From the Telegraph UK:
Canada’s new Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, has been urged by more than 60 leading international climate change experts to review the global warming policies he inherited from his centre-Left predecessor.
In an open letter that includes five British scientists among the signatories, the experts praise his recent commitment to review the controversial Kyoto protocol on reducing emissions harmful to the environment.
Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science,” they wrote in the Canadian Financial Post last week.
They emphasised that the study of global climate change is, in Mr Harper’s own words, an “emerging science” and added: “If, back in the mid 1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.” Despite claims to the contrary, there is no consensus among climate scientists on the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, they wrote.
“‘Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified.
Now, it appears Harper agrees with their assessment—or perhaps more accurately, he finds the Protocol itself an unworkable way of addressing any global climate problem—much like our own Senate.
From Peaktalk, “KYOTO: CANADA DROPS OUT”:
In a significant, but hardly surprising move, Canada’s new conservative government has made it clear that it will abandon the plans made in accordance with targets under the Kyoto Protocol. These are impossible to achieve according to environment minister Rona Ambrose who will probably be mandated to come up with a unique Canada-based formula to reduce greenhouse gases.
Peaktalk echoes the beliefs of many Kyoto opponents (myself included) when he writes:
[…] There is evidence that [greenhouse gas] does accelerate some of the climatic shifts. However, until we really get a better sense of what each component contributes to global warming there is no point in signing up for politically expedient, arbitrary and costly measures which in the end only seem to contribute to a weird feel-good factor. A healthy dose of realism is required here.
Precisely. Just as “war is bad” is insufficient as an argument against its occasional and unfortunate necessity, “I love the environment” is insufficient to justify draconian measures based on dubious science that will have little practical impact on the environment, while having a drastic impact on the redistribution of world wealth—oftentimes punishing most severely those wealthy countries who use their energy most productively, and who have already instituted voluntary environmental protections, a luxury of being a wealthy nation in the first place.
(h/t Tom Pechinski; see also, Ronald Bailey)
Well, you don’t have to be a climatologist to understand that exempting the emerging polluters (China, India, Brazil) from the agreement’s early rounds of targets wasn’t workable. One can remain totally agnostic on the science and see that it was a “kick me” sign for a good number of industrialized countries.
On the science itself, I’d only say that intertemporal models are sensitive, fragile things, and I’d bet that were the confidence intervals on the predictions more widely reported, the debate would be of a better quality.
Jeff…surprised you didn’t link to the piece in the London Telegraph (I think) that reports that world wide temperatures did NOT increase from 1998 thru 1995!
The “hockey stick” is a scientific fraud and certainly this is virtually proven by flat temperature measurements since the point of the hockey stick was that global warming was accelerating!
How do you decide which studies to believe?
There have been thousands of studies asserting the opposite as this study.
How are we to be confident this is the right informations
Are we in agreement that slowing pollution is inevitable if we want to maintain our quality of life?
I am reminded sadly of a debate on L2R, where Mona’s hero David Velleman accused those who did not accept AGW (anthropogenic global warming) of intellectual dishonesty. Now, only a few short months later, the theory is collapsing right before our eyes.
My position at the time that whatever the cause of global warming Kyoto would not work was studiously not addressed. It would be nice to have a few acknowledge that they were hoodwinked. Not holding my breath though.
chains: I am assuming that a study referring to actual measurements is better than a theory based on mathematical models.
Ironic that you should bring up “pollution”…CO2 is not a pollutant! But there is a study out there that reducing particulate pollution contributes to global warming!
Chains – are we in agreement that:
A) Massive reductions in pollution have allowed Western cities like London, New York and L.A. to stunningly reduce their formerly almost insane levels of pollution, especially amazing in light of population increases?
B) Economically powerful societies can both afford to and have a stronger incentive (relative to other incentives, like bread on the table) to reduce pollution?
C) Politically motivated solutions will tend to put the interests of the politicians (power, favoritism) ahead of the people or the environment?
If we are, then obviously the fastest and best way to heal the environment is to ensure that more people become wealthier faster.
Unless, of course, the eyes that see the problem have some sort of medievalist fantasy of everyone living in tents and growing their own food. Not saying that’s you, Chains, but I know people like that.
noah: CO2 is plant food!
The plants gasped: “Build more cars!”
noah, do you believe that if we stay on the same path of a primarily oil-based energy policy it will or will not do more harm than good for the next, say, 50 years?
Are we in agreement that slowing pollution is inevitable if we want to maintain our quality of life?
Absolutely. We’ve done just that for decades. When a little girl moved from Pittsburgh to the countryside in the 1940s, she blew her nose and was confused. “Mommy, why isn’t it black like before?”
One big lie of the environmental movement is that pollution is always getting worse. It has gotten MUCH better than it once was.
