Now that the IPCC has concluded with near certainty that global warming is a man-made phenomenon, expect to hear a whole lot of these kinds of lip-licking calls for government action —which, I have a hunch, won’t involve calls for the building of nuclear power plants so much as they will be calls for taxing gasoline or more closely regulating business:
“The report, if anything tells politicians to act,’’ said Hans Verolme, director of WWF’s Climate Change Programme, in an interview in Paris. “The costs of acting are minute with respect to the costs of inaction,’’ he said of the risks of droughts, floods, storms and disease posed by global warming.
Many industrialized nations have already begun taking action by setting caps on emissions. Under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol treaty, 35 countries and the European Union agreed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by a combined 5 percent from 1990 levels by the 2008-2012 period. The U.S., the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and Australia didn’t ratify the treaty, and developing nations such as India and China aren’t subject to emissions reductions.
I’m not a climate scientist, so I won’t make a case disputing the findings just yet—except to say that I continue to find both the modeling methodology used and the limits on hard climate data available sufficiently problematic to retain my healthy skepticism.
That, and the fact that I’ve shoveled close to 60 inches of ice and powder this winter—and were I to walk outside right now, there’s a better-than-average chance one or both of my nipples would snap off and slide down into my snow pants.
Of course, one part of the report that I don’t think will get much attention is the suggestion that very little can be done about this impending global catastrophe—that now that the process has started, it is likely to last centuries, and nothing short of an immediate cessation of the use of fossil fuels will do much in the way of bringing about the inevitable destruction of, say, the Florida Keys.
Just as that same correction to human behavior was once necessary to keep us out of an impending ice age—which was to have forced all the retirees down in Fort Lauderdale to unpack their sweaters, while turning much of Manhattan into a skating rink.
But, you know, that was then. And in lieu of some kind of workable greenhouse emissions plan that will actually make a difference, there’s no reason why governments shouldn’t immediately begin the process of demanding tribute from those who stubbornly insist on using energy, if only as a way to teach them a lesson about their past recalcitrance.
Plus, think of all the cool programs the social engineers can try once they have some extra cash in the kitty.
BRING ON “HIP-HOP PHONICS”!
****
See also, IP, Volokh, Flopping Aces, Sister Toldjah, and Jules Crittendon.
Hell Jeff go ahead , Gore isn’t a climate scientist either .
SMUG ALERT!
How much you want to bet that alphie’s really capitialist industry of Hollywood manages to be allowed to bypass this altogether, like they already do in regards to enviromental laws, waste dispoal, overtime & employee laws? & yet they’ll be the biggest supporters & advocates!
I for one welcome our new 35hp overlords! Who needs to go faster than 50 mph anyway? Eco-rapists, that’s who!
There’s been much written that posits that much of the enthusiasm for global warming is due to the prospect of American industry getting hamstrung by carbon taxes, emissions caps, etc.; the classic rent-seeking technique of using government to hurt your competitors.
Just recently, Jacques Chirac came out and said that countries who don’t abide by some sort of Kyoto-like framework should have punitive tariffs placed on their exports to Europe.
Is it safe to say now that we are in a new Cold War, this time with Old Europe?
(Incidentally, the temperature this a.m. in Chicago? 3 degrees. Fahrenheit.)
Wake me when the Anoxic Event begins . . . like in twenty years according to global warming scientists.
In order to justify that nomination, Al Gore is going to have to follow me around and inhale my farts for the rest of my life. Oh, and wrap his lips around the 4” exhaust of my 7.3L turbo-diesel truck while I do burn-outs in his driveway.
Oh, sorry, misplaced a couple of zeros—should read “like in 20,000,000 years according to global warming scientists.”
The odd thing about Kyoto isn’t that it seeks to cap emissions per se , you can pollute all you want as long as you purchase credits ( from non-compliant Kyoto signatories like China and India ) . Hey if they’re allowed to pollute, we might as well pay them to . since the UN is running this ‘ scheme ‘ I have the utmost confidence all will go smoothly .
