Recent Comments

Prev  1528  1529  1530  1531  1532  1533  1534  1535  1536  1537  1538  1539  1540  1541  1542  1543  Next

Comments 76751 to 76800:

76751. skywatcher at 10:08 AM on 23 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       #93 Eric, I mentioned no polar bears. You moved the goalposts. I mentioned declining Arctic sea ice, rising food prices, increasing natural disasters, ocean acidification. They're all happening now, not in the future, and none are 'crystal-ball projections'. All in correction to your erroneous statement that "There is nothing bad happening now" (#89). Obviously you feel none of these things are bad - I presume you can afford costlier food, do not fear the next massive drought, bushfire, flood or heatwave arriving at your front door, and are unconcerned about the world's ice cover (or do not rely on snow/ice melt for our water supply), and you don't care about the pH of the oceans. Lucky you.
76752. Tom Curtis at 10:04 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       KR @49, in response to your respondent: 1) The very obvious point is that the cost benefit analyses have been done, and have decidedly come down in showing that the costs of limiting global warming are significantly less than the benefits; 2) Saying you would act if the cost benefit analysis comes out the right way does not say how you would act. In fact Scaddenp's challenge is this: Assume the cost benefit analysis is clearly in favour of mitigating climate change. On that assumption, what policy is believed by libertarians to both be effective in mitigating climate change and consistent with libertarian principles? Given that, Twodogs' response must be considered an evasion as an answer to scaddenp's challenge, however appropriate as a response to your actual question. 3) In that Twodogs' cost benefit analysis gives no consideration to who bears the costs, and who gains the benefits, it is far from clear his is a libertarian response as distinct from a politically conservative response or a classical liberal response.
76753. Tom Curtis at 09:52 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Badgersouth @51, scaddenp has asked a legitimate question. However, there will be no possibility of receiving a legitimate answer if the thread becomes a venue for a slanging match between left and right. As it happens I often find myself biting my tongue on left/right political issues at SkS. I do so because global warming is a far greater threat to the human race than any of the normal left/right antagonisms. Indeed, the only political issues that are more important, IMO, are the retention of the rule of law and of democracy. If, of the other hand, you feel it is more important to score cheap political points, by all means derail the thread. You might, however, want to give consideration to the fact that the plainly inadequate responses of the right on this thread is already scoring a far stronger political point than any consideration of who said what to whom first.
       Response:

       [DB] One has to remember the scope of this thread:  to see if those of certain ideological leanings can offer up substantive, solution-oriented discourse.

       Consider this a Stand-and-Deliver (Put Up or Shut Up) challenge.

76754. John Hartz at 09:42 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Here's the text of the NY Times editorial that I referenced in Badgersouth #2. "This page opposes the building of a 1,700-mile pipeline called the Keystone XL, which would carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does. "The Canadian government insists that it has found ways to reduce those emissions. But a new report from Canada’s environmental ministry shows how great the impact of the tar sands will be in the coming years, even with cleaner production methods. "It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution. "One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020 — even as other sectors are reducing emissions. Canada still hopes to meet the overall target it agreed to at Copenhagen in 2009 — a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. If it falls short, as seems likely, tar sands extraction will bear much of the blame. "Canada’s government is committed to the tar sands business. (Alberta’s energy minister, Ronald Liepert, has declared, “I’m not interested in Kyoto-style policies.”) The United States can’t do much about that, but it can stop the Keystone XL pipeline. "The State Department will decide whether to approve or reject the pipeline by the end of the year. It has already delivered two flawed reports on the pipeline’s environmental impact. It should acknowledge the environmental risk of the pipeline and the larger damage caused by tar sands production and block the Keystone XL."
76755. mullumhillbilly at 09:33 AM on 23 August 2011
       It's waste heat
       DB82, muonc83, OK that was an oversimplification, but my essential point stands I think. GHG are working around the clock but daytime incoming radiation far outweighs any interception of surface FIR, so most of the GHG warming of the atmosphere happens at night. On the bright side of the moon surface temps are +100C, dark side -150C. Are you telling me GHGs make the planet warmer during daytime?
       Response:

       [DB] "Are you telling me GHGs make the planet warmer during daytime?"