Check out these guys. They want to run the dead-dinosaurs-and-plants-plus-heat-plus-pressure process that makes oil and speed it up from millenia to hours. Oil from trash. How cool would that be, chains?
Chains, do you believe that nuclear power is probably the cleanest and safest alternarive that we have to oil in the short run?
chains…I don’t know the answer to that question. I, for one, would like us to switch as rapidly as is feasible to a nuclear based 100% electric economy. Burning oil/gas for heat and transportation seems almost barbaric.
If the lefties among us would get on board the problem is solvable…but for the most part they act like children…want cheap gasoline but no more oil exploration, fear nuclear, want wind mills but not in their backyard, want magic solutions, etc.
I understand that there are people who want to live in tents and grow their own food.
Not the case here (I’m a city girl at heart), and, being that I was pretty much a republican growing up, i used to really have an image of environmentalists as nutjobs. And some of them really, really are. I’ll concede that.
But being that I have kind of been an internet nerd on the topic of pollution/”environmentalism”, and just as there are extremes on our side, there is also extremes in the corporate end who take a mile when you give an inch. If you think there was not enough money in the business plan involving this nation’s resources to factor in making sure you’re pollution doesn’t affect the community surrounding you in an adverse way. (Not hippy-green standards, just- it can’t leak off your property standards). I know many republicans see this as an interference in business by government, but I would prefer to approach it as a privilege to do business here, in the greatest country on earth, because if you don’t want to pay the costs to do clean business in this country, there is a long line of people behind you who are willing to pay. I find it puzzling that people will defend so strongly the “craziness” of wanting to keep the earth in good shape. It seems to be like keeping your house clean or your car clean. or presenting yourself in the best possible way. You ask me why government should get involved in business. I ask you why you stand in defense of Big Oil. They don’t need your help.
i will concede that the left has not clearly communicated a cohesive program.
Will you concede that the tax breaks to big oil in the time of big deficits and record profits is loco?
JohnAnnArbor,
If we can manufacture diamonds, oil should be a cakewalk.
Very cool stuff.
In flipping past Rush today, I heard it mentioned that the recent decrease in airborne pollution has increased the impact of the sun on surface temperatures, causing more water evaporation, and causing an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases (water vapor being a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming). Thus the largely successful efforts to restrict greenhouse gases have resulted in increased greenhouse gases.
This seems like something that adults could have predicted and planned around. But no. Petulant children run our elite academies and influence international politics through shrill whining.
Define “tax break”. Here in Massachusetts, the only product taxed more heavily than gasoline is tobacco.
ss, you are referring to particulate pollution. We otherwise most emphatically have NOT reduced the levels of greenhouse gases…CO2 increases are real. Kyoto was a totally bizarre first step to control CO2. It has been abandoned by Blair and now Canada.
here’s an example of republicans who don’t own an oil company backing up oil companies almost in a reactionary way to the far left:
Anyone know how much the US is scheduled to receive in the ANWAR deal. I don’t give a crap about the whole should we drill there thing, I just noticed this. the amount of money we are getting for the drilling rights is large over a long period of time. But it is miniscule compared to the value of the oil. If we’re gonna give up a bunch of federal land, should we not get a substantial amount of money in return? Compare the amount of money we (as tax payers) will get for ANWAR versus the latest bill for the war. We’re talking enough money from ANWAR’s land to pay our Iraq tab for a handful of months. Is this the best we can do? Shouldn’t the benefit to us as consumers (rather than the oil companies) when we surrender our land. Why don’t we talk about the details of this as it pertains to the taxpayer/owner of the land.
Define “tax breakâ€Â. Here in Massachusetts, the only product taxed more heavily than gasoline is tobacco.
In the budget there are tax incentives for oil companies as part of the economic stimulation package. When the oil executives were brought before congress one was asked if this incentive was absolutely necessary. he conceded it was not. yet it stayed in the budget in spite of record profits.
please correct me if i’m wrong.
but please don’t do it as if you are addressing something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe… not that you’d address something you actually scraped off your shoe.
thx
The nominal price of the drilling rights is only one piece of the equation. You need to look at other questions:
1) While the price of the rights may be “miniscule”, are they, in fact, in line with what it would cost the oil companies to do business in another way?
2) What is the value of the increased tax revenue that the government will recieve as a result of the increased economic activity resulting from lower energy costs?
3) Does it make sense to charge high fees if one of the expected benefits is to lower the price of oil?
4) Does it not make sense to give companies a “sweetheart deal” as an incentive to produce more energy domestically, thereby allowing us to reduce our dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?
These are only a few of these sorts of questions that I can think up off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many others. The nominal price of the drilling rights is but one factor among many.
by the way, i feel like a lab monkey typing in the secret code each time I post.
Am I being brainwashed?
Hey, Chains!