Appearance by Tim Lambert in 3…2…1…
Are we really so terminally dopey or just ignorantly over-estimating our puny human efforts in thinking that we are changing the planet? The geological and astronomical forces which control the earth and its climate are so huge that it’s laughable to think we are irreparably mucking it up with car emissions and utility company chimneys. Forest fires and volcanos do so much more damage, and even they have null effect at the margin. I like clean air to breath too, but let’s not destroy the world economy in the name of yet another stupid religion.
Below is a cycle of tides, like a giant el Niño, which is a plausible cause of minor warm-ups (like the current warming) and coolings between the major ice ages. This only seems far out because the pro-BRIC, anti Western cliques are pushing for new Western economic recessions to solve a non-problem.
Al Gore’s crusade (I use the word purposely) is the same old, same old stuff with the same old suspects. There was the “Club of Rome” in the 1960’s and the anti-DDT movement which resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths from malaria all over the world. Just think. Rachel Carson killed more people in the 20th century than Stalin and Hitler. Shall we talk nuclear power generation? Can we really afford another frenzy of the lefty loonies?
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/97/8/3814
A good friend of mine once said:
“Show me one closely-couples manifold-input chaotic system – just one – where 2% of one input out of hundreds or thousands is the absolute controlling factor. Really. ‘Cause I could make tons of money if I could do that shit reliably.”
He’s a control systems emgineer, BTW.
OTT asks:
Of course not. It’s all about being a loser, and using guilt as a way to win at something.
Global warming (or cooling) is controlled by the sun. I remember this from the 9 hours of astronomy I took in college.
Global warming is real, if only about a million times less than the IPCC (Imbecillic Politicians Chuck Crap) says it is.
For a laugh, check out junkscience.com ( I know better then to try to mess with the “http//” button).
Anyway, they have changed their format, but they have a quiz that asks you some questions and then tells you how much pollution you would reduce if you became “green”. Mine was 0.00000000031 in ten years (there might even have been more zeros, but that’s close enough).
GW is a political move. Even if we stopped emmittiing all CO2, the effect would be not quite enough to measure over the next century.
And if any one thinks that adding 84 PPM of CO2 to our atmosphere over the last 100 years would make one smidgen of difference, think about this. CO2 comprises less than 3% of our atmosphere. Yeah. This GW stuff isn’t a bunch of bullshit, is it? (IPCC – “CO2 – Supersperm!)
“State Of Fear” Michael Crichton. Read it if you want to know just what part politics plays in the “GW” phenominon.
The most prevalent “warming gas” is water – H20, and makes up a huge amount of our atmosphere (Sorry. Too lazy to look up the number).
And we are going hellfire towards fuel cells that emit nothing but water! Go figure!
The idea that we could have more effect on the atmosphere than Mt. St. Helens or Krakatoa is absolutely laughable. Kyoto is nothing more than a third world scheme to pick the USA’s pocket.
No shit, Sherlock.
You think the UN could be involved in here someplace? Cooking the data?
Here is a link to a good primer on the global warming controversy.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
I prefer to think of the GW bunch as “really awful statisticians” rather than “climate scientists.” Seems more accurate, really.
Maybe they were lying to you? After all, they told you Pluto was a planet too, didn’t they? /s
I’m pretty sure I learned that the sun warms the earth in kindergarten, we even drew pictures of big old Sol emitting heat rays on our construction paper with crayons.
Oh shit, I guess I picked the wrong day to start using my new home security system. It’s a moat filled with burning oil and two trained orangatans armed with nail ridden table legs. Hey man don’t judge me, I’m serious about home security and I’m fucking old school.
Jeff, What incredible timing!
Have I got a deal for you!
Let me give you some good fodder with my new “You don’t have to be a global scientist to slap the global warming alarmist around” tool kit.
It includes the wonderful illustrated book and DVD combo of
“Gore-bot finds a big lava explodey thing.” , otherwise known as “How Mt. Pinatubo showed that massive CFC and CO2 injections into the atmosphere cool, not heat, the planet and biogenetic feed back regulated the free energy anc CO into higher plant growth.”
