Climate Change Report

[GoBigOrangeUT]

If we are accelerating it, it's minuscule.

On a planetary timescale sure. On a human lifetime timescale, not so much.

 

[norrislakevol]

Yeah, you said that already. You do know that they vet these models by seeing if they can accurately predict what's already happened, right? Anyway, I know folks who work with earth systems models at ORNL who use the world's fastest supercomputer in their research and I've not gotten the impression they think their research is based on "garbage" models. Perhaps your friend is in the minority in his field?

Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Projections Right – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

I don't believe he is. Climate models ignore things like oscillations and do a poor job of using ocean currents and the tropics. Items that would be vital to be any where close to being accurate. According to some in this field these models can be manipulated to say anything you want them to say. Once again, you, I, and all of us should be very wary and quite frankly, never, ever, trust a long range model.

 

[GoBigOrangeUT]

I don't believe he is. Climate models ignore things like oscillations and do a poor job of using ocean currents and the tropics. Items that would be vital to be any where close to being accurate. According to some in this field these models can be manipulated to say anything you want them to say. Once again, you, I, and all of us should be very wary and quite frankly, never, ever, trust a long range model.

Do you believe rising temperatures will have no effect on the climate?

 

[Roustabout]

You mean my appeal to the people using it who actually are experts? Why is that a problem? If I was sick and referenced my doctor's diagnosis to you would you call that a logical fallacy? I noticed you didn't call out norrislakevol for referencing one of his acquaintances who works in the field. Why the double standard?

Uh, no, it’s way worse than that. “I gots friends who work with the computer....”

 

[LouderVol]

If my doctor said “you may get cancer in 40 years and are going to die a slow painful death if it happens” I wouldn’t worry and lose sleep because literally dozens of things can cause cancer.

Now if the doctor said you have a high chance at getting a particular cancer because of a specific thing you are doing and here’s how to reduce that chance that is a different story.

But you can’t take “experts” seriously when they have no real specificity of what we are doing, what can be done, and etc. just “stop eating meat and driving cars and give government money”.

In this case you have the particular and specific cancer, paired with the eventual and unknown cancer. Fun times

 

[IPleadInsanity]

We are in the top 5 of carbon emissions. China is awful, yes. But why would we base a decision off of whether or not other countries are doing it? That’s just a defeatist attitude. Why not aim to be the world leader on this? The upfront costs are hard to swallow but It’s far cheaper than the costs in the long run.

Its worse than awful China is just getting started. They have only been able to afford cars for the last 10 years and already they have as many as we do, over 200 million. That is expected to triple over the next 10 years. The India numbers are similar. Who will stop them? If you don't have a plan to stop them cold then you don't have a plan.

 

[norrislakevol]

Do you believe rising temperatures will have no effect on the climate?

I believe that temperatures rise and fall with or without mankind. The middle ages were warmer, the 1700's cooler due to what they think was solor dormancy. Between 4 and 7 million years ago alligators prowled the Virginia/Tennessee border, that is a fact, they found fossilized skulls. Therefore it was significantly warmer then, without mankind. We are in a cooling trend right now and the last thing you would want to do is get cooler, and the very last thing you would want to do is take money out of people's pockets for essential goods and services to chase a ghost like man made climate change.

 

[Wafflestomper]

Uh, no, it’s way worse than that. “I gots friends who work with the computer....”

Sure, if you willfully misrepresent what I said so it's substantially different than what NLV said. These are actual scientists doing research, not my drinking buddies who work in IT.

 

[Fun coupon VOL]

On a planetary timescale sure. On a human lifetime timescale, not so much.

Do you drive a vehicle?

 

[Wafflestomper]

If my doctor said “you may get cancer in 40 years and are going to die a slow painful death if it happens” I wouldn’t worry and lose sleep because literally dozens of things can cause cancer.

Now if the doctor said you have a high chance at getting a particular cancer because of a specific thing you are doing and here’s how to reduce that chance that is a different story.

But you can’t take “experts” seriously when they have no real specificity of what we are doing, what can be done, and etc. just “stop eating meat and driving cars and give government money”.

I think you're confusing the identification of a cause with environmental policy. Scientists may inform those who make policies but for something like climate change there are things outside of the purview of science at play where scientists are no longer experts. The perceived failure of governments to come up with a coherent policy doesn't have that much to do with scientists, for instance.

 

[Orange_Vol1321]

Oh look, the UN has changed their website and added three new letters. Now I wonder what those mean.


