Copenhagen should be discussed. For a while. At least.
It really doesn’t matter whether you support or deny global warming. Just focus on China for a minute. Note the shift in global decisionmaking.
I suppose we’re going to observe more sucking up to China in the future. But this was ridiculous. The Western powers might as well get off the stage…completely. Let the world see how things will operate with China at the helm. Here’s a good example.
I was following the news stories last night on American Airlines Flight 331 into Jamacia. The details were confusing. Thankfully, all passengers and crew survived. According to American Airlines, the flight arrived in Jamacia at 9:22 pm Central Standard Time. (not sure why they cited Central time.)
I didn’t realize that the flight originated out of Washington, D.C. until I read the newswire press release from American Airlines. AA explained, “The flight originated out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, operated into Miami International Airport, and then operated into Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport.”
That resolved, I focused my attention on whether the aircraft fuselage broke up or not. Some of the orginal news stories denied the claims. Others cited one or two passengers who said the aircraft broke up. A few news stories said one engine was torn off; AP said both engines were ripped off. The AP video and commentary is still posted on Google news.
The aircraft most certainly broke up…into three pieces. The left engine is still attached to the wing.
Great paragraph from the first article about Copenhagen:
“What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.
Guess what the Chinese think of Obama – not much obviously.
This entire article once again points out what I have asked all you AGW religous believers from the start: What are you going to do with China and India?
Without them onboard nothing the US does will have any effect except to impoverish the US.
Well that might be the goal – the last bastion of individual freedom in the world.
1) No country is going to, or ever was going to, under any circumstances, submit to any binding draconian cuts in CO2 output for such an uncertain payoff. Al Gore, the Patron Saint of Global Warming, won’t even do it. It is sort of a “reverse prisoners dilemma” with a huge free rider problem tacked on. So it is ALL posturing.
“With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. “How can you ask my country to go extinct?” demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.”
The answer to the Maldives President is easy. “Is it cheaper to relocate your entire population than take the economic hit needed to keep you afloat?” Their pop is 370K according to Bing – easy enough to handle by absorbing them into the western world. According to Wikipedia over 1 million people were naturalized as US citizens in 2008. Thus the entire pop is a drop in the bucket….
Between Climate-gate and Copenhagen I think we have hit the high-water mark of the environmental fascist effort. If they actaully cared for the environment we probably could have actually accomplished great things, but that was never the goal….
The meeting snubs tell it all. Astonishing arrogance. China sucks.
President Obama and the European leadership had better get it together. They’re looking like puppies. All of them have the trade stick that can be used at any time to get the attention of the Chinese leadership. There is more than one way to deal with these self-important clowns.
China is running over all of them, and making it look easy. The American and European leadership should have refused to meet without the presence of the Chinese premier and other nations’ leaders. Second tier staffers don’t cut it.
Why do you say that unless China and India get onboard nothing the US does will have any effect except to impoverish the US? It would certainly be better if China and India did get onboard, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be done so we might as well party like hell today. The most obvious thing that the US and the EU could do would be to slap on a carbon tariff on Chinese and Indian imports. This would be perfectly legal and appropriate under existing WTO guidelines.
Also, let’s not kid ourselves here. Even if China and India had been absolute role models of responsibility, you know perfectly well that conservatives in this country would have simply replaced China and India as the spoiled sports. Political fights within this country are at least as nasty as the political fights with China and India.
Between Climate-gate and Copenhagen I think we have hit the high-water mark of the environmental fascist effort. If they actaully cared for the environment we probably could have actually accomplished great things, but that was never the goal….
Sorry, but I’m not following you here. You start off sounding like you should be thanking China and India for blunting some of the objectives of Copenhagen. But then your next sentence seems to veer off into a different direction. There you sound like GreenBuff who cares about the environment and is concerned about climate change. So are you congratulating the Chinese for skuttling Copenhagen or are you condemning them? Kinda hard to tell.
If your remember the vote of the ‘sense of the Senate; on kyoto was 95-0 against. Its just not the conservatives. Its everyone. Obama promised a 4% cut in US emmissions from the 1990 base. We could probably do that within his first term by building 10 nuc plants and retiring the 10 dirtiest coal plants in the US. Will it happen? Nope – no opportunity for graft and control.
Without China and India we could reeduce the US to an agrarian nation of Lincoln’s time and we would still get all the warming the AGW doomsayers say we will. Better to have our uber-smart Dems run the economy (Where is the sarcasm tag??) and deal with the problem in 50 years with a better technology base.
I will believe in AGW when I see the left actually taking steps that would actually allevate the so-called problem. But all I see is violent anti-nuc (ultimate clean energy), lots of huge mansions and private jets, and a total blindness to the issue of China – the worlds #1 polluter. All talk no walk!
Right now I can only see 3 comments, so if there is more I will wait for JS-kit to let me see them!!
I am VERY in favor of keeping a clean environment. And there are plenty of ways to go about it that do not require a chinese 1-child policy or making everyone move into Soviet style projects. If you really beleive in AGW and carbon is the issue then lets see a few things I could think of off the bat:
1) Go whole hog into nuclear – even the evil French and Japanese do it. We could learn from them. 2) Massive research into fusion power, advanced battery, and electrical power storage 3) Tax breaks for installation of energy saving advances in homes, home solar panels in the part of the US it makes sense, and for building ‘green’ homes (I have a green home 3 doors down from my house and plan to take some of those ideas and incorporate into my own).
But guess what – you don’t get the graft and government control with these ideas that you do with the left wings proposals. My point is almost every proposal on the left to ‘solve’ AGW is anti-capitalist, anti-individual freedom, and a lot are specifically aimed at hurting the West’ economy and power (especially the US).
And you still see all these ‘Green’ proponents flying around in private jets and living in 15K sq ft mansions. If Gore really wanted to make a statement about AGW he would have accepted his Nobel via teleconference. But again, it has never been about solving the problem, its always been about control…
On another subject, there is a great new you tube video on the 12 months of default .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_J7gXDr3GA It ends with the 12th month we have to move out, got a cash for keys offer, found some great new rentals…. we will fix our credit and in 3 years we will buy a house.
I don’t see any reason to shift the focus from China’s actions at Copenhagen to the U.S. Republican Party. That’s an internal national issue. Reverting back to that standard argument is a cop out when the issue is China.
The point is that China is flexing its muscle and the Western nations are caving. China will continue to do this on a full range of issues, having achieved success at Copenhagen. This is how they operate. The problem will get very ugly going forward. The Western leaders made a huge mistake at Copenhagen.
The Obama proposal and the one floating around in Congress is Cap & Trade. That is market based and it already has a proven track record with sulfur dioxide. How is Cap & Trade anti-capitalist??? And I don’t know many liberals who oppose govt projects and tax breaks supporting “green” homes. In fact, the Obama Administration is working on a cash-for-caulkers program right now. Again, it’s Republicans that seem most opposed to those kinds of projects.
I’m not opposed to nuclear power. And yes, the French get about 80 percent of their electricity from nuke plants. But realistically nuke plants are extremely expensive, so if you’re worried about impoverishing the US, then adopting a nuclear power building rampage is probably not where you want to go. But like I said, I’m not particularly anti-nuke plant per se.
Pointing out possible examples of hypocrisy is not a reason to oppose anti-GW proposals. You have to be careful that you don’t find yourself using hypocrisy as an opportunity to give yourself permission to be irresponsible.
My assumption is that without any climate bill to bring to the table, and any future one developed by this admin. or other DOA, China and India would not take any country seriously at the very start. Why waste the time?
My opinion is that wouldn’t have changed anything. The Europeans were sitting there with their targets and programs in place. It had no effect. Zip. It’s as though their leaders weren’t sitting in the meetings. The U.S. could have rolled into the meeting with a GW bill signed into law and China would have folded along with India? I don’t think so. They proved that they don’t have fold and fall in line. Quite simply, it appears that they’re not going to be serious about heading off a potential GW crisis. They’re likely to be bringing up the rear. Now and later.
My opinion is that wouldn’t have changed anything. The Europeans were sitting there with their targets and programs in place. It had no effect. Zip. It’s as though their leaders weren’t sitting in the meetings. The U.S. could have rolled into the meetings with a GW bill signed into law and China would have folded along with India? I don’t think so. They proved that they don’t have to fold and fall in line. Quite simply, it appears that they’re not going to be serious about heading off a potential GW crisis. They’re likely to be bringing up the rear. Now and later. We may have just lost another decade (until 2020) on treating this threat with any real seriousness. At best, we will see independent nation efforts moving along at self-determined paces. There is no master plan now. It was carved to pieces.
Why are we not talking about the latest version of the Health Care political debacle? I heard it described yesterday by a Democrat as the 2009 Christmas Turkey. Even he was predicting a huge turn over in the 2010 elections. I am so amazed to hear the Dem leadership touting this bill as the thing that will save them in 2010. I just don’t see it.
I’ve been watching a version of Charles Dickens the Christmas Carol on cable. I’m beginning to think that like with a basketball game its not until the last 5 minutes that its worth watching. The rest is narrative.
I agree, we have probably seen the peak of the pro-AGW movement. To the casual observer it probably seems that it fell our of favor very fast. Climategate actually broke just a month ago. I actually think; however, it peaked early last year, and that the 2008 cooling was the stake placed on the chest. Climategate pushed it through the heart, and Copenhagen was the death spasms.