“Like, were you raised in a barn” and “Close the door, I’m not heating the whole neighborhood”: The cyclical nature of cooling and warming ages
Finally, Fun with Astrophysics: Why no-one in the media acknowledges the Milankovich theory for showing that we aren’t behind the wheel of any damn thing.
It comes in a fashionable pearl handled case the even the most discriminating armadillo would carry, but if you order now we’ll throw in Dionne Warwicks greatest hits and a our official guide to “Scaring the global warming people more than they ever imagined.”
The guide contains facts like:
~ 99% of all the emergient species that have ever lived on the earth went extent before human existed. So we will probalby fail to evolve and die
~The oldest fossil records we have from 575 million years ago show coral, which proved that they survived several cooling and heating periods
and who could forget my favortie
~ The stratigraphic magnetic record of oceanic crust shows the occurance of several magnetic reversals. In these reversals the magnetic north and south poles flipped position. Currently the north pole has been accelerating in it’s movement and the according to the rock samples we are due for a polar shift any time now. This data is disturbing because several migratory speices who use the poles to navigate could falsely follow the pole and die over the oceans. Also, we don’t know how long it takes for the poles to switch. This could also be important because the magnetic field stops much of the dangerous, incredibly carcenogenic, mutation causing gamma radiation. So if the switch weaken the field for an extended amount of time, all life on earth might die.
Don’t wait long for this exciting offer. Get your today.
Operators are standing by.
This place is like an experiment in testing the maximum limits of willful ignorance in a fully reinforced environment. Junk Science.com? Michael Crichton? Fascinating. You don’t feel the ridiculousness? It’s not at least a little embarrassing?
Like the trunk monkey but much more deadly.
Kudos on your choice.
Actually, we just set it up to appear that way so we can draw in people like you for our super-secret study on smirking pricks with laughably overblown senses of self-regard.
It’s like “Lost,” only without all the nasty island insects and electromagnetism.
WE ARE WATCHING YOU, DAVID!
Incidentally, were you to drop some cash in my tipjar, david, I promise to use it to by emissions vouchers.
You’ll be saving the planet, I’ll get a tax write-off.
Win win, baby!
What I enjoy more than anything is that these people never admit the parameters they use to come up with the mean temperature over the years is dynamic.
For instance, the temperatures taken in 1900 will have been taken in far fewer geographical places and possibly recorded less than temperatures that are averaged today.
Even at NOAA’s site you see this oddity that the mean temperature over the last 100 years has trended down in two of the five geographical areas. These areas are the midwest and the southeast.
Indeed, if I were a socialist I could only conclude that the Bush family in league with Nazi’s who run atmospheric warfare from their secret base in the arctic are sparing these locations because they put GW in the whitehouse.
Actually, david, in the past I normally would be a little embarrassed for you.
However, as the years have passed, I’ve gotten over it.
By the way, tell me more about the “Little Ice Age,” how warm the general climate was before it started, and its effect on medieval history, while you’re at it. Also remind me why the history of such doomsayers such as the Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, the proponents of the “new ice age” in the 1970s, and the like, should fill me with confidence that this time, yep indeedy, it’s different.
Nah, never mind. I can’t change your mind, and you are highly unlikely to change mine, as we both are convinced the other is an asshole. I’m quite sure one of us is right.
I just heard something to the effect that this is the political statement, the scientific report won’t be released until May, IIRC. It will also be changed to conform to the political statement.
Just another day at the UN, folks.
Why do so many people seem to really really need to believe in this? They have a hole deep inside that this seems to fill. That their little purchase of locally-made low-packaged produce was meaningful in a way that so many blinkered red-staters just can’t see. But their children will – there is an unwavering faith in that. Like racism and homophobia and body hair, we will abolish the pernicious warming agents. Carbon dioxide and water vapor will soon be artifacts of man’s pitiful primitive past.
Funny, that is almost exactly what Paul Erlich said to Julian Simon when they made their famous bet.