I just wanted to thank you for completely dodging my questions and taking an opportunity to make a speech assuming some nonsense you don’t know about me.
I really feel special when someone takes the time to ignore my ideas and use me as a springboard to get past the discussion without actually engaging. Especially with the extra time it took to come up with the trope about “defending big oil,” which of course bears no relation to I said, but then, nobody’s perfect.
I’d appreciate it if you could follow up with something else to brighten my day, like perhaps a post about the psychological significance of the fact that every paragraph in this post begins with “I.”
No, I won’t concede that as a point of principle.
Tax breaks are an incentive to encourage people to do something the government wants them to do.
Tax breaks to encourage development of new and renewable fuels make perfect sense at a time when it is economically more profitable to continue to sell oil.
Likewise, the government may provide incentives to increase efficiency beyond the point that makes sense from a profit angle (to help reduce our dependence on foreign sources) or to ameliorate the looming shortage of refining capacity which could drive the price of gasoline to almost unimaginable levels, with very damaging economic consequences (inflation, economic instability, unemployment, etc) that “Big Oil” has no particular responsibility to forestall out of sheer charity.
Thus, we should examine more carefully what strings are attached to any “tax breaks for big oil” before condemning them in knee-jerk fashion.
Chains —
If you register, you can bypass the screening process, which is meant to stop comment and trackback spam.
Or at least, that’s what I’m willing to admit it’s for…
chains, the idea that you can improve US energy security by taking more money from oil companies is sort of nutty. It would just cause the oil companies to perhaps pass on oil exploration opportunities if they decide they cannot make a profit. Maybe you don’t realize that many oil leases turn to be absolutely worthless? The current oil company profits are the inevitable byproduct of high oil prices. Don’t blame the oil companies…they did not “cause” them.
If you are interested you might look into the NRO archives for a hilarious piece he wrote years ago about ANWR which he visited during the summer which is the only time it is habitable by anything! It makes you really feel sorry for caribou!
I apologize if there is a tone in my comments that I didn’t intend to put there. You’re asking a lot of ideologically loaded questions of people. I just figured I’d fire a few back.
“he” being Jonah Goldberg.
I apologize if a tone that I didn’t intend somehow managed to creep into my posts.
I just figured if we’re tossing ideologically loaded questions around, I’d get in on the action.
I also apologize for the double post.
4) Does it not make sense to give companies a “sweetheart deal†as an incentive to produce more energy domestically, thereby allowing us to reduce our dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?
I 100% agree with this statement. Have we made sure this sweetheart deal is in place before we allow it to go forward? I think we have played the whole global market pricing/ supply-demand pricing that made the oil companies an obscene amount of money on the backs of vacationing families during one of the biggest tragedies our nation has ever faced (August).
Why should I be comfortable giving the oil to these people- because it’s an “American” company? When we lose a city I pay $3 per gallon and their excuse is the global economy. Are they an “American” or an international business. I feel no confidence placing this oil in their hands. If they paid their fair share of taxes, but with the number of American companies banking offshore, I don’t feel as if I owe an American company like that any allegience.
From chains:
Emphasis is mine.
chains, it appears that you didn’t read the linked story carefully. If at all. To wit:
Emphasis is mine. An open letter, not a study.
The letter? Here, from the National Post:
[Stephen Harper]:
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government’s climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol.
The letter goes on to elaborate, but it’s not a study, it’s a request for Canada to open up the debate, including Kyoto.
This is hardly an “extreme” anything…..unless you are way over on the fringes, and centrist views are verboten.
Just thought you might like to know.
You weren’t paying attention. The price of oil shot up around Katrina because the oil companies were concerned that they were going to a number of refining facilities. America’s refining capaicty is already stretched mighty thin (thanks to the environmental lobby), and losing a major refinery or two would represent a serious bottleneck in the supply. You may have also noticed that the prices returned to normal shortly afterwards. Funny how people often forget to mention that part.
In any case, if the government really had wanted to offset price hikes, they could have cut taxes at the pump (that is, on retailers).
That should read “…were going to lose a number of refining facilities…”
The real reason that you pay $3.00 per gallon is the lack of refining capacity to turn the oil into gasoline and/or diesel. Shortly after Katrine when the price of gasoline was going down to roughly $2.00 per gallon here, the price of diesel was about $1.20 higher. Reason was that there was not enough refining capacity to produce both in sufficient quantaties to satisfy demand and replenish stores.
What is happening now with the fuel prices is the changeover from refining “winter blend” fuels to more environmentally correct “summer blends” and all of the “cocktail” blends that various states require.
You need to ask why there are fewer refineries and why we just don’t build more of them. I think you would be surprised by the answer you get.
