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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments matching the search roger cohen:

GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?

RedBaron at 11:41 AM on 30 September, 2016

@scaddenp,

On another thread you said, "If you can see an effective solution to mitigation of CO2 that the libertarians can live with, then please share in detail on this thread. Fresh ideas are extremely welcome."

That's actually pretty easy. There are right wing Libertain Christians (probably right wing Libertarian athiests too) mitigating AGW in their own small way already. Yes that's right, right wing Libertarian free market capitalists making 6 and 7 figure income annually and mitigating AGW all at the same time.

Don't be confused by the current crop of neo-conservatives currently in power in the US. They are not even conservatives really, just refugees from the left wing. They believe in high taxation and big government every bit as much as the most left wing liberal socialist.

A substantial number of neoconservatives were originally moderate socialists associated with the right-wing of the Socialist Party of America (SP), and its successor, Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA).
Neoconservatism ... originated in the 1970s as a movement of anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in the tradition of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and Henry ('Scoop') Jackson, many of whom preferred to call themselves 'paleoliberals.' [After the end of the Cold War] ... many 'paleoliberals' drifted back to the Democratic center ... Today's neocons are a shrunken remnant of the original broad neocon coalition. Nevertheless, the origins of their ideology on the left are still apparent. The fact that most of the younger neocons were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older ex-leftists.
Notable people associated with neoconservatism
The list includes public people identified as personally neoconservative at an important time or a high official with numerous neoconservative advisers, such as George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.
Politicians
George W. Bush announces his $74.7 billion wartime supplemental budget request as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz look on.
Jeb Bush (R) – 43rd Governor of Florida (1999–2007) and 2016 presidential candidate[122]
Newt Gingrich (R) – Representative from Georgia's 6th congressional district (1979–99), Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995–99) and 2012 presidential candidate[123]
Lindsey Graham (R) – Representative from South Carolina (1995–2003), Senator (2003–present) and 2016 presidential candidate[124]
Peter T. King (R) – Representative from New York's 3rd congressional district (1993–2013) and New York's 2nd congressional district (2013–present)[125]
Jon Kyl (R) – Representative from Arizona (1987–95), U.S. Senator (1995–2013) and House Minority Whip (2007–13)[126]
Joe Lieberman (I) – 21st Attorney General of Connecticut (1983–89), Senator from Connecticut (1989–2013) and 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee[127]
John McCain (R) – Representative from Arizona (1983–87), Senator (1987–present) and 2008 Republican presidential nominee[128]
Tim Pawlenty (R) – 39th Governor of Minnesota (2003–11) and 2012 presidential candidate[129]
Mike Rogers (R) – U.S. Representative from Michigan's 8th congressional district (2001–15)[130]
Mitt Romney (R) – 70th Governor of (2003–07), 2008 presidential candidate and 2012 Republican presidential nominee[131][132][133]
Jim Talent (R) – Representative from Missouri (1993–2001) and Senator (2002–07)[134]

Government officials

Elliot Abrams (R) – Foreign policy adviser.[135]
William Bennett (R) – Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1981–85), Director of the National Drug Control Policy (1989–90) and U.S. Secretary of Education (1985–88)[136]
William G. Boykin – Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Eliot A. Cohen – U.S. State Department Counselor (2007–09), now Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University.[137]
Jeane Kirkpatrick (R) – Ambassador to the United Nations[138]
Scooter Libby (R) – Chief–of–Staff to Dick Cheney[139]
Victoria Nuland – Assistant Secretary of State, foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.[140]
Richard Perle (R) – Assistant Secretary of Defense and lobbyist.[141]
Karl Rove (R) – Senior Advisor to the President of the United States (2001–07) and White House Deputy Chief of Staff (2005–07)[142]
Paul Wolfowitz (R) – State and Defense Department official[143]
R. James Woolsey Jr. (D) – 16th Director of Central Intelligence, Under Secretary of the Navy and green energy lobbyist[1]

So what does a true conservative, who also happens to be a Libertarian, mitigating AGW at a tidy profit in a free market look like?

Meet the Farmer

Be sure and watch all three episode of Meet the Farmer. A lot of what he talks about are related to food security and government regulations, but interspersed between stories of his battles with the government are a few references to the carbon footprint of his farm. And if you know what to look for, you can actually see causation as to why a system that wasn't necessarily developed for AGW mitigation, actually does mitigate AGW through biological carbon capture and storage (BCCS) and reduced emissions. See if you can spot this evidence.