       Think about what you are implying (that molecules somehow "know" what the time of day is).

       GHG molecules do their thing 24/7/365.

       Like the Terminator, they just...don't...stop...

76756. Stevo at 08:48 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       I'd try and sell to the 'right' the business opportunities on offer for those who can make money in the new clean energy technologies. My fear is that those who stick rigidly to reliance on coal and fossil petrochemicals will miss the renewable bus. Companies who invest in renewables now will be at the forefront in 30 years time and by then it will be too late to get on the bandwagon - too late to be a major player that is. A great opportunity to be at the leading edge of both business and technology is being squandered thanks to political ideology holding businesses back by denying science. Go figure.
76757. RB at 08:42 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       I see Andy@6 covered the same point I made in 12. The chances of decreasing fossil fuel usage over the next decade are likely low. The problems facing the U.S. economy are substantial, unlike any post-WW2 recession, and occurring at a time when the world is already grappling with "peak cheap oil" and the resulting higher prices.
76758. Andy Skuce at 08:21 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       To Badgersouth's statistics I would add this quote from The Economist, which highlights the staggering size of the tar sands project:

       A single engineering project, the Syncrude mine in the Athabasca tar sands, involves moving 30 billion tonnes of earth—twice the amount of sediment that flows down all the rivers in the world in a year.