I also noticed you failed to include any, you know, facts in your post. Just ridicule for Junkscience and Michael Crichton.
But of course, Al Gore, failed divinity student, must be believed!
You are correct, Pablo.
They are releasing the summary, and then rewriting the report to confirm to that summary!
From the notorious Junkscience.com:
By today’s UN Fiat on Global Warming, the debate is now fact free.
Just like a bunch of dumbass rightwingers to argue against a creature of pure political power and money using scientific facts and logic….
It’s just another money and power grab by the International Left.
Just take any Marxist-Leninist proclamation and global replace ‘workers’ and ‘proletariat’ with ‘climate’ and ‘world’ and you will see what we are up against.
Thanks for finding that, TomB. Someone had to wade through the ideological swamp.
Follow it with a discussion of the effects of changing climate on pre-Colombian societies in North America.
THEN follow it up with an explanation of how human activity is causing warming on Mars and Jupiter.
Don’t like those guys, how about Carl Sagan, how well does global warming stand up to some of his bullshit detectors:
Not possible
Whoa, what the hell did Dr. Sagan just say?
Man, is AlGore gonna be surprised.
Not looking good for you guys.
Really not looking good.
Damn, dude, I am starting to fell kind of sorry for you.
That sucking sound you just heard? Global Warming getting sucked down the labratory drain.
He also warns about the “Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).” But that is almost irrelevant at this point, huh?
Ah, but they’re carving it in stone over at Turtle Bay.
Ironic that Sagan was one of the worst offenders of argumentum ad verecundiam .
I fondly remember him at the Iraq antiwar rallies (no, the first one), saying there would be a kind of “nuclear winter” if Saddam set the oil wells on fire.
Ahh experts, what would we do without them?
Good thing Edwards’s manse is powered by a solar array.
It is, isn’t it?
Only when you’re here, david. Only when you’re here.
BTW, the figures in the IPCC summary reduce the warming estimate by 25% and the predicted sea-level rise by about 50%.
So even taking the IPCC at face value, the size of the problem seems to shrink as the science presumably improves. Which is why alarmists are already attacking the summary, based on recent ice sheet melting in Greenland and Antarctica. This despite the scientists studying that specific issue saying it was too early to say for sure whether it’s just natural climate variation.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is the “Reefer Madness” of our time.
Personally, I am looking foreward to the camp, musical version.
Actually I would like David to please explain where all the water in Lake Superior came from and how man caused that.
MikeyNTH wrote:
When did man tame fire?
“Grog! You’ll make the cold stuff MELT!”
Look, just in case anyone is getting anxious with the GW bullshit:
Mmmmmmmmmm.
Bring out yer trolls…… CLANG….. bring out yer trolls….
The report that the IPCC released was the summary for policy makers, itself written by IPCC political staff – not scientists. The actual science report that it is supposed to be paraphrasing comes out months from now.
This is because last time, the science report and the political summary were published the other way ‘round, and people noticed that the political report was not actually backed up by the science … which was embarrassing. In fact, it would have discredited a report by anyone except the United Nations.
In case anyone is curious, this is just one of many signs that what the IPCC is doing is just not really science. Science does not work the way that the global warming alarmists want to pretend that it does.
The earth is 4.6 billion years.
Our recorded human history goes back about to roughly 2000 BC, or 4000 years.
So our alarmist friends are going to guess the human effect on the earths systems on our whopping 0.000086% of the earths known history.
Nah, nothing wrong with that sample size.
(personally, I thought it was kinda nice to give them all the way back to Gilgamesh because God knows their hand writing was horrible. It looked like chicken scratch.)
The other thing is the prescriptions.
Y’know, it was a terrible thing to go to a doctor two hundred years ago. They had identified most of the major diseases, etc., and had some idea of how they would progress, but the prescriptions—leeches? bleeding? mercury? arsenic? Horrifying by modern standards.
OK, let’s just take as a point of departure the notion that it’s all correct—the 25% the U.S. produces of the 5% of world production of the gas that produces roughly 3% of the greenhouse effect is going to doom us all.
