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MA Rodger at 20:05 PM on 6 August 2024CO2 lags temperature
Blusox69 @664,
The paper you link-to is Koutsoyiannis (2024) 'Stochastic assessment of temperature–CO2 causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times' which is hot off the press. The author should immediately ring alarm bells being a known perveyor of crazy denialism.This SkS thread deals with the Temp → CO2 → Temp relationship prior to recent times when mankind began to increase atmospheric CO2 levels by burning fossil fuels and clearing forests.
The author of Koutsoyiannis (2024) also co-authored Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz (2020) 'Atmospheric Temperature and CO2: Hen-Or-Egg Causality?' which addresses a different relationship and does so with eye-bulging stupidity.
[To explain this stupidity, the measured CO2 record of recent decades has wobbles caused by El Niño impacting rainfall patterns and thus reducing vegitation growth in tropical regions. This effect is enough to slow the draw-down of CO2 and accelerate the atmospheric CO2 increase from human emissions, delaying the absorption of perhaps 15Gt(CO2) over a matter of months. Such a wobble is quite visible on the measured CO2 record. The whole process has been measurd from satellites.
An El Niño also causes a wobble in global average temperature and this temperture wobble arrives earlier than the CO2 wobble This is the situation Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz are measuring, a Temp wobble preceeding a CO2 wobble.
What Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz entirely fail to explain is the long-term rise in CO2 due to human emissions. This becomes eye-bulgingly stupid when they address the source of this long-term CO2 rise if it is due to rising temperature. They "seek in the natural process of soil respiration" and also "ocean respiration" but fail to actually look and find it. This should be no surprise. While warming biosphere and oceans would release CO2, the CO2 content of the biosphere & oceans is today increasing not falling, not exactly what you'd expect in a CO2 source.]I cannot say I have read Koutsoyiannis (2024) properly. After a lot of blather, it tells us it there are questions to be asked about the role of CO2 within the climate system. Is it a GHG? Is it "decisive" in this role? Is the GH-effect enhanced in the last century? Are human emissions increasing the GH-effect? Are human emissions "decisive" in this regard? Is mankind the cause of rising CO2 levels? Is CO2 increasing global temperature, or visa versa, or both?
Koutsoyiannis (2024) then lists a bunch of references to support the assertion that "conventional wisdom" is wrong although the science behind the "conventional wisdom" is rather unwisely (and unscientifically) ignored. Note that all nine of Koutsoyiannis's bunch of references is authored by Koutsoyiannis. He has, according to himself, managed to overturned the scientific understanding of our planet's greenhouse effect.And this new paper, Koutsoyiannis (2024), proceeds to use 12,000 words examining the temporal relationship between CO2 and global temperature for periods back 541million years. I have not read those 12,000 words but they certainly comprise more eye-waterlingly stupid blather.
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Eclectic at 19:37 PM on 6 August 2024CO2 lags temperature
Blusox69 @664 :
Are you referring to the new 10/July/2024 article by Dr Demetris Koutsoyiannis ? (your link is not activated)
If so, then you will find that some previous articles by Dr K. have already been discussed on the SkS website here.
IIRC, those articles showed gross errors in his understanding of climate physics. If you can show that Koutsoyiannis has made a large step forward in his understanding of climate mechanisms ~ then I (among others) would be happy to spend time analysing his new July paper. But you would need to make a good case that it wasn't just Dr K. seeking to recycle/republish his old erroneous ideas.
Over to you, Blusox69.
.
btw, the title of his new paper is: "Stochastic assessment of temperature-CO2 causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times". ~A rather discouraging title, which suggests that he is relying on a statistical analysis [which might well be misleading] rather than looking into the actual physical mechanisms which produce climate effects. Real science requires real demonstrated mechanisms of physical action.
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Blusox69 at 15:55 PM on 6 August 2024CO2 lags temperature
during a recent discussion the below paper was mentioned regarding the lag of CO2 and temperatur. it's a very recent paper and doesn't pear to have been discussed on here.
I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box. -
One Planet Only Forever at 04:05 AM on 6 August 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Responding to nigelj @12, particularly regarding skepticism of Trump’s denial of knowledge of Project 2025.
Trump winning appears likely to result in increased amounts of harmfully biased and noisy leadership judgment, especially if New Right Republicans win control of the House and/or Senate in addition to their already potentially very long lasting harmfully biased majority influence on judgments by the Supreme Court (SC).
This July 16, 2024, Inside Climate News article “Trump’s Environmental Impact Endures, at Home and Around the World” presents the legacy of actions by New Right Republicans last time they ‘owned’ the Presidency. And a significant part of that legacy is the ways the current day SC has continued to make harmful noisy biased judgments against everybody who is concerned about the future of humanity and learns to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.
Passionately held emotionally-based opinions can be aligned with better understanding that is developed through unbiased investigation and thoughtful consideration of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. But in many cases the pursuit of better understanding results in changes and corrections that conflict with established passionately held opinions. Tragically, instead of learning, many people are easily convinced, susceptible to being conned into believing, that they are victims of attacks on their passionately held harmful misunderstandings.
The truth about what Trump will try to do if he is elected President appears to be exposed by this July 27, 2024, NPR article “Trump tells Christian voters they 'won't have to vote anymore' if he's elected”. Trump appears ready to try to lock in passionately held irrational misunderstandings as ‘what rules in the US’. The following quote appears to be Trump’s honest promise (in brackets are my clarification of more specific understanding regarding over-generalized terms misleadingly used by Trump).
"Trump also urged (fundamentalist anti-learning) Christians to turn out for him ahead of Election Day, calling it the "most important election ever." He added that if elected, (fundamentalist anti-learning) Christian-related concerns will be "fixed" so much so that they would no longer need to be politically engaged.
""You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful (fundamentalist anti-learning Caucasian only-English speaking) Christians," he said."That harmful promise by Trump is in addition to the additional harms his leadership would inflict on climate science understanding.
The New Republicans definitely appear determined to promote harmful misunderstanding to “fix” things in their favour on many important issues (like they “fixed” the SC) to the detriment of Others, especially to the detriment of all the future Others.
Paraphrasing nigelj's last sentence: Its all consistent with the New Right Republican interests in resisting learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.
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MA Rodger at 20:43 PM on 1 August 2024It's Urban Heat Island effect
mihai @75,
The recent paper you refer-to Soon et al (2023) 'The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data' isn't that 'recent' and its content is likely 99% recycled from earlier offerings, it being the latest offering from Willie Soon and the Connolly brothers. (The phalanx of co-authors are likely no more than window dressing and not contributors to the work. It is not impossible that a fair few of them had no knowledge of this co-authorship.)