UNNWO | United Nations New Economic Paradigm

 

[MG1968]

Oh look, the UN has changed their website and added three new letters. Now I wonder what those mean.


UNNWO | United Nations New Economic Paradigm

There is no way that’s legit.

 

[GoBigOrangeUT]

There is no way that’s legit.

It’s stupid, but it also happened 12 years ago. Not recently as was applied by posting it.

 

[BartW]

Isnt that what the money is about? Pointing fingers at the developed nations "needing" to support the less developed nations to a solution that doesnt currently exist yet?

The technology exists; it’s the resolve we lack.

What you describe was Kyoto, 20 years ago. There is no proper developed vs. developing distinction now. China, once on the receiving end of aid as a developing nation, is now paying into the GCF (even as the US is not). Support for poorest countries is one aspect. It’s also an issue of liability to countries that face being literally wiped off the map. The money is going to adaptation too, not just expanding carbon free energy.

There's also the consideration that every dollar spent on reducing emissions in the US could result in a much more significant reduction of overall emissions in a developing nation. As far as foreign aid goes, it's aid that makes sense, relatively speaking. If you’re against foreign aid in general that’s a different discussion.

Global politics are complex, obviously. But I think there are ways we can lead without putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage and without waiting on the perfect treaty between all the world's people. For example, a well-designed carbon pricing policy with a border adjustment tax would encourage our trade partners to follow suit. Why pay a tax on goods going to the USA when you could have paid that same tax to your home country, enabling your goods to enter the USA without a carbon tax adjustment? The EU is presently considering the idea. It will be interesting to see how the WTO reacts.

 

[BartW]

Climate change is about control. Just like with the ozone layer problem, we were able to use technology to overcome a problem. Carbon capture is real. The entire green movement is about restriction not solution. When private industry invents something like this that will solve the carbon problem, how much do you hear about it?

Once again, just because you personally haven’t heard about something in a while doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy afoot.

Carbon capture and storage has been a subject of both private and public research for many years. It was credited in Obama’s Clean Power Plan. It is required in the latter half of this century in just about any of the emissions scenarios in the IPCC reports that still keep global warming under 2C.

Trump said he would support clean, clean, coal, but instead his administration cut funding to the very DoE programs that work on CCS. It’s literally the one thing that could save the coal industry…

Again, outside of direct government reseach, regulations and subsidies, the obvious way to spur CCS development by the private sector is carbon pricing. Carbon pricing would boost nuclear energy, too. It would also accelerate the shift away from coal and oil to more natural gas, which the US has in abundance.

None of that means squat if you can't enforce on China and other large polluters. As long as the climate community believes the data China controls, nothing will change.

Trust, but verify. We could and should use remote sensing to check the data. But of course this administration has slashed NASA’s earth remote sensing programs too.

We should push for utmost transparency. But we can’t demand anything if we don’t have a seat at the table.

 

[BartW]

Forcing people to pay more money for an imaginary issue. Yeah, that'll work lol. The Paris climate accord allows companies to pay more money so they can pollute more. Seems as if that is what you are advocating here.

That doesn’t even make sense; Paris doesn’t set any countries’ climate policies.

I am advocating for carbon pricing as our domestic policy. If a company wants to pay more to pollute more then that’s fine, they’ll just go out of business as their competitors figure out how to pollute less.

I don't believe he is. Climate models ignore things like oscillations and do a poor job of using ocean currents and the tropics. Items that would be vital to be any where close to being accurate. According to some in this field these models can be manipulated to say anything you want them to say. Once again, you, I, and all of us should be very wary and quite frankly, never, ever, trust a long range model.

Oscillations, ocean currents, and the tropics? Dare I even ask…

Did you read the article posted by WS earlier evaluating past climate model performance? Has everyone just been getting lucky the past 50 years?

I believe that temperatures rise and fall with or without mankind. The middle ages were warmer, the 1700's cooler due to what they think was solor dormancy. Between 4 and 7 million years ago alligators prowled the Virginia/Tennessee border, that is a fact, they found fossilized skulls. Therefore it was significantly warmer then, without mankind. We are in a cooling trend right now and the last thing you would want to do is get cooler, and the very last thing you would want to do is take money out of people's pockets for essential goods and services to chase a ghost like man made climate change.