(That’s correct. 95% of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapor, leaving 5% for all other gases. 72% of that comes from carbon dioxide, 3.6% of the total. Of all carbon dioxide, roughly 5% is anthropogenic, that is, caused by human activity ranging from New Guinean campfires to John Travolta’s 707, giving 0.21% of total global warming. The U.S. contributes 25% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide, thus a trifle more than 0.05% of the greenhouse effect is due to us.)
Might we look for some solution other than shutting down all U.S. industry and travel other than the bare necessity for our betters to remind us that poverty gets us to heaven? No, of course not, but in case we did —
After 9/11 air travel was shut down for three days. Scientists at, IIRC, the U. of Wisconsin discovered that the temperature of North America increased measurably in that time. This suggest a large but relatively simple solution: increase reflectivity (or albedo, as planetary scientists describe it; it’s not exactly the same thing but close.) Jet contrails, being for all practical purposes clouds, reflect sunlight very strongly, and being at high altitude they do so without giving the insolation time to get to ground level.
So the correct solution to Global Warming is to subsidize international vacations. Every 747 that goes from LA to Sydney, or London to Sao Paolo, generates a high-altitude trail of highly reflective ice crystals that reflect the sunlight back into space where it can’t hurt us, and does so in the most critical place, over the oceans where absorption of insolation causes the most long-lasting problem. If we can double or triple the number and size of contrails, perhaps selecting altitudes for overwater flights most conducive to contrail formation, and possibly find a fuel additive that increases nucleation and makes contrailing more effective, we can increase reflectivity—thus reduce warming—by almost any arbitrary amount.
The nice thing about this scheme is that it’s flexible and modifiable. If it turns out we’re introducing too much reflectivity, causing actual cooling, simply dial back the subsidy until the demand for international overwater flights becomes less; if there’s not enough, send the Air Force out on high-level maneuvers. Fine tuning, beloved of politicians everywhere.
We might even introduce a scheme of “albedo credits”. You could roof your house in polished aluminum panels, for instance. You wouldn’t get a huge credit—the sunlight still travels through the lower atmosphere—but every little bit helps, eh? And it would offset, in fact eliminate, the charge for the CO2 emitted by the jets.
Save the world! Vacation in Pago Pago!
Regards,
Ric
Anyone up for a game of shinny ? I’ll bring the hockey sticks .
Ric – the IPCC report explicitly notes that “linear contrails” contribute to global warming, though not particularly significantly. It’s in “Figure SPM-2” on page 16.
Do you have a link for that, happyfeet? All I get when I go to junkscience’s link is the summary and part 1; the rest is all blank.
Regards,
Ric
Eons before the linkage between human activity and global temperature was established, the ice age glaciers figured it out and melted.
Which begs the question: how did the glaciers know?
Ric – I used Jeff’s IPCC link above – intersting also – that same chart does not list water vapor as a natural “radiative forcing” contributor… In fact, the only “natural” contributor is “solar irradiance” (very minor component).
OK – I see – water vapor and natural CO2, being natural” don’t count cause they are in the background of the model.
Also:
So they seem to be leaving room for your contrail idea in the footnote on pg 16.
Fortunat Joos was one of the “drafting authors.” You can’t make this up.
I give the fuck up.
If one of you has some space and a high-speed link, would you be so kind as to download that stuff and post it on a server that meets spec? Junkscience.com apparently either patronizes junkcomputer.com for their gear, or blithely assumes that everybody who looks at their site has an OP3, so they can set the timeouts to 0.0000000000000000001 millisecond. It means that poor slobs like me, on dialup, get nothing, and the files are .pdf, which have to come in one chunk or they’re useless. FidoNet did a better job, even if it would take all night at 110 BAUD.