76759. pbjamm at 08:19 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       I have to agree with Badgersouth@27&51 This article seems out of place on SkS and is likely only to result in acrimony rather than discussion of real solutions.
76760. John Donovan at 08:06 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       To scaddenp @52 I assume it's not happening for other reasons: e.g, because fossil fuels are plentiful and some companies are making a lot of money selling those resources right now. So the other question is: would a technically feasible compromise be politically possible? I hate to say it, but probably not in the current US political environment of "drive-by" legislation.
76761. John Hartz at 07:53 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Here's a few facts about the Alberta Oil Sands: - Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year. - At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them. - Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada. - The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space. - Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil. - The oil sands operations are the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Canada. By 2020 the oil sands will release twice the amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada. Source: "Report: Alberta Oil Sands Most Destructive Project on Earth," DeSmog Blog, Feb 18, 2008 To access this article, click here.
76762. scaddenp at 07:44 AM on 23 August 2011
       SkS Weekly Digest #12
       pirate - so are you going to take the challenge here?
76763. RB at 07:44 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       In this particular case, it is argued that there will be an effect on gas prices because of the price divergence between Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate. Given that energy cost spike has caused a significant economic slowdown, there actually is some economic merit to the argument as James Hamilton of UCSD argues here . At current GDP levels, a price of $80 per barrel of oil is a significant negative influence on the economy and Brent has been trading substantially higher for a while.
76764. Polar Bear at 07:44 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       If Libertarians wanted small govt they should use soalar /wind then we could do away with lot of governmental agencies that have to watch out for polluters..solar energy,no govt supervision need for the fuel
76765. CBDunkerson at 07:33 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Thanks dana1981, that certainly explains it. The possibility of getting back down to 350ppm is already remote, and anything which makes gasoline powered cars viable for another 50 years would remove any chance of it. I agree that 'finding ways to use new sources of fossil fuels' is a major problem. I'd said as much a few weeks back when there was a report about the Japanese looking at 'mining' methane hydrates from the ocean floor. That, the tar sands, the work Russia is doing to extract methane from permafrost, and so forth are taking away the possibility that dwindling supplies will push fossil fuel costs up so much that they are no longer economically viable. If so, then the only real hope is to find ways to make other energy sources even less expensive.
76766. scaddenp at 07:29 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       If the solution is nukes/renewables/whatever, the question isnt really about what is the technical solution - its about the political solution. If the solution is there, then why isnt it happening and what needs to change to make it happen.
76767. dhogaza at 06:57 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       That google aerial photograph is just about what I saw on my last polar flight, which featured obscenely clear skies for a vast portion of the flight over the arctic (PDX to Heathrow via Seattle IIRC). Watching nothingness go by I was suddenly startled when I noticed a huge scar along a river, and it slowly dawned on me that I was seeing the alberta tar sands operation. The immensity of it was boggling as we were flying at close to 40K feet up ...
76768. dana1981 at 06:52 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       CBD - Hansen's comments about the tar sands being 'game over' were based on the full amount of carbon they contain, whereas the EPA estimates are based on how much oil will realistically be extracted in the next 50 years. Plus Hansen is big on 350 ppm, whereas the 1 trillion ton target is 450 ppm. So those two factors account for Hansen's "game over" comment. To me it's an attitude issue. As I said in the post, we need to be looking for alternatives to fossil fuels, not looking for new fossil fuel sources to burn. It's totally backwards, looking for more fossil fuels to burn instead of trying to leave as much fossil fuels in the ground as possible. The signal it sends may be the worst aspect, if the pipeline is approved by the USA's supposedly environmentally conscious president.
76769. CBDunkerson at 06:39 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Badgersouth #7 - True. Though the steam injection method is much less destructive than the strip mining they were originally using to get at the stuff. Again, not using the tar sands would be a good thing... but so far as I can tell that ship has already sailed. Even if Obama blocks the pipeline AND all the other distribution options somehow fail to materialize I can guarantee you that the next Republican president in the U.S. will see to it that a pipeline gets built. A couple of people have suggested that delay is worthwhile to give alternatives a chance to reduce demand. There is some validity to that, but I don't see a few years delay making much difference. Certainly not a 'make or break' issue for keeping carbon emissions within manageable bounds. If Obama blocks the pipeline or bargains his approval for some kind of concession (e.g. investment in electric vehicle research, offsetting carbon capture, or whatever) I'd say that is pretty good for us. If he approves it without getting any offsetting benefit in return then that's a loss (and rather disappointing)... but doesn't seem catastrophic.