OK chains…let BP do it then. Or let CITGO (owned by Venezuela). But if you expect significantly lower gasoline prices then it will only come when there is lower demand for and/or increased supply of crude oil (assuming price controls are off the table). Your magical thinking and desire for revenge against evil oil companies will not do the trick!
We live in a capitalist economy…apparently you do not accept that fact and wish to change systems?
Posted by Merovign | permalink
I reread my post and i apologize for the tone. I should not have reposted until having looked into what you said. it really wasn’t my intention to sound as challenging as it did. I’ll look into what you posted .
My thoughts: sure, we’re stewards of the earth. However, the “health” of the environment for its own sake is not really a priority. The livability of the evironment, on the other hand, is a priority. Standardized industry regulation is largely what differentiates the U.S. from the third world. We can afford not to crap in our own bed. Fantastic.
The dispute comes in finding the balance between freedom from meddling bureaucrats and effective enforcement of reasonable limitations. How “livable” do we need or want it? Conservation is conservative, of course, and most Republicans would agree with this, to the extent they haven’t been turned off to the whole notion of “environmentalism” by the smugness and sheer stupidity of its self-satisfied proponents. Such moralistic preening and lobbying by those acting as selfless “guardians” for a personified Mother Earth–one might very reasonably call it idolotry–is dangerous and misguided prioritizing.
Minor clarification: Nobody here worth their brain cells supports more pollution. We simply like using the free market forces to get companies to pollute less. We know that more pollution is generally bad, but we contest the often ideologically driven global warming coverage. That there is legitimate disagreement in the scientific community about it, as in no definite consensus (Which is what science generally ends up being based on, but I digress into pseuo-intellectual stuff.), should be enough to exempt us from having to enact draconian, immediate, “feel-good” measures.
Of course, less pollution is always good and a noble goal within reason.
No, no, Farmer Joe. The price of gasoline did not rise “because the oil companies were concerned that they were going to lose a number of refining facilities”. It was because refining capacity went off line due to the hurricane and panic buying by the public drove the spot price of gasoline up. The spot price determines the delivered cost of gasoline to retail outlets.
The statement you made implies the oil companies control the price of gasoline which has been disproven many times.
Well noah, in fairness, the government would not intervene in a lily-pure “capitalist economy”, even through the relatively benign and incentive-based means of tax breaks.
One does not have to be a socialist to question the merit of any sort of government intervention with the economy.
But the question of whether Big Oil is making profits is fairly irrelevant to the question of whether the government should use financial incentives to encourage Big Oil to do certain things or not do other things. Presumably nobody on the left would argue that left to themselves, Big Oil will do the government’s bidding simply because they have more money than they know what to do with. On the contrary, to the extent that shortages drive up the price of the product without significantly reducing the demand, one would expect indifference (at best) on the part of the oil companies to investments that would increase supply (and lower prices).
Taxing their profits more heavily would not encourage them to increase supply OR lower prices, of course – it would do the opposite.
Presumably nobody on the left would argue that left to themselves, Big Oil will do the government’s bidding simply because they have more money than they know what to do with.
Could you clarify this?
Thanks. (It’s a monday.)
The extreme environmentalists hurt their own credibility with their extremism. there is no doubt of that.
I am reminded of another Jonah Goldberg gem, on the subject of “price-gouging” by oil companies in the wake of Katrina:
Me: Would you mow my lawn for $5?
You: No.
Me: Would you mow my lawn for $10,000?
You: Yeah, sure.
Me: PRICE GOUGING!!!
You seemed to be making the argument that the fact that oil companies are making large profits was ipso facto a reason not to give them tax breaks.
I was saying that just because they they are making profits doesn’t mean they will – on their own – take necessary measures to reduce the price of their product (and I can’t imagine those who villify “Big Oil” possibly arguing otherwise). If we want the price of their product to be lower (or at least not rise even further), we may need to encourage the oil companies to do things make that happen.
Then the question becomes, what is the most effective way for the government to encourage the oil companies to invest their profits in desirable ways, to increase supply. One is to reduce taxes on those profits, under specified conditions.
Another, which seems obviously self-defeating, although many argue for it nevertheless, is for the government to seize (tax) more of the profits that the oil companies might invest in increasing supply.
The these two options, the first seems a lot more likely to succeed.
A common thread in global warming and global cooling was the demand we all give up our greedy way of life and be content with what the elites deign to drop on our plates. Their hatred of industry was oddly the same as that of the communists. Any activity that made a profit was plainly evil.
My first engineering job, 50 years ago, was measuring factory air pollution to facilitate reduction. We had air and water pollution laws long before we had Greenies.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply any such thing. However, the fact remains that it was reduction in refining capacity that caused the price of gas to rise. And when the refineries were back on line, the price fell again. This is perfectly normal market behavior. It had nothing to do with the “record profits” being made by oil companies or any malign behavior on their part. Nor did it have anything to do with Chimpy McShrublerburton and his friends in the business.
