You really want to make a difference? Put up a parking lot roof covered with them. Shaded parking, and power, to plug in your Tesla to recharge, or just charge batteries to run the LED security lights all night long.
That’s the sort of thing people will notice. A WalMart parking lot that isn’t a baking goddamn asphalt oven all day. And it reduces the electric cost for WalMart.
In Florida there is enough hotter than hell parking lots to provide electricity from solar for the whole goddamn sate. But try and find one single parking lot covered with anything, much less solar panels.
Again missing the point you already acknowleged. That is not the main way to make a difference. It is important. But not the main way that history shows is what needs to be done.
Thanks Kimstu, indeed, I was not imagining that I did state it.
Also, his latest silliness about the White House roof is only the "I knew that!"way of debating that tries to claim that a proponent of a change is not aware of something when I was the one that mentioned already in the first place.
BTW that link goes to the sorry efforts of contrarian Bob Tisdale showing that he has not a clue about how El Ninos and La Ninas do work with the climate.
There are several problems with your reasoning. One is well demonstrated by several of the posters in this thread: the populations of the industrialized countries, especially the US, are rife with the dogma of outright climate change denial. Not just skepticism or lack of scientific understanding, but strident denial that is often hostile and even threatening toward climate scientists. And this belligerence extends to some officials at the highest levels of government. It’s far from true that “nearly everyone” cares about global warming. A very significant portion of the population, maybe even a majority, either doesn’t understand the problem or is firmly in the denier camp.
The second problem is that your entire analysis is based on the assumption that large amounts of sacrifice will be required to mitigate climate change. This is not necessarily true. Pacala and Socolow showed in their studies of “stabilization wedges” that the costs of emission stabilization could be minimal, and the IPCC WG3 concluded the same thing, and also that some mitigation strategies actually have negative cost, eventually providing net cost benefits. The central point is that energy isn’t the problem, dirty energy is the problem.
And finally there’s the issue that costs, whatever they may be, are irrelevant anyway if, as has been fairly convincingly demonstrated, the costs in terms of property damage, loss of life, loss of habitats and permanent damage to the ecosystem, will greatly exceed the economic hit we may have to take.
All of these problems are related but the underlying driver of denialism and inaction is the fact that the financial impacts are unevenly distributed. The institutions that are the principal culprits in climate change, the coal and oil companies and their major customers, and heavy industries like the infamous Koch Industries, are going to be hit the hardest, especially since most of the fossil fuel industry has failed to diversify. So these are the guys that are fighting back the hardest, leading to problem #1 – a complacent and doubtful population in which large numbers don’t think that anything needs to be done. This is the biggest hurdle we need to get past before we start worrying about human nature and a reluctance to make personal sacrifices. What’s worse is that the denialists have a lot of politicians on board, and in some cases states and entire countries have economies that are far too dependent on fossil fuels, and it’s no surprise that these areas are where denialism is strongest.
All kinds of things, from not shitting in the drinking supply, to clean burning fires and machines, to not dumping mercury and arsenic into the environment, pretty much everything idiots would actually do, the government tries to reduce the damage.
I’m asking, and it’s no mystery what I am asking, what would you have the government do to stop the CO2? Just lay it out.
This might be the key difference between us. It seems that when you think of climate mitigation, “Back breaking labor” comes to mind. For me it’s more like, “Less burdensome than a 1970s oil shock.” It’s less burdensome because realistically the adjustment will be spread out over decades. Otherwise it simply won’t happen.
There are a number of ways of doing this. But conceptually, think of the equivalent of adding $1 to the price of a gallon of gasoline, in inflation adjusted terms, spread out over 20+ years. That comes to a nickel increase per year. Or maybe a dime if I’m feeling ambitious or if I want to use ~$1992. People and businesses routinely deal with far greater adjustments.
Now add 10 paragraphs of qualifications. Yes, those in the coal industry are screwed. Oil, not so much. Natural gas would do better over the medium run. Some of the revenue should go to the social security trust fund IMO. In practice there would be adjustments to building codes and the like and subsidies for yada yada. Yes, the political world is complex. But it isn’t rocket science or even chess. Checkers, maybe.
Look, when you buy a consumer item you pay for the labor and capital that go into it. But production also damages health and the environment. I’m ok with that. I just think such costs should be reflected in final prices. Otherwise you are just subsidizing bad behavior.