Words like hoax, fraud, etc are used frequently now, and will be repeated. The next step in the process will be the battle over the EPA ruling. Once in the courts, the whole thing should finally fall completely apart, then we should start seeing the class action damage suits.
The advocates are looking more an more silly with weaker and weaker arguments. You can see it here, and I see it all over the Web. Almost every new release of a catastrophic prediction is met with howls of laughter and/or ridicule by those who are still listening. They’ve lost the people, and are only supported by a diminishing set of hard liners or those still making money off the pro-AGW position.
MG, I still want to see the threat defined. Until that is done with science and without the politics, then there is NO THREAT. I’ll repeat this same argument till I turn blue or it is corrected.
We have seen only one side of this discussion. We are making decisions and plans from that one sided view. That view is now being shown to be scientifically corrupted. Show us the threat!
The problem with your approach is that you may be wrong. If that’s the case, we’re in big, Big, BIG trouble.
If the GW advocates are wrong, the planet’s nations will have at least taken steps to reduce human impact on the planet including impacts on other species.
There is no reason not to be taking further steps to eliminate the pollution filth of coal-powered and heating oil sources along with improving fuel usage efficiencies in vehicles and every other application. I am fully in support of eliminating coal and fuel oil as energy sources. Finding workable and affordable replacements is the issue.
For Pete’s Sake, people are walking and riding around in China’s industrial belt wearing face masks. Let’s not pretend that is a healthy environment.
The people of this planet are on a collision course with available resources. The list, beginning with water, is very long.
I can’t prove that global warming is or isn’t occurring with 100% certainty, but I do know that humans are engaged in activities that are affecting the global environment. All evidence is not invisible or impossible to verify.
I am not wild about jumping to conclusions and wasting funds on unnecessary actions on any issue. At the same time, I believe that the planet is headed for trouble with regard to available resources and pollution in general.
So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed. Do you want to bet the future of the entire planet and future generations of humans on your thinking and limited evidence? What say you, Atlas?
MG, you are mixing problems. Climate Change is not the same as environmental change, even though loosely related. Have you ever seen me say we do not need to take care of man made pollution? No! Never.
If anything you have seen me say let’s attack the specific problems and not the general. CO2 is not a specific problem and its control is a secondary or even tertiary approach to controlling the environment. There is precious little evidence, and contradictory results from the Climate Models, that show how extensive is the AGW/CO2 effect.
Unless we can find the evidence that the AGW theory is actually truly endangering our lives, we are just living the precautionary principle. Being afraid of everything (or in this case CO2) is just buying insurance to make us feel better at a high and known cost to protect us from something that is clearly based upon weak science.
So, asking: “So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed. Do you want to bet the future of the entire planet and future generations of humans on your thinking and limited evidence? What say you, Atlas?”
Which advice are you siggesting I have recommended? Which part of the science show us that we/the planet/all life is screwed? Where is there any history of that ever happening? And, finally, yes, I am more than comfortable with my decisions and know they are based upon a review of the available (not MSM-based) sources .
You have a Merry Christmas. Hope eveything is well with the family.
CoRev – “MG, I still want to see the threat defined. Until that is done with science and without the politics, then there is NO THREAT. I’ll repeat this same argument till I turn blue or it is corrected.”
You can’t prove that there isn’t a threat. You can pretend. You can hope. But that’s about all. It’s over the top for you to state that there is NO THREAT. There may be a real threat going forward. If I had a time travel machine and I took you far off into the future, we would have some real answers. And if you were wrong and could see it, what would say then (back in our time)? We would still have denial, and plenty of it.
So, some have gone overboard in fudging data outcomes and using political amitions to achieve other ends. And others have launched into a full court press. Par for the course in my experience. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a threat. I doubt quite seriously that if we lived in Alaska as I did as a youth that we would need reports to show us that the environment is changing. It is very difficult to ignore what is happening with the permafrost among other indicators.
I’ve had the good fortune to travel over the years and note the retreat of some glaciers. I didn’t imagine that. It’s astonishing. Yeah, I know they retreat anyway, but I’m talking about very large declines.
I don’t pretend to have any of the answers. But I am not willing to ignore the possibility that a serious threat is awaiting us in the future. As I explain in my 4:28 post, there is plenty of stuff that we should be undertaking anyway. Who are we trying to kid? The governments of the world should be pushing for positive changes on many fronts. All it requires is some serious leadership. And we’re running short on that one. Way short.
I don’t see any reason to shift the focus from China’s actions at Copenhagen to the U.S. Republican Party. That’s an internal national issue.
My point was that it’s inconsistent for those who oppose climate change to use what happened at Copenhagen as an opportunity to engage in China bashing when they would have supported similar tactics domestically if it had been the GOP trying to embarrass Obama and sink Cap & Trade. Notice that I addressed my comment to buffpilot rather than you. There wasn’t anything personal in that. The reason I didn’t address it to you was that I don’t have any doubt about your sincerity in wanting to see climate change addressed, so I take you at your word when you feel outraged by the Chinese. I don’t entirely agree with your position, but that’s a different issue. The key is that I don’t believe you want to sabotage climage change legislation, so your reaction to China is understandable. But I’m not so sure about buffpilot. Is he really upset with China for gutting climage change legislation??? Would he be saying the same things if it had been the Bush Administration doing to Copenhagen what the Chinese did? Somehow I don’t think so. That’s why I asked him why he wasn’t congratulating the Chinese.
I’m not sure what your idea of “huge turn over” is, but I will agree that it is likely to be large. And by that I mean something on the order of 30 lost House seats and perhaps as many as 5 lost Senate seats. If the healthcare bill had failed that number might have been 20 percent higher. The problem for the GOP is that 2010 is probably about as good as it’s going to get for them for a very long time. The GOP is becoming a regional party of elderly, white conservatives and that’s not a recipe for success in Presidential election years. It just isn’t.
The healthcare bill, once passed, will quickly become something that voters will not want to give up. Krugman points out that despite all of the problems with the Massachusetts plan, voters in Massachusetts are pretty adamant in not wanting to undo healthcare reform. So the Obama plan will be a work in progress for the next 20 years, but once passed there is no going back and the GOP knows it. The GOP fought Social Security and eventually paid for that opposition over the long run. The GOP fought Medicare and eventually paid for that opposition over the long run. The GOP fought healthcare reform and I predict they will pay for it over the long run.
Unless we can find the evidence that the AGW theory is actually truly endangering our lives, we are just living the precautionary principle. Being afraid of everything (or in this case CO2) is just buying insurance to make us feel better at a high and known cost to protect us from something that is clearly based upon weak science.
Type I versus Type II errors. Learn the difference.
So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed.
Why are we necessarily screwed? The evidence from the Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period, when temperatures were warmer than present (sans SUVs I might add) was very beneficial to life and mankind. Coversely, the experience with cooler temps, for example the Little Ice Age, is very harsh. If I had to choose whether global temps get slightly warmer or slightly cooler, I would choose warmer.
MG, see my 4:52 above for my answer. One of the most egregious problems caused the these pro-AGW zealots has been the shift from action on real environmental issues to their politically motivated CO2-controlling proposals.
Much of the CC catastrophic predictions are based upon temperature increases from the major CC dataset analysis centers. See the image below that explains why these are not without question.
This is from the Darwin, Au site, and is just one of growing number of similar examples which show that much (not all) of the warming may actually be artifacts of the data processing approach and Urban Heat Island effects.
If you’ve read my many comments about my beliefs, you know I believe the planet is warming. Some of that warming is from man-influenced actions. In particular, the cities, asphalt roads/parking lots and land use. Having said that, NO ONE can tell us how much of that warming is from those man influenced cause, GHGs and natural effects. Much of the more current studies are pointing to natural causes overriding man influenced.
I just don’t believe we need to take the relatively well known risks (read Bjorn Lomborg) of those pro-AGW recommendations versus the unknown risk based upon a dubious science.
So I am secure in my beliefs re: the dangers. As Sammy says, the opposite of warming is much worse than the slight warming predicted. Even though those predictions are being seriously questioned as to their validity. So, where’s the threat?
China is a leading emitter, AND a leader in solar and wind turbine manufacture and use, along with a new power grid. Project 863 and all that. My assumption is that they would like to be the manufacturer of choice for USA projects of the same ilk, and for national security reasons (ie. water)
Yes, the Chinese as a culture are at least as arrogant as Americans (probably more so), and have a longer tradition to draw from. So while I actually agree with your reasoning about getting tough, it seems the fight internally in the US is whether to fight at all on this front. The US is hobbled by its own contradictions, and you are correct, I also have seen little public thinking on the matter.
On Healthcare right now based on headcount it can’t be stopped. I would hope that states that don’t support the bill would fight its implementation every step of the way using the courts to slow it down until future elections can reverse the headcount and it can be repealed. It’s not likely the republicans can get a filibuster proof majority but if the courts say you must modify the current bill they could refuse to do so and force the thing to get shot down.
On Healthcare right now based on headcount it can’t be stopped. I would hope that states that don’t support the bill would fight its implementation every step of the way using the courts to slow it down until future elections can reverse the headcount and it can be repealed. It’s not likely the republicans can get a filibuster proof majority but if the courts say you must modify the current bill they could refuse to do so and force the whole thing to get thrown out.
Why defunding Chavez and various other dictatorial regimes from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Central Asia by cutting US consumption of fossil fuels is somehow unAmerican still escapes me.