The middle ages were not warmer than present-day temperatures globally. We probably haven’t seen temperatures as hot as the present day globally since the Eemian warm period, ~100,000 years ago. And we haven’t seen CO2 levels this high since nearly 4-7 million years ago…

We were in a very slight cooling trend prior to the industrial revolution, correct, but that’s nothing to worry about anymore. Overall the Earth’s climate was very stable over the past ~7000 years, which likely was a big contributor to the development of agriculture and, consequently, the dawn of modern human civilization. Let’s try not to mess that up too bad?

Yeah, we know, climate has changed before. But now it’s changing at a rate orders of magnitude higher than “natural causes” (and, as you’ve pointed out, in the opposite direction of the natural background trend due to natural causes).

 

[allvol123]

Man this is losing so much traction because of the new fear that moved into town.

 

[LouderVol]

The technology exists; it’s the resolve we lack.

What you describe was Kyoto, 20 years ago. There is no proper developed vs. developing distinction now. China, once on the receiving end of aid as a developing nation, is now paying into the GCF (even as the US is not). Support for poorest countries is one aspect. It’s also an issue of liability to countries that face being literally wiped off the map. The money is going to adaptation too, not just expanding carbon free energy.

There's also the consideration that every dollar spent on reducing emissions in the US could result in a much more significant reduction of overall emissions in a developing nation. As far as foreign aid goes, it's aid that makes sense, relatively speaking. If you’re against foreign aid in general that’s a different discussion.

Global politics are complex, obviously. But I think there are ways we can lead without putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage and without waiting on the perfect treaty between all the world's people. For example, a well-designed carbon pricing policy with a border adjustment tax would encourage our trade partners to follow suit. Why pay a tax on goods going to the USA when you could have paid that same tax to your home country, enabling your goods to enter the USA without a carbon tax adjustment? The EU is presently considering the idea. It will be interesting to see how the WTO reacts.

No it doesnt. Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world.

It's not resolve. Its feasibility. I did the math a while back in this thread, to reduce our emissions by the necessary 20% it was some multiple of our entire GDP. And that ignores any growth in the energy sector. Our GDP, not the magic made up budget. GDP. That also ignores demand, we cant flip a switch and suddenly produce enough tech to get ourselves out of this issue. And we are in the best place to do so.

You cant just "give" the tech to these developing nations. They wont be able to maintain it and they dont have the infrastructure to efficiently use it. Are we also going to build roads, power lines, transformer stations, repair the tech we gave them. Some are struggling with food and water and safety. No warlord or sheepherder cares about the power when they have mouths to feed.

So not only do we have to make more green stuff than we physically can, with money we dont have, but we also have to go and install it in places that dont want it, and then police them to make sure it still works. Because being the world's police has worked out so well.

Look at the rest of the developed world that says they care. They arent doing it themselves, why would you think we could be successful working on most of the world if none of the world leaders but US is doing anything about it?

And wait, your idea to fix the world is slap a worldwide tariff on a already struggling economy? You're trying to get blood from a stone, and are actually going to shut down more plants that you help. The plants that make this stuff. And what makes you think anyone, including us, would effectively use that new tax money on where its needed?

Why is there no real, actionable plan? Look at the European nations, all they do is install more tech, with no long term strategy. By now there should have been some long term plan in place, and being worked towards. But there isnt. Why? Because everyone knows it's a pipe dream. The politicians are just pushing this stuff because it sells, not because they are actually going to follow thru on all of it.

 

[Rickyvol77]

No it doesnt. Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world.

It's not resolve. Its feasibility. I did the math a while back in this thread, to reduce our emissions by the necessary 20% it was some multiple of our entire GDP. And that ignores any growth in the energy sector. Our GDP, not the magic made up budget. GDP. That also ignores demand, we cant flip a switch and suddenly produce enough tech to get ourselves out of this issue. And we are in the best place to do so.

You cant just "give" the tech to these developing nations. They wont be able to maintain it and they dont have the infrastructure to efficiently use it. Are we also going to build roads, power lines, transformer stations, repair the tech we gave them. Some are struggling with food and water and safety. No warlord or sheepherder cares about the power when they have mouths to feed.

So not only do we have to make more green stuff than we physically can, with money we dont have, but we also have to go and install it in places that dont want it, and then police them to make sure it still works. Because being the world's police has worked out so well.

Look at the rest of the developed world that says they care. They arent doing it themselves, why would you think we could be successful working on most of the world if none of the world leaders but US is doing anything about it?

And wait, your idea to fix the world is slap a worldwide tariff on a already struggling economy? You're trying to get blood from a stone, and are actually going to shut down more plants that you help. The plants that make this stuff. And what makes you think anyone, including us, would effectively use that new tax money on where its needed?

