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Tom Curtis at 07:38 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
MA Rodger @17, geologists, whether they work for oil companies or not, are scientists.
The fact is that Ashton's pedantary is both correct and revealing. Only about 82% of all scientists (Doran and Zimmerman 2009). That rises to 97.4% if you restrict the categories to climatologists who actively publish on climatology.
It is revealing, however, that Ashton and his fellow "skeptics" cling to the straw of just 18% disagreement with the IPCC, and that from scientists who are not expert in the topic underconsideration. As if they would get a second opinion on a medical issue from geologists.
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MA Rodger at 05:20 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @14.
If you want to play the pedant, you need more than a little nouse about you or you will get tripped up.
Engineers are not scientists. Most meteorologists are weathermen who are not scientists. And geologists who mainly work for oil companies etc are also almost all not scientists. And the quote you object about up thread is from nobody here but from a writer of SciFi who presents it thus "Plot Idea - ....," which I think should give strong indication about its intended message.
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longjohn119 at 05:09 AM on 8 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
"Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better or is this real?"
- Megyn Kelly to Karl Rove Election Eve 2012 .... but it also seems to be a relevent question to ask here also
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wili at 04:49 AM on 8 November 2014Looking after the right forests benefits the climate
That's what I figured. But that's what comment sections are for--things you couldn't get to in the main article (and of course other things, sometiems) aren't they? '-)
Moderator Response:[JH] The purpose of the comment threads on the SkS website is clearly articulated in the introductory paragraph of the SkS Comments Policy, i.e.,
The purpose of the discussion threads is to allow notification and correction of errors in the article, and to permit clarification of related points. Though we believe the only genuine debate on the science of global warming is that which occurs in the scientific literature, we welcome genuine discussion as both an aid to understanding and a means of correcting our inadvertent errors. To facilitate genuine discussion, we have a zero tolerance approach to trolling and sloganeering.
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Phil at 03:10 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
As for the death penaly analogy why is it that the percentage of people surveyed in, say, the USA, that are proponents of AGW is steadily falling.
I don't know, perhaps there is more mis-information propagated there than before ?
And abolition of the death penalty had no effect on the financial well being of the populace whereas implementing measures to reduce CO2 emissions certainly does.
This wasn't the point, of course. And failing to implement measures to reduce CO2 emissions will also affect the financial well being of the populace.
And if public opinion can be swayed so readily, why is there still no replacement of the Kyoyo Protocol?
I didn't say public opinion could be readily swayed; The TV program I mentioned took a number of people and forced them to confront arguments that they would normally avoid. The participants agreed to stay in meetings and listen to views on both sides that challenged their existing predjudices. They spent a lot of time in careful argument and discussion. That sort of thing certainly doesn't happen down the pub on a Friday night with your mates, nor would you expect someone who thinks like a Daily Mail reader to read the Guardian or vice versa.
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Composer99 at 02:55 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, I just performed a Google search with the term "US polling global warming", and most recent polling I found shows that a majority of Americans accept that global warming is the result of human activities and support action to mitigate it at various levels of government & society (even if they do not report being seriously worried by it at the personal level). Further, to the best of my knowledge, such support has increased over recent years after a period of decline.
So I should like you to please provide a link to a poll that demonstrates your assertion otherwise in @10.
If we are to take seriously the notion that "financial well-being" of the populace is a good reason to avoid or postpone action to mitigate global warming, the fair and accurate thing to do is to compare the financial burdens of mitigation to those of adaptation or suffering - and I would say that, in effect, misinformed, underinformed, or uninformed citizens are failing to do make the appropriate comparison.
So Londoners, for example, have the choice between:
- Paying some extra tax money now (and for over, say, 1-3 decades) while they and the rest of the world's citizens get to work cutting emissions to near-nothing and working out how to suck excess CO2 from the atmosphere, and
- Paying even more extra tax money to continuously upgrade, maintain, and/or repair London's sea wall defences against rising seas for centuries to come (*), or in the absolute worst case abandon London to the ocean. (To say nothing of any other adaptation/suffering costs Londoners will have to pay for.)
If you think otherwise, on what evidentiary basis do you conclude that adaptation/suffering will be easier and cheaper than mitigation?
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(*) Which they are likely committed to doing to some extent, anyway, now that the West Antarctic ice sheet has begun to collapse. -
Ashton at 02:51 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Will thanks for the explanations.
KR absolutely none at all. No, I'd best qualify that in case you might misunderstand. I don't think "97% of climate scientists contrive an environmental crisis"and I do know that it has been stated 97% of climate scientists agree with AGW. I say "has been stated" as I haven't read the relevant papers supporting that claim I am relying on reports in the media that they do. My point is that a comment "that 97% of scientists say this or do that or think the other re climate change" is welcomed by those who disagree with AGW because that statement isn't accurate. Nit picking? If you say so but that reply from will would allow the real nit pickers into the action pointing out that a lot less than 97% of meteorologists and engineers and geologists do not agree with AGW
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Composer99 at 02:20 AM on 8 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
Dr Abraham:
The version of the OP over at The Guardian feels a bit incomplete, as if there were more people whose impressions you had gathered that weren't included, and the impression I have is that there was more to be said about the critical attention Weng et al received, only the post was truncated before you got around to discussing it.
Was that your intent?
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2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton - The fact that people sometimes act in ways that are not in their best interest (smoking, pollution, continued climate change, etc.) does not mean such behavior is exemplary. Or that we shouldn't try to do better.
From your nitpicking in the comment above, would you have issues with a (revised) line such as:
"97% of the world's (climate) scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies (& their lobbyists)."
Because that conspiracy theory really seems to encapsulate much of the current 'skeptic' blog commentary...