Nice.
But it’s the Grand Chimperor the Second, God-King George of Western Oceania, to you, pal.
Chains – honest thanks for an actual answer. Challenging is not the word I’d use, but thanks for the reflection.
I’m an ancient and crusty member of the Internet Geek Environment Debate Team since about 1993. Most of the debate is faith-based, and most of the participants never learn from it.
There are many of us, who use the historical record as proof (i.e. the places I mentioned) that environmental cleanup is something that is proceeding apace, started before the mass environmental movement, and is subject the the fuzzy yet powerful laws of the market.
We believe (and believe we can prove) that attempts to use the heavy hand of Big Government to do more than provide a gentle push does more damage by stifling innovation and creating opposition than it does to help the environment.
We also look at the various and sundry environmental “movements” in our recent past. Should the 70s “coming ice age” movement have spurred massive government projects to warm up the world to avoid the coming ice age? Was Rachel Carson in any way responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths in Africa because she helped create a climate of “DDT fear?” Did you know that there’s Dioxin in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, and that it will do you no harm?
I think the best possible government environmental policy would be to support rigorous and heavily argued research to attempt to understand the complex system we’re arguing about here. The way that policy has been politicized, I’m not sure that such a system could be created that would operate neutrally, especially with the prevailing “objective scienctist” myth that hampers frank discussion in the community and leaves little but rank accusations and firewalls of denial.
They’re all thorny issues and once people have a grip on them they don’t want to let go, which is all of these political arguments drag on incessantly. There are still people with Che T-shirts displayed without irony, for God’s sake, and no matter how the enviromental debate turns out people will still be arguing the issue a thousand years from now.
Mr. Wallis:
People joined the environmental movement for a lot of reasons, from conservation and love of nature to population control or agrarian communism.
It’s a pattern; people with a solution that doesn’t work often pack up their solution and go looking for a new problem. Medievalism can’t support population, and those surplus billions unaccountably don’t want to die? Well, we’ll just jump over to environmentalism and see if we can get it in the back door!
And then there are the lawyers, of course.
Then there is that batshit crazy scientist that advocates loosening ebola virus so we can decimate over 90% of the population.
Another irony…DDT was effectively banned during the Nixon administration when (blocking on the name) overruled the Science! We get to live with the shit forever it seems…the ratchet effect again.
A big obstacle to rational policy of course is laws that grant “standing” to environmental groups to challenge government action. A reasonable idea perhaps but the abuse of it has hurt the nation in my estimation.
oh, ok sure. Especially the loss of the polar regions on Mars. Exactly how does CO2 generated by the human race have anything to do with “global warming”, when Mars is great example of the high levels of solar activity reported by the Max Planc Institute.
Unfortunately for the Greens, the science doesn’t match the hyperbole. The current concentration level of CO2 is already blocking nearly all the wavelengths of infrared radiation that it can, thus any limiting of CO2 production at this point has deminishing returns logarithmic in nature. Kyoto’s own predition was that the limits would reduce global temperature by a whopping 0.14 degree Celcius.
I’m glad our neighbors to the north are now realizing Kyoto as the global taxation scheme(Maxist redistribution of wealth) that it is.
Hopefully this inticates that “Global Warming” will be exposed as scam to generate “quasi-scientific” research dollars for Environment Departments whose relevance was fading due to the success of environment cleanup activities since the early 70’s.
If we really want to stop pollution, air drop a few million bars of Dial into San Fransico and Paris, and tell all the hippies and frogs to talk a bath.
TW: Feel the heat
Did I just hear Al Gore’s head explode? I mean, after saying all this, you’d think he’d detonate on the spot.
Did I just hear Al Gore’s head explode?
Does he have a perforated colon? If so, then yes.
Oh, man.
I know this may seem extreme, but I think that motherfucker belongs in a super-max forever.
Some people laugh, but I think a cult leader (though his followers be few) in the scientific community that preaches mass-murder of billions is nothing to laugh at. And unless the reports on that dude were all just a nasty April Fools’ joke, I’m a little disturbed that the community isn’t jumping all over themselves to put a few AUs between themselves and that assclown.
Take 9-11 as an example of what a few committed crackpots can do. Now imagine that with ebola or H5N1 or some other nasty virus as the weapon instead of airliners.
Sorry for all the cussing, but: Not fucking funny.
People worry about nuclear annihilation. It’s a lot harder to build a nuke than it is to spread a disease.
If there is an apocalypse coming, I expect it to be a lot closer to ‘Twelve Monkeys’ than nuclear winter.
phreshone:
You aren’t suggesting we <gasp> FOLLOW THE MONEY are you?
Of COURSE scientists need money, just like anyone else. And of course they do interesting things for money and reputation, like come up with new ideas – whether or not those new ideas are rational, or needed, or make any sense at all.