Hurricane Sandy and the Climate Connection

Albatross at 07:55 AM on 2 November, 2012

Wow, that WSJ opinion piece by Pielke Jr. is quite the exercise in cherry picking and spin, not to mention ignoring inconvenient facts.

But I suppose one should not expect much from an opinion piece in the opinion pages of the WSJ, the same section that people like Lindzen and deniers have used to spread their ideology and pseudo-science. Roger Pielke Jr. is now playing the same game as the other contrarians and obfuscators and delayers who have exploited the very same opinion pages of the WSJ-- a paper that sadly seems only too happy to uncritically promulgate misinformation.

Ultimately it boils down to this, Roger Pielke Jr. is entitled to his misguided opinions, but he is not entitled to his own facts. In this case, as in many others, the facts do not agree with his (overvalued) opinion.

Nordhaus Sets the Record Straight - Climate Mitigation Saves Money

Peter Lang at 09:23 AM on 1 June, 2012

dana1981 - my apologies; my second link should have pointed readers to:
the two comments on 4 May. Below is an expanded version.

Benefit to cost ratio of the Australian CO2 pricing scheme to 2050

In an interesting exchange between Roger W. Cohen, William Happer and Richard Lindzen, and reply by William D. Nordhaus on “The New York Review of Books” here Professor William Nordhaus (hereafter WN) said:

“The final part of the response of CHL comes back to the economics of climate change and public policy. They make two major points: that the difference between acting now and doing nothing for fifty years is “insignificant economically or climatologically,” and that the policy questions are dominated by major uncertainties.

Is the difference between acting now and waiting fifty years indeed “insignificant economically”? Given the importance attached to this question, I recalculated this figure using the latest published model. When put in 2012 prices, the loss is calculated as $3.5 trillion, and the spreadsheet is available on the Web for those who would like to check the calculations themselves. If, indeed, the climate skeptics think this is an insignificant number, they should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.”

Particularly note this bit:

When put in 2012 prices, the loss is calculated as $3.5 trillion, …. If, indeed, the climate skeptics think this is an insignificant number, they should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.

I am surprised that WN says the $3.5 trillion is a significant number, given that it is cumulative to 2050 and is for the whole world. I am also surprised that WN says skeptics “should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.” I consider the Australian situation and calculate the costs to achieve the Australian share of the $3.5 trillion reduction in climate damages would be around nine times greater than Australia’s share of the estimated $3.5 trillion saving. Here is how I did my calculations.

I converted the estimated $3.5 trillion world damages avoided to the Australian proportion on the basis of Australia’s share of world GDP, i.e. 1.17%. So Australia’s share of damages avoided is 1.17% x $3.5 trillion = $41 billion. That is the cumulative damages avoided by Australia to 2050. It assumes an optimal CO2 price, the whole world implements the CO2 price in unison, and an economically efficient system is implemented across the whole world. It also assumes Australia’s share of world GDP remains constant.

The Australian Treasury estimated the loss of GDP that our legislated CO2 tax and ETS will cause. [ However, it seems they may have underestimated because they, apparently, have not estimated the compliance cost]. The cumulative loss of GDP to 2050 is $1,345 billion (undiscounted) (Chart 5:13), or $390 billion discounted at 4.34%, which I believe is the discount rate that is the default in RICE (2012) and gives the value of $3.5 trillion quoted by WN.

If my calculations are correct, the benefit, to Australia, of the optimum CO2 tax rate (if the world implements an economically efficient CO2 pricing scheme in unison) would be $41 billion and the cost (reduced GDP) would be $390 billion. Therefore, the benefit to cost ratio is 0.11. [benefit/cost should be greater than 1 for the policy to be justified] .

Therefore, I do not understand WN’s statement that “[sceptics] should not object to spending much smaller sums for slowing climate change starting now.” My calculations suggest we would spend nine times greater sums, not smaller sums, to achieve the benefits estimated by WN.

Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science

shoyemore at 04:29 AM on 8 May, 2012

Incidentally, Professors Lindzen and Happer, plus Roger Cohen (formerly of Exxon) have responded in the letters section of the May 9th New York Review of Books to Yale Professor William Nordhaus' critique of the op-ed "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" by the group known as the Wall Street Journal 16

Their response to Nordhaus is basically a scatter gun (or Gish gallop, if you prefer!) with not much science. The most scientific parts are general attacks on climate models for not including all sources of variability, and for including aerosols as a "fudge factor" only. Perhaps a future post could cover this?

Professor Nordhaus' reply is shorter, clearer and more effective, IMHO.

In the Climate Casino

SkS covered Nordhaus' original article here:

Nordhaus sets the Record Straight

Arctic Ice March 2011

Gilles at 03:19 AM on 9 April, 2011

198: Albatross "That quote @197 was made 11 years ago. The AO has been reproduced in models for some time,"

Here is a more recent reference

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2011/02/dont_blame_the_arctic_oscillat.html

"Scientists are trying to better understand the complicated processes that create these unusual, long-lasting flow geometries, otherwise known as AO phases.

Some believe that the forcing comes from tropical weather phenomena, like El Nino or the Madden-Julian Oscillation. Matt Rogers' recently wrote about a mechanism proposed by researcher Judah Cohen linked to fall snow cover over Siberia. Andrew Freedman has written about possible connections to Arctic ice extent and global warming. Others believe the cause can be linked to the natural life cycle of really big storm systems, such as the blizzard that parts of the Northeast experienced the day after Christmas. Maybe it's all of them and while it is true that the AO index is a very useful statistical concept that gives a name to uncommon weather regimes, it does not explain how or why we get them."

This is obviously not a well understood phenomenon. Again, claiming that "I see it in my computations" is very far from a real physical understanding - I'm surprised that you seem to think the opposite.

Are we too stupid?

Berényi Péter at 20:43 PM on 22 October, 2010

A lot of comments discussing alternative energy sources got deleted recently. As there is no appropriate thread at this site with such a topic, I give it a try here.

I believe in the short term neither atmospheric carbon dioxide nor fossil fuel depletion are among the twenty most important problems of the world, but on longer timescales (from several centuries up to a billion years) they certainly are.

Others believe it is an immediate problem requiring drastic measures as soon as practicable. Anyway, it is a problem begging for a solution (sooner or later).

If we don't want to go entirely stupid, we should cooperate. However, cooperation needs trust. Unfortunately the very same people promoting fast decarbonization tend to reject the only technologically mature solution, fast breeder reactors. As it is actually a smart attitude not to trust people promoting a non-solution to a problem raised by them while a perfectly reasonable one is available, no wonder cooperation is somewhat hampered.

You don't need fancy game theory to explain this, simple common sense suffices.

Re: Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? #241 Roger A. Wehage at 01:40 AM on 22 October, 2010
Uranium is not sustainable when consumed. That is why handling radioactive wastes is such a world problem. And Uranium is finite, which means that it also past peak and becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain.

Have you read the paper I've provided a link to? Has the physics changed that much during the past 27 years?

American Journal of Physics, Jan. 1983
Vol. 51, Issue 1, pp. 75
Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source
Bernard L. Cohen

Cost of fuel with fast breeder reactors is a non-issue, as you need very small amounts of the stuff. Even at an inflated price exceeding that of gold it would contribute less than 0.1% to cost of power generation. Therefore as the leanest ores are getting economic, the resource can't be exhausted in the projected lifetime of Earth.

You may also be interested in this paper:

EIC Climate Change Technology, 2006 IEEE
10-12 May 2006, pp. 1.
doi: 10.1109/EICCCC.2006.277268
Nuclear Fission Fuel is Inexhaustible
Lightfoot, H.D.; Manheimer, W.; Meneley, D.A.; Pendergast, D. & Stanford, G.S.

Present day radioactive wastes are a problem because current technology was developed with military applications in mind, that is, to produce as much plutonium as possible. It resulted in a meager fuel efficiency, barely 1% of what is already achieved by proven technology in experimental fast breeder reactors.

With the proper technology waste deposits are more like a resource than a problem. If we started to burn the stuff now, we could go on for decades with no further mining whatsoever. An additional benefit is the volume of radioactive spent fuel left over at the end of the cycle is two orders of magnitude smaller, what is more, it would not contain radionuclides with long halflives, so it would not need reliable sequestration for hundreds of thousand years, just centuries.

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