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wili at 01:31 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
From the Seven Myths article:
"Myth 5: Climate change is now one of the biggest causes of disasters
Fact: The biggest cause of disasters is vulnerable people and infrastructure in areas exposed to extreme events."
My problem with this is that the latter is always going to be true in pretty much every circumstance. As NYC gets inundated by sea water, you could say, "Oh, that wasn't so much a GW thing; it's just that they didn't have their seawall infrastructure ready." -
wili at 01:29 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, it wasn't composed by me, but yes, it should say climate scientists. On the pedestrian thing, I was agreeing with you, but just finding it sad that this is the level of understanding that is influencing our futures.
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Ashton at 00:53 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
will I think your statement "97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis" should be "97% of the world's climate scientists contrive an environmenta crisisl". It is not true that 97% of the world's scientists are proponents of AGW they are not, the claim is 97% of climate scientists are proponents of AGW which is not the same thing at all. As for the death penaly analogy why is it that the percentage of people surveyed in, say, the USA, that are proponents of AGW is steadily falling. And abolition of the death penalty had no effect on the financial well being of the populace whereas implementing measures to reduce CO2 emissions certainly does. The efforts in Australia to introduce a 'carbon tax" which was actually an ETS, lead to the rapid demise of the government that tried to do so. And if public opinion can be swayed so readily, why is there still no replacement of the Kyoyo Protocol?
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:51 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton,
I agree that the 'pedestrian' excuses for 'dismissing the action that the continuously improved understanding of what is going on requires' does matter.
The ability of callous pursuers of personal benefit, people whose interests are threatened by a requirement to develop a sustainable better future for all, to succeed in maintaining popular disinterest in better understanding what is going on and suceeding in promoting made-up claims to be used as 'pedestrian' excuses is a serious problem.
Humanity has repeatedly failed to keep callous uncaring people from suceeding in their damaging ultimately unsustainable pursuits. The potential popularity of a personal better present from damaging unsustainable activity has always been the barrier to humanity succeeding to develop a sustainable better future. That can change, but a sub-set of the population that is currently very powerful need to be forced to change their rather firmly made-up minds so that they stop trying to create appealing made-up excuses for 'pedestrians'.
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MarkR at 00:07 AM on 8 November 2014Looking after the right forests benefits the climate
There are loads of benefits that rainforests provide, but I didn't want to get bogged down in that discussion with this post.
In principle, REDD+ is about paying for carbon alone, on the basis that this is good climate policy. I think that this is very well-jusified scientifically, and Dr Unger's piece could be interpreted as a claim that it isn't.
In principle, the other wonderful advantages of rainforests, such as biodiversity, providing new chemicals for medicines and stopping precious productive soil from washing away would also be worth paying for. But if I talked about that, then the blog post would have gone on and on!
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wili at 23:23 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Phil, I was thinking of that cartoon, too. There's a lot of good related stuff here: rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_warming_denialism
Including this witticism:
"97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."
—Scott Westerfeld
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CBDunkerson at 22:31 PM on 7 November 2014Ocean acidification isn't serious
dvaytw, 'How did they survive'? The simple answer is... they didn't. One of the primary reasons we know that these changes are going to kill corals (aside from the fact that it is, you know, already happening) is that there were coral die offs from similar events in the past.
It is also important to note that the rate of change is often more important than the absolute value. Changes which occur over the course of thousands of years allow organisms some time to adapt. Those which occur over the course of only centuries or decades generally do not.
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dvaytw at 21:47 PM on 7 November 2014Ocean acidification isn't serious
Here's a very annoying "oh yeah?" question I got about the issue of ocean acidification, warming and corals (and other shelled organisms). The dude basically said, "Oh yeah? Well if these things are so dangerous to corals, how did corals survive earlier periods when the ocean was much warmer and more acidic than it is now?"
Can anyone answer that?Moderator Response:[Rob P] - Sorry, I have written a series of rebuttals on this very topic but need to get our SkS graphics guru to create the animations necessary to convey the essential points.
Firstly, it's the concentration of carbonate ions that is important for shell-building. Tom Curtis is not quite correct about calcium ions. Both are the building blocks of the calcium carbonate structures, but calcium is largely invariant on sub million-year time scales. This is not the case for carbonate. So it's the concentration of carbonate ions that is the issue. A measure of the availability of carbonate/calcium ions is called the calcium carbonate saturation state - aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate) in the case of reef-building coral.
When additional CO2 is added to the atmosphere, more of it dissolves into the surface ocean. One of the reactions that takes place is the conversion of carbonate to bicarbonate when the carbonate ions combines with a hydronium ion. This buffers the decline of pH at the expense of the calcium carbonate saturation state, i.e. pH would fall even further if not for this reaction.
At equilibrium, CO2 is introduced into the atmosphere by volcanic activity and removed by the chemical weathering of rocks. If these two were not in balance, the climate would inexorably drift without any external influence. With geologically-rapid injections of CO2 into the atmosphere, the carbonate system is overwhelmed. The warmer atmosphere brought about by the extra CO2 increases the moisture content of the air and the greater rainfall-induced weathering (and dissolution of carbonate sediments on the ocean floor) flush more carbonates and bicarbonates back into the ocean, thus restoring the saturation state. This process takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years though.
So ocean acidification only occurs with geologically-rapid injections of CO2. With slow increases, or steady states, the weathering response is able to supply alkalinity back to the ocean to compensate for the carbonate ions converted to bicarbonate. Actually, the tendency is for the weathering process to overcompensate - creating an ocean carbonate saturation state that is even more hospitable to calcification than before the acidification event, or slow increase in atmospheric CO2.
