The population problem is already pretty much a lost cause. The developed world is, per capita, consuming like it’s going out of style and producing CO2 per capita at a rate far exceeding the developing world (in the article you cite, their numbers for the US per capita CO2 production are low by a factor of four compared with other sources I’ve seen). It’s pretty easy for the developed world to level off or even reduce. Where the numbers are staggering are for the Chinas and Indias (and maybe, should they ever manage to become functional) the African countries. They are currently producing a lot of Stuff for us (and frankly, we should be getting charged for that CO2 production as well) and hope to produce Stuff for themselves. It’s those numbers that pretty much skewer any sort of naive notions that total world CO2 production is going to diminish in our lifetimes. We’ve been through those numbers on the board, but the takeaway is that there are too many people. Too many richies and too many people wanting to get rich.
But overpopulation’s effect on Gaia is a lot more than CO2 production. It’s the total ecological cost of keeping us fed and watered and stuffed. We could develop universal totally green energy and still overrun the planet with parking lots and roads for magically-propelled cars, with all the oceans turned into fish farms.
Since you love to repeat it ad nauseum I’ll just plead guilty to not understanding the details of climate research science. It’s a lazy way out of the tedium of arguing every single point here on a message board with a limited audience. And the bulk of that audience is composed of earnest zealots defending their Faith in their science heroes with the missionary passion of Krisna converts in a 70s airport. I suspect I understand the issues better than you think I do but it just doesn’t bother me for you to have an opinion otherwise. The uncertainties and open questions about AGW are deeper, in my opinion, than typically admitted publicly, and should my sniff test prove correct in the long run, I rather think the current round of zealots will look back on their proselytizing days with more than a bit of chagrin. In the interim I’ll be a little more impressed when I see funds whose managers are shorting coastline real estate based on bets for rising sea levels.
Actually it actually started a long time ago when ice core samples made it possible to track the worlds temperature for a long time. The politicians did not manufacture this debate. It arose out of concerned scientists from various fields finding corroborating evidence. The pols came into it when they were convinced that it was happening. What is the payoff for creating a fake crisis? They have to face those who make money and are powerful and will go to battle with them. They are pissing off rich people. Then they have to argue with some people who absolutely will not be convinced . They are creating a lot of trouble for themselves. There is no payoff.
Chief, the reason I “repeat ad nauseam” that you don’t know much about climate science is because you repeat it ad nauseam. If you feel you actually do have a fairly decent grasp of the physics of climate issues, then why do you show up in climate thread after climate thread volunteering deprecating statements about your own ignorance? Just to quote a couple of recent examples from a very cursory search:
If you’re going to come into a climate thread and announce that you’re ignorant of the subject, I’m going to take you at your word, especially if you don’t say anything that seems to contradict that claim.
Once again, you don’t offer any persuasive reasons about why you would trust your own layman’s “sniff test” more than the estimates of actual climate scientists. Instead of rationally evaluating arguments and knowledge about the science, you seem to be just focusing on your beloved dream of a good time coming when you’ll get to watch the “chagrin” of all those “proselytizing zealots” being proved wrong, ha ha hee hee.
That’s a professional real estate market analyst speaking, not some “zealot” climate change mitigation advocate.
By the way, Chief, have you stopped to consider how peculiar it is that you are willing to be “impressed” by financial and business professionals taking AGW seriously, but not by actual climate science researchers taking AGW seriously? Do you think that fund managers are somehow immune to the “mass psychology” and “missionary passion” effects that you so gleefully diagnose in just about everybody else?
They are suspect because they are not 100% perfect? Or, let’s put it another way: Despite people who have collectively spent what is probably hundreds of thousands of hours studying the IPCC report in an attempt to discredit it, the most egregious example that they can come up with is one incorrect statement buried in the body of a report that runs well over 1000 pages.
Yes, it was unfortunate that the prediction about the glaciers made it into the Working Group 2 report and it suggests some room for improvement in the IPCC process (e.g., more vetting of the reports of one working group by the other groups since the WG-2 group was treading on the WG-1 area of expertise here). However, it no more makes the IPCC suspect than finding one error in a paper in Physical Review makes the whole journal suspect. (And, hell, if you can’t find at least one error in any one paper in Physical Review, you probably aren’t qualified to judge or aren’t trying very hard!)
No - everyone expects typos and the like. What makes it suspect is that this was not a typo and should have been picked up by the peer review process and challenged. But it wasn’t. So people wonder what else has been missed. Cases of fraud and other crimes are often uncovered by exposing one tiny little lie. Anyway, we’ll see what the independent review reveals.