People somehow seem to have translated some hatred of Ozone Al into a willingness to undercut American energy and national security. Whatever your beliefs about human contribution to global warming wouldn’t reducing the need of kissing the cheeks (upper and lower) of the King of Saudi Arabia and the various Emirs of the United Arab Emirites be a good thing in and of itself?
Anyone care to run numbers for how many Bangladeshis and inhabitants of the Niger River Delta would be submerged at the sea level increases need to submerge the Maldives?
It is certainly surprising to see Buff implicitly propose to find room in the western world to resettle tens of millions of dark skinned Muslims from S. Asia. Of course most of the would be immigrants from the Niger Delta would be Christians or Animists so maybe we could still beat back the warriors against Christmas.
The Maldives and Tuvalu are canaries inthe coal mine and not the totality of people theatened by rising sea levels.
Obama’s stimulus package proposed HUGE boosts in advanced battery R&D, alternative energy, green buildings and weatherization and covered about 80% of your wish list. To the tine of billions of dollars. My memory must be failing, somehow your full throated support of these programs last spring slipped my mind amidst all the hyperbole.
At the risk of throwing gas on the fire the insitence of certain Americans that accidents of history that left 300 million Americans within our borders and 1.2 billion within the borders of China mean that responsibilities for emissions are governed only by the existence of nation states and not either total historical emissions or current emissions per capita explains why most of the world translates ‘American Exceptionalism’ into characters and phrases meaning ‘Arrogant Asshole Yanks’
CO2 is a pollutant. George W Bush ran on that in 2000. Just as he ran against any policy of nation building.
Funny about how many of his supporters then have flip flopped on both once they got their marching orders from the Ministry of Truth, AKA the Steele Palin-ace.
Sammy where is the data that either the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods were beneficial for anyone outside Western Europe? During the Roman Republic Northern Africa was the granary of Rome. Was it’s transition to the Northern Sahara before or after that Roman Warm Period and where there any causal factors either way?
I mean I guess it is cool that viniculture was possible in Southern Britain in the first century BC and the thirteenth century AD but as surprising as it may be to some not everything gets measured by it’s benefitsfor Northern European white men.
I don’t know the version you are watching. But if in general you miss all the nice touches in develping a plot and character and all that goes into a good story you are missing most of life. It’s a little like reducing life and marriage to the final seconds of the sex act.
Hate to say this, but I think your impatience with “the whole story” says something about your take on political issues.
if your objection to “global warming” is the way it is gamed, or potentially gamed, by the politicians… let us say of the left for now… then i might find myself agreeing with you.
but to go from that into a denial of the science when you really don’t understand the science, or any science at all, is irresponsible and dangerous.
i would suggest that Bruce has the right idea: we can go a long way toward making our own country cleaner and smarter and even cheaper to live in by doing as much as we can to reduce carbon fuel consumption. being me, i’d say reduce all fuel consumpton. nuclear and hydropower and windpower have downsides as well. we’d also gain a measure of independence from countries we don’t like and can’t control.
meanwhile, the Chinese are doing what they can to develop clean technology. they may not want to be dictated to by the white devils any more than you do. but they are also inscrutible enough to play a game that encourages us to be really stupid about climate change while they take the lead in technology.
As Sammy says, the opposite of warming is much worse than the slight warming predicted.
Pretty much of a false choice because no one is talking about warmer temps versus cooler temps. The discussion is about warmer temps versus stabilizing temps. Kind of an important difference.
The Constitutional argument won’t hold water and even if it did the solution is easy.
No one doubts that Congress can tax the country to provide for some national purpose, say nutitional assistance for children. Does the Fifth Amendment prevent a national health care income tax surcharge based on income (think various war taxes in the past)? If so is there anything that would prevent a tax credit for proof of insurance? Under this model you are not forced to buy any private product, you just don’t get a credit if you can’t prove you have ‘acceptable coverage’. Move two boxes on the 1040 and you are home free.
Bruce, there is much evidence of a global phenomenom. Northern Europe had the most and better written records. The geological records confirming these two recent global historical events are getting better defined.
Bruce, those effortrs are commendable. What has happened is the discussions re: CO2/GHGs has crowded out any other reasonable energy/environmental discussions.
Bruce, recent studies of the Maldives ?Sera Level Rise? have shown none. What they have shown is like many atolls the Maldives floats on a pool of fresh water trapped by the coral and as that is used the atolls are prone to subside. In the Maldives’ case there is visual evidence of no change to the sea level change in the past generation.
There is aother legitimate constitutional issue, and that concerns the sweetheart deal for Nebraska. Several states attorneys general have already announced plans to challenge the special Nebraska provision for Medicaid reimbursement. It’s quite possible that this piece of the bill will eventually be found unconstitutional, and that would be fine by me.
It took scrooge too long to live according to what he valued. He wasted his life and even with his redemption at the end there were too many years wasted. Lost love, lost friendship, and excessive miserliness. The bottom line is that if you’re its more fun to be like Mr. Fezziwig and newphew Fred who enjoyed their lives not to be a scrooge.
By the way with the government and taxes there is no charity. There is only charity when you give when you don’t have too. Government and taxes are taking so you can’t be giving of your own free will since you don’t have a choice.
Bruce, those efforts are commendable. What has happened is the discussions re: CO2/GHGs has crowded out any other reasonable energy/environmental discussions.
Bruce, recent studies of the Maldives ?Sea Level Rise? have shown none. What they have shown is like many atolls the Maldives floats on a pool of fresh water trapped by the coral and as that is used the atolls are prone to subside. In the Maldives’ case there is visual evidence of no change to the sea level change in the past generation.
MG, with your observations you confirm that there is climate change. Glaciers grow and contract. It is their nature. Otherwise we would not have been able to find the stone/bronze age man in the Alps a few years past, and Greenland would have had a different name.
So, in your own words there is a threat. A threat of what? Change? Climate change? What is that threat?
The Supreme Court threw out a large number of FDRs programs. That’s why he tried pulling that fascist move of packing the courts with his own people. Law is funny and a good lawyer can make a valid legal argument out of a ham sandwich. A central function of law is to resolve disputes. So the republicans need to create disputes to bet back in the game. The democrats have the numbers right now, this will most likely change starting in the 2010 election, so the republicans fight with what they have for now.
So you were thinking that one the government got their foot in the door they would drive to nationalized government run healthcare. My preference is to take a hammer to that foot in the door and to drive it out as soon as possible. However, if it turns out that the majority of people actually like having their taxes raised and the government run their lives then the democrat party is on the right track.
Ilsm, sea level rise is not correlated with CO2 level rises. It is correlated with heat storage. They are the planet’s primary heat sinks. The vast majority, 98-99%, of that heat is from the Sun. As they collect and store heat they expand. There is a direct correlation in that area.
2slugs, not really. No one talks about stabilizing the temps. Slowing the rise? Yes. Reversing the rise? Yes. Stabilizing them (reaching an equilibrium?) is pretty much exactly what we have. Earth’s temps oscillation at a very small rate and amount compared to the absolutes. We have lived through the full range of those oscillations.
OMG, is Obama going to be the “WAR” president? From Fox News, we just took out the Imam who was the spiritual leader, Al-Awlaki of the highjackers, and of the Ft Hood killer.
As I was going upstairs to tell my wife, she was coming down to tell me that “O” looks to have given the green light to Israel to attack Iran nuke sites. All of this while he is accelerating the missile/drone attacks in the ME.
Looks like Buff’s views have and are being confirmed. Is he growing into the job, or are the effective options just too few?
Excuse me, but aren’t conservatives supposed to be the ones who criticize liberals for wanting to use the court system to overturn legislative actions? Did you have a sudden change of heart?
Earlier this morning Ron Brownstein pointed out that in 1936 Alf Landon ran on a platform to undo Social Security. How did that work out for the GOP? The GOP will obviously pick up plenty of seats in 2010. It will be a good year for them; but it won’t be quite good enough. And 2012 is looking like a disaster for Republicans. Polls show that as much as people dislike Democrats, they dislike Republicans even more. There was just a new CNN poll out that says as much:
The problem with Scrooge is that on the morning after Christmas he still went back to being a usurer. The only difference is that he allowed Bob Cratchett the luxury of sleeping in and they threw on another shovel of global warming coal on the fire.
You don’t see much about this although the trend is very clear and quite unambiguous. But the rate is too high for the deniers who want zero impact from CO2 emissions and it is too low for the alarmists who want Manhattan under water by Saturday next.
As to why sea level doesn’t seem to track to atmospheric CO2 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere ), you’d think that would be near the top of the agenda for anyone seriously interested in future climates. But no, “they” (both sides) devote an incredible amount of time to arguing about dubious climate trends extracted from very noisy and dubiously valid surface temperature data, recalibrated (i.e. probably fudged) satellite data and similar stuff. Sea level rise is simply ignored.
But yes, the two principle economic affects of significant global warming would be the loss of some land and a lot of infrastructure at very low elevations, and shifting of climate patterns that would probably exacerbate fresh water supply problems (which are already going to be a huge problem) in some semi-arid areas.
Actually “we” did not take out Imam. It was the Yemenis who took him out with intelligence provided by the US. And the reason the Yemenis took him out was because we gave them $70M to do the job. This was something that was decided early on in Obama’s Administration.
And the stuff about giving the green light for Israel to bomb Iran…well, if I watched Fox News I sure wouldn’t announce it to the world. You should know that State and DoD regularly use Fox News to “leak” fake reports about impending military actions. They do so because they know Fox News is unlikely to go to the bother of actually checking sources.