With this understanding, the geological record now makes sense. Extinction events, such as the End Permian extinction (where 95% of marine life was extinguished), involved a large and geologically-rapid increase in CO2 and therefore experienced ocean acidification as a kill mechanism. Marine life that were vulnerable due to their carbonate mineralogy were preferentially extinguished. Periods of sustained high atmospheric CO2, on the other hand, did not cause a calcification crisis (although tropical ocean warming was an obstacle) because the carbonate saturation state was much higher than today. A classic example is the Cretaceous (Latin for chalk - as in calcium carbonate shells) Period, named after the prolific shell-formation that accumulated during this interval. Atmospheric CO2 was high and ocean pH was low, but the ocean carbonate saturation state was very high. The ocean back then was therefore very hospitable to calcification.
So it's only rapid CO2 increases that cause ocean acidification. And we just so happen to be increasing Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration faster than it has ever increased in the last 300 million years. Very serious indeed.
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Phil at 20:07 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @4
For your comment on "Summers of old" see this
On your more general point on popular opinion:
Many years ago the UK broadcaster Channel 4 produced a TV program on Capital Punishment. At this time popular opinion was in favour of re-introduction of the death penalty, but politicians were not. The program took a representative sample of people, matching for race, class, general political opinion, and, of course, their view on the death penality. The sample was then exposed to the arguments that the politicians were exposed to; from lawyer,s pressure groups and victims. The result was that the group switched their view to closely match that of the politicians. By becoming better informed, the peoples view better matched the "out of touch" politicians.
This should be obvious, people generally don't like to be confronted by evidence that goes against their pre-determined beliefs; the UK population enjoyed the July sun, but conveniently ignored the January and February floods.
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Ashton at 19:57 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Two points Will. First sorry if my anecdotal report was not what you would have liked to hear but what is, is. Second, as you can see by the lack of response globally on reducing CO2 emissions, "what some pedestrians thought of the weather last Tuesday" matters very much to governments around the world. This is especially so as not being too concerned about climate change or IPCC predictions is "what the majority of pedestrians thought" not only "last Tuesday" but every other day as well. Just ask President Obama.
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wili at 19:15 PM on 7 November 2014Looking after the right forests benefits the climate
More on Africa: Too bad, because particularly in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa there are many areas of high bio-diversity that are in need of preservation.
Preventing the loss of forest there may also have helped prevent (or made less likely) the recent outbreak of Ebola. Deforestation has been tightly linked to deforestation in the region, since the forest animal vectors are more likely to end up where more people are, and so get eaten leading to new outbreaks.
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wili at 19:11 PM on 7 November 2014Looking after the right forests benefits the climate
Many of the darkest green countries with the most forest-saving projects are also places that have some of the highest bio-diversity in the world. Even if GW weren't the global crisis that it is, these would still be vitally important projects to carry out. Too bad there aren't more of them in Africa.
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wili at 19:06 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Good points, OPOF.
Ashton, it's a sad thing if international policy on CC is based on what some pedestrians thought of the weather last Tuesday. -
Ashton at 16:49 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
I've been living in the UK since February and the mood here is that this year's weather has been "like summers of old" and "really good" and "although the winter was wet rather that than cold". Weather forecasters have continually presented warm conditions with plenty of sunshine and the population is generally happy. As for rain although the August was the eigth wettest on record but September was the driest for 100 years. Retailers have been worrying as sales of winter clothing has been well below average It all adds up to giving the denizens of the UK a year that is considered "not too bad at all" and "if this is global warming hope it stays this way". Fron m general conversations I'm not sure that the UK population is as much in tune with the IPCC as the IPCC might like.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:32 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
wili,
The following is a more significant point from the article.
"The Copenhagen Accord, adopted at the 2009 Copenhagen conference of parties to the UNFCCC, explicitly sets 2 degrees Celsius as the threshold number beyond which we would cross over into a danger zone. But it also calls for an "assessment...to be completed by 2015" that would "include consideration" of whether the number should actually be changed to 1.5 degrees. That debate, van Ypersele suggests, may have spilled over into the IPCC process."
Setting the limit of concern back to 1.5 degrees, where it was before Copenhagen, would really highlight how damaging the lack of significant action to reduce impacts since 1993 by the most developed nations, particularly the nations with the highest per-capita impacts at the time has been.
Even pointing out what is now required to meet the 2.0 C limit would allow the math to be done to show how much of the total impacts have already been produced by the most reluctant and irresponsible of the developed nations. And the criticism of those developed nations is worse if their actions to benefit from the burning of fossil fuels in other nations (selling fossil fuels to developing nations or buying products created in developing nations through he burning of fossil fuels), is included as 'their impacts'.
Hence the reason the information could not be agreed to be presented. As mentioned in the article:
"The way the IPCC works is that the scientific texts are written by scientists, but they also have to be approved by governments. Thus scientists can veto inaccuracies, but governments can also prevent the inclusion of certain content. Oppenheimer says the IPCC process is unique in this way, and thinks that the box could have been modified to suit all the parties involved if there had been more time for negotiations. But "in the end, the governments couldn’t reach an agreement," says Oppenheimer, "and time ran out, and the box fell by the wayside.""
I was initially not impressed by the IPCC "Political Minder Process". It results in the reports understating the implications of the best understanding of what was going on. However, the forced understating by the political minders did result in each successive report becoming significantly more "certain and concerning". But, the weakened statements in the earlier reports were the excuse for the most damaging ways of living to not need to be rapidly curtailed until there is more proof of the need to do so.
We are clearly approaching the apex of concern on this significant issue. However, I fear that the increased scale of action because of the continued lack of significant action will be seen as absolutely unacceptable to those who think they can still get away with benefiting a little longer from their irrefutably damaging and unsustainable ways of living. The worst among those type of people continue to succeed at their attempts to keep people less aware and maintaining popular support for the derision and dismissal of information like the IPCC Report content they were unable to keep from being published.