76770. John Hartz at 06:36 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Dikran Marsupial: SkS opened a Pandora's box by posting this article. Whether or not Tom Curtis looses his patience over what's being posted on this comment thread is somewhat irrelevant.
76771. John Donovan at 06:13 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       One obvious solution that might be palatable to both sides is to ramp up both renewables and nuclear. But both have "not in my backyard" aspects that make such new energy construction problematic. Specifically most solar and wind resources, in the US at least, are located pretty much in the middle of nowhere as opposed to where most people live due to noise and aesthetic considerations. Likewise, most nuclear power plants are currently built near to where the energy consumers are, but because we see these plants occasionally have a Murphy's Law melt-down event, people are psychologically (though understandably) reluctant to have a nuke built upwind from them. Here is one solution that I'm sure has been thought of already: build the Smart Grid, including high voltage (up to 1 MV) DC transmission lines for sub continental transmission with minimal losses, to connect the "middle of nowhere" to population centers with both renewable and nuclear energy. Then we could dedicate huge swaths of more or less under utilized desert for renewables (where those solar and wind resources are generally located) and also for new nuclear plants. These remotely located nuclear plants would then not only provide baseload power for the renewable plants next door, but would also not be located near population centers in the event of a technological, natural or terrorist disaster. There is the issue of water for cooling the nukes but that doesn't seem an impossible hurdle to overcome.
76772. John Hartz at 06:00 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       @CBDunkerson#6: No matter how one slices it, the extraction of petroleum from the Alberta tar sands has been, is now, and will continue to be an ecological disaster for North America.
76773. Andy Skuce at 05:30 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Stopping this pipeline is about more than just preventing the calculated incremental production that will directly result from it. The producers have two main goals here: a) to supply diluted bitumen directly to the Gulf Coast refineries that pay a higher price than the refineries in the mid West; b) to provide diversity and excess capacity in their transportation options. If Obama OKs this pipeline (and I fear he will), this will provide a shot in the arm to the tar sands operators and will encourage further development. If he nixes it, on the other hand, expect the producers to dial up the pressure on British Columbia to provide additional outlets to the Pacific. Currently there are two main options for Pacific outlets. The most prominent option is the Northern Gateway pipeline that will run to Kitimat on BC's north coast. This pipeline is encountering much public opposition, notably from First Nations. BC public opinion is generally very negative towards the idea of having oil tankers on the north coast; a spill there would have unthinkable consequences. The other option is expanding existing pipelines to the Port of Vancouver and dredging the harbor to allow Suezmax tankers. This proposal is currently mostly under the radar of the mainstream media. As Dan@1 said, the best way to prevent pollution from the tar sands in the long run is to stop consumption. But until then, the only option is to try and choke off production.
76774. muoncounter at 05:23 AM on 23 August 2011
       SkS Weekly Digest #12
       pirate#2 "the cartoon highly inaccurate." You should look at the Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute and American Enterprise Inst websites; they are against quite a few of the things in the cartoon. Hence it is accurate. Example -- Heartland: Probably two-thirds of the warming in the 1990s was due to natural causes; the warming trend already has stopped and forecasts of future warming are unreliable; and the benefits of a moderate warming are likely to outweigh the costs. Global warming, in other words, is not a crisis. These are inaccurate. And what kind of 'science' makes an assessment that starts with 'probably'?
76775. robmutch at 05:21 AM on 23 August 2011
       Newcomers, Start Here
       Glad to be here John. And, good to see you on the Climate Show. Keep the faith... "Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them." - Mark Twain's Notebook
76776. arch stanton at 05:19 AM on 23 August 2011
       Scott Denning: Reaching Across the Abyss
       DSL- Man, you had to go and show everyone my pic! Now I’ll have to go back underground. (Sorry mods, I don’t usually respond to being outed but this one was the best yet.) Besides respecting Denning and Gates for the extra effort to cross the abyss I also have extra respect for everyone who uses their real name on the web; think Cook, the one aka as “the Yooper”, and so many others here, all the folks at RC, heck even Tamino (‘cause his ID is no secret.) It’s also the only respect I have for Anthony.