It took scrooge too long to live according to what he valued. He wasted his life and even with his redemption at the end there were too many years wasted. Lost love, lost friendship, and excessive miserliness. The bottom line is that its more fun to be like Mr. Fezziwig and newphew Fred who enjoyed their lives not to be a scrooge.
By the way with the government and taxes there is no charity. There is only charity when you give when you don’t have too. Government and taxes are taking so you can’t be giving of your own free will since you don’t have a choice.
The Supreme Court threw out a large number of FDRs programs. That’s why he tried pulling that fascist move of packing the courts with his own people. Law is funny and a good lawyer can make a valid legal argument out of a ham sandwich. A central function of law is to resolve disputes. So the republicans need to create disputes to bet back in the game. The democrats have the numbers right now, this will most likely change starting in the 2010 election, so the republicans fight with what they have for now.
So you were thinking that once the government got their foot in the door they would drive to nationalized government run healthcare. My preference is to take a hammer to that foot in the door and to drive it out as soon as possible. However, if it turns out that the majority of people actually like having their taxes raised and the government run their lives then the democrat party is on the right track.
***i would suggest that Bruce has the right idea: we can go a long way toward making our own country cleaner and smarter and even cheaper to live in by doing as much as we can to reduce carbon fuel consumption. being me, i’d say reduce all fuel consumpton. nuclear and hydropower and windpower have downsides as well. we’d also gain a measure of independence from countries we don’t like and can’t control. ***
I agree and would add a few points:
1. The US infrastructure is largely built on cheap petroleum. Petroleum is unlikely to remain cheap. We have little control over world prices for petroleum. We pay world prices for the stuff even if we produce it domestically. We would be well advised to GRACEFULLY AND GRADUALLY shift our infrastructure to other energy sources and/or to use less of them.
2. Based on other countries with rigorous climates, we can probably — over many decades — cut our energy usage by about a third on a per capita basis. But, unlike many other industrial countries, our population is still growing, so we are always going to use lots of energy. Or our standard of living is going to crash.
3. As far as I can see wind, geothermal, biomass, waves, etc can all contribute. BUT in the very long run, the major energy sources are going to have to be solar, fission, and — if we are lucky — fusion. In the meantime, the world has a fair, but far from unlimited, supply of hydrocarbons.
4. If the human race uses its resources wisely, there should be no great problem, but wisdom is — as in most times and places — in short supply. The last American leader who spoke wisely about energy was Carter, and his views were instantly rejected by every fool in the country. The US supply of fools seems to be far more adequate than its supply of hydrocarbons.
Nonetheless, I’m reasonably optimistic. Even if our leaders reject reality and continue to lie, steal, cheat, and blunder, we will probably muddle through. It will be a lot more painful than if we applied common sense, but as long as the folks who think the answer to all problems is violence don’t try nuclear weapons as a substitute for nuclear power, humanity will probably pull through OK … on average.
2slugs, not really. No one talks about stabilizing the temps. Really? Hmmm….then someone ought to tell the Brookings because they seem to think cap & trade is about “stabilizing” temperatures, and most of the cap & trade legislation pending in Congress was largely ghost written by Brookings.
Am I the only one who is reminded of the Vietnam body counts? Back then, we were treated weekly to announcements that we were decimating the enemy and projections that the US and ARVN would wipe out the Viet Cong in just a jiffy or two. Then came Tet and it became obvious that the Communists were revivifying their corpses, and/or there were a hell of a lot of Communists in South Vietnam, and/or our body counts were largely fictional.
IMHO this crap about assassinating this or that islamic fundamentalist leader is just that — crap. Half the time, it turns out to be wrong. And even when it isn’t, we seem to be overlooking the probabiliy that these dudes have a near infininte supply of leaders. When we come up with some evidence that every bus that arrives in Khandahar or Sana’a isn’t bringing more young men and women ready to give up their lives to get the damn infidels (that’d be us) out of their domain I’ll believe that progress is being made in this idiotic war’
How about we just pick up and come home? Trust me folks, the people we are fighting hate just about everyone who is not just like them. Without us they will shortly be fully engaged in butchering Pushtans, Kazacks, Russians, Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Persians, Zoraoasterns, Hindus, Sikhs or whoever else comes to hand. They’ll find some way to entertain themselves without attacking us. (Which they likely wouldn’t have done in the first place if we had minded our own damn business).
2slugs, you did find a paper that used the term stabilization. This is what is said: “However, an important starting point for this analysis is the assumption that a consensus climate stabilization target will ultimately emerge as a result of ongoing political discussions. This target will most likely take the form of a number that expresses the maximum acceptable deviation of the global average surface temperature from its preindustrial value.”
So in my mind this paper is actually saying this: “Slowing the rise? Yes. Reversing the rise? Yes.” Which is what I said. did you have another point?
Yemen is a poor country. Without the money from the Pentagon it is highly unlikely that the Yemenis would have have either the will or the wherewithal to carry out this kind of strike. The Obama Administration decided to give the Yemenis some military aid and intelligence. We expected something in return. It was clearly a quid pro quo. We got what we wanted and the Yemenis got what they wanted. We don’t know if the military aid was the deciding factor, but we do know that up until we decided to fork over $70M in aid the Yemenis pretty much sat on their hands.
Yemen is a poor country. Without the money from the Pentagon it is highly unlikely that the Yemenis would have had either the will or the wherewithal to carry out this kind of strike. The Obama Administration decided to give the Yemenis some military aid and intelligence. We expected something in return. It was clearly a quid pro quo. We got what we wanted and the Yemenis got what they wanted. We don’t know if the military aid was the deciding factor, but we do know that up until we decided to fork over $70M in aid the Yemenis pretty much sat on their hands.
My reading is that cap and trade will slow the rise up to some target and then level off at that target. That sounds like stabilization in my book. And it definitely is not cooling the planet, which is the false choice that sammy presented.
I keep arguing that the government is not in the charity business. The government is in the business of making the country stronger and all of us richer. Sometimes that involves doing things that look like charity, especially to someone who pinches a nickle so hard it bleeds.
Solving poverty, as opposed to tossing a dime to a beggar on the street, is a problem that can only be solved at the national level. It is too bad you make so little money that the taxes you pay reduce you to a level of poverty below which even two mites is beyond your means.
You do seem to have got the point about Scrooge. After what I said about the TV versions I remembered that I hate all the TV versions. None of them compare to the version in my head listening to my mother in law reading the story to my kids. I recommend reading the original. Dickens had a way with words that is a pleasure in itself.
actually it’s the liberals who have to modify this thing soonest. it’s too bad to stand as it is. but the foot in the door may (May) turn out to be the sine qua non.
2slugs, Do you really believe if we cut our CO2 to zero that it would halt temp rise? BTW, why are we talking about a no chance bill? Cap & trade is not going to happen.
As far as the article goes, it is just another political paper with NO real science behind it.
MG, just enjoy the holidays and the family! Way more important than AB. As you can see this old man and his gorgeous spouse are having a quiet Christmas Eve.
Ok MG – You have the floor what was on your mind?
Also in case I’m not posting anymore for awhile:
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU ANGRY BEARS!!!
I breathe easier knowing that there is an open thread. Someone might have an interesting thought. I wouldn’t want to miss that… 😎
Copenhagen should be discussed. For a while. At least.
It really doesn’t matter whether you support or deny global warming. Just focus on China for a minute. Note the shift in global decisionmaking.
I suppose we’re going to observe more sucking up to China in the future. But this was ridiculous. The Western powers might as well get off the stage…completely. Let the world see how things will operate with China at the helm. Here’s a good example.
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
22 December 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas
E.U. Blames Others for ‘Great Failure’ on Climate
Dec 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/europe/23iht-climate.html
I was following the news stories last night on American Airlines Flight 331 into Jamacia. The details were confusing. Thankfully, all passengers and crew survived. According to American Airlines, the flight arrived in Jamacia at 9:22 pm Central Standard Time. (not sure why they cited Central time.)
I didn’t realize that the flight originated out of Washington, D.C. until I read the newswire press release from American Airlines. AA explained, “The flight originated out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, operated into Miami International Airport, and then operated into Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport.”
That resolved, I focused my attention on whether the aircraft fuselage broke up or not. Some of the orginal news stories denied the claims. Others cited one or two passengers who said the aircraft broke up. A few news stories said one engine was torn off; AP said both engines were ripped off. The AP video and commentary is still posted on Google news.
The aircraft most certainly broke up…into three pieces. The left engine is still attached to the wing.
So much for accuracy in news reporting.
Couple of photos:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126154759895302625.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/23/plane-crash-jamaica.html
MG,
Great paragraph from the first article about Copenhagen:
“What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.
Guess what the Chinese think of Obama – not much obviously.
This entire article once again points out what I have asked all you AGW religous believers from the start: What are you going to do with China and India?
Without them onboard nothing the US does will have any effect except to impoverish the US.
Well that might be the goal – the last bastion of individual freedom in the world.
Islam will change
MG,
Nothing surprising about Copenhagen.
1) No country is going to, or ever was going to, under any circumstances, submit to any binding draconian cuts in CO2 output for such an uncertain payoff. Al Gore, the Patron Saint of Global Warming, won’t even do it. It is sort of a “reverse prisoners dilemma” with a huge free rider problem tacked on. So it is ALL posturing.