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wili at 12:56 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
If you haven't yet, do read the last story about two crucial pages left out of the IPCC report--basically, they were just too scary.
They mention things like "catastrophic...events" and the immediate need for "rapid and deep emissions cuts."
But we can't have anything approaching the full scary truth leaking out of what's supposed to be a sleepy, conservative, consensus, safe, bureaucratic report, now; can we?
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:33 PM on 7 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
The opening article "Britain had one of warmest and wettest years on record" highlights a pet peeve of mine.
The article repeatedly refers to data so far from January to October which is only 10 months, so not 'a year' as the headline states. However, there really is no need to say things like 'so far this year'. Any set of 12 months is a 'full year'. A presentation of the results from November 2013 to October 2014 is also the results of a 'Year'. And any set of 120 consecutive months is a decade.
Using the NASA/GISS data set the current 12 month average ending in September is 0.64 C. That is warmer than the warmest 12 month value that ocurred during the unusually strong ENSO event of 1997/98 (which was 0.61 C), and the current conditions have been ENSO neutral. Also, the current average for 120 months ending in October 2014 is 0.58 C which is significantly warmer than the average of 120 months ending on Dec 1998 which was only 0.30 C.
It is not necessary to wait for the end of this year, or the end of the current decade, to point out that significant annual or decade scale changes are continuing to occur. In fact, when reviewing averages of 30 years of data there has been no significant reduction of the rate of warming. The average of 360 months ending in October 2014 is 0.16 C warmer than the average of 360 months ending in October 2004.
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SteveS at 12:19 PM on 7 November 2014Upcoming MOOC makes sense of climate science denial
Not to be pedantic or anything, but at least on my browser (Safari, but Firefox shows this as well), the box in the upper right part of the page spells "enroll" with only 1 l.
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Ken in Oz at 10:16 AM on 7 November 2014Republican politicians aren't climate scientists or responsible leaders
The post's subject was the avoidance of clarity - with strong suggestions of rejection of climate science - by leading US politicians - and their apparent unwillingness to be upfront and forthcoming; it was not my intent to take the discussion into forbidden territory.
Since my last comment the Republicans have gained control of the US Senate and their most prominent climate science denier - Jim Inhofe - is being suggested as the likely next chairman of the senate environment and public works committee. I don't know to what extent the Republican party position is that of open and clear rejection of climate science or to what extent it is suggested and implied but less openly stated. It seems that appointments such as this - presuming it goes ahead - can only really occur if based on outright rejection of expert advice by Republican party leadership. I haven't seen indications of strong commitment to climate action from US Republicans - that may be an artifact of not being deeply immersed in US politics but it does look to have parallels with conservative climate politics in Australia.
Climate science denial and obstructionism by leaders holding positions of trust and responsibility give rejection of climate science a stamp of respectibility and credibility by their tolerance for it, even when they don't openly state the more extremist views such as Inhofe's themselves. I think it is the essential ingredient in ongoing failures to face the climate problem head on - more so in my opinion than any failures of scientists to communicate clearly - or of technological capabilities to address the problem.
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Tom Curtis at 07:41 AM on 7 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald @47:
1) In the case of the Irish Potato Famine, while corn laws were a government intervention that did not help, the fact is that Irish rents were sufficiently high that those suffering in the famine would have been unable to pay for grain at any price. The rents were set by private market mechanisms and hence the Irish Potato Famine constitutes a market failure. A similar point can be made in Ethiopia in which the government intervention determined that the starvation would occur in the country rather than the cities, but no whether or not starvation would occur.
2)
"The best interest is in fact a "percieved" best interest. However this is still in the best interest of the individual no matter how much they don't know. What they don't know is irrelevent since they don't know it, and thus they will not be able to adjust their decision."
I need to frame that in all its absurdity as an example of just how silly market fundamentalism is.
With similar illogic we can argue that all car accidents are in the "best interests" of their victims who do not percieve themselves as driving too fast, or too tired, or too drunk - else they would not choose to drive. We could likewise argue that there is no such thing as economic fraud, for anybody buying the Brooklyn Bridge (to use the classic example) is acting in their best percieved interest at the time, and hence, by your argument, in their best interest. And if they act in their best interest, they cannot have been harmed.
The fact is, people can act in their own worst interests. They can do so both from not recognizing where their own best interest lies (ie, doing something that they achieve and then regret that they achieved it), or by not recognizing the costs of their acts (ie, doing something and achieving their end, but regret the circumstances in which it is achieved), or by doing something and failing to achieve that which made it worth doing.
3) Why do I think economic growth could reverse with sufficient warming? Well, first, given 10 to 15 C warming, the Earth becomes literally uninhabitable for large mammals (including humans) except at the extreme poles. That is not consistent with economic growth. Ergo, for sufficient warming economic growth must reverse. The question is only how much warming is necessary for that. High end temperature projections for the end of this century approach +7 C so they are in the range of potential, but not certain, reversal of economic growth.
Your claim of uninterupted economic growth is certainly untrue of civilization wide measures. A variety of civilizations have had sustained periods of negative economic growth, in some cases ending the existence of the civilizations. With a truly global civilization developed for the first time in the twentieth century, we now have the possibility of a global reversal in economic growth (if we accept you unsupported claim that it has never occurred before).
4)
"To assume there will not be a market response in the face of an ecological disaster is just a weak position to hold."
On the contrary, I assume that there will be a market response to impacts of global warming. That market response will be, as you yourself say, to leave the poor to their tragedy; to assume that the poor can just migrate to solve the problem while all nations of the world have enacted legislation to prevent that migration (including, most importantly for Bangladesh, India, its only land neighbour), and to assume that, due to market fundamentalism, the poor will not be worse of because they can choose the best option in their worsening condition (as if a person with gangrene in the leg will not be worse of because they can always choose an amputation).
