Thank you for the reference.
As well, I made no point, so there should be no suspicion. That you are given over to suspicion for asking for more than articles about information unrelated to the data presented is dubious at best. I asked for clarification of a presented piece of data, not a treatise on why a geologist doesn’t like him.
If you had looked at the graphs (not only the one that was cited coming from Christy and Spenceer) you would see why there is that old reference that there are lies, damn lies an statistics.
In this case the trick Spencer and Christy used was that peculiar origin point, the overall effect of that and the the short period of time used as a baseline is what contrarians would call “massaging the data” to me it is odd that contrarians would ignore things like this when they claim that it is the other side (the one that looks at more supported and published research) that does.
It is not only Barry Bickmore and Hotwhopper that reports the shoddier misleading work that Spencer is peddling, other more recommended experts in statistics also are not impress on what he is doing with the UAH temperature record.
I believe you are full of shit.
And if you beleive that “businesses”, and somehow, employees and citizens of the greater upper Midwest, simply trudged along to their unwitting fates day after day in the Great Lakes region of their own volition until the EPA came along to ‘force’ their own salvation from self-destruction, well…
…well I’m guessing you voted for Barack Obama.
OP, if someone shows up claiming that humans have no effect on the environment you have the start of a rebuttal.
What it has to do with AGW in particular I have no idea. They’re not really related. Note this also applies to the items within your list. You wouldn’t try to prove the existence of over fishing by pointing to top soil loss. You’d just show evidence for over fishing.
Two questions, please:
(1) Is it your claim that state governments could/did solve the problem without federal government intervention?
(2) Is it your claim that free markets have natural solutions to “tragedy of the common” problems?
Thank you.
Let me ramble a bit before addressing specifics.
I’m in my 60’s and am unlikely to see how this all turns out. I care about my children’s lives but, since one voice will have little political effect, my main interest is just intellectual curiosity. It’s interesting to try to understand science. It’s also interesting to try to understand political mindsets, etc.
Despite that my interest is mainly just curiosity, it seems best (and in accordance with the “Golden Rule”) to debate, and prescribe for, the real problems facing human society.
Widespread adoption of nuclear power is one positive way to mitigate the problems of carbon transformation. I think “green” thinkers should be pushing for nuclear! In a recent thread rightest-like thinkers agreed that nuclear was appropriate but refused to advocate it because it was “politically impossible.” Such defeatist thinking will surely lead to defeat.
But I share with OP the idea that warming is only part of man’s destruction of habitat. Indeed, when warming is reversed, environmental degradation will continue: increasing ocean acidity, loss of bio-diversity, fresh water shortages, etc. The only real long-term solution is to reduce the size of the human population. (A common argument against – “with one-tenth the population we’ll have only one-tenth as many Einsteins and Mozarts” – is silly, IMO.) Unfortunately, pushing for birth limits is far more infeasible than pushing for nuclear power.
Large adverse climate change is worse than smaller adverse climate change. Do I need a cite for that?
Are you one of these Goldbugs who thinks the eevul guvmint burns its tax receipts? Taxing “bad” methods and subsidizing “good” methods are two sides of the same coin, and almost equivalent. In either case, they are the proper solution to avoid “tragedy of the commons.”
Wow. Enjoy hyperbole, is it? 
Again, a little smog isn’t as bad as a lot of smog. Does that help?
Will AGW impact our grandchildren as much as “a little smog”? Or much much more? I’ll let you research that yourself.
True - there have been benefits at both ends.
However the developing nations bear an environmental cost. I’ve personally seen and smelled the rivers in Mumbai and Delhi - they are industrial drains.
Do you recall the Cuyahoga River fire which led to the Great Lakes cleanup? Cuyahoga River fire 40 years ago ignited an ongoing cleanup campaign - cleveland.com
Is a $10 t-shirt worth causing Cuyahoga rivers throughout China and Asia? Or should we urge cleaner manufacturing and accept paying $50 for the t-shirt.
Mmm… but maybe topsoil is clouding the fish breeding grounds and causing a sharp decline in stocks. The absence of fish would look like over-fishing.
That’s worth a warning, IdahoMauleMan. You may not insult other posters in a Great Debates. If you feel you must do so the BBQ Pit is just a few forums away.
Don’t do this again.
All damages from climate change are speculation and most reviews for the economic consequences are guesses. What is the difference between “small” and “large” climate changes?
We can put together a solution that isn’t oppressive to the world as a whole, or we can simply tax it and hope that the tax works.
No. I’m in the camp that believes that taxing something over and above the standard tax rates for the economy doesn’t drive behavior. People didn’t quit smoking because it’s taxed higher than saltine crackers. People quit because it’s no longer socially normal. Taking them out of movies did more than the taxes did.
People aren’t stopping their soda intake in NYC just because soda was taxed over and above the standard tax rate. Adding taxes to power to try and change behavior - e.g. power consumption - won’t do anything except drive the cost of business up, which will be passed on to the consumers. They’ll be more likely to stop doing other things than to stop charging their iPhones.
But what taxes do marvelously is generate revenue. But the government has enough revenue to enact most of these programs, already - especially stuff like regulatory changes to make getting into a nuclear plant easier. Or changing the requirements of the cars put off the line at Ford.
In the case of the idea of the regulated NGO, that was akin to the quasi-governmental status of current power companies. The entity could focus on carbon neutralization or negation as a direct real cost of pollution added to the energy cost instead of an arbitrary tax. A real cost of doing business, to me, is always preferable.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the very first part of its massive new synthesis of climate science on Friday. - By Brad Plumer September 27, 2013*
The article was based on a snippet of what the IPCC previously chose to release in order to wet the appetites of it supporters and maybe gain a little attention (and traction) with the media. It doesn’t seem to be working very well. The “other” parts haven’t been released (and vetted by truly independent sources yet).