2) Just another ineffectual international performance by Obama http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/23/obama-the-party-crasher/
Another one:
“With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. “How can you ask my country to go extinct?” demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.”
The answer to the Maldives President is easy. “Is it cheaper to relocate your entire population than take the economic hit needed to keep you afloat?” Their pop is 370K according to Bing – easy enough to handle by absorbing them into the western world. According to Wikipedia over 1 million people were naturalized as US citizens in 2008. Thus the entire pop is a drop in the bucket….
Between Climate-gate and Copenhagen I think we have hit the high-water mark of the environmental fascist effort. If they actaully cared for the environment we probably could have actually accomplished great things, but that was never the goal….
Islam will change
Buffpilot,
The meeting snubs tell it all. Astonishing arrogance. China sucks.
President Obama and the European leadership had better get it together. They’re looking like puppies. All of them have the trade stick that can be used at any time to get the attention of the Chinese leadership. There is more than one way to deal with these self-important clowns.
China is running over all of them, and making it look easy. The American and European leadership should have refused to meet without the presence of the Chinese premier and other nations’ leaders. Second tier staffers don’t cut it.
buff,
Why do you say that unless China and India get onboard nothing the US does will have any effect except to impoverish the US? It would certainly be better if China and India did get onboard, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be done so we might as well party like hell today. The most obvious thing that the US and the EU could do would be to slap on a carbon tariff on Chinese and Indian imports. This would be perfectly legal and appropriate under existing WTO guidelines.
Also, let’s not kid ourselves here. Even if China and India had been absolute role models of responsibility, you know perfectly well that conservatives in this country would have simply replaced China and India as the spoiled sports. Political fights within this country are at least as nasty as the political fights with China and India.
Oh, before I forget, Merry Xmas to you as well.
buff,
Between Climate-gate and Copenhagen I think we have hit the high-water mark of the environmental fascist effort. If they actaully cared for the environment we probably could have actually accomplished great things, but that was never the goal….
Sorry, but I’m not following you here. You start off sounding like you should be thanking China and India for blunting some of the objectives of Copenhagen. But then your next sentence seems to veer off into a different direction. There you sound like GreenBuff who cares about the environment and is concerned about climate change. So are you congratulating the Chinese for skuttling Copenhagen or are you condemning them? Kinda hard to tell.
slugs,
If your remember the vote of the ‘sense of the Senate; on kyoto was 95-0 against. Its just not the conservatives. Its everyone. Obama promised a 4% cut in US emmissions from the 1990 base. We could probably do that within his first term by building 10 nuc plants and retiring the 10 dirtiest coal plants in the US. Will it happen? Nope – no opportunity for graft and control.
Without China and India we could reeduce the US to an agrarian nation of Lincoln’s time and we would still get all the warming the AGW doomsayers say we will. Better to have our uber-smart Dems run the economy (Where is the sarcasm tag??) and deal with the problem in 50 years with a better technology base.
I will believe in AGW when I see the left actually taking steps that would actually allevate the so-called problem. But all I see is violent anti-nuc (ultimate clean energy), lots of huge mansions and private jets, and a total blindness to the issue of China – the worlds #1 polluter. All talk no walk!
Right now I can only see 3 comments, so if there is more I will wait for JS-kit to let me see them!!
Islam will change
slugs,
I am VERY in favor of keeping a clean environment. And there are plenty of ways to go about it that do not require a chinese 1-child policy or making everyone move into Soviet style projects. If you really beleive in AGW and carbon is the issue then lets see a few things I could think of off the bat:
1) Go whole hog into nuclear – even the evil French and Japanese do it. We could learn from them.
2) Massive research into fusion power, advanced battery, and electrical power storage
3) Tax breaks for installation of energy saving advances in homes, home solar panels in the part of the US it makes sense, and for building ‘green’ homes (I have a green home 3 doors down from my house and plan to take some of those ideas and incorporate into my own).
But guess what – you don’t get the graft and government control with these ideas that you do with the left wings proposals. My point is almost every proposal on the left to ‘solve’ AGW is anti-capitalist, anti-individual freedom, and a lot are specifically aimed at hurting the West’ economy and power (especially the US).
And you still see all these ‘Green’ proponents flying around in private jets and living in 15K sq ft mansions. If Gore really wanted to make a statement about AGW he would have accepted his Nobel via teleconference. But again, it has never been about solving the problem, its always been about control…
Islam will change
On another subject, there is a great new you tube video on the 12 months of default .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_J7gXDr3GA
It ends with the 12th month we have to move out, got a cash for keys offer, found some great new rentals…. we will fix our credit and in 3 years we will buy a house.
Slugs,
I agree on being prepared to use a carbon tariff.
I don’t see any reason to shift the focus from China’s actions at Copenhagen to the U.S. Republican Party. That’s an internal national issue. Reverting back to that standard argument is a cop out when the issue is China.
The point is that China is flexing its muscle and the Western nations are caving. China will continue to do this on a full range of issues, having achieved success at Copenhagen. This is how they operate. The problem will get very ugly going forward. The Western leaders made a huge mistake at Copenhagen.
Greenbuff,
The Obama proposal and the one floating around in Congress is Cap & Trade. That is market based and it already has a proven track record with sulfur dioxide. How is Cap & Trade anti-capitalist??? And I don’t know many liberals who oppose govt projects and tax breaks supporting “green” homes. In fact, the Obama Administration is working on a cash-for-caulkers program right now. Again, it’s Republicans that seem most opposed to those kinds of projects.
I’m not opposed to nuclear power. And yes, the French get about 80 percent of their electricity from nuke plants. But realistically nuke plants are extremely expensive, so if you’re worried about impoverishing the US, then adopting a nuclear power building rampage is probably not where you want to go. But like I said, I’m not particularly anti-nuke plant per se.
Pointing out possible examples of hypocrisy is not a reason to oppose anti-GW proposals. You have to be careful that you don’t find yourself using hypocrisy as an opportunity to give yourself permission to be irresponsible.
My assumption is that without any climate bill to bring to the table, and any future one developed by this admin. or other DOA, China and India would not take any country seriously at the very start. Why waste the time?
Rdan,
My opinion is that wouldn’t have changed anything. The Europeans were sitting there with their targets and programs in place. It had no effect. Zip. It’s as though their leaders weren’t sitting in the meetings. The U.S. could have rolled into the meeting with a GW bill signed into law and China would have folded along with India? I don’t think so. They proved that they don’t have fold and fall in line. Quite simply, it appears that they’re not going to be serious about heading off a potential GW crisis. They’re likely to be bringing up the rear. Now and later.
Rdan,
My opinion is that wouldn’t have changed anything. The Europeans were sitting there with their targets and programs in place. It had no effect. Zip. It’s as though their leaders weren’t sitting in the meetings. The U.S. could have rolled into the meetings with a GW bill signed into law and China would have folded along with India? I don’t think so. They proved that they don’t have to fold and fall in line. Quite simply, it appears that they’re not going to be serious about heading off a potential GW crisis. They’re likely to be bringing up the rear. Now and later.
We may have just lost another decade (until 2020) on treating this threat with any real seriousness. At best, we will see independent nation efforts moving along at self-determined paces. There is no master plan now. It was carved to pieces.
Why are we not talking about the latest version of the Health Care political debacle? I heard it described yesterday by a Democrat as the 2009 Christmas Turkey. Even he was predicting a huge turn over in the 2010 elections. I am so amazed to hear the Dem leadership touting this bill as the thing that will save them in 2010. I just don’t see it.
I’ve been watching a version of Charles Dickens the Christmas Carol on cable. I’m beginning to think that like with a basketball game its not until the last 5 minutes that its worth watching. The rest is narrative.
Buff, you’ve got the gist of what is wrong with the whole pro-AGW movement.
This week we’ve seen the start of the transparency wave. The UK Met has released part of its data and code. One source is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/22/met-office-and-cru-bow-to-public-pressure-publish-data-and-code/
We’ve also seen the corruption in the pro-AGW PR hierarchy: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/21/pacharuris-carbon-choo-choo-off-the-rails/
I agree, we have probably seen the peak of the pro-AGW movement. To the casual observer it probably seems that it fell our of favor very fast. Climategate actually broke just a month ago. I actually think; however, it peaked early last year, and that the 2008 cooling was the stake placed on the chest. Climategate pushed it through the heart, and Copenhagen was the death spasms.
Words like hoax, fraud, etc are used frequently now, and will be repeated. The next step in the process will be the battle over the EPA ruling. Once in the courts, the whole thing should finally fall completely apart, then we should start seeing the class action damage suits.
The advocates are looking more an more silly with weaker and weaker arguments. You can see it here, and I see it all over the Web. Almost every new release of a catastrophic prediction is met with howls of laughter and/or ridicule by those who are still listening. They’ve lost the people, and are only supported by a diminishing set of hard liners or those still making money off the pro-AGW position.
I agree. Really good one!
MG, I still want to see the threat defined. Until that is done with science and without the politics, then there is NO THREAT. I’ll repeat this same argument till I turn blue or it is corrected.
We have seen only one side of this discussion. We are making decisions and plans from that one sided view. That view is now being shown to be scientifically corrupted. Show us the threat!
CoRev,
The problem with your approach is that you may be wrong. If that’s the case, we’re in big, Big, BIG trouble.
If the GW advocates are wrong, the planet’s nations will have at least taken steps to reduce human impact on the planet including impacts on other species.