5)
"When I stated that "they offer the wrong solutions" at the end I was referring to interfeering with the natural market."
There are no natural markets. Never have been, and never will be. Currently national markets are (universally SKAIK) distorted by laws permiting limited liability, preferred creditors, the existence of non-natural entities able to own property (corporations), and a legislated annual devaluation of wages and savings (mandatory inflation regulated by central banks). These all work in favour of the rich at the expense of the poor and are government interferences with the market. We also have government provided roads using mandatory acquisition of land to do so, along with various other mandatory "rights" of providers of communication services that allow the providors of those services to gain the necessary right of ways at below market value. We further have courts to enforce legal rights where the prospect of success is a direct function of fees paid to lawyers (which establishes them to be systematically unjust, and unjust in a way that favours the wealthy).
International markets are further distorted by laws that place no limit on the movement of capital, but strictly constrain the movement of people (thereby giving the possessors of capital far more flexibility than those who make a living by selling their labour, to the benefit of the former).
Finally, the fundamental notion of markets (property rights) are socially defined constructs, and in most of the world, socially defined constructs that freeze as legitimate prior acquisitions by naked force (as, for example, all land held other than by indigenous people in North America, or Australia).
I am disinclined to take market fundamentalists seriously until the spend as much time attacking the above listed distortions of the market as they do attacking any that serve to ensure the net gains of the economy are fairly distributed. Until they do, they merely demonstrate that their "market fundamentalism" is an inconsistently applied, and self serving ideology. It is a gambit to improve their position, not a serious belief.
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scaddenp at 06:49 AM on 7 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Tristran - I agree with you as to definition of troll, but I also think there are discussions that are not worth having on this site. Sks exists to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming. There are plenty of other sites in which to have unscientific arguments.
The primary problem is that there is no point having a discussion about the science with someone who chooses to be informed by an ideological position rather than data. The old saying that "you can't reason a person out of position that they werent reasoned into in the first place".
It is the nature of the human condition to try and warp reality to fit our cherished preconceptions and noone is immune. What science training should do is imbue the discipline of letting data change our mind. And that t'aint easy. A scientific discussion necessarily is informed by data and citation is a tool for referencing both data and evaluating it. That is why it is preferred here.
The commonest kind of "pseudo-skeptic" we get here is someone who for ideological or group identity reasons is repelled by suggested solutions to AGW. Instead of suggesting alternative solutions that are compatible with their world view, they instead pursue one or all the canon "It's not happening; It's not us; It's not bad". Understandable but illogical. If no data will cause them to change their mind, then a discussion is not worth happening.
For better or worse, Grizwald57 comes across as someone wedded to an extreme form of free market ideology who I suspect would might even take issue with Milton Friedman on market failures and externalities. I'm also inclined to agree with Dikran that his responses are laughable but whether that is delibrate provation (which would be trolling) or ideological blindness is less clear.
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CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 - Unfortunately, some government action will have to be employed due to fossil fuel externalities not being carried by the emitters, but rather paid in a diffuse and unattributed fashion by the population as a whole - the Tragedy of the Commons. It's less expensive to be a polluter if you can just dump the pollutants into a stream or a landfill, and we have long established regulations to prevent common waters from becoming sewers. The same needs to be applied to fossil fuels, accounting for external impacts such as health, agriculture, oh, and climate change.
If these costs are accounted for then renewables are the most economical source of energy right now. But that will take some regulations and very likely something like a carbon tax so that the actual costs of using fossil fuels are tied to their use, rather than being dumped on everyone else.
As to the poor, and your original comments: the poor, the Third World countries, will have disproportionate impacts from climate change, far out of balance from their contribution to it (as they use less fossil fuel per capita). Yes, anyone can adapt to some extent. But the costs to the disadvantaged will be much higher in both relative and absolute terms, and that is a harm. Which becomes not just an economic issue, but a social and moral one - is it right to profit from short term fossil fuel monies while the costs of those profits fall upon others?
Overcoming individual profit and yes greed requires social structures and strictures such as regulations. The unlimited free market just doesn't do those.
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Tristan at 23:04 PM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
A troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the [i]deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion[/i].
A person who is not good at expressing their views is not a troll. A person who gish gallops is not a troll. A person who dodges questions is not a troll. They might be irritating for you deal with, they might be ideologues, they might even be idiots, but I see DNFTT far too often on this site. It's a dismissive line. It's dismissive of people who don't necessarily agree with you or argue in a 'scientific' manner (that is, calmly making falsifiable statements with citations).
Grizwald is attempting to discuss the subject. He just isn't doing so in the way people here prefer to discuss a topic. Climate communication, any communication, requires patience. Superciliousness is not going to further the conversation. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:35 PM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald wrote "I will not state my position."
this is more or less an admission of trolling. In a rational discussion intended to establish the truth it ought to be a given that the participants will be willing to state their position on request (indeed they ought to be keen to state it up front). However in discussions on climate this tends not to be the case as people don't want to give hostages to fortune and be required to justify their position later. Shame on you.
As to the other issues, your main error is to concentrate on the number of people in poverty in a given country. However the climate is utterly oblivious to national boundaries, and a countries ability to deal with climate change depends on the proportion of the population in poverty, not the number. Those in poverty do not have the resources to reliably meet their immediate needs, so it is absurd to expect them to provide the resources required for adaption, the resources have to be provided for everybody in that nation by the part of the population that can actually afford it. China has a lot of people earning under $2 (18.6%) but their GDP per capita is $11,868, which suggests there is a good deal of wealth in the 81.4% that are not in poverty who can look after those that are. Nigeria on the other hand has a GDP per capita of less than half that and 82.2% living on less than $2 a day. China has a much larger number of people in poverty than Nigeria, but the reason it has some resources to adapt is that it has an even larger number that are not in poverty. The same is not true for Nigeria.