The main authors are "infamous" both for their climate denial and also their remarkable incompetence. They do however manage to string words together to create very lengthy papers, and in this case the offering comprised three lengthy papers (the other two here & here). As for the egregious error they have actually managed to incorporate into these particular offerings, that would take somebody to read through the drivel they present, no easy task when error is piled so high on error. Luckily, somebody has already done so, although for a detailed blow-by-blow rebuttal, there was a rebuttal of the rebuttal from Soon which was just as error-filled as the initial offering.
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John Mason at 19:10 PM on 1 August 2024It's Urban Heat Island effect
@mihai#75:
I don't have time to read that paper right now, but can I refer you to post #61 above? The list of authors identifies multiple people that can safely be filed under 'usual suspects'!
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mihai at 17:19 PM on 1 August 2024It's Urban Heat Island effect
A recent paper claims a significant difference between urban and rural temperature series.
The author is an infamous climate sceptic. What he got wrong?
https://www.ceres-science.com/post/new-study-suggests-global-warming-could-be-mostly-an-urban-problem -
nigelj at 06:39 AM on 1 August 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Reading OPOF's links, Agenda 2025 appears to be trying to forcibly restore an earlier version of America of the 1800's or earlier, where the traditional family was the model in society and was the only thing permitted, and you had very small government. There's nothing inherently wrong with the traditional familty of course, but but history shows this was a mean and nasty society with no care for human diversity, or government help for people who are struggling, and terrible economic depressions.
This was a system that was ultimately rejected by the vast majority of people during the 1930s period with its socio-economic reforms, that essenetially expanded the role of government and took a more compassionate view of people. Now the administrative state is under attack by the ultra conservatives..
Agenda 2025 sounds like something authoritarian and pretty close to fascism. The implications for the natural environment and limiting anthropogenic climate change are horrendously bad.
Fascinating that the writers prioritise freedom then want to forcibly impose the traditional family model on everyone and remove the freedom of choice to buy the abortion pill. The contradiction would go right over their heads. They are not exactly geniuses. They seem to have an aversion to diversity, and are very uncomfortable unless everyone conforms to a specific lifestyle.
Interesting how Donald Trump is distancing himself from Agenda 25. I suspect he is doing this because he knows it will be rejected by the majority, and so linking himself to it would damage his election chances. But make no mistake, once elected he will embrace virtually every aspect of Agenda 2025. Its all consistent with his values.
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nigelj at 12:01 PM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
M Sweet @4 said "Hansen published a paper last year, not widely accepted in the scientific community, projecting a strong increase in the temperature trend that should be measurable by the end of the decade."
Correct. However Gavin Schmidt wrote an article where he showed Hansens 2023 prediction that global warming will accelerate very significantly in coming decades was not much different quantitatively from the mean of what CMIP6 climate models by other scientists predict (a group of mainstream climate models). So Hansens predictions are nothing unusual. Refer:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/much-ado-about-acceleration/
M Sweet said: "Pray that Hansen is wrong."
We better pray they are all wrong.
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Eclectic at 09:35 AM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
Michael Sweet @4 :
Tamino may well be correct about a statistically-valid acceleration of global warming. However, the time-span he uses is rather short ~ and he has not yet published a formal head-to-head statistical analysis of the discrepancy between the Tamino computational statistics versus the EE [Eclectic Eyecrometer]. The EE is renewably-powered by slide-rule.
Even today - years later - Tamino's claim of sea-level-rise acceleration is continually ruffling feathers at the WUWT Academy of Citizen Scientists.
My underlying point was that the commenter Killian (above) should not get excited by very short-term changes ~ and most especially when those changes involve data analysis in the absence of any clear-cut alteration in drivers of climate change.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:37 AM on 31 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
It is important to understand that Project 2025 would be unacceptable (being anti-intellectual poorer judgment) even if it supported intellectual better judgment regarding climate science and the importance of rapidly ending, and making amends for, the harms done by fossil fuel use.
A political group’s collective of interests is unlike cases where the net-benefit is a legitimate evaluation such as:
- a medical treatment where the patient’s net-benefit is the important evaluation (not the medical industry’s net-benefit)
- a business investment decision with only investors at risk of the harm of poor return on their investment, no harm is done to others
Project 2025 contains many interests that conflict with ‘intellectual good judgment in pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of how to limit harm done and be more helpful to others’. Note that it is not harmful to limit the ability of a person or group to succeed in the pursuit of interests that conflict with intellectual better judgment.
The dystopian drama series “The Handmaids Tale”, a story where the majority of Project 2025 interests win power over substantial parts of the US, has Gideon fully embracing low carbon living. That aspect of the interests of Gideon should not count as a positive against the negatives. The negatives of a collective of interests has to make the overall evaluation of the collective of interests negative. Otherwise you get harmful nonsense like ‘claims that the benefits as determined by the people wanting to benefit from that collective of interests appear to outweigh the negatives as determined by the people who want to benefit from that collective of interests’.
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michael sweet at 08:34 AM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
Here is Hansen 2023, already died 114 times. Pray that Hansen is wrong.
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michael sweet at 08:12 AM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
Eclectic,
Unfortunately, Tamino recently posted an analysis of the trend in global temperatures. It is not peer reviewed but Tamino is a respected, published statistician.
Tamino finds that the temperature trend has statistically significantly increased in the most recent 30 year period. He says:
" In my estimation, the current rate of global warming is greater than 0.02°C/year, probably greater than 0.025°C/year, and my opinion is up to 0.03°C/year."
Hansen published a paper last year, not widely accepted in the scientific community, projecting a strong increase in the temperature trend that should be measurable by the end of the decade.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:15 AM on 31 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
This BBC News item provides an update about the increasing Project 2025 team's efforts to successfully mislead. The diverse group of callously harmful self-interested people supporting Project 2025 like misleading leadership marketing and actions that are anti-intellectual and biased poor judgments.
BBC News: Project 2025 leader resigns from conservative think tank.
Don’t be misled by the headline. The article explains that the person in question is ‘stepping up into a more active misleading marketing role’.
- refer to my comment @6 regarding anti-intellectuals based on Richard Hofstadter's book “Anti-intellectualism in American Life”
- also see my comments regarding ‘judgments’ based on Daniel Kahneman’s book “Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment” on the SkS OP “What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals’”, particularly my comment @64.
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Eclectic at 03:36 AM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
Killian @1 :
For the past half-century, global surface temperature has been rising at the rate of 1 degree per (roughly) six decades. If you have evidence that the underlying physical causes of that upwards trend have altered, then please point to it. Some good news would be welcome!