There is no reason not to be taking further steps to eliminate the pollution filth of coal-powered and heating oil sources along with improving fuel usage efficiencies in vehicles and every other application. I am fully in support of eliminating coal and fuel oil as energy sources. Finding workable and affordable replacements is the issue.
For Pete’s Sake, people are walking and riding around in China’s industrial belt wearing face masks. Let’s not pretend that is a healthy environment.
The people of this planet are on a collision course with available resources. The list, beginning with water, is very long.
I can’t prove that global warming is or isn’t occurring with 100% certainty, but I do know that humans are engaged in activities that are affecting the global environment. All evidence is not invisible or impossible to verify.
I am not wild about jumping to conclusions and wasting funds on unnecessary actions on any issue. At the same time, I believe that the planet is headed for trouble with regard to available resources and pollution in general.
So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed. Do you want to bet the future of the entire planet and future generations of humans on your thinking and limited evidence? What say you, Atlas?
Lyle,
This is worthy of a main post. Good one. Many thanks.
MG, you are mixing problems. Climate Change is not the same as environmental change, even though loosely related. Have you ever seen me say we do not need to take care of man made pollution? No! Never.
If anything you have seen me say let’s attack the specific problems and not the general. CO2 is not a specific problem and its control is a secondary or even tertiary approach to controlling the environment. There is precious little evidence, and contradictory results from the Climate Models, that show how extensive is the AGW/CO2 effect.
Unless we can find the evidence that the AGW theory is actually truly endangering our lives, we are just living the precautionary principle. Being afraid of everything (or in this case CO2) is just buying insurance to make us feel better at a high and known cost to protect us from something that is clearly based upon weak science.
So, asking: “So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed. Do you want to bet the future of the entire planet and future generations of humans on your thinking and limited evidence? What say you, Atlas?”
Which advice are you siggesting I have recommended? Which part of the science show us that we/the planet/all life is screwed? Where is there any history of that ever happening? And, finally, yes, I am more than comfortable with my decisions and know they are based upon a review of the available (not MSM-based) sources .
You have a Merry Christmas. Hope eveything is well with the family.
Atlas (CoRev),
See my 4:28:28 PM post. Answer that one if you will.
CoRev – “MG, I still want to see the threat defined. Until that is done with science and without the politics, then there is NO THREAT. I’ll repeat this same argument till I turn blue or it is corrected.”
You can’t prove that there isn’t a threat. You can pretend. You can hope. But that’s about all. It’s over the top for you to state that there is NO THREAT.
There may be a real threat going forward. If I had a time travel machine and I took you far off into the future, we would have some real answers. And if you were wrong and could see it, what would say then (back in our time)? We would still have denial, and plenty of it.
So, some have gone overboard in fudging data outcomes and using political amitions to achieve other ends. And others have launched into a full court press. Par for the course in my experience. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a threat. I doubt quite seriously that if we lived in Alaska as I did as a youth that we would need reports to show us that the environment is changing. It is very difficult to ignore what is happening with the permafrost among other indicators.
I’ve had the good fortune to travel over the years and note the retreat of some glaciers. I didn’t imagine that. It’s astonishing. Yeah, I know they retreat anyway, but I’m talking about very large declines.
I don’t pretend to have any of the answers. But I am not willing to ignore the possibility that a serious threat is awaiting us in the future. As I explain in my 4:28 post, there is plenty of stuff that we should be undertaking anyway. Who are we trying to kid? The governments of the world should be pushing for positive changes on many fronts. All it requires is some serious leadership. And we’re running short on that one. Way short.
MG,
I don’t see any reason to shift the focus from China’s actions at Copenhagen to the U.S. Republican Party. That’s an internal national issue.
My point was that it’s inconsistent for those who oppose climate change to use what happened at Copenhagen as an opportunity to engage in China bashing when they would have supported similar tactics domestically if it had been the GOP trying to embarrass Obama and sink Cap & Trade. Notice that I addressed my comment to buffpilot rather than you. There wasn’t anything personal in that. The reason I didn’t address it to you was that I don’t have any doubt about your sincerity in wanting to see climate change addressed, so I take you at your word when you feel outraged by the Chinese. I don’t entirely agree with your position, but that’s a different issue. The key is that I don’t believe you want to sabotage climage change legislation, so your reaction to China is understandable. But I’m not so sure about buffpilot. Is he really upset with China for gutting climage change legislation??? Would he be saying the same things if it had been the Bush Administration doing to Copenhagen what the Chinese did? Somehow I don’t think so. That’s why I asked him why he wasn’t congratulating the Chinese.
CoRev,
I’m not sure what your idea of “huge turn over” is, but I will agree that it is likely to be large. And by that I mean something on the order of 30 lost House seats and perhaps as many as 5 lost Senate seats. If the healthcare bill had failed that number might have been 20 percent higher. The problem for the GOP is that 2010 is probably about as good as it’s going to get for them for a very long time. The GOP is becoming a regional party of elderly, white conservatives and that’s not a recipe for success in Presidential election years. It just isn’t.
The healthcare bill, once passed, will quickly become something that voters will not want to give up. Krugman points out that despite all of the problems with the Massachusetts plan, voters in Massachusetts are pretty adamant in not wanting to undo healthcare reform. So the Obama plan will be a work in progress for the next 20 years, but once passed there is no going back and the GOP knows it. The GOP fought Social Security and eventually paid for that opposition over the long run. The GOP fought Medicare and eventually paid for that opposition over the long run. The GOP fought healthcare reform and I predict they will pay for it over the long run.
Cantab,
The only version worth watching is the Alistar Sims version.
CoRev,
Unless we can find the evidence that the AGW theory is actually truly endangering our lives, we are just living the precautionary principle. Being afraid of everything (or in this case CO2) is just buying insurance to make us feel better at a high and known cost to protect us from something that is clearly based upon weak science.
Type I versus Type II errors. Learn the difference.
http://faculty.cns.uni.edu/~campbell/stat/inf5.html
Hi MG,
So, if you’re wrong and we follow your advice, we’re screwed.
Why are we necessarily screwed? The evidence from the Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period, when temperatures were warmer than present (sans SUVs I might add) was very beneficial to life and mankind. Coversely, the experience with cooler temps, for example the Little Ice Age, is very harsh. If I had to choose whether global temps get slightly warmer or slightly cooler, I would choose warmer.
MG, see my 4:52 above for my answer. One of the most egregious problems caused the these pro-AGW zealots has been the shift from action on real environmental issues to their politically motivated CO2-controlling proposals.
Much of the CC catastrophic predictions are based upon temperature increases from the major CC dataset analysis centers. See the image below that explains why these are not without question.
This is from the Darwin, Au site, and is just one of growing number of similar examples which show that much (not all) of the warming may actually be artifacts of the data processing approach and Urban Heat Island effects.
If you’ve read my many comments about my beliefs, you know I believe the planet is warming. Some of that warming is from man-influenced actions. In particular, the cities, asphalt roads/parking lots and land use. Having said that, NO ONE can tell us how much of that warming is from those man influenced cause, GHGs and natural effects. Much of the more current studies are pointing to natural causes overriding man influenced.
I just don’t believe we need to take the relatively well known risks (read Bjorn Lomborg) of those pro-AGW recommendations versus the unknown risk based upon a dubious science.
2slugs, we just disagree with the predictions of political fallout from the 2009 Christmas Turkey. We’ll know in a year.
I agree. I hope that one comes on. I’ve been watching the one with George C. Scott.
Guest=Cantab
MG, the below graphs are why I think the AGW theory is falsified. There is never any real “proof” to a scientific theory only falsification, support and expansion. Note the graphs start from recent geological history showing the vaunted Hockey Stick, and moves back. The whole article is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-current-unprecedented-global-warming-in-the-context-of-scale/
So I am secure in my beliefs re: the dangers. As Sammy says, the opposite of warming is much worse than the slight warming predicted. Even though those predictions are being seriously questioned as to their validity. So, where’s the threat?
Agreed it has such a doomful feeling like the times the book was written in.
Sims version being in b&W gives a doomful feeling that matches how the times must have felt to many.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/21/091221fa_fact_osnos
China is a leading emitter, AND a leader in solar and wind turbine manufacture and use, along with a new power grid. Project 863 and all that. My assumption is that they would like to be the manufacturer of choice for USA projects of the same ilk, and for national security reasons (ie. water)
Yes, the Chinese as a culture are at least as arrogant as Americans (probably more so), and have a longer tradition to draw from. So while I actually agree with your reasoning about getting tough, it seems the fight internally in the US is whether to fight at all on this front. The US is hobbled by its own contradictions, and you are correct, I also have seen little public thinking on the matter.
CoRev,
On Healthcare right now based on headcount it can’t be stopped. I would hope that states that don’t support the bill would fight its implementation every step of the way using the courts to slow it down until future elections can reverse the headcount and it can be repealed. It’s not likely the republicans can get a filibuster proof majority but if the courts say you must modify the current bill they could refuse to do so and force the thing to get shot down.
CoRev,
On Healthcare right now based on headcount it can’t be stopped. I would hope that states that don’t support the bill would fight its implementation every step of the way using the courts to slow it down until future elections can reverse the headcount and it can be repealed. It’s not likely the republicans can get a filibuster proof majority but if the courts say you must modify the current bill they could refuse to do so and force the whole thing to get thrown out.
Why defunding Chavez and various other dictatorial regimes from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Central Asia by cutting US consumption of fossil fuels is somehow unAmerican still escapes me.