"The people of Bangladesh would then have to address this constant flooding issue by either running from the tidal wave (the natural human reaction) or somehow economically prevent the flooding (perhaps by somesortof off-shore engineering). To assume there will not be a market response in the face of an ecological disaster is just a weak position to hold. "
This is just silly. Bangladesh has the fifth highest population density of any country and the worlds eighth most populous. There isn't anywhere for them to run to that is agriculturally viable. The only place they could go would be mass migration to othe countries. If you think that wouldn't cause huge political, social and economic problems, then you are on another planet. The idea that some sort of offshore engineering is going to solve the problem is really daft and shows huge igorance of its geography. Bangladesh is basically one big river delta, you have huge amounts of water arriving from inland as well and coming in from rising tides. As for market response, 76.54% of the Bangladeshi population live below the poverty line ($2 a day). They don't have the funds to spend in the market on anything other than their essential daily needs. The GDP per capita of Bangladesh is ranked 144 out of 187 nations by the IMF, so expecting a market response is, to say the least, highly optimistic!
My recommendation is DNFTT, Grizwald is clearly just trolling, as the reticence to state his position and ridiculous arguments clearly demonstrate.
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scaddenp at 18:05 PM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 - what you are saying only applies to rich countries. The poor in rich countries may not be suffering but that doesnt apply in Third World - where there are real poor. A farmer in Bangladesh keeps investing in planting his crops because he doesnt have other choices. Well, yes, when starvation is imminant because land is lost, then you must leave, but the result is probably the same for most. The poor on the whole dont have choices.
All the actual studies show that mitigation is cheaper, but the costs are in future and/or inflicted on those who are not responsible. If you having to pay now the costs of climate change, then transition from FF would be happening rather quickly.
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Grizwald57 at 16:51 PM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I'm sorry for reposting that. It was my mistake.
Tom Curtis...
Even if I do ignore geographic impact factors, the poor are still going to be able to adapt. Just because there is a wealth inequality does not mean the poor are unable to adapt. It is true that the rich will be more able to adapt but this is true for all circumstances. The rich being more well off than the poor is just a fact of life. But this is not an inherently bad thing. The key thing you said was "as much." As much, is still implying a level of adaptation. I don't have as much food as a millionaire does, but I'm not suffering. When I worked at a fast food restaurant making minimum wage I was not suffering. Just because a person must adapt to a changing environment does not mean they will suffer. If I am a farmer, and for the past 10 years I've noticed decreasing crop yields, I can either continue farming the land knowing eventually I will be unable to produce any crops, invest in better farming techniques, or sell my land for a cheaper price. But the only way I could end up suffering in this situation is if I chose the option which gave me the least percieved benefits which I won't logically do. That is the ONLY way I could end up suffering. Logically, no one would ever choose the option which gave the least benefits.
Now, if mitigation costs less than adaptation, then either presently or in the near future we should see more private investments into environmental sustainability. If there are net gains to be made from renewble energy (which I suspect in the coming decades), then transitions will be made.
Moderator Response:[RH] I would challenge you to go talk to these people and tell them there is "nothing inherently bad" about their situation. http://climateandcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/08/Bangladesh-floods.jpg (Note: I had to check myself a little by not selecting one of the far worse images of people's situations in Bangladesh.)
[RH] Also, please, no all-caps, as per comments policy.
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TonyW at 15:00 PM on 6 November 2014Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
This is a bit late but I think this article needs serious re-editing. It correctly quotes a paper by Hansen, et al with "the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years" but later goes on the say "With 40 years between cause and effect" and this is reflected in the title. I'm not referring to the rounding to 40 years but to the implication that any CO2 that lodges in the atmosphere won't warm the surface at all for 40 years (or whatever the actual period is). This is surely incorrect. The CO2 has well known heat trapping properties, which are not put into abeyance for some decades. The lag is not a lag at all, it is simply that 60% of the ultimate effect takes some decades to become manifest. But some smaller percentage becomes manifest in a smaller time. Indeed, the CO2 begins trapping heat immediately.
Hansen et al (2011) ("Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implications") includes a graphic representation of the climate response to a doubling of CO2 (though I can't see why a similar response curve wouldn't apply to any increase in CO2 forcing). It shows a very rapid response to the forcing, reaching 60% in about something less than half a century, as far as I can tell, but 40% effect is reached within a few years.
So there is no lag at all; it's simply that it takes perhaps 40 years or so for most of the ulitimate effect to be felt.
muoncounter got it about right in an earlier comment but this didn't result in any editing of the article.
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wili at 14:07 PM on 6 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45A
Thanks, Ash and dag. In the big perspective, if either of the major parties win, we all lose, as they're both ultimately in the System and part of the problem. But it is rather sad to see the worst of two Weavels again get the upper hand...again.
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scaddenp at 13:49 PM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
" The people of Bangladesh would then have to address this constant flooding issue by either running from the tidal wave (the natural human reaction) or somehow economically prevent the flooding (perhaps by somesortof off-shore engineering)."
So I gather you are perfectly happy with one lot of people reaping the benefits while another pay the costs? Do you seriously expect that view to be respected? Or since AGW is caused by rich nations, are suggesting that the rich nations should pay for the Bangladesh (and every other delta) coastal defense? If your neighbours action caused you to lose you land, then I strongly suspect you would run to court of law. Same here?
And where would expect the Bangladeshi to run to? Are you suggesting the rich countries should take the refugees from the climate problems they have caused?
The problem with the "natural market" is that the externalities are not being factored into the price, and those affected most have no recourse against those doing the damage. Change that and carbon-based energy becomes expense.
