as CO2 levels rise. So quite a bit of the emissions would be gone by 2050 (in both scenarios). But for simplicity let’s ignore that.
(Of course that means these estimates are too high, but we’re just calculating a back-of-the-napkin rough estimate, so please forgive me.)
Scenario A total emissions would be 1.53 PgC / year × 28 years = 42.84 PgC.
Scenario B total emissions would be half that, or 21.42 PgC.
The difference is 21.42 PgC.
Let’s conservatively estimate that projected atmospheric CO2 level might be 470 ppmv in 2050 with scenario B. That’s 1001 PgC.
Scenario A would increase that to 1022.42, which is 2% higher, which results in a radiative forcing increase equivalent to 3% of a full doubling of CO2.
Effective climate sensitivity (between TCR and ECS) is certainly no higher than about 1.5°C per doubling of CO2, so 3% of that would be 0.045°C.
That’s about the temperature change you’d get from an elevation change of 22 feet.
That’s about the temperature change you’d get from a latitude change of 3 miles.
Midwestern farmers could compensate for that much warming by planting about 6 hours earlier.
Does that sound like a catastrophe worth spending USD $50 trillion to avoid?
I don’t see anyone showing the slightest signs of being in “shock” here. Littermann in particular was pretty cocky.
Kudos to Senator Kennedy for his stance but he really missed the opportunity to point out that the temperature change caused by US going “carbon neutral” is independent of what other countries do and is infinitesimal.
Skimmed and flushed due to overpowering language
“unhinged”
“climate cultists”
“utter state of SHOCK”
“”radical climate agenda”
I wish one of them would ask these “DOCTORS” (doctors of WHAT) if they have considered how much of the rise in temps (BS entirely) has resulted from moving manufacturing from EFFICIENT, REGULATED US Industries to China and India!! Ask them how much is added by China/India burning “nasty old coal” vs OUR CLEAN COAL and NATURAL GAS!! Ask if it would be more beneficial to the “world” if all that manufacturing came back to the US!! I bet they could show on their graphs how much change occurred after OUR industries were exported!!