People somehow seem to have translated some hatred of Ozone Al into a willingness to undercut American energy and national security. Whatever your beliefs about human contribution to global warming wouldn’t reducing the need of kissing the cheeks (upper and lower) of the King of Saudi Arabia and the various Emirs of the United Arab Emirites be a good thing in and of itself?
Anyone care to run numbers for how many Bangladeshis and inhabitants of the Niger River Delta would be submerged at the sea level increases need to submerge the Maldives?
It is certainly surprising to see Buff implicitly propose to find room in the western world to resettle tens of millions of dark skinned Muslims from S. Asia. Of course most of the would be immigrants from the Niger Delta would be Christians or Animists so maybe we could still beat back the warriors against Christmas.
The Maldives and Tuvalu are canaries inthe coal mine and not the totality of people theatened by rising sea levels.
Green B
Obama’s stimulus package proposed HUGE boosts in advanced battery R&D, alternative energy, green buildings and weatherization and covered about 80% of your wish list. To the tine of billions of dollars. My memory must be failing, somehow your full throated support of these programs last spring slipped my mind amidst all the hyperbole.
At the risk of throwing gas on the fire the insitence of certain Americans that accidents of history that left 300 million Americans within our borders and 1.2 billion within the borders of China mean that responsibilities for emissions are governed only by the existence of nation states and not either total historical emissions or current emissions per capita explains why most of the world translates ‘American Exceptionalism’ into characters and phrases meaning ‘Arrogant Asshole Yanks’
CO2 is a pollutant. George W Bush ran on that in 2000. Just as he ran against any policy of nation building.
Funny about how many of his supporters then have flip flopped on both once they got their marching orders from the Ministry of Truth, AKA the Steele Palin-ace.
Sammy where is the data that either the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods were beneficial for anyone outside Western Europe? During the Roman Republic Northern Africa was the granary of Rome. Was it’s transition to the Northern Sahara before or after that Roman Warm Period and where there any causal factors either way?
I mean I guess it is cool that viniculture was possible in Southern Britain in the first century BC and the thirteenth century AD but as surprising as it may be to some not everything gets measured by it’s benefitsfor Northern European white men.
Cantab
I don’t know the version you are watching. But if in general you miss all the nice touches in develping a plot and character and all that goes into a good story you are missing most of life. It’s a little like reducing life and marriage to the final seconds of the sex act.
Hate to say this, but I think your impatience with “the whole story” says something about your take on political issues.
I want to thank those who participated in discussing Copenhagen. I’ll try to add a few more amateur thoughts tomorrow.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Best,
MG
CoRev and Buff
a little progress here i hope.
if your objection to “global warming” is the way it is gamed, or potentially gamed, by the politicians… let us say of the left for now… then i might find myself agreeing with you.
but to go from that into a denial of the science when you really don’t understand the science, or any science at all, is irresponsible and dangerous.
i would suggest that Bruce has the right idea: we can go a long way toward making our own country cleaner and smarter and even cheaper to live in by doing as much as we can to reduce carbon fuel consumption. being me, i’d say reduce all fuel consumpton. nuclear and hydropower and windpower have downsides as well. we’d also gain a measure of independence from countries we don’t like and can’t control.
meanwhile, the Chinese are doing what they can to develop clean technology. they may not want to be dictated to by the white devils any more than you do. but they are also inscrutible enough to play a game that encourages us to be really stupid about climate change while they take the lead in technology.
and yes, merry christmas to you both.
and of course, everyone else still here.
CoRev,
As Sammy says, the opposite of warming is much worse than the slight warming predicted.
Pretty much of a false choice because no one is talking about warmer temps versus cooler temps. The discussion is about warmer temps versus stabilizing temps. Kind of an important difference.
The Constitutional argument won’t hold water and even if it did the solution is easy.
No one doubts that Congress can tax the country to provide for some national purpose, say nutitional assistance for children. Does the Fifth Amendment prevent a national health care income tax surcharge based on income (think various war taxes in the past)? If so is there anything that would prevent a tax credit for proof of insurance? Under this model you are not forced to buy any private product, you just don’t get a credit if you can’t prove you have ‘acceptable coverage’. Move two boxes on the 1040 and you are home free.
Bruce, there is much evidence of a global phenomenom. Northern Europe had the most and better written records. The geological records confirming these two recent global historical events are getting better defined.
Bruce, I think your memory is wrong re: Bush running on CO2 as a pollutant. His administration fought that concept until the Supreme Court ruling.
Bruce, those effortrs are commendable. What has happened is the discussions re: CO2/GHGs has crowded out any other reasonable energy/environmental discussions.
Bruce, recent studies of the Maldives ?Sera Level Rise? have shown none. What they have shown is like many atolls the Maldives floats on a pool of fresh water trapped by the coral and as that is used the atolls are prone to subside. In the Maldives’ case there is visual evidence of no change to the sea level change in the past generation.
Cantab,
There is aother legitimate constitutional issue, and that concerns the sweetheart deal for Nebraska. Several states attorneys general have already announced plans to challenge the special Nebraska provision for Medicaid reimbursement. It’s quite possible that this piece of the bill will eventually be found unconstitutional, and that would be fine by me.
MG,
I am off today.
I have a minor interest in aircraft structures, mostly heavies.
The crash ratingfor heavy aircraft is normally 3 G’s. A trained military pilot blacks out sustained 9G’s.
I have had no time to check the Jamaica crash, but see it very likely there was serious structural damage.
Engine pylons are not durable in crashes.
Happy Holidays,
ilsm
Great point,
Let’s pursue US energy especially clean and increasing abundant natural gas, and explore renewable……
Happy Holidays!!
ilsm
Happy Holidays!
The threat is: rising sea levels.
The hypothesis debated seems to be CO2 levels and sea levels rising together.
There seems to be argument for and against.
The risk statement some are offering: If the world does not lower CO2 levels, then sea level rises.
You re correct there is area for argument on the cause and effect, however, there seems to be a lot of disruption if sea levels rise.
But the US has nukes and half the worlds’ weaponry so it can deal with keeping the rest of the word under water.
So no risk unless you live in the Outer Banks……………….
Happy Holidays
Thanks,
Happy Holidays!!
ilsm
Coberly,
It took scrooge too long to live according to what he valued. He wasted his life and even with his redemption at the end there were too many years wasted. Lost love, lost friendship, and excessive miserliness. The bottom line is that if you’re its more fun to be like Mr. Fezziwig and newphew Fred who enjoyed their lives not to be a scrooge.
By the way with the government and taxes there is no charity. There is only charity when you give when you don’t have too. Government and taxes are taking so you can’t be giving of your own free will since you don’t have a choice.
Viniculture, I just as soon mead. And ale!
Happy Holidyas,
ilsm
Bruce, those efforts are commendable. What has happened is the discussions re: CO2/GHGs has crowded out any other reasonable energy/environmental discussions.
Bruce, recent studies of the Maldives ?Sea Level Rise? have shown none. What they have shown is like many atolls the Maldives floats on a pool of fresh water trapped by the coral and as that is used the atolls are prone to subside. In the Maldives’ case there is visual evidence of no change to the sea level change in the past generation.
MG, with your observations you confirm that there is climate change. Glaciers grow and contract. It is their nature. Otherwise we would not have been able to find the stone/bronze age man in the Alps a few years past, and Greenland would have had a different name.
So, in your own words there is a threat. A threat of what? Change? Climate change? What is that threat?
Bruce,
The Supreme Court threw out a large number of FDRs programs. That’s why he tried pulling that fascist move of packing the courts with his own people. Law is funny and a good lawyer can make a valid legal argument out of a ham sandwich. A central function of law is to resolve disputes. So the republicans need to create disputes to bet back in the game. The democrats have the numbers right now, this will most likely change starting in the 2010 election, so the republicans fight with what they have for now.
So you were thinking that one the government got their foot in the door they would drive to nationalized government run healthcare. My preference is to take a hammer to that foot in the door and to drive it out as soon as possible. However, if it turns out that the majority of people actually like having their taxes raised and the government run their lives then the democrat party is on the right track.
Ilsm, sea level rise is not correlated with CO2 level rises. It is correlated with heat storage. They are the planet’s primary heat sinks. The vast majority, 98-99%, of that heat is from the Sun. As they collect and store heat they expand. There is a direct correlation in that area.
2slugs, not really. No one talks about stabilizing the temps. Slowing the rise? Yes. Reversing the rise? Yes. Stabilizing them (reaching an equilibrium?) is pretty much exactly what we have. Earth’s temps oscillation at a very small rate and amount compared to the absolutes. We have lived through the full range of those oscillations.
OMG, is Obama going to be the “WAR” president? From Fox News, we just took out the Imam who was the spiritual leader, Al-Awlaki of the highjackers, and of the Ft Hood killer.
As I was going upstairs to tell my wife, she was coming down to tell me that “O” looks to have given the green light to Israel to attack Iran nuke sites. All of this while he is accelerating the missile/drone attacks in the ME.
Looks like Buff’s views have and are being confirmed. Is he growing into the job, or are the effective options just too few?
Cantab,
Excuse me, but aren’t conservatives supposed to be the ones who criticize liberals for wanting to use the court system to overturn legislative actions? Did you have a sudden change of heart?