I notice that both of your linked articles contain charts that show the global average temp has plateaued for over a decade. That’s not “increasing”.
The biggest problem that the “man-made-CO2-must-be-causing-global-warming” zealots have trying to convince others that the science is settled is the past history of lying about 4 dead polar bears, Gore’s incontinent truth, Hansen’s NASA-GISS using faulty data from poorly placed and maintained recording devices, the University of East Anglia embareassing emails, the name change to “climate change” (which failed even more so than “global warming” had), and the fact that the global temp isn’t increasing (as was predicted by the IPCC).
First, there is evidence that is happening and that the ones attempting to minimize the observed change are misleading others.
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/whatis.htm#Q1
The tax will be there not only for discouraging the emissions, but also to pay for the adaptations that will be needed.
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Just saying, you did not clarify that to others, the implication was that it was not done.
I do not say this, but experts statisticians that looked at the records and were not told where it came from declared that your sources are deceptive on claiming that.
Sure, it’s plateaued in the same way as the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s plateaued.
If you find a climate scientist (or model) who claims that AGW means never having a year the same or colder than the previous year, I’ll happily call them idiots. In the meantime, the trend continues onward and upward.
How is that quantifying the damage done or that will happen?
Raise a new tax and lower other taxes, making the tax a net zero? What would that even accomplish? :dubious:
In addition, the social change that came with smoking wouldn’t be added to this. To reference the oil prices, the use of oil products hasn’t gone down. The poor still buy gasoline and instead cut down on other things to afford to fill their tanks. Energy is a need in our culture. Not only to fill the tanks, but to run lawn mowers, computers, TVs, and most other things in our daily lives.
So, not only would we not have the needed social change to consume less power, we would be paying for it with the same governmental income we have now, only with a more complex tax code, which would impart more costs onto businesses and individuals for no gain. Additionally, the taxes generated wouldn’t go specifically towards negating or neutralizing carbon, as would be the most beneficial - it would go, instead, to the government’s general fund (at whatever level), where the politicians can go “Well, we really need something else this year.” and upset the efforts. Creating a quasi-governmental organization that is paid directly from revenue by the power companies for energy generated (by source - solar/wind almost zero, coal - lots, etc) to fund scrubbing or neutralization technology would impose a direct cost of pollution clean up on the power generators as well as directly and actively address the problem of too much carbon.
Your linked article also says that costs far and above the $25 per unit (which is a 20% increase in energy costs) would be needed to discourage using energy. Which is true, but it’s also oppressive. I would also ask you to note that it’s asking for amounts significantly above the actual costs that would be required to neutralize the carbon. We should definitely add the costs of pollution clean up to the supply chain, we should NOT tax energy above the taxation rates that already exist.
Despite claims to the contrary - while this debate rages about who, what, when, where, and why - we are not, as a western culture, sitting idly by and staring at our hands. We are already working on solutions and funding a lot of this research via government grant programs. Better solar panels, better generating motors, better ways to capture carbon from the atmosphere and more have come from the last 20 years of research, a whole bunch of which has been funded by various western governments.
So, since we already have those avenues covered, why, exactly, should we add a tax to carbon output that (oddly) won’t raise additional revenue and will instead cause a regulatory burden to businesses and/or individuals and also add financial woes to our worst off?
False dichotomy.
The camps I would be interested in are these, regarding “What evidence would convice you that you’re wrong?”
For the same question regarding evolution, I’m in the “believes in evolution” camp, and the classic answer to the question is on the order of “finding rabbits in the pre-Cambrian.” There are simply hordes and hordes of possible kinds of evidence that would turn the theory of evolution on end. There is little or no evidence that would convince a creationist that they were wrong, other than finding it in the Bible or being told directly by God.
Things aren’t nearly as straightforward for AGW. It’s a much more difficult question, a more technical subject, and the amount of evidence collected so far is tiny in comparison (amazing what a century of research can dig up, forgive the pun!)
My answer regarding this question on AGW is that I have to take it on faith in the unanimity of agreement of all major national and industrial scientific organizations. Even those that originally disagreed (e.g., petroleum & geological institutes) changed from denial to agnostic positions.
Once the answer to “Is human activity a significant contributor to climate change?” is answered or at least stipulated, that leaves the huge question of what to do about it. But one shouldn’t conflate the two questions.
IMHO, we should use normal risk management logic and math to address this, but we can’t because too many parties blinded by short-term economic interests refuse to accept the possibility that a calamity might actually be impending. (Note that I don’t assume that all AGW deniers are in this category, but I do believe the major thrust of the political will against AGW is for precisely this reason. There are plenty of past examples, such as DDT and other environmental legislation where this was obviously the case. Passing the laws did not cause the sky to fall, despite the objections from Industry. I’m a fiscal conservative, but I can still see this pretty clearly.)
On the other hand, I do believe that many liberals/progressives and AGW activists don’t have much of a clue about “energy intensity” and the actual short-term costs to the economy that could result from extreme – or even minimal – measures to combat climate change. It’s every bit as tough a question as the climate science, and probably tougher, since I suspect we probably understand climate even better than we do economics.
Using the word “can’t” requires a much higher burden of proof than seems to be available. We do have ice core data that implies global warming and cooling are cyclic over the past several millions years. The question is whether burning fossil fuels somehow changes this cycle such that [insert disaster scenario here] will occur.
Disclosure: I agree the globe is warming, I agree man may well be contributing … however, I think that such in-of-itself is a good thing. If controlling CO2 emissions also controls pollution in general, then I’m all for it.