Friday, December 04, 2009
Government and greenhouse gas regulation
The science is so settled it’s now perfectly routine for leaders of the developed world to go around sounding like apocalyptic madmen of the kind that used to wander the streets wearing sandwich boards and handing out homemade pamphlets. Governments that are incapable of—to pluck at random—enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching “youths,” are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens—if only they can tax and regulate us enough. As they will if they reach “consensus” at Copenhagen. And most probably even if they don’t.
And there is this:
Back in the summer, I wrote in a column south of the border:
“If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in.”
In response to that, the shrieking pansies of the eco-left had a fit. The general tenor of my mail was summed up by one correspondent: “How can you live with your lies, dumbf–k?” George Soros’s stenographers at Media Matters confidently pronounced it a “false claim.” Well, take it up with Phil Jones. He agrees with me. The only difference is he won’t say so in public.
Which is a bit odd, don’t you think?
Ouch.
How about we do a bunch of easy stuff first with deregulation and money that is already committed, like making it a lot easier to build nuclear power plants and spending that "stimulus" money on a massive upgrade of electrical grid instead of repaving 12 miles of highway in each Congressional district? Maybe some experimental seeding of the Arctic atmosphere with reflective particulates. All cheap, reversible stuff that will give governments some chance to show competence.
No, really.
When you start with a massive transfer of wealth and an almost gleeful deconstruction of consumer capitalism, you are bound to trigger equally massive resistance, almost no matter how swell your science and how scary your predictions of catastrophe. That is so obvious, one is forced to wonder whether the real point is the massive transfer of wealth and the deconstruction of consumer capitalism.
38 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Fri Dec 04, 12:19:00 AM:
Despite the insanity of the concept of massive economic restucturing for an evanescent and harmless swing in the global temperature curve, a goodly number of people are still buying the fabrication...lock, stock and barrel.
Probably not enough people have been hoodwinked for the Congress to do any lasting harm before being effectively recalled by the electorate...not now.
I fear for the future, however.
By Brian, at
Fri Dec 04, 01:19:00 AM:
Funny thing that only HADCRU shows 1998 as the hottest year. GISS shows it as 2005, which makes the "if you're 29" blah blah blah all wrong.
And of course the fact that multiyear averaging shows continued warming since 1998. Don't like multiyear averaging? Feels inconvenient? Many of the warmest months on record have happened in the last few years. I suspect the skeptics would say record-breaking months don't count, but a record-breaking year does, while record-breaking multi-year doesn't.
None of that makes sense to me.
By Don Cox, at
Fri Dec 04, 03:19:00 AM:
The "easy stuff" you suggest is exactly what should be done in the US. Wind farms are also cheap to build and likely to be profitable, especially along coasts.
This is the first year I can remember when there has been no frost here in October or November. And I am a lot more than 29.
By 
, at
Fri Dec 04, 04:34:00 AM:
That's because the point of it IS to take your money - and of course give it to "good" people.
Funny how religions all have their form of tithing. Cap and trade/carbon taxes are just the latest example from the newest religion.
By John, at
Fri Dec 04, 05:19:00 AM:
"Many of the warmest months on record have happened in the last few years"
Obviously thats "Climate" change. Of course its also true that:
"Many of the coldest months on record have happened in the last few years"
If you point this out global warming proponents will say thats "Weather" not "Climate" change. Funny how it works that way.
And if we are going to talk about multiyear averaging, I bet I can find a good trend line that has occurred since the last ice age, pointing to global warming, damn per-historic SUVs.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 10:32:00 AM:
I think most of the folks who comment about the fake global temperature data overlook the key point, there are billions of dollars to be made!
It is not an issue of life on earth or rising sea levels for most of the liars (sure, the usual left wing idiots will riot against anything if they are told they are working against the man), it is bucks, power and professional standing. The UNers want, as usual, the bribes, payoffs and kickbacks.
The academics don't see their scientific arguments sinking, they see their future grants and conferences and administrative assistants disappearing, forcing their tenured butts back into the classrooms where they'd have to teach to earn their inflated salaries. No more first class travel, no more head tables and no more honoraria!
By Don Cox, at
Fri Dec 04, 10:43:00 AM:
"Of course its also true that:
"Many of the coldest months on record have happened in the last few years""
THe phrase "of course" signals the weak link in an argument. Do you have any evidence for that statement? It certainly conflicts with my experience here in England.
By Brian, at
Fri Dec 04, 10:44:00 AM:
John says many of the coldest months on record have happened in the last few years.