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Bob Loblaw at 00:07 AM on 31 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
Thanks, but I'll take proper statistical analysis over the Killian Eyeball, or Killian Thinking Cap, or Killian Surprise-o-meter.
If you want to claim that your opinion is "supported by research in 2018 and 2021", then you are going to have to actually provide references to where that research is published. This is not a web site where hand-waving is considered to be proper support. And "published" does not mean "a place where I said it before". If you want it to be "support" for your opinion, then it has to use information published by an independent researcher, in a place where it had decent peer review.
Since you have not commented here in over a decade, I suggest strongly that you look over the Comments Policy. Moderation at this site is a lot more strict than you might be used to at other sites.
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Killian at 21:14 PM on 30 July 20242024 now very likely to be warmest year on record
I find the long-term climate thinking to be outdated. Changes are coming far faster than in the past and should be expected to continue to come even more quickly. A ten-year, twenty-year or thirty-year period to call a trend is now dangerously slow, IMO. Looking at the yearly graph above, I eyeballed pullbacks from extreme highs and they have not been large except after the 2016 El Nino - about .2 degrees. Otherwise, they have been more like 0.1 to 0.12 degrees. (Again, eyeballing here so don't @ me if these are a little off.)
This was a somewhat strong EN, but not massive. I would be surprised by a large reduction in temps after the massive gains of 2023/'24. In fact, given we are at +1.6-ish, the most we could expect would be a fall to 1.47 or so. It is unlikely even two years of falling temps would go below 1.35, and I think that very unlikely. From a risk standpoint it is best to assume the pullback, if any, will be no lower than about 1.45 and we will be permanently above 1.5C by 2027 or 2028.
To add to this, the ASI is looking like tissue paper right now. An August bad for retention (GAC's, a CAA/Siberia dipole, generally strong Pacific-to-Atlantic wind regime, high August insolation) will definitely see levels below 4.0 m sq km, and with n solid pack anywhere in the basin now, we'll likely see that, anyway. As per my EN/ASI hypothesis (since supported by research in 2018 and 2021), all this extra ocean heat is going to manifest as ASI lows, imo, making these high temp scenarios all the more likely.
Cheers
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shohag at 09:34 AM on 28 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Hi All, BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
You absoulately right about the heatwave during hajj. It was not only in middle east but also all over the world. i put the asia heatwave data in my blog during developing my https://carbonrevolve.com/ site.
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michael sweet at 08:36 AM on 26 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
David-acct:
ERCOT or another regulator is responsisble for making the rules governing how the grid is built. The electrical industry in Texas has captured the regulators and the rules for maintaining the grid are much inferior to the rest of the country. ERCOT allowing the electrical industry to maintain their machinery at lower than industry standards has cost the state of Texas consumers bilions of dollars. As documented in the OP, it would have cost much less to properly maintain the grid and generating sources than has been lost because the electricity providers in Texas only care about their profits this week and do not care that they are not prepared for even a category 1 hurricane.
Your proposing that we reduce regulations on industry would only result in even more unnessary damage to the economy. Critical industries like electrical generation and distribution have to be maintained to a high standard. As proven repeatedly by Texas, left to themselves the electircal industry does not do its job, they have to be closely watched by the regulators.
The situation in the California fires is different. Climate change has made forrest fires much worse in just the last decade. The regulators in California are reviewing their rules and making changes to prevent more fires in the future. As documented in the OP, Texas continues to have the same type of disasters year after year because the regulators do not requre routine maintenance of equipment in Texas. The ERCOT grid was specifically set up to avoid federal regulations. The customers in Texas have paid billions and billions of dollars extra because the industry is slack in maintenance.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:18 AM on 26 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
TWFA,
A person in the habit of liking to make poor judgments, see my earlier comments referring to Daniel Kahneman's expert evaluations, would likely perceive 'agreement among others sharing common understanding of Better judgment' as Goose-stepping.
Moderator Response:[BL] The comment from TWFA that you are responding to has been largely snipped away. Expect any further comments from TWFA on this thread to be deleted entirely.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:10 AM on 26 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigelj @7,
I agree in general but offer a clarification regarding "An example of anti intellectualism is the criticism of the so called elites behind "globalisation" with its removal of tariff barriers and outsourcing of manufacturing to Asia etc,etc."
“Globalization” has many aspects, good and bad. And some of them are facts supporting the criticisms.
Less scrupulous wealthy and influential people (so called elites who don’t deserve their perceived higher status) benefit from unjust exploitation of populations and resources globally. They exploit having more global freedom to get things done more harmfully in regions that allow more harmful activity (worker compensation below a decent living wage, less safe work, more environmental harm).
A desire for “potential regional benefits from investments by those less scrupulous pursuers of benefit” produces competition between regional leadership to allow more harmful activity because of the regional benefit for the leadership and its fans. And that tragic competition spiralling down to more harmful “pursuits of benefits for some” can even happen between regions within a nation.
Tariff barriers can make those who try to benefit from “outsourcing that is cheaper and more profitable by being more harmful and less helpful” pay a penalty for doing that.
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TWFA at 05:49 AM on 26 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
You guys [Snip] should be happy, if it were not for folks like me stopping by it would get pretty boring just watching you goose-stepping together day after day.
Moderator Response:[BL] Alas, your blatant trolling has forced me to recuse myself from any further discussions with you on this topic, and switch to moderator roll. Any subsequent posts from you on this topic will be deleted entirely.
Before you comment on any thread in the future, please read the Comments Policy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:01 AM on 26 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
Reading of the article, and the related points in the comments, from the perspective of my 1980s Engineering and MBA education and successful career, leads to the following judgment (open to adjustment if good reason is given to update it):
The recent tragic electricity supply consequences that happened in Texas that are the focus of the article were understandably avoidable. The ways to minimize the harm and risk of harm were understood and possible to achieve.
Electricity is clearly a ‘basic need’ in Texas. It is also a marketplace commodity that can be chosen to be paid for to be ‘unnecessarily consumed’. Reliable delivery of the basic need is an ‘essential service’. And it is well understood that ‘essential needs’ should not be expected to be delivered responsibly by marketplace competition. More harmful and riskier actions that others will suffer the consequences of are cheaper and more profitable.
If it was practical the total basic need would be provided by a very robust and reliable electricity system and a less reliable cost-profit driven system would exist for the unnecessary over-consumption (but unnecessary system would not have freedom to be harmful to others, only the freedom to risk the loss of access to unnecessary electricity).