76777. KR at 04:46 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       I have posed this question before on 'skeptic' blogs: If you were to believe (just as a what-if) that our CO2 emissions were going to cause these problems, what, in your political framework, would be the right way to approach the issue? The person I initially asked this of ranted for a while about 'enslavement by the left' and left. Another one or two indicated that they just could not trust any statements claiming that AGW was an issue. But I did get a reasonable response, one that I feel provides an interesting point of view: (JoNova thread) Twodogs: August 9th, 2011 at 11:34 pm KR asks the correct question finally, as to what we would do if human CO2 production was the cause of significant global warming with significant adverse effects. We would act to limit production to the extent that it would negate the adverse effects subject to a proper risk assessment and subsequent cost/benefit analysis. Firstly, the risk analysis would require certainty not only of warming, but to what extent. As such, the positive feedbacks claimed would require the same level of scrutiny as the principle of global warming via human CO2 production, in order to ascertain the impact. This leads into the benefit of mitigating action, to be compared against the cost of doing so. All costs and benefits can be quantified to some extent, so no matter how bad global warming may be at a given extent, any cost is comparable. A trillion $ of benefit still ain’t worth it if it costs 2 trillion $ to achieve it, no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel inside. That said, it’s easy to feel warm and fuzzy inside with other people’s money. --- In other words, balance (spreadsheets and all) costs and benefits of AGW mitigation, and use that to decide on policies. I realize that most of the readers on this site are already quite convinced of the costs of global warming - but I would suggest that focusing a bit more clearly on those costs (as Scott Denning did in his presentation) may be a reasoned approach to discussing matters with the political Right. Not just why, but by how much.
76778. CBDunkerson at 04:44 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       "Over 1 billion tons of equivalent CO2 emissions is a substantial chunk of emissions. We recently discussed The Critical Decade report produced by the Climate Commission established by the Australian government. Their report concluded that humanity can emit not more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050 to have a probability of about 75% of limiting temperature rise to 2°C or less." 1 billion / 1 trillion = 0.1% Thus, I'm not sure where Hansen is getting 'game over' unless he is using very different numbers. Yes, not using the carbon from these tar sands would be a good thing... but in numeric terms it is ONLY 0.1% of the target limit. That's the equivalent of a couple of coal factories operating over the same timeframe. Also, given that shutting down the pipeline won't stop the tar sands from being used... and using the tar sands would (by these numbers) release only 0.1% of the target carbon limit... I'm inclined to think we may need to pick our battles better. Heck, if Obama could leverage SUPPORTING this pipeline into anything which reduces carbon emissions at all (which opposing this pipeline... wouldn't) then that would seem like a win to me.
76779. dana1981 at 04:41 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Dan - I do agree that we have to address the problem from the demand side. But at least in the short-term, there's Canadian opposition to building the infrastructure to transport the tar sands oil to the Canadian west coast (hence the McKibben quote in the intro paragraph). If we can at least temporarily delay things from the supply side here, maybe it will give the demand side the opportunity to catch up.
76780. CBDunkerson at 04:11 AM on 23 August 2011
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       Oh look! Willie Soon... so this goes right back to the 'climate skeptics and their myths' thread. :] Setting that aside, the statement that polar bear numbers are impacted by seal populations is amusing... considering that seal populations are also declining due to global warming; Global warming -> sea ice melts earlier in the year -> seal dens on the ice melt away -> seal pups drown -> fewer seals -> fewer polar bears. So again, 'polar bear numbers are not declining due to global warming'... they're declining due to things CAUSED by global warming. :]
76781. apiratelooksat50 at 03:52 AM on 23 August 2011
       SkS Weekly Digest #12
       I find the cartoon highly inaccurate. I am a skeptic and politically conservative (though I don't vote the party line). It is the old standby ploy of implying that because a skeptic and/or conservative does not believe in taking drastic actions to combat AGW, then they don't care about these other bullet points. I care about all of them. However, it is not that simple. Maybe creating green jobs will balance out the jobs lost in current energy sectors. Hopefully, we can continue improving our air and water quality (I do a lot of work in those areas.) Of course I care about my children and the children of others. And, it would be an unimaginable tragedy should we lose any of Earth's precious ecosystems. The term energy independence is misused. If you are posting to this site, or just reading it, chances are you are dependent on energy. And, you expect that energy to be reliable. Every form of energy known to man has environmental impacts whether direct or indirect.
       Response:

       [DB] Actually, I am scientifically skeptical and politically conservative (though I don't vote the party line), too.  And I find the cartoon hilarious.

       Don't read so much into it; it's a cartoon.

76782. Bob Lacatena at 03:45 AM on 23 August 2011
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       21, Eric the Red, You post comments and links, but you didn't bother to actually follow the link I already gave you which rebuts that particular "study" (which is actually an audit on the quality of the studies used in "....nine government reports were written to help U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managers decide whether or not to list polar bears as a threatened species." Rebuttal of “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit” In particular, this study by actual scientists in the field of study found that the study you linked to was "mistaken or misleading on every claim." The "qualified scientists" who authored your paper are: J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Kesten C. Green Business and Economic Forecasting Willie Soon, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
76783. Robert Murphy at 03:42 AM on 23 August 2011
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       Arghh, Dikran Marsupial added to the mod response and stole my thunder! lol
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Ooops, sorry!
76784. Robert Murphy at 03:40 AM on 23 August 2011
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       "Do you think a social sciences journal is likely to be able to give a competent peer review to a paper on polar bear populations?" There's that and the fact there isn't a polar bear specialist among the three authors. 2 are in marketing/economic forecasting. The other is Willie Soon.
76785. Eric the Red at 03:23 AM on 23 August 2011
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       CB, Other studies have found that polar bear populations are largely affected by hunting and seal populations. http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1145&context=marketing_papers&sei-redir=1#search=%22polar%20bear%20seal%20population%20increase%22
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Link activated. Is this article peer-reviewed? It appears to be published in a social sciences journal of some kind. Do you think a social sciences journal is likely to be able to give a competent peer review to a paper on polar bear populations? Do any of the authors have expertise in polar bears (one is an astrophysicist and the other two are in marketing). Are they in a good position to judge whether they have correctly intepreted the previous studies on polar bears?
76786. Tom Curtis at 03:07 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Can I note that all this talk about who vilified who first is of topic and unproductive. Can I ask the moderators to clean out the nonsense before I loose my patience.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Reasonable request. From this point on, discussion of how the challenge may be met only. If it will help, imagine only the right actually exists and discuss how the challenge could be met if they had free reign to conduct any policy consistent with their principles. No more recrimination about events in the past; this is a thread about the future.
76787. Eric the Red at 03:04 AM on 23 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       Really Sphaerica, [incendiary comments deleted] I will however take this argument to the appopriate thread.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Please both of you moderate the tone of the discussion back to less personal terms.
76788. Robert Murphy at 02:52 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       "The Karl Rove era (continued brutally today by Fox News) learned how politically valuable it was to sabotage the need to compromise by vilifying one's opponents and painting them as evil instead of simply misguided or wrong on the issues or solutions." I think you make Lloyd's point if you don't realize how much the Left also demonized and vilified the other side during the last ten or so years. I know, I was there, on the Right, and what was being said about the Right often bore little resemblance to most of the people I knew who were Right leaning. You talk about how Rove and Fox distorted things, and no doubt there was enough of it, but my Gods the other side gave as good as it got and them some. The Right is doing it now with Obama, and they are just as blind to their own distortions as the Left was to theirs. As Lloyd said, it is *very* difficult to see your opponents as real people who think they are doing what is best, out of decent intentions. It's a lot easier to see them all as the new incarnation of Karl Marx or some villain from Captain Planet bent on World destruction/domination. Sure, some really are bad, but assuming this to be the case is not a good starting point for a discussion. "Again, you present this as if the left gets together for their weekly strategy meetings and decides to take advantage of the situation." They don't have to, that's the point. It's done reflexively by some, in the same way many on the Right reflexively dismisses climate science. The Left needs to rethink how it presents itself (as does the Right). I don't know, maybe it isn't possible because there isn't a centralized "Left", as you say, anymore than there is a centralized "Right" that speaks for everybody on one side. There are all sorts of divisions on all sides, even if the main one is a fault-line dividing Right and Left. I can't control the deniers on the Right anymore than a climate scientist can really control those on the Left who use the science as a way to get whatever other goals they might have. I know people who couldn't tell you the first thing about the scientific issues involved in AGW, but who nonetheless are adamant that it's happening and it's all the fault of Capitalism, free markets, and so on, because they *already* distrusted those things. They may have come to accept AGW, but not for the right reasons. The right reasons are because of the scientific evidence that points to AGW, not because it happens to be inconvenient to your opponents' ideology. Obviously there are plenty on the Right who never seriously looked at the science either and who reject it out of ignorance. If they have looked, they have not looked to what most scientists are saying but screen things through a denialist mesh provided by *accepted* sources. They might *think* they have a good understanding of the science, and perhaps that is worse than not paying attention at all. After all that typing I don't have any solutions. People have become more entrenched in their positions than they have in a long time. I don't honestly see it getting better any time soon. Maybe I've gotten too damn cynical and pessimistic, and I'm only 40. I hope it's better when I'm 50 or 60. Now I know why I never mention politics on the climate blogs. I'm long-winded. :)
76789. John Hartz at 02:48 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       @Dan Moutal #1: You make an excellent point. I would also add that the Obama Administration is likely to approve the proposed Keystone pipeline because the majority of Americans will see it as a positive move. BTW, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has already passed a bill approving the proposed project. Sad to say but the overwhelming majority of Americans are more concerned about the price of motor fuel than they are about the negative consequences of climate change. Obama will loose in 2012 if the price of motor fuels were to steadily increase in the months leading up to the election.
76790. shoyemore at 02:45 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Congressman Ron Paul is sort of thinking man's libertarian politician. His thinking on teh environment, which you can find by doing a search on Grist is very shallow and not very well considered. He sees pollution in terms of property rights, adn says that if courts enforced propoerty rights, the problem of pollution would be solved. He considers you "own" the air you breathe so if someone pollutes it, you can sue them. He argues that court judgments against pollution would solve the problem. How he can draw a distinction between a set of case law, interpreted by lawyers and scientists, and regulation beats me. It also leaves hanging a whole pile of issues around equity and timing. The inhabitants of Kivalina, Alaska are suing Exxon Mobil for destroying their community. What are the chances of a poor community up against a $billion corpration that can hire the best lawyers around, not to mention making significant contributions to the election expenses of judges and politicians? As for timeliness - do you wait for the children to start dying before you sue? Watching a coal-fired power plant being built, do you have to wait for the asthma to kick in first, before you hope you draw a sympathetic judge. He does not consider global warming at all, and trans-national effects of pollution seem to have escaped him. More recently, he seems to have joined the Bachmann-Perry school of political climate deniers. Just as disappointing are libertarian "institutes" like Cato, backed by rich foundations, which spend their time "proving" climate change in not a problem, rather than considering what might be feasible should it come to pass. Libertarian ideas on the environment are ill-considered and not thought through. Right-libertarians seem to have just monetized everything and lost their humanity in a scramble for power. Most of them believe that a change in society will change people's characters - an odd belief they share with socialists. Interview with Ron Paul (2008)
76791. Dan Moutal at 02:34 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       On the issue of the pipeline unfortunately the issue is more complex than people like Bill Mckibben make it out to be. The problem is described nicely by Bryan Walsh:

       "While blocking the Keystone XL pipeline would slow the development of oil sands, it wouldn't stop it. Oil is a fungible commodity, and if the price goes high enough—and there's little reason to expect it wouldn't—eventually Canada would sell that crude elsewhere, perhaps piping it to the west coast and shipping it to a thirsty China, even if that is more expensive and difficult than simple selling it to the U.S." http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/08/22/standing-against-oil-sands%E2%80%94and-standing-for-the-climate/

       The real solution (which admittedly is more complex and more difficult to achieve), lies on the demand side.
76792. John Hartz at 02:34 AM on 23 August 2011
       Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
       Everyone reading this article will also want to read the NY Times editorial, “Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers” published on Sunday, August 21. To access this powerful editorial, click here. Dana: Perhaps you should post this editorial as a “note” to your article?
76793. shoyemore at 02:26 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       @Lloyd Flack #39, Others have responded to your scatter-gun shooting at "the left" as if that was actually going to help us progress. But you claim that support for nuclear power should be an acid test of seriousness is way off. A few years ago, I would have said "why not nuclear power?". Now I think it has fallen so far behind other power sources, that it is a waste of time and money doing the research necessary to help it catch up. It would just consume resources that should be used researcing and developing renewable sources. Australian experts believe solar energy can replace coal AND nuclear in their country. Why not elsewhere? The Conversation
76794. John Hartz at 02:22 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Chris Mooney hit the nail squarely on the head when he recently wrote: “You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a ‘culture war of fact.’ In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.” Source: “The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science: How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link,” by Chris Mooney, Mother Jones May/June 2011 To access Mooney’s insightful article, click here
76795. Alexandre at 02:05 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Lloyd Flack at 00:57 AM on 23 August, 2011 Have you ever watched the video featuring Richard Alley on AGW? He's a republican American, apparently conservative, explaining the science and the reasons why we should act now. The readiative properties of greenhouse gases do not depend on political views to be true. OTOH, picturing this as a leftist conspiracy, as some do (not you), is a politically-based distortion that is widely used.
76796. Bob Lacatena at 01:46 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       39, Lloyd Flack,

       The left does its share of demonizing opponents. Thirty years ago I think it was the worse offender.

       I disagree. It was mutual and equal, but a limited if necessary aspect of politics, and it did not ever get in the way of government by compromise. The right from the start of the Reagan years absolutely crossed this line a lot, demonizing the left for the state of the economy and at the time was an unstable and uncertain position for the west in world politics. The Karl Rove era (continued brutally today by Fox News) learned how politically valuable it was to sabotage the need to compromise by vilifying one's opponents and painting them as evil instead of simply misguided or wrong on the issues or solutions. We now see the same thing done by deniers... climate science isn't just wrong, but it's purposely wrong for nefarious purposes (making money, world domination, exporting socialism, whatever). This is Monckton's favorite mantra, in fact.

       The biggest one of these is the opposition of most of it to nuclear power. I've heard those on the right who said if the left was genuine it would be advocating the building nuclear power plants.