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nigelj at 13:42 PM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Michael Sweet #10.
Totally agree. I have seen Gavins comments on those isues. Unfortunatly the mainstream media (newspapers etc) often ignore good scepticism like that, and often give vent to the extremists like Christopher Moncton.
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CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 - All economic decisions have both costs and benefits. In this particular situation the choice lies somewhere in a mix of mitigation choices and forced adaptations to the consequences of our emissions.
The majority of the studies I've seen on relative cost/benefits indicate that adaptation will cost between 5-10X more than mitigation (including transitioning away from fossil fuels). In fact, much as transitioning from horses to autos led to major economic gains, there are strong indications that the transition to renewables will also lead to net economic gains. While there are a few exceptions to this, they include primarily conomists with unsupportable assumptions and some who assert that we will simply invent our way out of trouble - even though you cannot schedule inventions...
Note that many adaptation costs will be fixed - salt encroachment into farmlands doesn't differentiate based on local incomes, and the poor will not be able to afford as much adaptation as the rich. The poor will indeed suffer more from adaptation than the rich, even if you ignore the geographic impact factors.
BAU is, in fact, the more expensive path to take.
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Stranger8170 at 12:25 PM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
As a constant Skeptical Science lurker I’ve only made a couple of posts since the inception of this blog. I’ve read a lot on the subject at other venues as well.
Over the years that I’ve been paying attention I’ve come to realize that the science in support of the theory of AGW is being researched by Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Every prestigious scientific society along with every prestigious peer reviewed journal say that man is the main driver of climate change.
From my reading of the issue over the past 15 years or so it seems that those researchers and fake experts who are “skeptical” all seem to have one thing in common. They’re all Republican libertarian types which makes it seem evident that their political ideology rises to a much higher level than the science. Perhaps there is an exception that proves the rule but I’m not aware of it. John Coleman and those in leage with him might contemplate that when you believe the world is all wrong and that your all right that perhaps some interspection should be undertaken.
It’s just a nonscientist’s opinion. -
Grizwald57 at 11:26 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Tom Curtis...
How quaint. You rail on the market for apparently not being efficient enough to provide the best interest of the poor. And your examples of this are both in which government action cripled market adjustment and, in the case of Ethiopia, worsened a market bust.
But thank you for qualifying my claims. The best interest is in fact a "percieved" best interest. However this is still in the best interest of the individual no matter how much they don't know. What they don't know is irrelevent since they don't know it, and thus they will not be able to adjust their decision.
As for the IAM's, you've stated that economic stability would be hurt by rising temperatures but you have not explained why. "economic growth will be a thing of the past" is just false. If you take the economy worldwide for all of recorded history it has seen nothing but economic growth, and it has over time accelerated. What is your argument for this assertion?
As for my apparent contradiction, your simply viewing it incorrectly. If the people of Bangladesh are constantly flooded then the wealthy will not invest any capital into Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh would then have to address this constant flooding issue by either running from the tidal wave (the natural human reaction) or somehow economically prevent the flooding (perhaps by somesortof off-shore engineering). To assume there will not be a market response in the face of an ecological disaster is just a weak position to hold.
"Historically, the higher the infant mortality rate, the larger the family size people try to maintain. Consequently you have this argument exactly reversed." Well I guess the logical conclusion people would naturally come to is wrong... that if you plan on raising a child for the next say 16 years, if you cannot feed that child then it is a misallocation of resources. That is if the chance of your child dieing is about 70% that is equivalent to a great deal of time, energy, and food being waisted. But I will refrain (and I ask you to as well please) to continue arguing this particular issue because it is unrelated.
When I stated that "they offer the wrong solutions" at the end I was referring to interfeering with the natural market. If AGW is in fact a dire threat to civilization then please by all means continue to support the movement to go green. But please do not use immoral means to achieve your end. That is do not run around the globe with a gun forcibly preventing anyone from using carbon.
Moderator Response:[RH] Please watch the tone. And please read the comments policy before making further comments.
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michael sweet at 11:08 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Science has good skeptics. Gavin Schmidt ar Real Climate argued against a collapse of Arctic Sea ice in 2012 based on his model results. His skepticism is looking much better now than it did in 2012. He argues strongly that the "methane bomb" hypothesis of a catastrophic release of Arctic sea and/or land methane is unlikely to occur. These arguments help to advance understanding. Hopefully he is right on both counts. Other scientists are equally skeptical. The people who call themselves skeptics are really not skeptical. They believe anything but CO2.
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Tom Curtis at 09:55 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Griszwald57 @42:
"The main argument people use in support of limiting population growth is that we will not be able to feed everyone and people will die off. As if in the future we will have hundreds of babies and 90% will die off. Yet this argument fails because it assumes people will continue having babies with a 90% mortality rate."
Historically, the higher the infant mortality rate, the larger the family size people try to maintain. Consequently you have this argument exactly reversed. The best hope of reducing population growth is to raise wealth and health resources among the very poor sufficient that they then have smaller families. (This works best if they do not have religious bars against restricting familly size.) Of course, failing this population growth will be reduced by other, more tragic means in the future.
"Industrial use of carbon on a global scale has increased the standard of living tremendously. In fact, by my guess, its probably saved billions of lives. To turn back on this progrss, and regress, would be to condemn millions to starvation and death. Advocates of cutting back carbon emissions because of AGW bring up alot of fears about the future, yet they offer the wrong solutions."
The premise is correct. The conclusion does not follow.
For an analogy, the introduction of plumbing into cities saved thousands of lives. Unfortunately, the early plumbing (in Europe at least), was made from lead, leading to wide spread lead poisoning. It did not follow from the fact that the plumbing had saved lives to begin with that the switch from lead to copper plumbing was not a good move. In like manner, a switch from fossil fuel to renewable energy resources is justified by the threat of AGW even though the initial use of fossil fuels was a good thing.