That ‘dual system’ is not practical for electricity. So the total system needs to be hardened to the level of an essential service (which can even be done in a system that only uses the least harmful renewable energy generation). If the cost is prohibitive then making the unnecessary consumption more expensive could be a solution. A practical responsible government action would be to have the cost for the electricity consumed be high enough that excess revenue can be used to provide financial assistance to those who are unable to afford their ‘basic needs’.
The harms and risks were the result of the failure of the government of Texas to govern/limit the harm and risk of harm related to activity governed by the government of Texas. And the government of Texas can also be blamed for using its influence to interfere with, fight against, federal and global leadership actions that would have reduced the harm and risk of harm.
The failure of leaders to act based on learning about the potential harmful consequences of the fundamental guaranteed ‘failure of the marketplace competition for perceptions of superiority to limit harm or risk of harm’ is understandable.
The easily impressed among the population of Texas voting for that type of failing leadership is the root of the problem producing understandable consequences that others need to try to ensure do not become 'their problem'.
The citizens of Houston are victims if they are unable to isolate themselves from the harmful consequences of the failures of their Municipal or State governments to responsibly govern to limit harm done and risk of harm. And a municipal government can be the victim of being unable to isolate itself from irresponsible State leadership. Of course, a State government can also be a victim of the inability to isolate itself from irresponsible harmful federal leadership. But in this case the Texas State government has clearly fought to isolate itself from, and fought against, helpful harm limiting federal leadership actions.
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David-acct at 21:44 PM on 25 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
You mention that Oklahoma survived the Feb 2021 fiasco that felled ERCOT. What you omitted was that Oklahoma is part of the SWPP Grid which along with the MISO grid, both of which came perilously close to failure. Yes, the Texas grid failed due to the overreliance on natural gas and wind with the natural gas lines freezing and the lack of wind. Note that the lack of wind was across the entire north american continent
Both the SWPP and the MISO grid rely much more heavily on coal instead of natural gas and wind and therefore, were not subject to those risks. In spite of that fact, both grids teetered on collapse during the Feb 2021 freeze.
I strongly urge you to review the source data from the EIA website. The EIA website clearly shows how poorly wind performed across the entire United States during those 7-10 days losing 60%+ percent of electric power generation, with the SWPP grid and the ERCOT grid losing 80%-90% power for those 7-10 days. Whereas ERCOT lost 40% of electric generation from gas for 2 1/2 days.
That is a huge difference, the magnitude of losing 60-70% of power generation from wind across the entire continent 7 days is significantly greater than losing 40% electric generation from natural gas in only one state for 2 &1/2 days
There was a similar deficiency with solar during that period which was partly due to being winter months with shorter daylight time.
Again please review the link below which provides the source data
www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/custom/pending/GenerationByEnergySource-4/edit
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David-acct at 21:39 PM on 25 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
Michael - I appreciate your comments, though quite curious why blame is being placed on ERCOT unless its an intentional distortion by the article.
Ercot does not own the local electric distribution systems (ie the power lines that provide power to individual businesses and homes. None of the Grids operators in the US own the local distributions systems, whether it is CISO, PJM, CISO, MISO or any of the others. Thus there is no reason to place blame on ERCOT.Do you blame the CISO grit for the wild fires caused by the power lines in California - of course not since CISO grid does not own those power lines. Likewise you cant blame ERCOT for the houston powerlines since they dont own or control the owner of those power lines.
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Doug Bostrom at 10:50 AM on 25 July 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #29 2024
Thanks Dawei. This was due to a bug in our compilation machinery.
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nigelj at 08:49 AM on 25 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
I agree with OPOF.
Philosophically a lot of anti intellectualism is just envy (IMO) and a failure to carefully weigh the downsides and upsides of experts plans carefully enough. Often while there might appear to be problems with the plans, the upsides outweigh the downsides. But even when criticism of specific intellectuals and / or their findings or plans is justified, that is not a good reason to claim expertise in general is bad, or that all experts are bad. It does not provide a workable alternative to experts.
An example of anti intellectualism is the criticism of the so called elites behind "globalisation" with its removal of tariff barriers and outsourcing of manufacturing to Asia etc,etc. In the USA some lower skilled workers in manufacturing have lost their jobs, seen their wages stagnate. Financial inequality has grown although not as much as the critics claim.
But this ignores the benefits of globalistion, for example keeping inflation low for the last several decades, cheap imports especially manufactured goods, and closer relations between countries and international agreements and laws and improvements in living standards in poor and developing countries.
And its easy to help workers who are pushed into low paying jobs by government assistance programmes to retrain or relocate or financial aid like family benefits. But the critics of globalisation seem to resent those measures and instead want to take us back to a time of national "self sufficieny." There is a wise old saying the grass always seems greener in the past.
Of course China does not play nice with the global rules, and does put America in a difficult position. But as The Economist Journal points out, abandoing globalisation and imposing 100% tariffs on everything is not the answer. They argue if there must be retaliation, and some level of self sufficieny in manufacturing, it needs to be narrow and targeted.
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nigelj at 08:08 AM on 25 July 2024Why were the 1930s so hot in North America?
Read a study somewhere saying Americas unusually strong heatwaves during the 1930s (the heatwave index was off the chart) were a statistical outlier resulting primarily from both the pacific and atlantic oceans being in a strong natural warming phase at the same time, combined with local meteorological conditions favouring heatwave formation. This combination was a very uncommon coincidence, but it seems to me that a similar combination of factors in the future is inevitable sooner or later, and when you add in anthropogenic warming since the 1930s, a new heatwave record would be set and by a wide margin, and the impacts would be huge.
Heatwave intensity and frequency has also increased in America in recent decades. Refer:
www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:04 AM on 25 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
I agree with the comments made by nigelj, Cleanair27, and Bob Loblaw.
I would add that part of the 2025 weapon of mass destruction is “The Seven Mountain Mandate” (link to Wikipedia here). Note that many prominent New Right (Wikipedia link here) Republicans have chosen to promote the Seven Mountain Mandate.
And, building on nigelj’s @1 suggestion that “we need to come back to some of the core problems we face as a society, and why this lead to the administrative state”, I would add the need to collectively effectively address anti-intellectualism (wikipedia link here), particularly the dislike for ‘learning to be less harmful and more helpful’ that applies to denial and attacks on climate science.
The core problem of the popularity of anti-intellectualism is an understandable threat to social democracy. Anti-intellectualism claims that emotional instinctive beliefs are superior to the results of rigorous skeptical investigation and thoughtful consideration.