I don't think that's true. I'm talking about global records (just like the original post), not whether a particular weather station somewhere in the world had a record cold month.
As always, I'd love to see a link that proves otherwise.
By Don Cox, at
Fri Dec 04, 10:45:00 AM:
"I think most of the folks who comment about the fake global temperature data overlook the key point, there are billions of dollars to be made!"
I don't overlook that: the whole economy of Saudi Arabia depends on our continuing to burn their oil.
By Brian, at
Fri Dec 04, 10:55:00 AM:
As there appears to be some confusion, neither a single month or a single year is a good indicator of climatic change. Multi-year is the way to go, probably 10-year averages as a minimum.
"I bet I can find a good trend line that has occurred since the last ice age, pointing to global warming."
I bet you can't find as good a one as occurred in the last 30 years, and probably not as good a one as in the last 100 years.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 11:10:00 AM:
Put up or shut up - in the US, we define behavior as Good in a simple way: we exempt those providing what is Good from the payment of income tax.
Green Energy is the veritable definition of Good in a number of ways, not all of which involve whether Mother Earth is cooling or warming.
Who in the Green Community is advocating for exempting Green Energy production from taxation? Not Credits, not special loopholes. No taxation . . . period. Answer: Not a damn soul. That tells me the goal is Grants, Demonstration Projects, and a whole litany of Boondoggles intended to avoid the very thing they profess to be striving for.
I want Green Energy. I know it'll never happen with the current mindsets. Shoot the bureaucrats, let's get this bird in the air.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 11:42:00 AM:
"one is forced to wonder whether the real point is the massive transfer of wealth and the deconstruction of consumer capitalism."
As we can see here, some have been completely faked out by the combination of crank science and their own honestly good intentions.
But yes, it's not just about science. Even the "scientists" admit that. When's the last time you heard an alarmist cry that what we need is more wealth?
But that is, in my view, exactly what we need.
M.E.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 12:46:00 PM:
Mr. Ed, I'm going to revise and extend - "I want Green Energy" should be extended to "I want Green Energy in an abundance, and at a cost, such that a consumer of energy becomes indifferent, thereby eliminating the Saudi and Iranian low-cost producer advantage, with the added benefit of denying those in the environmental movement who desire wealth destruction their primary lever."
This outcome will be darn difficult for free market enterprise under the best of circumstances. The notion that a government entity could somehow usher it in is laughable.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 02:01:00 PM:
..."one is forced to wonder whether the real point is the massive transfer of wealth and the deconstruction of consumer capitalism."...
"The Cloward - Piven Strategy"
Of course what all the "intellectual giants" fail to recognize is when the parasite kills the host, the parasite dies.
Socialism, Marxism and Communism cannot survive without Capitalism, and those folks know it. The Russians and the Chinese have been warning Barry H.O. all year "too far!, too fast!" does Barry listen? but nooooooo! Barry's point IS to drive the bus off the cliff.
It's a Mann-made crisis, not to be wasted.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 02:34:00 PM:
GISS fudged the records to show that 1998 and later 2005 were the hottest years. They had to correct themselves when a blogger caught them and forced them to admit that the hottest year on record is actually 1934.
Sorry to burst your climategate bubble.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Dec 04, 02:49:00 PM:
That's not true, Anon. Get your facts straight. GISS found 2005 to be hottest. 1934 and I believe 1998 were about tied for hottest in the US, and a blogger found a minor correction that moved 1934 from slightly behind to slightly ahead 1998 in the US, but 2005 remains the hottest globally.
The skeptics of course fail to remember any of it accurately.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 03:00:00 PM:
Brian:
Your points are just dead wrong. There is no such thing as a global temperature. Scientists claim to be able to calculate one, which makes it per se an artificial construct.
So, how do they go about gathering temperatures?? Well, there are weather stations situated all over the globe, some dating back decades. Sounds reasonable that we could calculate a global number by averaging the temps reported from those stations right? That would be true IF those stations had not been altered in any way manner which may effect a change in temperature. Sadly, those thermometers, in a large number of cases, have been relocated (in some instances many times and over dozens of miles). Many sites have been encroached upon by urbanization; bucolic settings become asphalt parking lots for example. Some stations heve been relocated next to AC units, power generators and the like. All of this makes them useless for comparisons over time.
Even the secret communications between the climate 'scientists' reveal that they were trying to minimize the fact that, according to their data, the land is heating up at twice the rate the oceans are. Look this stuff up. It's easy if you are actually interested in data and not hyperbole.