Why is there no real, actionable plan? Look at the European nations, all they do is install more tech, with no long term strategy. By now there should have been some long term plan in place, and being worked towards. But there isnt. Why? Because everyone knows it's a pipe dream. The politicians are just pushing this stuff because it sells, not because they are actually going to follow thru on all of it.

You are 100% right and why it’s stupid to lose sleep and waste time with most of this fantasy

 

[Roustabout]

That doesn’t even make sense; Paris doesn’t set any countries’ climate policies.

I am advocating for carbon pricing as our domestic policy. If a company wants to pay more to pollute more then that’s fine, they’ll just go out of business as their competitors figure out how to pollute less.


Oscillations, ocean currents, and the tropics? Dare I even ask…

Did you read the article posted by WS earlier evaluating past climate model performance? Has everyone just been getting lucky the past 50 years?


The middle ages were not warmer than present-day temperatures globally. We probably haven’t seen temperatures as hot as the present day globally since the Eemian warm period, ~100,000 years ago. And we haven’t seen CO2 levels this high since nearly 4-7 million years ago…

We were in a very slight cooling trend prior to the industrial revolution, correct, but that’s nothing to worry about anymore. Overall the Earth’s climate was very stable over the past ~7000 years, which likely was a big contributor to the development of agriculture and, consequently, the dawn of modern human civilization. Let’s try not to mess that up too bad?

Yeah, we know, climate has changed before. But now it’s changing at a rate orders of magnitude higher than “natural causes” (and, as you’ve pointed out, in the opposite direction of the natural background trend due to natural causes).

Sure, when Michigan is under a kilometer of ice, get back to me.

 

[norrislakevol]

That doesn’t even make sense; Paris doesn’t set any countries’ climate policies.

I am advocating for carbon pricing as our domestic policy. If a company wants to pay more to pollute more then that’s fine, they’ll just go out of business as their competitors figure out how to pollute less.


Oscillations, ocean currents, and the tropics? Dare I even ask…

Did you read the article posted by WS earlier evaluating past climate model performance? Has everyone just been getting lucky the past 50 years?


The middle ages were not warmer than present-day temperatures globally. We probably haven’t seen temperatures as hot as the present day globally since the Eemian warm period, ~100,000 years ago. And we haven’t seen CO2 levels this high since nearly 4-7 million years ago…

We were in a very slight cooling trend prior to the industrial revolution, correct, but that’s nothing to worry about anymore. Overall the Earth’s climate was very stable over the past ~7000 years, which likely was a big contributor to the development of agriculture and, consequently, the dawn of modern human civilization. Let’s try not to mess that up too bad?

Yeah, we know, climate has changed before. But now it’s changing at a rate orders of magnitude higher than “natural causes” (and, as you’ve pointed out, in the opposite direction of the natural background trend due to natural causes).

Let's face it, we do not have accurate data from the periods hundreds, even thousands of years in the past. It's a lot of guessing. If you actually believe that the climate models have been correct then I have some ocean front property to sell you. As I have already told you, those models can be manipulated in any manner a person wishes to manipulate them, even after the fact. Why would someone want to do that? To fool people like you of course into believing them of course. The are trash, just like about every other model out there, including our great weather models that are only accurate about 3 or 4 days out at the very best.

Carbon credits? Lol!!!!!!!!! Dumbest thing ever.

Yes, let's sell carbon credits. Let's enrich certain people while punishing others. This was the Ponzi scheme the Paris climate accords were all about. You gonna get India and the lying Chinese commies to go along with that?? Didn't think so, you know, the worlds biggest polluters.

 

[Orangeslice13]

I feel compelled to post this every so often. It’s time again.

Climate change is irrelevant.
Micro plastics will kill us all long before the climate becomes a problem.

 

[Roustabout]

We are in the top 5 of carbon emissions. China is awful, yes. But why would we base a decision off of whether or not other countries are doing it? That’s just a defeatist attitude. Why not aim to be the world leader on this? The upfront costs are hard to swallow but It’s far cheaper than the costs in the long run.

We are ALREADY under tremendous reforms when it comes to emissions.
It’s not defeatist to demand other countries get to our level before we start more restrictions.
All the changes we’ve made don’t mean squat if those others are not contributing.

 

[NorthDallas40]

SHELLENBERGER: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare

 

[0nelilreb]

SHELLENBERGER: On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare

Wow that’s gotta be a kick in the nads to the alarmists .