It would be good to have mirrors, anyway. The sheriffs are probably on the way.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – I optimized the pdf (cut the size in half) and posted it here . Let me know if you get it so I can take it down after, but if I don’t hear from you I will leave it up there through midnight tomorrow in case you don’t check back tonight –
By the way, next week me and the guys down at the tire change place will finish our UN economic experiments and announce that Global poverty is all America’s fault. It was going to be Israel fault but the last game of darts we played, you know our statistical analysis, that jerk Bono tossed a double bull. So Kofi and Kenny, the air jack guy, had to concede Bono the game. So some time next week our data will be declared scientific fact in time for France to make more ultimatiums.
Of course, if the US doesn’t like it they can help poor people go to Paris and burn a few cars and Chirac will give them jobs thereby ending poverty.
Thank you, happyfeet. That worked. I did have to change the filename to .pdf, but the data came through beautifully.
I’ve quickly scanned it, not really studied it, but dammit I’ve written that sort of bushwa. What I want is the damned data, which appears to be in Chapter 2 and later, and the most I’ve been able to download of 2 is 46%.
BTW did you notice that they left some of the edit-and-change notes in the file, and that your optomization unhid them? Look for blocks of black on gray.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – I didn’t know of a chapter two – I will look and give it the same treatment – oh – I checked the original and the edits seem to be in there – I guess they lend it an authentic draftiness.
Happyfeet,
It goes all the way through chapter 10. You may not have seen it—the server’s so f*ed that you have to reload it several times to see anything below the first one or two listings. FireFox sees valid links to a lot of it, including some .html of “supporting” documents. Opera says there’s more yet, but I haven’t been able to get it to load. My IE is still only version 5, and won’t load anything but the top row of the table.
Again, if there’s anybody with server space it would be a real service if you’d download the documents and keep them. If the documents are authentic it would be a Hell of a good idea to have multiple copies out there when the sheriff comes calling.
Regards,
Ric
My weatherman can’t tell me for sure if we are going to have fog in the morning.
And he claims to be a “meteorologist”.
The other day, a guy offered me a free roof inspection. After getting out his ladder, and spending twenty minutes drinking beer, reclining against my chimney, he informed me I had big problems. Luckily, he could make it all right for a few trillion dollars.
I just have one question for the GW folks.
If GW is caused by humans, why is Mars experiencing GW?
oh – are you talking about the Second-Order Draft that junkscience “broke embargo” on today? The one I’m seeing goes to ch. 11 … at this url… if that’s what you’re looking for I will give it a shot …
Ric – let me know –
I downloaded the Second-Order Draft thing junkscience is hosting – I put it in 4 zip files from 10-15MB each – it’s a lot of stuff – and that’s excepting the “supplementary materials” that go with three of the chapters –
if you’re around ask me for the urls – I’m kind of borrowing this server and I don’t want to risk a huge bandwidth spike by posting the links on the off-chance you see this –
The science is uncertain.
The science is also, as this overview indicates, highly complex. The experts in the field know very little. I know even less. I think this is something in the spirit of Jeff’s skepticism.
Certainty that AGW is insignificant, then. is unreasonable by our known unknowns. Statements such as, there can be no significant AGW because ‘we get our heat from the sun’ or ‘co2 forms x% of atmospheric gas’, are non sequiturs.
There are strong claims made against junkscience.com, found in these comments here, and these articles here, here and here.
If there is political bias, is it more likely to be found here…
… or in those who might otherwise be called ‘junk scientists’?
I am a skeptic of the religion of global warming. When I want to have some fun with the global warmists, I ask them “What about the solar maximum?” The sun is not included in their talking points so they have no idea how to respond. Usually, the result is just another question: “Uh, what do you mean?” This is an opportunity to get all sarcastic and patronizing and point skyward, “You know, the sun. Source of all heat and light. You must of heard of it?” Then they stop talking to me.
Ric wrote:
What about that, Lazar? True or false? Fact or fiction? Fake or accurate? Can you argue global warming or not?
How do you feel about Carl Sagan, lazar? Do you think he was a corporate shill?
Lazar,
Sshhh. You’ll ruin it.
Yeah, lazar, defending your position is so unscientific.
Happyfeet,
The mailto under my name in the posts works. If you’d be kind enough to tell me where the stuff is, I’ll go and get it. I may even be able to get a friend with a high speed link to dl it for me.