A clear recent example of the harmful popularity of anti-intellectualism is Michael Gove’s, a misleading promoter of Leave in the Brexit referendum, declaration that “Oh we’ve had enough of experts”. His “we” was only himself and easily impressed anti-learning types.
The Wikipedia item regarding anti-intellectualism is quite informative. But the Nature Human Behaviour article “Anti-intellectualism and the mass public’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic” includes the following helpful description with my addition in [ ]:
“People tend to be persuaded by speakers they see as knowledgeable (that is, experts), but only when they perceive the existence of common interests [when the expert’s statement supports their preferred belief and interests]. Some groups of citizens, such as ideological conservatives, populists, religious fundamentalists and the like, may see experts as threatening to their social identities. Consequently, they will be less amenable to expert messages, even in times of crisis.”
Origins or causes of anti-intellectualism can be complex. Protestants opposed to being dictated to by The Vatican educated experts are an example. But evangelists also used it against established Protestant groups. However, it is clear that there have always been, and always will be, some anti-intellectualism.
It is important to understand that everyone can choose to learn to not be anti-intellectual. Nobody is ‘born to be, and destined to be, intractably anti-intellectual’. Being anti-intellectual is a ‘learned behaviour’.
In Alberta, I encounter many non-religious people who are selectively anti-intellectual and resist learning about climate science. They really dislike the related importance of rapidly ending the harmful impacts of fossil fuel use and making amends for the damage done. I also encounter many religious people who are more open-minded regarding climate science and the required corrections of what has developed and making amends for damage done.
There are many examples that highlight anti-intellectualism attacks on ‘climate science and the need to rapidly end the harmful impacts of fossil fuel use’. Al Gore presented this ‘problem in America’ in his 2007 book “The Assault on Reason”. In that book Gore presents many ways that the New Right Republicans make-up misleading attacks on evidence-based and reasoned understanding that ‘is not in common with their interests’.
A detailed explanation of the source/cause of anti-intellectualism in America was presented by the originator of the term ‘anti-intellectualism’, Richard Hofstadter, in his 1963 book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” (Wikipedia link here). In the 1700s anti-intellectual evangelism grew quicker in the US than organized established religions. That anti-intellectual revolution of religion extended into secular aspects of society, with business interests becoming engaged with evangelical interests in the 1800s.
The need for the welfare state to address the unjust inequities (marketplace failures) of freer misleading marketplace capitalism in America, free to fail to investigate the potential for harmful results and free to misleadingly excuse or deny that harm has been done, fuelled growth of anti-intellectualism beyond the Protestant-Evangelical anti-intellectual religious movements.
I will end my comment with an edited quote from the Hofstadter’s Introduction, Chapter 2, Section 4, with my inserts in [ ]. Note the ending lists targets (supporters) of anti-intellectual misleading politics that will look very similar to today’s New Right-wing targets of unjustified attack. Being anti-climate science is a major part of the New Right-wing anti-intellectual agenda because it connects to other anti-intellectual targets of attack.
“Compared with the intellectual as expert, who must be accepted even when feared, the intellectual as ideologist is an object of unqualified suspicion, resentment, and distrust [Now even the expert can be dismissed, disrespected, and attacked by the misleading New Right]. The expert appears as a threat to dominate or destroy the ordinary individual, but the ideologist is widely believed to have already destroyed a cherished American society. To understand the background of this belief, it is necessary to recall how consistently the intellectual has found himself ranged in politics against the right-wing mind. This is, of course, no peculiarity of American politics. ...
“... if there is anything that could be called an intellectual establishment in America, this establishment has been, though not profoundly radical (which would be unbecoming of an establishment), on the left side of center. And it has drawn the continuing and implacable resentment of the right, which has always liked to blur the distinction between the moderate progressive and the revolutionary. ...
“... The truth is that the right-winger needs his Communists [unjustified made-up threats] badly, and is pathetically reluctant to give them up. ...
“... Had the [McCarthy] Great Inquisition been directed only against Communists, it would have tried to be more precise and discriminating in its search for them: in fact, its leading practitioners seemed to care little for the difference between a Communist and a unicorn. ...
“... The inquisitors were trying to give satisfaction [create misleading anti-learning attacks] against liberals, New Dealers, reformers, internationalists, intellectuals, and finally even against the Republican administration that failed to reverse liberal policies [like the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus radical factions in the Republican Party. What was involved, above all, was a set of political hostilities in which the New Deal was linked to the welfare state, the welfare state to socialism, and socialism to Communism. In this crusade Communism was not the target but the weapon, ...
“... The deeper historical sources of the Great Inquisition are best revealed by the other enthusiasms of its devotees: hatred of Franklin D. Roosevelt, implacable opposition to New Deal reforms, desire to banish or destroy the United Nations, anti-semitism, Negrophobia, isolationism, a passion for repeal of the income tax, fear of poisoning by fluoridation of the water system, opposition to modernism in the churches.”
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Bob Loblaw at 01:50 AM on 25 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
The story David-acct linked to seems to be largely based on a story at E&E News, linked to in the first paragraph of the story David-acct linked to. The E&E story states:
It’s unclear why the department rejected CenterPoint’s request. DOE did not respond to questions. Federal departments and agencies routinely reject grant proposals because their programs have limited funds.
...and got some feedback from CenterPoint. The E&E article says:
CenterPoint said in email Thursday, “These are highly competitive processes with applicants from around the country.” The company said it “incorporated the feedback from DOE” into a revised proposal that it resubmitted in January when the department launched a second round of funding under the $10.5 billion program.
It looks to me like CenterPoint is in a bit of a bind. They don't want to pay for the costs of adding resiliency to their grid. They don't want to charge their customers for it, either. ERCOT won't force them to do it. And they're having a hard time convincing others that it should be paid for from taxes collected outside of Texas.
This sounds like what my dad called "freeload enterprise". Privatized profits, and socialized costs.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:27 PM on 24 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigelj:
Yes "free market" is difficult to pin down.
Of course, corporations only exist as legal entities because governments created the legal structures that allow them to exist. Prior to that, individuals carried on business as individuals - so that any business liabilities fall on the individual. Your store owes money to a supplier? The supplier takes the individual to court, and the individual can lose their house (which has nothing to do with the business) because it's all part of the individual's assets.
The "Ltd" in "Acme Ltd." stands for "limited liability". Created by government.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:19 PM on 24 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
Ah, yes. The classic TWFA posting style. Lots of use of emotional triggers such as "regulation mastermind defenders", "perpetual motion machine", "end of the world", "worship at the alter [sic]".
...but completely devoid of substance.