If that last statement seems mean, just watch Discover Channel for a few hours with a critical eye.
There are some REAL groan-inducing moments there, from every area of science, though archaeology seems particularly rife with ways for people to get published, get grants, and be remembered for some arbitrary change.
I wish I could think of a way to make some money setting up a scientific ‘MST3K’-style ripping of these shows – there is so much crap being shoveled into kids’ heads.
Decimating 90% of the population would only result in a net 9% reduction in the population. Not quite what that nutjob was hoping for, but I get your common usage.
I am. I’ve always thought that environmental activists are more effective talking about air pollution at the local level rather than resorting to doomsday fearmongering. We can, and obviously do, debate the role of humankind in contributing to climate change, and skepticism about manmade apocalypse is warranted given the complexity of climatology as well as the simple fact that people having been forecasting man’s own undoing for quite some time with no success. What’s hard to argue, though, is the thick brown cloud hovering over most cities on any given summer day, or the resulting health effects of said cloud. Put plainly, I don’t buy the sky is falling rhetoric of the highly partisan environmental crowd, but I sure don’t like that brown haze I see in the sky April through October–that can’t be healthy.
But I think partisanship is the undoing of the environmentalists. I think they’re so completely seduced by the narrative that capitalism is literally destroying the earth that they simply can’t help but be totally impractical about addressing the very real and local effects of air pollution. The problems of air pollution in cities can more effectively be framed in terms of protecting property and individual rights, but such a framing in anathema to those who think it’s the very concept of individual and property rights that are hurting the environment. Therefore, market based solutions to air pollution such as revising land-use ordinances to allow greater density are ignored, privatizing road construction and maintenance, and holding developers liable for runoff pollution are ignored for the more alluring visions of worldwide and direct regulation of emissions in a way that ultimately punishes evil America.
Of course if he really said kill 90% of the population, (with an extrodinary painful disease), we would leave a population of about 600 million. According to the World Population Clock on Wikipedia, that would take us back to the population we had in about 1700AD.
So let’s see. We viciously murder the best part of 6 billion people in order to set the population clock back 300 years. Well that’s going to save the planet, isn’t it. And this murderous bastard’s fucking peers cheered the fucking house down.
Well the remaining 600 million will have the trappings of our civilization lying about, (as well as a lot of dead friends and relatives), so they might get back to 6 billion a bit quicker than 300 years. They also might have a law stating that any greenie who even thinks any shit like this will be cermoniously torn to pieces.
The Pedant,
Well, since you call yourself “The Pedant” I should point out that numbers are supposed to be spelled out unless one is writing for purely technical purposes such as doing or explaining math. Thus, the above should read, “…only result in a net nine percent reduction…”
And, for the record, I’m not a pedant, so there is no need to point out the numerous petty errors I make in commenting here.
Chains,
The way drilling rights are handled on federal lands is
1. Oil companies bid against each other in a sealed bid blind auction. Everyone turns in their bids and then the bids are opened on auction day. Highest bid wins the right to explore the block they bid on.
2. When the oil companies find a target they want to drill they submit application for permit to drill. Permit application will include technical details of drilling plan and environmental compliance plan.
3. Oil company drills target. If they find commercial quantities of oil they submit application for development.
4. When oil is produced the government is paid a royalty on the amount of oil produced. i.e the oil company pays them a percentage of the value of the oil and gas they produce. In most cases this is around 12-13% which is comparable to the amount that is paid to private owners of mineral rights.
Do a google search on refinery outage Katrina and you will find a link to the enargy information administration which mentions that around two million barrels per day of refinery capacity were knocked offline by Katrina and Rita. This is what caused the $3 gasoline.
India and China want to advance their citizens to first world status and they are going to burn lots of coal, oil, and gas to do it. It will make no difference what the “1st world” western nations do energy consumption is going to increase as India and China improve their citizens quality of life.
chains-
I think we have played the whole global market pricing/ supply-demand pricing that made the oil companies an obscene amount of money on the backs of vacationing families during one of the biggest tragedies our nation has ever faced (August).
Individual people own those “oil companies”.
I’m a 41 yr old, never married male who was dead broke living in his car at 22, and has never earned more than 37k/yr in his life…
Yet, MY profit on MY ownership of just a small piece of those “tragedy-profiteers” over the last 4 years allowed me to buy my new condo– cash. (on Aug 17, 2005-note the date!!!)
More tragedy, please!
t/w:picture— as in, “Look at the big…”
(How does Jeff make this shit happen?)
I’m glad TJIT jumped in on ANWAR. Chains kept talking about it, up thread, like W was going to give it away to a golfing buddy.