The idea that the past 30 years has seen strong warming is seriously in doubt now due to the top scientists in that field's research community colluding on misrepresenting and mismanaging data they purport to have collected. Even more in doubt is the AGW aspect of the debate. Any intellectually honest person would acknowledge that... just as any intellectually honest person must concede that improprities by these 'scientists' does not necessarily mean that warming isn't happening.
You should actually take the time to understand the basics of the scientific debate. You aren't helping anything by spewing this illinformed and shallow kant.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 03:00:00 PM:
"I don't overlook that: the whole economy of Saudi Arabia depends on our continuing to burn their oil."
Ahh, but what you overlook is your economy (assuming you live in a developed western democracy) depends on continuing to burn that oil.
Despite what people think, we don't burn oil because we love those Arabs so much.
Everything else is just details, temp, polar bears, whatever. What is actually under discussion here is the right of human (in particular, Western) civilization to continue.
By Fred, at
Fri Dec 04, 03:25:00 PM:
Hottest year? Coldest year? Heating up, cooling down, staying steady?
Hey, the CRU leak tells us we can't trust the 'global temperature' -- whatever that is -- because the original data have been massaged beyond all statistical reason. You can't trust HadCRUT, GIStemp has problems, and GHCN has problems too. Until some disinterested scientists clear up the data 'correction' problems, we can't possibly know anything about global temperatures. Ask Harry about it. GIGO folks.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 03:39:00 PM:
It's snowing in Houston today. Earliest snowfall ever recorded for this area. I know Al Gore skipped Copenhagen, but I wasn't aware he had come to Houston instead.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 04:05:00 PM:
What I find most interesting is that climate scientists are unable to predict - within 1 degree - with any sort of confidence - what the temperature will be ANYWHERE in the world on January 4 2010.
But those same scientists tell us - within 1 degree - with almost total confidence - what the temperature will be EVERYWHERE in the world on January 4 2030.
Did not a single one of the climate scientists take a course in basic statistics? Or think that not a single non-climate scientist have taken a course in basic statisitcs?
CHALLENGE: Will anyone here publish their temperature prediction for January 4 2010 for any location they wish? And next month come back and tell us all what the temperature really was ... um is?
NOTE: The 'straw man' that Weather is not the same as Climate is NOT a valid reason to dispute this. Climate science can either make valid predictions in both the short and long terms or it cannot.
If climate science cannot do so it is as valid as creation science.
If it can make valid predictions in both the short and long terms than it is as valid as Kepler's Third Law.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 04:19:00 PM:
Anonymous at 04:05:00
The fact that Climate and Weather are different is not a straw man. It's the difference between looking at individual parts of a chaotic system and looking at the system as a whole.
I cannot predict the position of any of the atoms within a softball, but I can predict the position of the ball itself given the initial conditions.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 04:31:00 PM:
The northwest had a cold spell last month that set records - by 10 to 12 degrees F. Houston, TX had it's earliest snow on record this morning.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Dec 04, 05:32:00 PM:
"But those same scientists tell us - within 1 degree - with almost total confidence - what the temperature will be EVERYWHERE in the world on January 4 2030."
No. The scientists don't say that. Read instead what the next anon commenter has to say on the difference between climate and weather. What the consensus predicts is a range of expected warming on average, which will be affected in any given year by natural variability.
By , at
Fri Dec 04, 06:12:00 PM:
Despite what they say, there is not ONE computer model, either for weather or climate, that you can punch in the historical record for the past and get an accurate "prediction" for the present.
Until there is their "predictions" aren't of any greater worth than those of some street prophet who preaches that God will destroy the Earth on Feb. 13th, 2012.
It is especially galling that the real trends seem to show global cooling for the last ten years or so. I'm sorry--but I'm really tired of the AGW people who brush aside any data that doesn't coincide with their conclusion by chalking it up to "natural variability." Describing the Medieval Warming period and the "Little Ice Age" (both of which lasted for centuries) as "natural variability" is simply dishonest or stupid, and apparently both "fluctuations" had nothing to do with "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere.
By Victor Erimita, at
Fri Dec 04, 07:14:00 PM:
GISS had initially listed the warmest years as 1998, 1934, 2006, 1921 and 1931. After Mr. McIntyre's questions GISS rejiggered the list and 1934 was warmest, followed by 1998, 1921, 2006 and then 1931. But since then, the list has been rewritten again so it now runs 1998, 2006, 1934, 1921, 1999.