I'm glad that TWFA is concerned about the health of others, though - since he wants the "well-healed" to lead the cause. I was more concerned that the US legal system is controlled by people with money (well-heeled). You know - one dollar, one vote.
In the previously-linked LegalEagles video, they point out that the two recent SCOTUS decisions had been lost at the trial level, and lost at the DC Circuits level, and by the time they reached SCOTUS, the only legal question at hand was overturning the Chevron deference or clarifying the issue of Congressional silence on matters. The issue of fish was always a red herring. An excuse.
TWFA seems to think that rich industrialists are making these challenges for the benefit of the poor, downtrodden everyday American. Yes, I'm sure the tobacco companies fought restrictions on tobacco use because they wanted all Americans to have the chance to be "well-healed".
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michael sweet at 12:14 PM on 24 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
David-acct:
As the OP points out, ERCOT does not require power companies to harden their electrical sydtems. This hardening is required by federal regulations in the test of the country. After the often repeated disasters in Texas, consumers AR required to pay for he immense damages while the electrical generators who failed to take reasonable action to prevent disasters made extra profits. The problem lies entirely with ERCOT, the federal government is not responsible for Texas regulators allowing electrical companies to neglect normal maintenance.
I note that in 2021 Oaklahoma, which endured the same cold as Texas, had no problem during the cold event that crippled Texas. Oklahoma's grid complied with federal regulations while the ERCOT grid did not.
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:14 AM on 24 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
Lots of sarcasm but not that much substance. The real enemies of artisanal fisheries are industrial fishing corporations exploiting factory ships, not regulations desperately attempting to protect a resource. Back 150 years ago, cod mountains seemed as inexhaustible as the plains bisons.
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TWFA at 09:52 AM on 24 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
It's amazing, the regulation mastermind defenders are like a perpetual motion machine... I give the wheel a nudge and it never stops.
Anyway, all this hand wringing over the end of Chevron meaning the end of the world will prove as silly as Dobbs leading to the end of abortions, those who worship at the alter of abortion can take heart that abortions are up substantially since then, [Here] and no doubt the relentless march for more regulation will continue with the only difference being that people of less means, like those fishermen, will have a better chance of fighting unreasonableness than before, where as has been correctly pointed out, it was only the well-healed who could take up a cause.
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nigelj at 08:02 AM on 24 July 2024A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked
Regarding "A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked." Something related and important:
From the Sydney Morning Herald: “It’s good news’: Scientists suspect history about to be made in China” July 13th 2024.
“But it is data from the past few months that is intriguing analysts today. The world’s economy is growing. China’s economy is growing. Yet greenhouse gas emissions appear to have peaked.”
“Some time last year, or perhaps earlier this year, it appears China’s emissions, in particular, reached a high point. If China has peaked, there is good reason to believe global emissions peaked, too. It would mean that some time over the past few months, the stubborn nexus between economic growth and greenhouse gas pollution was snapped, and the 250-year surge in emissions ended…….”
“In November last year, he wrote that despite the post-COVID surge in emissions, China’s massive deployment of wind and solar energy, growth in EVs and an end to a drought that had cut hydroelectricity generation had caused emissions to tumble.”
“A 2023 peak in China’s CO2 emissions is possible if the build-out of clean energy sources is kept at the record levels seen last year,” he wrote in an analysis for Carbon Brief based on official figures and commercial data.”
“Largely as a result of the China green surge, global investment in renewable technology in 2023 outstripped that in fossil fuels for the first time, the International Energy Agency reported.”
Lots of caveats of course. But I found the article interesting. Especially Chinas self interested motivation to dominate certain technology markets, and reduce its dependence on foreign oil for geo political reasons. But at least the environmental consequences are positive:
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nigelj at 07:33 AM on 24 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Just adding to Bob Loblows comments. In my view the term free market is a bit problematic, because what is meant by the term free? Taken literally it would mean people are free to do what they like including theft and murder, so you have the rule of the jungle. Of course no modern markets work like that, there is basic criminal and property law. The free market is thus really a managed market in practice.
The question is how many other restraints / constraints are acceptable? Many economists say markets should not have tariff protections or price controls but its acceptable to have governmnet regulations relating to health and safety and the environment and anti monopoly laws. This is common in practice in many countries, and seems sensible to me. Some even call this a free market.
Free markets really is a terrible term and when we use the term we need to define what we mean by it. I should have done that. I did in fact mean the free market in its unconstrained form and without governmnet interventions, and this is not inherently good at providing adequate health and safety outcomes. Thus the need for adequate regulations. Whether we have this in practice is of course up for debate.
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David-acct at 07:26 AM on 24 July 2024Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?
Centerpoint which is the houston area electric provider requested funds from the US DOE to upgrade the houston area electric distribution system using funds avaiable due to the inflation reduction act. The DOE said no. The local distribution systems are not part of ERCOT, thus no blame can be placed on ERCOT
www.chron.com/weather/article/houston-beryl-centerpoint-doe-grid-19571835.php
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Bob Loblaw at 06:00 AM on 24 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
In comment 7, Eclectic mention a Youtube video from the LegalEagle channel that discusses this topic. This is the direct link to that video. I finally got around to viewing it a few days ago.
Although the ads are annoying, the video does provide some interesting details on a number of the historical precedents that are related to the most recent Supreme Court decision. The producers of that video obviously have a viewpoint about the SCOTUS decision that TWFA and David-acct probably will not agree with, but it is definitely worth watching if you don't know what the fuss is all about.
Two of the predictions they make are interesting:
- This decision will lead to huge numbers more lawsuits against regulatory agencies, which will choke the legal system.
- This decision will stifle regulatory actions and result in regulations (if the agencies don't simply give up) that will be increasingly complex as they try to avoid future legal challenges. Not efficient - but that is a feature, not a bug, if the goal is to choke the $#!^ out the regulatory agencies so that industry can do whatever they darn well please and can externalize the damage they cause (i.e., get someone else to pay for it).
At the end of the video, one of the points they make is that it is worthwhile in such (legal) cases to look at the end of the brief, to determine who it is that decided to spend money on challenging a law in court. For the two cases that led to this SCOTUS decision, the plaintiffs are well-funded think tanks that include the Koch brothers as sources of funding.
This case is not "the little guy looking for justice". This is rich industrialists with a primary goal of getting richer. Why worry about trying to achieve "regulatory capture" when you can accomplish "legal system capture"?
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Bob Loblaw at 05:39 AM on 24 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
I think I'd go further than "deconstruct" or "dismantle". If we are looking for antonyms to "construction", then I think "demolition" is the one that comes to mind. There are certain elements in the US (and other countries) that simply want to blow up any sort of regulation or governance that gets in their way.