Yes. Global Warming has lost credibility. Polls show the public’s support in many Western countries is in free fall. I think the Warmers dropped the ball. They should have emphasised all the immediate and concrete benefits of reducing carbon emissions and cutting down on fossil fuels, and concentrating less on the uncertain things 50 years down the line. Of the millions of people (to say nothing of animals) who die every year in the USA and Europe because of the pollution of coal and oil. Of cutting dependency on foreign fascist oil producing countries. On bringing industry back to the (more energy efficient) USA from the (less energy efficient) China. On replacing Victorian coal technology with cool new 21st century technologies, etc.
er…umm…that would be “Potential climate change is the greatest strategic risk currently facing the property/casualty insurance industry…” (emphasis mine) and a quite typical example of a reaction to the AGW/ACC hoopla. We’re loaded with stories about if this were to happen then this might be the consequence. Hey; if Yellowstone blows, that would be a big risk…
I got that. Saw a typical floof story on an AM news show teasered by a tagline about “animals affected by climate change.” Watched the story. Not a single animal paraded on was affected by climate change; they were affected by things like their natural environment gettin’ plowed over to make food or habitat for humans. But of course “climate change” is how you get attention, and it’s part of the Great Cause psychology to tie every damn thing back to the Great Cause. Right now AGW and not Yellowstone is the Cause du Jour.
Your insurance article (and I realize this is not the centerpiece of your own concerns, but simply an example) is typical. Sure, E&Y’s consultants have heard of AGW/ACC. They are on it. They aren’t going to put out a report that ignores the “if this, then this could…” of climate change. I agree there are millions of similar stories. What I await is not stories about anxieties about what might happen, but real betting with real money on what will happen based on a confidence in AGW prediction models. There is an enormous difference between an insurance company wondering if it should calculate premiums based on the possibility that rising ocean levels are going to swamp coastlines and a real investor betting the farm that they actually will. (And it’s the anthropogenic part I’d really like to see a bet placed on. That seems unlikely since I cannot imagine a scenario in which our anthropogenic contribution is ameliorated.)
Insurance is a tricky field. I’m confident you could find juries right now who would ask insurance companies to pony up for areas already putatively devastated by AGW had they insured those areas against losses resulting from such changes. But then again, you could find settlements for vaccine-caused autism as well Top US Injury Attorneys: Asbestos, Drugs & Devices, Environmental and while that’s an insurance issue, it’s not the same as betting your own money that the fundamental link between vaccines and autism is overblown.
As I said, I wanna see the guy actually shorting coastline real estate (or an equivalent example) based on the long-term predictions themselves, not just betting on the psychologic reaction to fears about what might be. Even I’d put bets on the carbon offset market if I thought I could make money off it, but such financial wouldn’t be based on a confidence one way or another of what will actually happen.
And in a feeble effort to get back to the OP’s question, I’d add that credibility is lost when insurers are unable to know what the heck to insure against because any AGW-based predictions are so soft and undefined. Yet listening to the Great Causers would make you think certain and specific disaster must be right around the corner.
As even a dictionary shows, a warmer is not the opposite of a denier, but if we stick to science even the term believer is not quite correct, scientists observe and they have a good idea of what is going on, it is not a belief.
And, did you notice that the dictators in Saudi Arabia embraced the CRU email “scandal”? Virtually all others in Copenhagen thought it was a very pathetic position to take as even then it was clear the science was not affected.
Pathetic as it may be, IMHO that effort does mean that dictators with money are also part of the denial global efforts. Falling for their efforts when it is clear that there are based on misleading or even fabricated information should be something that reasonable people should not be taking lying down.
I think “warmer” fits in there nicely with “denier”.
At a time there was a rightwing movement to stop using oil from terror sponsoring states. Don’t know if people are still talking about that. Warmers should have hitched themselves on that wagon, and tried to make the case that it was no enough to drill in Alaska, that if we wanted to stop sending billions to Saudi Arabia, then we must switch to new technologies and electric cars, etc. There was an opportunity to reach out to a group, which would traditionally be very hard to reach with an environment friendly agenda. I don’t see any attempt at that was made.
On the Faroe Islands the health ministry has now completely banned all consumption of whale meat – an old and important part of the culture. Because the meat is now so polluted that even eating it once a year at the traditional feast should be avoided. Pollution that can mostly be traced to Chinese coal power plants. Instead of talking about drowning polar bears, we should talk about what burning coal does to our children today.
I support most initiatives to reduce coal and oil usage. But it’s like its not enough to support most initiatives to reduce carbon output, you also have to believe. Unless you buy the whole package you will be branded a denier.
btw. I think Obama is doing the right thing now, when he is talking about creating green jobs.
It depends on who do you direct this, as the science reporter from Australia mentioned, a believer or warmer is someone like Al Gore, A denier is someone like the British reporters that not only deny the science, but also misinterprets, misleads and just fabricates information. In science skeptics do and are allowed to publish their peer reviewed papers. Proponent (the correct word) scientists of AGW still come with what nowadays are the supermajority of papers published.
I however suspect that there is a little bit of a straw man argument on your basic point, just because it is not apparent IMHO the proponents of AGW also are not ignoring the benefits of dealing with pollution.
And as I said (three or four times now): Why do you believe that the business professional “shorting coastline real estate” is a better reason to take AGW seriously than the actual climate scientist recommending that we take AGW seriously? Do you believe that fund managers and the like are somehow immune to the “Great Cause psychology” that you claim is causing concern about AGW?