Not that it matters much. Oh, I’ll look the stuff over, and I may even post a bit on it—but the fact is, the summary doesn’t actually say the science is determinative; it says they don’t know WTF they’re talking about, but we have to Do Something, and crippling Western industrialism, particularly American, is a nice spectacular thing to do so that’s what’s required. I admit you have to know something about science, and most especially you have to be somewhat familiar with ScienceSpeak to “get it”, so most people want.
It’s futile anyway. The pseudoLeft’s bitch about Iraq/Islamism/terrorism has always been that it’s a distraction—our apocalyptic indications are taking attention away from their apocalyptic warnings. This is nicely tailored to the prejudices and predilections of politicians, and will become the guiding principle for the next few years. If you’re over, say, forty, join with me in taking it apart, but it’s a worthless exercise. If you’re younger than that, forget it. Go get a job at the UN and keep your doubts to yourself.
One of the striking features of Government over the last couple of decades is the abdication of legislators. Most of the rules that complicate our lives don’t come from Congress or their equivalents elsewhere; they come from bureaucrats; the solons just pass “enabling legislation”, and the bureaucracy takes the ball and runs. Europe has more or less made that explicit. The reason, of course, is that for many reasons the politicians don’t know what they’re talking about and have no intention of actually doing anything. Handing regulation over to the faceless is a way to evade responsibility while preserving their access to graft, bodyguards, the cheers of adulation from crowds, and fellatio/cunnilingus (according to taste) from devoted followers.
This is ideal for that. It’s so complicated that there’s no way they could be expected to understand it, so they’ll all heave a sigh of relief and create/appoint bureaucrats and “regulators”, who will then proceed to “implement” the “enabling legislation”. Since no bureaucrat, ever, has ever believed that anybody could tie his shoes shoes without wise guidance; that meshes perfectly with the ambitions of the professariat, who imagine themselves as honored providers of the Wise Advice. Like the rest of us, they will be disappointed, shuffled aside—unless, of course, the Wise Advice they provide allows for bureaucratic empire building.
Like I say, if you’re under forty or so, go with the flow; it’ll be more comfortable in the long run. Get yourself into the new bureaucracies as they are formed, suppress your doubts, and forge ahead. Us old farts will be occupying our time with debunking, but you can ignore us—we’re just playing nostalgic solitaire.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – I’m optimistic. I think Bush has bought the time needed to forestall the worst of the attendant GW agenda until China and India take the lead in CO2 generation and the whole equation changes. I think GW 2.0, asking the West to subsidize CO2 reductions in the developing world, is going to be a hard sell.
Meanwhile, I am also reasonably optimistic that GW can be subverted to revitalize domestic nuclear energy. Btw, I’m also encouraged by Perry’s moving ahead with his far-sighted greenlighting of coal fired power generation in Texas… the regions of the US that can offer cheap reliable power will be hard-pressed NOT to grow in influence and clout, which should help to balance whatever inroads the GW cultists are able to make.
happyfeet, I don’t think it really matters who takes the lead in CO2 generation.
For some it is a matter of religious principle and the sinner must repent publicly and be scourged, and the biggest sinner is the USA. Because. Well, it is dammit, Saint Karl of Marx said so in his famous treatise.
For others it is a matter of chaining a competitor so that it doesn’t get too far ahead of a socialism-hobbled economy, or if that doesn’t work, getting a massive transfer payment from the USA to *cough*France*cough* so that the socialism-hobbled can continue their merry way.
Then there are those who just say nice cushy jobs, consulting contracts, conferences in great places – all on someone else’s dime. (This is what Ric wasadvising the under 40 crowd to do.)
A competing theory on the cause of global temperature change from today’s WSJ
Here’s a couple more links on the linkage between cosmic rays, cloud formation, and temperature.
Why on earth are you asking me?
Ask him which report(s) he used.