But don’t you see, Kevin, those greenies are going to be the chosen people who survive to make the world a better place. They will nobly sacrifice all of us evil neoconservatives and most of those poor benighted third worlders to make the world a better place, and will painfully live with guilt of their actions for the rest of their lives.
I believe that anyone who advocates undemocratic policies has a sincere belief that noble, kind and just people just like them will be the ones in charge in the new order.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
A good read here:
Let Cooler Heads Prevail
The Media Heat Up Over Global Warming
–I’m assuming chains didn’t know the first thing about this “scientific consensus” 30 years ago…
If the greenies are the only ones left, they won’t last long. Most of them could not pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.
Most amusing is their belief that they invented pollution abatement and sanitation.
Two items of overkill that divert lots of money: Their refusal to allow any organic material to flow into an ocean that has a billions of years record of receiving organics from the land, and their rush to bring back wetlands without considering the West Nile, Malaria and other problems that motivated draining swamps in the first place.
The problem with the global warming debate is that there is a series of questions for which the answers are not known conclusively. Some of the questions are policy issues with no correct answer.
1. Is the Earth warming?
2. At what rate is the Earth warming?
3. What effect will it have?
4. Why is it happening?
5. Can we do something about it?
6. What can we do about it?
7. What effect will our actions have?
8. How much will it cost?
9. Should we do something about it?
Number one is almost a matter of general consensus these days. Two through five are subject to considerable debate. Six and nine are policy questions, and there is no correct answer. Seven and eight will differ depending on the answer given to number six.
What I see happening is that environmental advocates see the answer to number one as “yes, the Earth is warming” and immediately skip down to question number six. They then declare that their chosen solution to number six (Kyoto) is the obvious solution, that questions seven and eight are unimportant, and that nine is therefore obvious (The world must unhesitatingly support Kyoto). The Kyoto protocol plan was chosen not because it was the best solution, but because it fit the other political agendas of the environmental movement.
The modern left seems nothing more than a twisted nihilist death cult.
We’re way, way past “glass half empty” with these clowns.
Hey hey, show some respect now.
I became suspicious of these climate mongers back with Nuclear Winter. Three NASA types and Sagan lied for the “public good.” Their weather program was so simple it made no allowance for the heat content of the oceans. Their spiel is little different that the street corner preacher, and their goal, leadership and money, is the same. The preacher may believe what he says, though, but I doubt the scientists do.
At least Sagan admitted he was wrong later, after a fashion. He predicted “nuclear winter” effects downwind from Kuwait’s oil fires of 1991. Didn’t happen; the effects were local, and Red Adair’s team got the fires out faster than planned.
He admitted in one of his later books that he had been dead wrog on that.
Anyone can be wrong. Even I have been wrong at times. But when I am wrong it is not because I have lied to make a point.
I always hold: Isn’t it strange that we can’t predict tomorrow’s weather but “experts” warn us with explicit details about the future’s catastrophic weather?
In a class I took my senior year in college, “Christian Ethics” (of all classes) we had a Catholic professor discuss the environment with us. He held that the issue is too complex to water down to alarmist statements and, as a matter of fact, most alarmists are misrepresenting the situation out of self-interested agendas. I tend to agree with him.
Kyoto would not have saved the world. I refuse to accept any plan that makes the developed world take on more burden than the developing world. It’s ridiculous.
Environmentalistism is the latest in a long line of ideologies with the practical effect of impeding social mobility while maintaining a plausible deniability that this is what they are in fact about.
Considering the relative number of people with a stake in enhancing, not impeding, social mobility, such ideologies should be and eventually inevitably are the Washington Generals of the social evolution game, but they don’t get defeated automatically. It requires work and cooperation among those with that stake.
Considering that we all share a stake in actually improving the environment as well, its frustrating to see the Generals continue to thwart the Trotters.
Well, would be the last person to defend the Kyoto scam, but your reasoning is faulty.
Predicting tomorrow’s weather and predicting planet-wide, long-range trends are completely different scientific problems.
By analogy, I can’t tell you whether the stock market will go up or down tomorrow, but I can predict with high confidence that the DJIA will be higher 10 years from now than it is today.
But that’s because I have a lot more reliable data on past trends of the stock market than we do for climate change, and because I have a good idea why stocks tend to increase in value over the long run.
60 leading experts
Like these clowns?
Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont.
Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8 (human health)
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands organization for applied research (TNO) in environmental, food and public health
Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.; international economist
LagunaDave:
Indeed. However, would you be able to tell precisely why the DJIA would be higher, what exactly causes it, what exactly can prevent or accelerate it? I think saying the temperature will be warmer is one thing; saying that the future’s warmer temperature is a direct result of human activity (and listing said activity) with detailed guidelines as to how this activity can be regulated or modified in order to minimize future warmer temperatures, is quite another thing all together. I get your point, somewhat, but I still stubbornly refuse to see how environmentalists can be so sure humanity is the culprit, how this is so, and what ought to be done about it. But I willing to be corrected.