ClearnAir27 is correct that there is really no completely "free market" economy anywhere. There might have been back in the days 100,000 (+ ?) years ago when everyone lived in little tiny family groups. Even then, when Grog discovered how to make a club and decided that he could just bash the head in of anyone that got in his way, others would have decided that they, too, could make clubs and bash heads in. "Society" would have started to put constraints on how people could behave towards others, subject to the wrath of the group as a whole.
[On the other hand, maybe we have not advanced that much from Grog's way of thinking.]
Taking a look at that page for The Fourth Branch, I kind of like the phrase "the accumulating derangements in the American constitutional system". Not enough to buy the book, though. I'm sure the Libertarians would view it as yet another One World Government to Rule Us All.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:18 AM on 24 July 2024CO2 is coming from the ocean
ThePooleMan:
Also take a look at this post, which explains a simple mass balance approach to the cause of atmospheric CO2 increases.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:12 AM on 24 July 2024CO2 is coming from the ocean
ThePooleMan:
I think it may be easier to just think in terms of mass, not volume. Total atmospheric mass, per square meter, is easily calculated from standard surface pressure. As a mass calculation, density, temperature, etc. become moot.
You can see more numbers on this page about the human contribution to atmospheric CO2. That the rise is due to anthropogenic releases can been seen on this web page.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:54 AM on 24 July 2024A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked
Joel:
The figure mentions OurWorldInData.org. They have a large collection of charts of CO2 and greenhouse gas information on this web page.
One of the charts (second row, right side, in the view I have) is for "Annual greenhouse gas emissions by world region". It looks like the total for that chart matches the values in the figure in this post, so I expect the figure here is using the same data (just not by region).
If you dig down into the information for that chart at OurWorldInData, it gives the following reference:
Jones, Matthew W., Glen P. Peters, Thomas Gasser, Robbie M. Andrew, Clemens Schwingshackl, Johannes Gütschow, Richard A. Houghton, Pierre Friedlingstein, Julia Pongratz, and Corinne Le Quéré. “National Contributions to Climate Change Due to Historical Emissions of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide”. Scientific Data. Zenodo, March 19, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10839859.
That paper describes the data as "emissions CO2, CH4 and N2O from fossil and land use sources during 1851-2021."
If you follow the link to that paper, it then points to yet another paper that gives a more complete description: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02041-1. The abstract of that paper starts with:
Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have made significant contributions to global warming since the pre-industrial period and are therefore targeted in international climate policy.
From that information, it seems pretty clear that forest fires, peat, etc. are not included.
The figure here provides enough information that your question can be answered with a little effort tracking down sources.
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Joel_Huberman at 03:59 AM on 24 July 2024A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked
Does the graph (and other data reported here) apply only to anthropogenic emissions or to total emissions? Total emissions would include all "natural" emissions, including CO2 due to forest fires and methane/CO2 from peat melting. Emissions like those I've mentioned seem likely to increase in the near future.
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ThePooleMan at 23:05 PM on 23 July 2024CO2 is coming from the ocean
The "all CO2 comes from the ocean" myth is being commonly used this month and therefore that man cannot change the climate.
It seems obvious that burning fossil fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere and so I set about calculating the volume of CO2 produced and comparing calculated ppm yearly increase to actual CO2 concentration change (around 2.5 ppm/year in 2024). Here is the approach:
35 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per year.
1 Kg of CO2 occupies 190L at standard pressure & temperature.
Earth radius is 6400 Km.
Volume of a sphere is 4/3 Pi r^3.
Assumed that CO2 is fully mixed.
Assume that effective atmosphere is no more than 10 Km. Obviously the atmosphere is higher but at 10Km the atmospheric pressure is 0.26 (see https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/international-standard-atmosphere-d_985.html)
I then calculate the volume of CO2 and divided by effective atmospehric volume* to work out CO2 ppm.
Using 10 Km then the calculated increase is 1.3 ppm.
Using 5 Km then the calculate increase is 2.6 ppm.
* By effective atmosperic volume I mean the height of the atmosphere if all the atmosphere was evenly compressed to 1 bar. I need to 'compress' atmosphere to 1 bar as I calculated CO2 volume at one bar.
Is there a better/published approach?
Pressure drops with altitude is not linear and I have not included temperature. So whilst perhaps Ok for a fag packet the approach is lacking some.
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Cleanair27 at 04:25 AM on 23 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
As nigelj points out, the proper term is 'dismantle', not Heritage's humorously incompetent and unintentionally ironic use of 'deconstruct'. This calls to mind Jacques Derrida's post-modernist deconstruction project, hardly what Heritage would want to be associated with.
I don't entirely agree with nigelj's critique, rooted in standard welfare economics. There is no free market, and market failures are common and widespread, so different concepts are better for justifying regulation. For a different perspective on the history, troubles, and potential of the American administrative state, and why the Heritage wrecking ball is seriously foolish, consider this: The Fourth Branch
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nigelj at 07:16 AM on 22 July 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Regarding Project 2025 and its unfortunate attempts to dismantle the administrative state. Firstly I suggest we need to come back to some of the core problems we face as a society, and why this lead to the administrative state. And virtually all successful civilsations have an administrative state:
1) The capitalist free market is great at producing goods and services, but is not inherently good at providing adequate health and safety. This is known as a market failure in economics and well acknowledged by virtually all economists.
2) The failures of some leadership in all facets of society to act responsibly and helpfully towards people.
3) "The tragedy of the commons" is the concept which states that if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether. Even if some users exercised voluntary restraint, the other users would merely supplant them, the predictable result a tragedy for all." (Wikipedia definition)
Modern society has responded to these problems with various attempts at corrective mechanisms including , self regulation, and civil court action (lawsuits), government laws, regulations, and market orientated mechanisms like carbon taxes or cap and trade, and incentivising people not to pollute. These mechanisms and the related government agencies are the administrative state (excepting self regulation obviously).
Self regulation has a history of mostly not working, and the only real winners with lawsuits are lawyers. Government paying people not to pollute gets expensive but might ocassionally have its place (IMO). Because of this most civilisations have developed a set of government organisations, agencies, laws, regulations, cap and trade schemes and so on and these have been very effective when they have been strong enough.
Examples are the ozone hole was reduced using a cap and trade scheme to push alternative refrigerants. Air pollution has plumetted in various countries due to government laws and regulations witrh penalties. The growth in renewable energy has been due to the use of regulations, carbon taxes, cap and trade schemes and incentives (subsidies) depending on the country and which solution it has preferred. Some countries use a combination of solutions.