Obviously this sort of changing around begs the question of what kind of manipulation and correction is going on to the raw data. But even setting aside the fact the changes and discrepancies between the "average global temperature" claims of the various entities conflict with each other (what "consensus?"), setting aside the urban heat islands problem, the NASA temperature stations next to heat exhausts, the "lost" temperature data, the falsified temperature data, the rigged computer models showing temperature hockey sticks now matter what (now lost) raw data are fed into them...even setting all of that aside, the fact is, the warm period from the early 1920s to the late 1940s didn't look statistically all that different from the current period. This haggling over the "warmest years" illustrates that with the second list above having 3 of the 5 warmest years from that earlier period. It also illustates the common statistical game of picking some particular sample that seemingly demonstrates your point. "4 of the 7 hottest years on record have taken place in the last ten years" or that sort of thing. Ok, and the other 3 of the hottest 7 took place within a few years of each other some 70 years ago, is that right? And if we look at the broader data (meaning the full 20-30 year spans), we see a very similar phenomenon, so what is the big deal exactly?
The period 1999-2009 shows n0o wqrming or cooling. The period 1998-2009 shows a slight cooling. You can cherry pick any segment of years you like to fit your purposes, and this we now know is precisely what the HADCRU people did.
The "hottest year on record" also means nothing when you realize the "record goes back a little more than a century to a time when, as Dennis Miller says, we were all still shitting ourdoors, but we had a solid handle on the precise "average global temperature." The sorts of arguments these people are trying to get away with with not pass a freshman statistics exam.
By Martin, at
Sat Dec 05, 01:27:00 AM:
Blah blah blah.
The climate or weather or whatever has probably been slightly warming over the last 150 years or so as we came out of the Little Ice Age.
I see no persuasive evidence that (a) continued warming at that rate or faster is highly probable for any prolonged period, (b) that such warming is primarily human-caused, (c) that if it continued it would be a net loss to humanity, or (d) that the goofy proposals to do something would have any measurable effect on the weather, tho they would certainly eat up a lot of money that could be usefully spent on other things.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Sat Dec 05, 12:05:00 PM:
Warming in the last 30 years has been over twice the rate of warming in the last 150 years. We've more than bounced back from the LIA - why would warming be accelerating?
The accelerated warming and the stratospheric cooling are two arguments were skeptics have no answers.
By , at
Sat Dec 05, 01:00:00 PM:
Here's my concern:
Say we accept the AGW folks and take drastic action to avert warning, to the extent of destroying economies.
Then we find out that there is indeed warming, but that our efforts were too little or that the A part was not true, that is, that there is warming, but no human caused, so that all our efforts to avert it were useless.
We now would not have the resources necessary to help underdeveloped economies and populations adapt to warming we could not change.
In addition, having lived in Canada and Russia, I don't see some warming as necessarily a bad thing. Why all the hysteria if .6 of a degree over a century is all there is?
By , at
Sat Dec 05, 02:34:00 PM:
There's an example over on coyote blog about what Mythbuster Steve McIntyre had to reverse engineer. Basically, an outsider can't tell how USHCN insiders combined data from two sites -- Grand Canyon and Tucson. McIntyre's analysis shows that Grand Canyon has been showing no increase, but Tucson has. The latter has been affected by urbanization -- it's an "urban hot spot." USHCN won't say, but McIntyre's analysis shows that USHCN has fudged Grand Canyon data up and Tucson data down in a crude averaging. This is bad science on so many levels. McIntyre is the guy who "myth busted" the hockey stick.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/12/example-of-climate-work-that-needs-to-be-checked-and-replicated.html
I love the way Brian hypes that the rate of increase is accelerating. Next he'll be telling us we've always been at war with Eastasia.
The following is a repost from below: Brian gave himself up in a post below where he said he knows more "enviros" than we do, works in the field, and sees a commercial opportunity. He thinks "technology has a vital role to play, especially in renewable power and carbon sequestration." So he's not a deluded tree hugger, nor a Stone Age Luddite -- he's an opportunist -- like Al Gore, Carol Browner, and Van Jones. He should be doing Shamwow commercials on late night TV.
Part of the political problem is that Brian's crowd take the most promising technologies -- like thorium nuclear reactors -- off the table. Instead he'd have us use 12th century technology -- windmills.
By , at
Sat Dec 05, 03:40:00 PM:
So Brian Schmidt is a huckster. That fills in the gaps for me.