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Tom Curtis at 09:46 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
scaddenp @43, in a way that point of Grizwald57 is correct. It is also misleading. The growth of income of the wealthy is partly coupled to the overall growth in the economy. If the people of Bangladesh are flooded continually, then the growth of income of the wealthy will be reduced by something in the order of the reduction of wealth in Bangladesh times the proportion of global wealth in Bangladesh (ie, well below rounding error of other effects). As impacts of global warming increase, the wealthy will only be able to continue to get rich by retaining a larger proportion of global wealth (which can be done in the short term).
Of course, that logic contradicts Grizwald's later claim that AGW at most can limit economic growth (an unrealistic assumption built into IAMs, not a conclusion from them).
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Tom Curtis at 09:39 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 @42, spoken with the true calousness of the fanatical market enthusiast.
Thus we have:
"Either humans change or they die off. As AGW impacts the environment, individual human responses to it will vary, but no matter what, each response will be in the best interest of each human."
Which is false. What you meant to say was that "each response will be in the best interest of each human given their marketable economic resources", at least if you are going to represent economic theory accurately. In 1983-85 in Ethiopia, what was in "the best interest of" 400,000 humans "given their marketable economic resources" was to die from starvation.
Now unless you are so truly divorced from reality as to think dieing from starvation is in anybody's best interest, you need to recognize that markets fail. They particularly fail for the poor, whose limited market resources leave them vulnerable to the whims of the wealthy (as for example, in the great Irish potato famine in which thousands starved to death while abundant Irish wheat crops were sold to England for English bread).
Even thus corrected for reality, the claim would still be wrong. It reqires the further correction that "each response will be in the percieved best interest of each human given their marketable economic resources". Given inperfect human knowledge, misperceptions of the best self interest are common, and actively promoted by the advertizing industry (whose real economic task is to destroy utility).
The best available evidence suggests that not curtailing GHG emissions is an example of such misperception. That is, all current Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) show real future economic growth is best achieved by limiting carbon equivalent emissions. That includes those IAMs with a very high discount for the future, and which rate welfare based on current wealth distributions (ie, consider the suffering of the poor less important the the restricted growth of wealth of the rich).
A fatal flaw of those IAMs is that they isolated economic growth from impacts of CO2. That is, they assume the same base economic growth rate regardless of temperature increase. As economic impacts approach, and exceed growth rates at higher temperatures, that is a thoroughly unjustified assumption and there is a real possibility that by the end of this century, economic growth will be a thing of the past. The assumption (and that is all it is) that "The only real impact it would have is to limit the growth of our standard of living" is not justified, and allmost certainly false if high end projections of temperature increase by the end of this century are realized (or if high end projections of economic impacts are realized with central estimates of temperature increase).
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scaddenp at 09:32 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
"If the standard of living for the poor is worsened by AGW, then consquentially the standard of living for the rich will also be worsened because of AGW. "
I am not sure I follow this. This surely only applies when there is close economic connection.
A realistic scenario is for sealevel rise to significantly worsen conditions in densely populated deltas with largely poor farmers, eg Bangladesh. Salt contamination, land loss, storm surges will likely result in deaths, loss of livelihood and inland migration with resulting heightened communal tensions. These impacts I note to people who contribute next to nothing to AGW and who lives have certainly not be enriched by FF in any significant way that I am aware of.
I dont see how the effects on these people will have any significant economic impact on rich European or Americans who contribute the most to AGW and who have the means to decarbonize their energy supplies. Tell me how decarbonizing these economies is going to "to condemn millions to starvation and death"?
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nigelj at 09:26 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Michael Sweet #2.
"Can you suggest a skeptical argument that is not a poor argument?"
To be honest, no. However I was just not wanting to put down all sceptics, and come across as one sided. Obviously science needs good scepticism.
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Grizwald57 at 09:13 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
KR...
This report states the threats and impacts but fails to acknowledge human adaptations in the face of these impacts. Rather it's solution is to use the hand of government to enforce unnatural market adaptations. Historically, there has always been a human response to environmental change. Either humans change or they die off. As AGW impacts the environment, individual human responses to it will vary, but no matter what, each response will be in the best interest of each human.
Furthermore, regarding the impact upon poverty, it is false to state that one economic class will be more impacted than a higher economic class. If you lower the standard of living for one economic class it will impact the standard of living for another economic class. You must look at the average standard of living for all economic classes together. If the standard of living for the poor is worsened by AGW, then consquentially the standard of living for the rich will also be worsened because of AGW.
Finally, I want to address the assumption, it seems, that AGW will create a decline in the standard of living for all of humanity worldwide. The only real impact it would have is to limit the growth of our standard of living. What I mean by this is as AGW continues to impact the world, the market response to it will reach a limit, inhibiting further growth. But the standard of living will not fall, rather it will reach a limit.
Alot of this argument made by climate scientists and advocates of public policy changes seems to be in parallel with the same argument about population growth. The main argument people use in support of limiting population growth is that we will not be able to feed everyone and people will die off. As if in the future we will have hundreds of babies and 90% will die off. Yet this argument fails because it assumes people will continue having babies with a 90% mortality rate.
Industrial use of carbon on a global scale has increased the standard of living tremendously. In fact, by my guess, its probably saved billions of lives. To turn back on this progrss, and regress, would be to condemn millions to starvation and death. Advocates of cutting back carbon emissions because of AGW bring up alot of fears about the future, yet they offer the wrong solutions.
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Newbie43 at 06:19 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 lags temperature
Link to "Lorius 1990" seems broken:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_etal.pdfIs this the one that is intended?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_etal_1.pdf
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