The proponents of project 2025 by dismanting the administrative state are putting all these gains at risk. They are apparently trying to return to hiding environmental problems, (for example by dismanting NOAA) and to bring back failed self regulation, or failed, very weak regulations, and costly reliance on lawsuits, and will no doubt try to weaken even that as well. As Einstein said "dont keep doing the same experiment and expecting different results".
Of course sometimes you can have too many regulations or bad regulations and governmnet agencies can get too powerful. There are simple ways to minimise this and America already does a decent job of this by its democratic government and its divisions of government power. What is unfortunate is a clumsy wrecking ball like project 2025, that destroys agencies, is slanted to benefit the big corporates and rich people, puts profit above all other considerations, and that clearly does not serve the wider public interest.
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Dawei at 08:44 AM on 21 July 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #29 2024
This paper has been in the 'New Research' postings every single week for at least 17 weeks, why does it appear every week?
Long-term straw return to a wheat-maize system results in topsoil organic C saturation and increased yields while no stimulating or reducing yield-scaled N2O and NO emissions -
Bob Loblaw at 01:10 AM on 19 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
Now, to address David-acct's comments (66 and 67) about the Chevron deference and expertise.
You start in comment 66 with "There is a gross misunderstanding..." and basically call it all politics. I dont' see the quotes you provide as supporting that argument. In the OP, you quoted the section I have also previously quoted, which says "...the agency’s interpretation if it is reasonable...", and claim that this is different from the actual wording of the decisions which states (your quote) "... unless they are arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute." In my mind, "arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute" would be, well, let me search for a word, unreasonable.
The OP gives this link to Cornell Law School's description of the Chevron deference. This is their description of the issue (emphasis added in bold):
The scope of the Chevron deference doctrine was when a legislative delegation to an administrative agency on a particular issue or question was not explicit but rather implicit, a court may not substitute its own interpretation of the statute for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrative agency. Rather, as Justice Stevens wrote in Chevron, when the statute was silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court was whether the agency’s action was based on a permissible construction of the statute.
First, the Chevron deference required that the administrative interpretation in question was issued by the agency charged with administering that statute. Accordingly, interpretations by agencies not in charge of the statute in question were not owed any judicial deference. Also, the implicit delegation of authority to an administrative agency to interpret a statute did not extend to the agency’s interpretation of its own jurisdiction under that statute.
Generally, to be accorded Chevron deference, the agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute had to be permissible, which the Court has defined to mean “rational” or “reasonable.” In determining the reasonableness for the particular construction of a statute by the agency, the age of that administrative interpretation as well as the congressional action or inaction in response to that interpretation at issue would be a useful guide; if Congress were aware of the interpretation when it acted or refrained from action, and when the agency’s interpretation was not inconsistent with the clear statutory language.
In subsequent cases, the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of Chevron deference, holding that only the agency interpretations reached through formal proceedings with the force of law, such as adjudications, or notice-and-comment rulemaking, qualify for Chevron deference, while those contained in opinion letters, policy statements, agency manuals, or other formats that do not carry the force of law are not warranted a Chevron deference. In such cases, the Court may have given a slightly less deferential treatment to the agency’s interpretation, giving a persuasive value under the Court’s “Skidmore deference” analysis.
You (David-acct) call the Chevron deference "political", and unrelated to expertise. Yet the quotes you provide in comment 60 include the following (emphasis added):
- "..the decision involves reconciling conflicting policies..."
- "...thinking that those with great expertise and charged with responsibility for administering the provision would be in a better position to do so..."
- "...properly rely upon the incumbent administration's views of wise policy..."
- "...it is entirely appropriate for this political branch of the Government to make such policy choices..."
- "...the competing interests which Congress itself either inadvertently did not resolve, or intentionally left to be resolved by the agency charged with the administration of the statute in light of everyday realities..."
I see "policy decisions". Although policies are established by the acts legislated by politicians, I do not see every policy decision as a political act. Your mileage may vary.
I will close with a comment on the last bit in the opinion footnotes you quoted: "the administration of the statute in light of everyday realities."
- If Congress is expected to provide definitive, unambiguous legislation that covers every possible case - anticipated or not - then you are asking Congress to micro-manage every single aspect of the actions of the executive branch.
- In such a work environment, no decision would be made unless someone can find a rule to guide them. No managers would ever be able to apply judgment or ethics in order to make a decision and take action in a timely fashion.
- This will choke the $#^ out of government - but then, for some people that is probably the desired outcome.
- In the real world, decent management requires an appropriate delegation of authority. Small decisions made at a distributed level, larger (more consequential) decisions made at higher levels of management, etc. We can argue about how well government (or private industry) does this, but the idea that it will all be resolved by getting the legislative branch to tell everyone exactly what to do is -pie-in-the-sky thinking.
The ultimate outcome of the latest ruling will require that we wait to see what effect it has on future court decisions.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:23 AM on 19 July 2024What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
David-acct @ 65:
You are completely missing my point. Of course, my point was made implicitly, not explicitly - and in sarcasm (part of my Brritish heritage when it comes to humour, in all probability).
My point is that your point of "You will almost always find much greater levels of expertise in industry than you find in government positions." paints a very incomplete picture. Good behaviour is not guaranteed by "greater levels of expertise". It also requires ethics.
I am quite sure that Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi had much greater expertise in the investment business than your average retail investment advisor. That does not mean that they would have been good people to get advice from when trying to develop, establish, or apply regulations for the investment industry. Because they lacked ethics.
Eclectic @ 68 has pointed out that your examples of industry expertise are narrow in scope. I also pointed that out in comment 60, but you have ignored that. You continue to make broad, sweeping claims of "almost always". Please try to broaden your view.
You seem fixated on "IRS agents". What is your definition of an "IRS agent"? What does their job description entail, and what training/academic background are they required to have? I could probably just as easily say "your average lawyer rarely has any true expertise in tax law". Are "IRS agents" the ones that advise government on developing tax law? Are they the ones that will testify in court to support an agency interpretation of a regulation?
If an "IRS agent" is a person that deals with public questions, in order to try to help them through difficult, hard-to-interpret tax regulations, then I can easily imagine that they are only trained to deal with the simpler situations. And that specialized tax lawyers know more. To generalize that to "employees in industry ... almost always have greater expertise than the government experts" is a huge stretch. You're making a comparison between the top end of "industry experts" and the bottom end of "IRS agents" and making a specious comparison.