He seems to have been reduced to putting his hands over his ears and shouting his same old tired and flatulent rhetoric.
When the whole issue is about the accuracy and sanctity of the data and of subsequent analyses based upon that data, then to continue to use it as a basis for one's argument is risible.
He's a snake oil salesman selling his brand of opiate to the masses.
By gs, at
Sun Dec 06, 10:17:00 PM:
How about we do a bunch of easy stuff first with deregulation and money that is already committed, like making it a lot easier to build nuclear power plants and spending that "stimulus" money on a massive upgrade of electrical grid instead of repaving 12 miles of highway in each Congressional district?
Suppose there's a serious national problem. Suppose we agree about some of the things that have to be done, and disagree about others.
Unless their partisan, controversial policies are also enacted, our politicians will block the things that everyone agrees should be done.
Maybe some experimental seeding of the Arctic atmosphere with reflective particulates. All cheap, reversible stuff that will give governments some chance to show competence.
Since we are not absolutely certain of what drives climate, the word "reversible" is indispensable.
By Brian, at
Sun Dec 06, 11:44:00 PM:
Anon - show me where I've said nuclear should be taken off the table.
By , at
Mon Dec 07, 12:10:00 AM:
I didn't say you -- I said "Brian's crowd." You guys want to lock us into wind and solar -- things that have proven unable to scale. The House-passed Energy bill is an abomination -- do you disagree? If you really believed in AGW then nuclear has to be on the table, unless you want us all living in tree forts. The Green position is a national economic sucide pact I won't go along with, for the sake of my children.
When the masses see this to be an economic suicide pact, there will be a backlash. Environmentalism will get thrown out, which would be a bad thing.
By Brian, at
Mon Dec 07, 12:26:00 AM:
And livermoron: I point out stratospheric cooling, verified by satellite data, and you call it putting my hands over my ears. I don't know, somehow that doesn't seem like a persuasive rebuttal.
As for the gratuitous insults, it's a good indicator of the quality of argument being used.
By Brian, at
Mon Dec 07, 12:29:00 AM:
Nuclear is the tech that has trouble scaling - huge capital costs, long delay times.
I agree though that there's been some knee-jerk opposition to it on the left, matched by knee-jerk ignorant worship of it on the right.
By , at
Mon Dec 07, 08:45:00 AM:
Talk about chutzpah. The long delay time in building nuclear plants is largely because of the regulatory process and litigation risk. As you know, we haven't built a new nuclear plant since the Carter era because of this. Meanwhile France has built 60 plants that generate 90% of its electricity, has the lowest power costs in Europe, and exports 20% of its production to the rest of Europe.
Nuclear plants are expensive to build but cheap and reliable to operate. Modern reactors are better than the 100 old ones we have now. Thorium reactors could be better still. They're greener than coal plants. If you cost out nuclear you can get a kwh cost that won't bankrupt the nation. If it worked for France, why not us.
Natural gas can be part of the answer too, but we have to start enabling drilling.
George Bush could have used his 9/11 political capital to drive nuclear development in the name of energy independence from the Middle East. Instead he gave us Saddam's head on a pike. We never got bin Laden's.
Obama says he's for "safe nuclear" while he's quietly killing it as any kind of option. He has a way with words, doesn't he.
Brian, "going green" won't work when folks wake up to the economic reality of 50 cent kwh power. Wait until people figure out it will cost them $200 to fill the tank of their electric car. They'll be a backlash ultimately. Environmentalism will suffer in the end.
Brian, the name calling is in part frustration. I've been baiting you a bit because you're the face of the other side. You've done little to address the substantive points raised here. I've worked backwards from the idea that AGW may be real. Then I look at the House Energy bill and what's on the table in Copenhagen. It don't compute. Don't you see that? Then I learn that folks like Gore and companies like GE, look to get rich off "solutions" that we know today won't work well. Then I learn that AGW science violates every aspect of the scientific method. Your response to all this is just more unsubstantiated Chicken Little factoids.
By Brian, at
Thu Dec 10, 10:11:00 PM:
Anon: I agree that nukes are overregulated in some sense, especially relative to coal, which is a huge killer from air pollution.
OTOH, nuke power companies are protected from liability in case of a meltdown, which is ridiculous. They should go bankrupt if they destroy a city.
And regardless, they are huge projects with giant capital costs that innately take a long time. Unlike solar wind or even natural gas, you can't build a lot of small nuke plants.
As for 50cent kwh, give me a cite that says that - it's far more than solar costs now, let alone wind.