Heck, do a penny increase a month for 10 years…I’d be totally good with that. This is the sort of thing I could definitely be on board with, and I think it would do a lot to shift the market. And it’s tangible. Hell, use the extra money to do a series of X-prizes for clean energy or renewable tech or infrastructure.
That wouldn’t stop the increase in CO2 from fossil fuels. If you think it will, explain how it would even slow the increase in emissions. I’m asking clearly, what would you have the government do to reduce the amount of fossil fuels being used worldwide. Aside from just forcing people at gunpoint to not use fuel, how do you stop the CO2 from fuels?
Assume you have absolute power, like a dictator, what do you do?
Or take the money received and throw it in a bonfire. That would be superior to the status quo. We have an input into the production process that is essentially free. Do that with copper, and firms will use too much of it. In the Soviet Union, they subsidized the price of bread and the stuff ended up being fed to farm animals. Putting a price on zero on anything that’s scarce or harmful is typically a bad idea. Yet that’s what we do with CO2 emissions.
I don’t need absolute power, just a business class that supports neurotypical legislators. Increase the price of gas and people will use less of it. Some will drive slower. Some will drive less. Most of the action will come in buying more fuel efficient cars. Gas taxes are higher in Europe: cars are correspondingly smaller. This is simply the market at work.
CO2 emissions are driven by electrical production and cars. Increase the tax on carbon and utilities will switch from coal to natural gas. That’s where most of the action will come in the beginning, but over time cleaner sources such as wind and solar will become more prominent. Power efficient appliances would also play a role, once there is added incentive to use them.
What about nukes? Eh. It’s an expensive way to cut CO2 emissions. My general take is to maintain it as an option, but let the market and regulation figure out its extent. So far Wall Street is highly skeptical: in the US new nuclear power plants are only being planned by regulated utilities. Where the market is free, the market isn’t interested. $100/ton taxes on CO2 will make it somewhat more competitive, but that only kicks in at the end of my phase-in period.
I really don’t see why there’s even an argument here. We pay for consumables, and we pay for waste treatment and garbage disposal. But every one of our cars and trucks has a tailpipe that sticks out into the air and just ends there, a gaping orifice that belches pollutants and toxins into the air and is transforming the earth’s climate in a very rapid and very bad way. Ditto for the smokestacks of power plants and heavy industry. There is a huge cost associated with using the planet’s atmosphere as a garbage dump – to our health, to the stability of our climate system and consequent property damage, loss of life, and food crop impacts, to the future of our ecosystem and the diversity of the earth’s species. And not one cent of those costs is factored into the price of fossil fuels.
If it was, there would be less fossil fuel used and more incentive to switch to cleaner alternatives. And if the money from carbon taxes was used to support those alternatives, like clean energy research and maybe subsidize electric and hydrogen vehicles, too, then it could start tipping the balance even further away from the polluters. The money is sorely needed, too, because there’s a tremendous amount of work to be done in the area of clean vehicles and clean electricity generation, and maybe building a hydrogen distribution infrastructure. A carbon tax on fossil fuels seems like a no-brainer to me.
One narrative is that well-funded corporations not nimble enough to change their business models, are somehow “fighting back” against the obvious truth of climate change. Therefore were it not for those naughty CEOs buying a corrupt political system, we’d all just:
Accept climate change b/c there wouldn’t be funding of a Denier message, and
Segue efficiently into (insert correct energy grid here)
Maybe. But I have trouble buying that narrative. I already gave mine above: at some level Joe Denier has no clue. The complexities around climate modeling and prediction are so far beyond the ken of average folk, complete reliance on outside authority is required. I mean, it’s not like evolution, where you can stand a Denier on the rim of the Grand Canyon and point out the earth is old, and then take him to sediment layers and point out the fossil record…
I think Joe Denier buys the idea that the scientists MIGHT be right, and if they are right, the consequences MIGHT be dire.
What the average guy (Denier or Alarmist) is not going to do is sacrifice now for the child of tomorrow. Figure out an economically painless way to get (insert correct alternate here)? He’s all over that.
But until an economically painless alternate is in place, this putative future cost is simply not a proximate enough fear to move the Do-Something-Even-If-It-Hurts-Me needle.
It hasn’t moved Mr Gore beyond living well Right Now. It hasn’t moved Mr Tanzania off wanting to live well Real Soon. It won’t move any broad constituency in between. We have proved over and over again that we will respond to proximate, palpable threats (even to the point of trucking off to war), but not relatively nebulous future threats (even to the point of borrowing trillions from future generations).