       That's a bit unfair, because opposition to nuclear power (due to ecological issues) has long been a left of center position. The fact they the left is now faced with the lesser of two evils is not going to quickly change the group or individual position on nuclear power over night. Expecting the left to quickly abandon a long held position is unfair. The left should do so, but it won't because the left isn't a hive mind, it's a collection of individuals and individual groups, and the fact that such change encounters friction is not to me evidence of culpability by the left. [As an aside, the right is now faced with a similar "lesser of two evils" issue concerning U.S. debt and raising taxes, and left with U.S. debt and cutting entitlements... a challenge that recent history shows was much more readily accepted by the left than the right.]

       Another thing is that any attempt to use environmental concerns to bring about actions wanted for other reasons damages credibility.

       Again, you present this as if the left gets together for their weekly strategy meetings and decides to take advantage of the situation. There are individuals and groups who have other primary interests that will unwisely use climate change to their advantage, but to interpret this as collective action by the left is naive and unfair. Vilify the groups that do it, not the entire left or the whole idea that climate science is valid and important. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

       ...any solution that looks like you are seeking the satisfaction of asceticism is not an acceptable solution.

       Agreed, but a giant straw man. I rarely see anything remotely like this presented by anyone except deniers who want to scare people away from reasonable but prompt mitigation. And, oddly enough, it is exactly by ignoring that problem that this outcome will become likely... that your descendants will be living in a backwards, purely agrarian society because infrastructure and access to energy and technology have broken down, because people waited too long to act and the existing infrastructure imploded under the stress.
76797. CBDunkerson at 01:34 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       Lloyd, polls in the United States showed for many years that majorities on both the 'left' and 'right' supported more nuclear power... unless it was going to be located near them. So, most people (more than 50%) on 'the left' WERE "advocating the building nuclear power plants (sic)". Of course, that changed with Fukushima. Support for nuclear power has dropped sharply this year... just as it previously did after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. A recent CBS poll had 50% of Republicans against a nuclear power plant being built near them. Nuclear power won't take off until a significant majority support building plants in their own area... which typically lags around 25% behind support for nuclear power 'somewhere else'. If past history is any guide, for that to happen in the U.S. we'd have to go 20 to 30 years without a major nuclear accident anywhere in the world. For the record, Republicans DO generally support nuclear power about 15% more than Democrats and Independents... but this doesn't change the facts above: Most Democrats DID support nuclear power in general before Fukushima, and most Republicans now DO NOT support nuclear power near them. Ergo, 'left' vs 'right' isn't really the issue.
76798. Alexandre at 01:24 AM on 23 August 2011
       SkS Weekly Digest #12
       Great cartoon.
76799. John Hartz at 01:22 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       scaddenp: I apologize for being super-critical of your post on this thread. I was not able to review it in draft form because I was out of town on family business. I was also over-tired when I commented late last night.
76800. Lloyd Flack at 00:57 AM on 23 August 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       We need to look at what the left has done to contribute to the polarization and what everyone can do to reduce it. The left does its share of demonizing opponents. Thirty years ago I think it was the worse offender. And of course when the right hears itself misrepresented it tends to not listen to messages from those doing the misrepresenting. And the left does plenty of things which damage its credibility on climate change. The biggest one of these is the opposition of most of it to nuclear power. I've heard those on the right who said if the left was genuine it would be advocating the building nuclear power plants. Since it isn't therefore it is said it must not be genuine in its concern over AGW. And it gets pointed out that coal is more dangerous than nuclear power. So yes there are downsides to nuclear power. This is an emergency and it is better than coal. Bite the bullet! Another thing is that any attempt to use environmental concerns to bring about actions wanted for other reasons damages credibility. Don't even think of using this crisis to bring about other changes no matter how much you want them. The situation is too grave for support to be squandered. And there are the allegations that environmentalism has become a quasi-religion. In some though not most cases this is true. Libertarians especially often see this as a put down of humanity and human accomplishment. So be very wary of calling the right's behaviour greed. It gives them reason not to listen just as you don't listen when a right wing shock-jock blathers on about power lust. And any solution that looks like you are seeking the satisfaction of asceticism is not an acceptable solution.

Prev  1528  1529  1530  1531  1532  1533  1534  1535  1536  1537  1538  1539  1540  1541  1542  1543  Next