BTW, I agree global warming occurs. What I disgree is how it is interpreted. I believe it to be a natural cyclical process, pleasant or unpleasant as it may be. We humans can do little, if anything, about it either way.
Steve J.:
You offered 5 examples. Have you scrutinized the rest to see if they are similarly qualified? You also do realize that the Kyoto Protocol would have a significant economic impact? It would be utterly ridiculous not to include experts from various fields that would be affected by the Kyoto Protocol, the environment, and global warming.
One of your examples doesn’t count. You highlighted the wrong words.
You wrote:
What you should have written is:
Your rendition is (unintentionally?) misrepresenting the information.
Steve J, if you actually had read the letter, you would have seen that the message was to open the debate on climate change up, and re-examine Canada’s approach to global warming.
Instead, you jumped right to the end, and looked at the titles, assuming that because the letter included the words “climate change”, the savants in question must be expert in climate change as well.
You assume wrong.
The letter centers on the scientific method (you’ve heard of it?) which has not adhered in much of the climate change “debate”. An objective examination of the situation is called for. Something that we have not seen.
This letter is not so much about climatology as it is about basic science. Which any one familiar with the scientific method would understand.
And surely “these clowns” would have some familiarity with the scientific method, since they themselves are scientists.
TW: This level of obtuseness makes my head ache.
<objective examination of the situation is called for. Something that we have not seen.</blockquote>
You said it quite correctly, Mr. The_Real_JeffS. Which makes the situation so annoying. It’s almost like a religious doctrine: any criticism thereof and one is a heretic if not an apostate.
Gah, these days, I just take folks like Steve J as idiots without a second thought.
For God’s sake let’s not anybody tell Steve J. about all the non-climatologists on the UN IPCC. Exploding heads can be so ugly.
Bah, science, REAL science, is done by consensus.
That clown Freeman Dyson…what about him?
Must be in his dotage. Yeah, that’s it.
Refer to top of thread…global warming as MEASURED ended in 1998.
You got a link for that, noah?
Just askin’, ya know, because although I wouldn’t expect the Telegraph to be any sort of model of scientific consistency (never mind correctness), this sort of tends to go against what you said.
Also goes against the anthropocentric climate change bit as well.
TW: nuclear. I egest you not.
Its amusing that Steve J. calls McKitrick a “clown”. As McKitrick has shown that much of the “science” behind the global warming industry is based on intentionally manipulated junk science.
The basic claim of the global warming industry is that contemporary warming is unprecedented. The famous “Hockey Stick” graph. This claim has been been shown to be the product of analysis that fails basic statistical principles, and demonstrates intentional scientific fraud on the part of those making the claims.
Scientists demand action on climate
Ahead of next month’s G8 summit, science academies issue an unprecedented joint statementBy Stephen Pincock
Jun. 7, 2005
The Scientist
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050607/01/printerfriendly
Scientific academies from the world’s leading nations have issued an unprecedented joint statement today (June 7) urging the leaders of their countries to commit to taking prompt action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The statement from Britain’s Royal Society and the science academies of France, Russia, Germany, United States, Japan, Italy, and Canada was released ahead of a G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, at which climate change is expected to be a major focus. The academies of Brazil, China, and India, not members of G8, are also signatories.
“It is clear that world leaders, including the G8, can no longer use uncertainty about aspects of climate change as an excuse for not taking urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said Robert May, president of the Royal Society, in a statement. “The scientific evidence forcefully points to a need for a truly international effort. Make no mistake, we have to act now. And the longer we procrastinate, the more difficult the task of tackling climate change becomes.”
Early in my engineering career I learned that an uncalibrated measurement was worse than worthless because it could fool you into the wrong decision. I also learned, as did all engineers back then, that the reliability of any calculation was no better than that of the least reliable factor.
The nuclear winter boys rejected any comparison with volcano eruptions, the ozone holers rejected any ground level UV measurement correlation with their ozone readings. Not only GIGO, but when the cook refuses to taste his work then even good stuff becomes garbage out.
It’s more like a cult. The Cult of Mother Gaia.
TW: Don’t these idiots ever stop?
Well, the idiots don’t ever stop, do they?
TW: Probably because they take it all as being personal.
and a zoologist. The clown.
I followed a link at Instapudit to a newspaper article which refers to data from a university in the UK as I recall. I don’t recall any links in the newspaper article.
Hope its true don’t you? Tired of arguing with assholes about whether we should be in Kyoto.
I’m still wondering if Freeman Dyson was a clown for having signed that letter, or if he was simply senescent. Steve?
TW: it isn’t too hard a question, is it?
I’d settle for an answer whose basis doesn’t tempt me to giggle, noah.