Mikey – you might be right, but I think it’s to-be-hoped-for at least that the implementation of policy and the shape of that policy will be more readily affected when China is the chief emitter – but I take your point about the religiosity of the issue seriously – it’s not hard to imagine future acts of destruction targeting “emitters” being seen as justified by a large number of people. Most likely though we’d see the first signs of this in Europe – France may yet reap what she’s sown here –
I sense some supposition that I am meant to be on some ‘side’.
I don’t like this turning a debate over scientific uncertainty into an ideological competition—one side adamant that we are all certainly doomed, and the other that we need not worry, and the science being attributed to the malicious aims or one or other side.
I don’t understand the science well enough (hardly at all) to estimate which is more likely, AGW being significant or not.
What do you think is my ‘position’ and what is the ‘accusation’?
Yes. It is unpleasant when this happens.
There definitely seems to be a consensus building that ideology has no place in discussions of climate change.
That was directed at david, who was asking you to shush, that is why I quoted him in my response. And I am unable to determine your opinion, it seems to be since you are uniformed and a bit confused everyone else must also be.
as to what? (and why do you care?)
relative to whom and on what matter?
specifically…
You are not making much sense.
That an Indigo Girls song?
Thanks, happyfeet, got the files.
Regards,
Ric
That was a mispelling of what I intended to be uninformed, otherwise do you understand what this thread is about at all?
Man’s influence on global warming, because that is the topic of the thread, and I care because you decided to fucking participate in the discussion. Are you unaccustomed to people caring about your opinions? I suppose that is quite telling, no?
Relative to anybody here, since you have admitted your ignorance twice, and once again on the topic of the goddamn thread, just how long is your attention span?
Yet your only contribution is to question the motives of the junkscience folks on precisely ideological grounds.
lol.
I understand that what this thread is ‘about’ is not any one thing. What I don’t understand, is what That was a mispelling of what I intended to be uninformed means,
‘Participation’ is rather too vague. I posted some links to information relevant to the discussion, and pointed out that there is no conclusive proof any which way regarding AGW. Now, you can discuss those issues, or you can continue to attempt to discuss ‘me’. Your attempts at distraction have not gone unnoted.
Oh, you are so childish. Read my original comment, and tell me if my posting of links, and a reasonable claim regarding the state of scientific affairs, merits a highly personal ad-hom. This is the response typical of a left-wing ideologue, precisely the type of anti-rational response otherwise so commonly despised by this group.
Clearly, any voice dissenting from the party mantra ‘there is no AGW’ is absolutely unnacceptable. Ideological purity, that is what this group requires, no?
No wonder you are so hot riled up.
Oh please, you are again excessively childish. You do realize there have been claims to the effect of, that there can be no significant AGW because ‘we get our heat from the sun’ or ‘co2 forms x% of atmospheric gas and that is, like, a really small number’ or ‘geological and astronomical forces are [unquantified] huge’.
If you think I am uninformed, do you believe in magic numbers and support those claims?
Of course, you should really support you buddies on the ‘same’ ‘side’. That seems to your primary directive.
You do realize, that I admitted ignorance only a) in confomity with our general lack of understanding of the climate system b) relative to ‘climate experts’. You do realize, then, you are claiming everyone who commented here is therefore a ‘climate expert’. Are you a climate expert? Do you do climate science? Do you think the climate is well understood?
Calm down.
Long enough that your attempts at distraction continue to fail.
C’mon y’all, pile in, happyfeet post some more snark, clearly this is what informed debate on science is all about.
I you really try hard enough you can surely recreate the same alternately hilarious and disgusting reception you gave Scott Eric Kaufman.
Wrong yet again, BMoe. I posted links to material questioning the science of junkscience along with links to information regarding their funding. Yet again, you attempt to distract and falsely attribute. And finally, what precise ideological grounds would those be? I really peally must find out!
PS my additional contribution was to post a link giving an overview of the current state of climate science, just to make BMoe further dishonest.
PPS I wonder how rapidly apoplectic BMoe would go if he were to meet someone, who, unlike me, actually claims AGW to be significant.
A most fine and useful fellow you are.