Earlier this morning Ron Brownstein pointed out that in 1936 Alf Landon ran on a platform to undo Social Security. How did that work out for the GOP? The GOP will obviously pick up plenty of seats in 2010. It will be a good year for them; but it won’t be quite good enough. And 2012 is looking like a disaster for Republicans. Polls show that as much as people dislike Democrats, they dislike Republicans even more. There was just a new CNN poll out that says as much:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/24/cnn-poll-more-americans-think-democratic-policies-better-than-republican-2/
The problem with Scrooge is that on the morning after Christmas he still went back to being a usurer. The only difference is that he allowed Bob Cratchett the luxury of sleeping in and they threw on another shovel of global warming coal on the fire.
***The threat is: rising sea levels.***
And they are rising. But at a very modest rate. A foot a century more or less. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
You don’t see much about this although the trend is very clear and quite unambiguous. But the rate is too high for the deniers who want zero impact from CO2 emissions and it is too low for the alarmists who want Manhattan under water by Saturday next.
As to why sea level doesn’t seem to track to atmospheric CO2 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere ), you’d think that would be near the top of the agenda for anyone seriously interested in future climates. But no, “they” (both sides) devote an incredible amount of time to arguing about dubious climate trends extracted from very noisy and dubiously valid surface temperature data, recalibrated (i.e. probably fudged) satellite data and similar stuff. Sea level rise is simply ignored.
But yes, the two principle economic affects of significant global warming would be the loss of some land and a lot of infrastructure at very low elevations, and shifting of climate patterns that would probably exacerbate fresh water supply problems (which are already going to be a huge problem) in some semi-arid areas.
CoRev,
Actually “we” did not take out Imam. It was the Yemenis who took him out with intelligence provided by the US. And the reason the Yemenis took him out was because we gave them $70M to do the job. This was something that was decided early on in Obama’s Administration.
And the stuff about giving the green light for Israel to bomb Iran…well, if I watched Fox News I sure wouldn’t announce it to the world. You should know that State and DoD regularly use Fox News to “leak” fake reports about impending military actions. They do so because they know Fox News is unlikely to go to the bother of actually checking sources.
Coberly,
It took scrooge too long to live according to what he valued. He wasted his life and even with his redemption at the end there were too many years wasted. Lost love, lost friendship, and excessive miserliness. The bottom line is that its more fun to be like Mr. Fezziwig and newphew Fred who enjoyed their lives not to be a scrooge.
By the way with the government and taxes there is no charity. There is only charity when you give when you don’t have too. Government and taxes are taking so you can’t be giving of your own free will since you don’t have a choice.
Bruce,
The Supreme Court threw out a large number of FDRs programs. That’s why he tried pulling that fascist move of packing the courts with his own people. Law is funny and a good lawyer can make a valid legal argument out of a ham sandwich. A central function of law is to resolve disputes. So the republicans need to create disputes to bet back in the game. The democrats have the numbers right now, this will most likely change starting in the 2010 election, so the republicans fight with what they have for now.
So you were thinking that once the government got their foot in the door they would drive to nationalized government run healthcare. My preference is to take a hammer to that foot in the door and to drive it out as soon as possible. However, if it turns out that the majority of people actually like having their taxes raised and the government run their lives then the democrat party is on the right track.
2slugs, have a link to the $70M payment and the Yemeni action?
***i would suggest that Bruce has the right idea: we can go a long way toward making our own country cleaner and smarter and even cheaper to live in by doing as much as we can to reduce carbon fuel consumption. being me, i’d say reduce all fuel consumpton. nuclear and hydropower and windpower have downsides as well. we’d also gain a measure of independence from countries we don’t like and can’t control. ***
I agree and would add a few points:
1. The US infrastructure is largely built on cheap petroleum. Petroleum is unlikely to remain cheap. We have little control over world prices for petroleum. We pay world prices for the stuff even if we produce it domestically. We would be well advised to GRACEFULLY AND GRADUALLY shift our infrastructure to other energy sources and/or to use less of them.
2. Based on other countries with rigorous climates, we can probably — over many decades — cut our energy usage by about a third on a per capita basis. But, unlike many other industrial countries, our population is still growing, so we are always going to use lots of energy. Or our standard of living is going to crash.
3. As far as I can see wind, geothermal, biomass, waves, etc can all contribute. BUT in the very long run, the major energy sources are going to have to be solar, fission, and — if we are lucky — fusion. In the meantime, the world has a fair, but far from unlimited, supply of hydrocarbons.
4. If the human race uses its resources wisely, there should be no great problem, but wisdom is — as in most times and places — in short supply. The last American leader who spoke wisely about energy was Carter, and his views were instantly rejected by every fool in the country. The US supply of fools seems to be far more adequate than its supply of hydrocarbons.
Nonetheless, I’m reasonably optimistic. Even if our leaders reject reality and continue to lie, steal, cheat, and blunder, we will probably muddle through. It will be a lot more painful than if we applied common sense, but as long as the folks who think the answer to all problems is violence don’t try nuclear weapons as a substitute for nuclear power, humanity will probably pull through OK … on average.
A merry Christmas to all.
CoRev,
2slugs, not really. No one talks about stabilizing the temps.
Really? Hmmm….then someone ought to tell the Brookings because they seem to think cap & trade is about “stabilizing” temperatures, and most of the cap & trade legislation pending in Congress was largely ghost written by Brookings.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/09_cap_and_trade_emissions_targets_mignone.aspx
Regarding time series charts, here’s my response. Let me know what your eyeball analysis makes of it.
CoRev,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34583178/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
Am I the only one who is reminded of the Vietnam body counts? Back then, we were treated weekly to announcements that we were decimating the enemy and projections that the US and ARVN would wipe out the Viet Cong in just a jiffy or two. Then came Tet and it became obvious that the Communists were revivifying their corpses, and/or there were a hell of a lot of Communists in South Vietnam, and/or our body counts were largely fictional.
IMHO this crap about assassinating this or that islamic fundamentalist leader is just that — crap. Half the time, it turns out to be wrong. And even when it isn’t, we seem to be overlooking the probabiliy that these dudes have a near infininte supply of leaders. When we come up with some evidence that every bus that arrives in Khandahar or Sana’a isn’t bringing more young men and women ready to give up their lives to get the damn infidels (that’d be us) out of their domain I’ll believe that progress is being made in this idiotic war’
How about we just pick up and come home? Trust me folks, the people we are fighting hate just about everyone who is not just like them. Without us they will shortly be fully engaged in butchering Pushtans, Kazacks, Russians, Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Persians, Zoraoasterns, Hindus, Sikhs or whoever else comes to hand. They’ll find some way to entertain themselves without attacking us. (Which they likely wouldn’t have done in the first place if we had minded our own damn business).
2slugs, you did find a paper that used the term stabilization. This is what is said: “However, an important starting point for this analysis is the assumption that a consensus climate stabilization target will ultimately emerge as a result of ongoing political discussions. This target will most likely take the form of a number that expresses the maximum acceptable deviation of the global average surface temperature from its preindustrial value.”
So in my mind this paper is actually saying this: “Slowing the rise? Yes. Reversing the rise? Yes.” Which is what I said. did you have another point?
2slugs, after reading the article you seem to be exaggerating the $70M payment.
CoRev,
Yemen is a poor country. Without the money from the Pentagon it is highly unlikely that the Yemenis would have have either the will or the wherewithal to carry out this kind of strike. The Obama Administration decided to give the Yemenis some military aid and intelligence. We expected something in return. It was clearly a quid pro quo. We got what we wanted and the Yemenis got what they wanted. We don’t know if the military aid was the deciding factor, but we do know that up until we decided to fork over $70M in aid the Yemenis pretty much sat on their hands.
Yemen is a poor country. Without the money from the Pentagon it is highly unlikely that the Yemenis would have had either the will or the wherewithal to carry out this kind of strike. The Obama Administration decided to give the Yemenis some military aid and intelligence. We expected something in return. It was clearly a quid pro quo. We got what we wanted and the Yemenis got what they wanted. We don’t know if the military aid was the deciding factor, but we do know that up until we decided to fork over $70M in aid the Yemenis pretty much sat on their hands.
CoRev,
My reading is that cap and trade will slow the rise up to some target and then level off at that target. That sounds like stabilization in my book. And it definitely is not cooling the planet, which is the false choice that sammy presented.
Cantab
I keep arguing that the government is not in the charity business. The government is in the business of making the country stronger and all of us richer. Sometimes that involves doing things that look like charity, especially to someone who pinches a nickle so hard it bleeds.
Solving poverty, as opposed to tossing a dime to a beggar on the street, is a problem that can only be solved at the national level. It is too bad you make so little money that the taxes you pay reduce you to a level of poverty below which even two mites is beyond your means.
You do seem to have got the point about Scrooge. After what I said about the TV versions I remembered that I hate all the TV versions. None of them compare to the version in my head listening to my mother in law reading the story to my kids. I recommend reading the original. Dickens had a way with words that is a pleasure in itself.
Cantab
actually it’s the liberals who have to modify this thing soonest. it’s too bad to stand as it is. but the foot in the door may (May) turn out to be the sine qua non.
2slugs, Do you really believe if we cut our CO2 to zero that it would halt temp rise? BTW, why are we talking about a no chance bill? Cap & trade is not going to happen.
As far as the article goes, it is just another political paper with NO real science behind it.
Sorry that I didn’t follow up earlier today as I said that I would. I was busy. Hopefully later.
MG, just enjoy the holidays and the family! Way more important than AB. As you can see this old man and his gorgeous spouse are having a quiet Christmas Eve.
Sounds like a good idea