Every one cares about AGW in the same way everyone cares about hunger and poverty. Perhaps more precisely, I should say everyone cares about the state of the earth 50 years from now.
The rabid Denialism is simply a mechanism to assuage any discomfort over the fact that, if climate change is correct, I need to diminish my rich living Right Now while we figure it out. Denialism is not a primary position; it’s a reaction. But then so is Preach it Brother! for the AGW alarmists. These are just mechanisms that let us continue our narcissistic behavior while the tragedy of the commons plays out.
Were the (insert correct) alternative painless, Denialism would go away tomorrow. Joe Denier does not actually care about Gregory Boyce’s business dilemma. He does care about how closely he can approximate Al Gore’s life amenities.
If unassailable proof came along tomorrow that the direst climate model predictions are correct, but the putative window is a horizon beyond a few decades, nothing would change. This is why Sandy pushes the needle, and the following quiescent season returns it back. It is why using weather events as harbingers is both useful and dangerous…bad ones are proximate enough to drive sacrifice, but when they are in the wrong direction, they drive complacency.
We do not readily sacrifice individually for a collective good, and the more distant the collective good (geographically, socially or temporally), the less any sacrifice will be made.
I don’t particularly disagree with that particular version of your narrative, though I would point out that I’m not saying that were it not for the massive disinformation campaign being waged against climate science we would all immediately do (1) and (2). It would be challenging because of the factors that you suggest. But what I’m saying is that because of the disinformation counter-movements funded by Big Oil, coal, and the rest of the vested interests, it’s become well-nigh impossible. You’re missing the elephant in the room – don’t blame human nature for inaction on climate change when you should look to Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers first.
There’s an element of truth here, too. Much of the persuasive evidence for climate change is invisible to Joe Denier, and what is visible is sometimes counter-intuitive (“hey, it’s cold out, and there’s snow in my back yard!”). But if you can take Joe to the Grand Canyon and show him the earth is old, I can take him to the Arctic and show him the earth is warming – the signs are dramatic and extremely visible.
A system of tradeable emission permits would work as well.
This is economics 101, which is not to say that it is obvious. Otherwise, why take the course? The technical term is externality. The standard solution to unpriced parts of the production process that have external effects is to price them.
Liberal, moderate and conservative economists are all on board here. Mankiw and Feldstein are two examples on the conservative team: Mankiw organized the Pigou Club to ID folks who supported this idea.
The other advantage of carbon taxes is that by raising revenue that way means you are discouraging bad things rather than good things like labor and savings.
Europe already has massive taxation of fuel. It hasn’t even slowed the amount of CO2 being produced each day. Much less done anything to slow the global growth of fossil fuels.
How will making heating oil cost much more for the US reduce CO2 levels? Yes making a family pay a thousand dollars more each winter to stay warm might result in them shivering more, but it won’t reduce global CO2. This is the practical issue that is not dealt with. It’s why the “solutions”, which always seem to involve government taking more of your money, are idiotic. They won’t actually stop CO2 levels from rising.
It’s important to get the statistical science right. All manner of medical studies use sample sizes far lower than 77. I calculated a quick error bound. Assuming a binomial distribution, the 95% confidence interval is {.91, 1.0}. Anywhere in that range is still a consensus. The real concern would be with regards to the randomness of the sample, or whether there are systematic selection biases. But higher sample sizes won’t fix that.
There are actually 3 published studies that prop the 97% figure. Not one. The first is a 2009 survey of climate scientists by Doran. The second is a 2010 review of over 1000 published papers by Anderegg et al. The third and most recent is a review of 11,944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011: the lead author was John Cook who teaches the online course I poked my nose in. He studied physics as an undergrad and cognitive science in graduate school. He is a fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia. Academic webpage.
Climate deniers have claimed that the earth isn’t warming, just as they have claimed that they have never claimed that the earth isn’t warming. They sometimes go on to assert that whether or not the earth is warming, humans aren’t playing a role in it. Occasionally you hear a followup that even if humans are causing climate change, there’s nothing we can do about it.
These sorts of scattershot approaches suggest that we’re dealing with critics whose opinions are driven by something other than evidence, never mind weighing evidence. People in this group are not properly characterized as skeptics.
At any rate the 97% figure is pretty good and backed by more than one line of evidence.