It is very difficult to find an issue that voters place lower on the list than climate change
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Samizdata quote of the dayNovember 7th, 2014 |
 23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Paul Marks makes his standard point that if someone really believes in the theory that human activity emissions of C02 are a terrible thing, they will support nuclear power – really support it.
If someone is a strong supporter of nuclear power and also say they believe in the C02-is-evil theory – at least they are being consistent.
If (however) someone says they believe in the “Global Warming” theory and are NOT pro nuclear power (really pro nuclear power) then such a person is (to use technical scientific language) a lying-piece-of-shit.
By the way…..
Those who oppose the Keystone Pipeline (taking Canadian oil to the United States) are really supporting (whatever they claim to be supporting) the oil continuing to be transported on the trains of Mr Warren Buffett – thus producing MORE (not less) C02.
I wonder how much money Mr Buffett gives to the “Green” cause – in order to help his business.
Seems like “billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer” should listen to Paul Marks and spend his money better.
Also, super PACs are a thing. Huh. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php
Paul: or such a person is too poorly educated to realise just how important electricity is. Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, which is about North Korea, should be compulsory reading: it describes in detail just what happens when you don’t have enough electricity.
I smell straw men and false choices. It is possible to generate electricity whilst still cutting use of fossil fuels and not relying on expanding nuclear capacity. No significant environmentalist is arguing for the total and immediate eradication of fossil fuels, but measured reduction and replacement.
How? By relying on unreliable and wildly expensive wind farms?
Which all presupposes most people actually buy the whole AGW thesis once you get outside the BBC/Guardian/NYT bubble, and therefore care what ‘significent environmentalists’ think.
Perhaps you did not get the memo but a critical mass do not. And then when you add in those who do subscribe to AGW but think it is unstoppable, and therefore all that matters is mitigating the consequences, well, I would be delighted to take your straw men and build a nice big power station that burns them to produce electricity 😉
I don’t think that environmentalists actually understand the actual consequences of the energy policies that they are proposing. The UK’s energy policy really leans only very slightly in the direction of attempting to reduce fossil fuel use and we already have rising energy prices and the potential of power cuts. A bolder move toward renewable energy would have us spending most of our time sitting in the dark hoping for a windy day so that we could get some work done.
I like to put it to believers in AGW that if they really cared about the supposed consequences of AGW then they should do all they can to encourage economic growth in developed countries, as generally the wealthier you are the better able you are to adapt to disruptive change, and that means burning more fossil fuels; a lot more. At that point they go ‘but, but ,but…’ then start smoking before finally their heads explode.
“How? By relying on unreliable and wildly expensive wind farms?”
Again most environmentalists are aware that wind generation is not consistent (at least in the UK) and that wind generation can contribute to a reduction of, rather than wholly replace, fossil fuels. It is already making a noticeable contribution.
As to expense, you’re right moving to more sustainable energy production is expensive and governments and pressure groups do no one any favours by denying or hiding it. Doing the right thing is rarely the cheapest option (which is why it is often far less popular than the alternatives) but as The Stern report (2006) highlighted the costs of reduction now are far, far less than the price of having to deal with the outcomes of climate change in the future (mitigation). Of course you might be one of the lucky ones, who will gain from climate change, but there are tens of millions who will lose out.
“Which all presupposes most people actually buy the whole AGW thesis once you get outside the BBC/Guardian/NYT bubble, and therefore care what ‘significent environmentalists’ think.
“Perhaps you did not get the memo but a critical mass do not”
Oh good an ad populum to go along with straw man. Fortunately or not natural science methodology is impervious to popular opinion. The fact that the masses don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change does not discredit the evidence.
I assume critical rationalists want more people to take a serious look at the evidence and act on it, rather than dull critical thinking through appeal to lazy stereotype (BBC/Guardian-reader am I? – a terrible libel – I am far, far more hatefully left-wing than that, and never eaten mung beans or organic humus either).
Sometimes, what is in our immediate self-interest, or what is agreed by the majority, is not the same as the ‘good’.
What is the specific, falsifiable hypothesis for anthropogenic global warming?
To be clear, I am not asking for data supporting the notion of warming. The earth can be warming without it being due to man’s activity.
I am asking for a falsifiable hypothesis about the relationship between man’s activity and the warming of the earth.
In all the verbiage I have plowed through on the topic, I have never seen such an hypothesis.
This is relevant because, at least in the epistemology I was taught, a falsifiable hypothesis is the foundation of empirical science – you ain’t got an idea that can be tested, you ain’t doin’ science, son.
P.S. – if you need 50+ years to test your hypothesis, but are asking for drastic action now, well … that dog won’t hunt.
Should the threatened extra weeks of summer ever materialize, I feel confident that the British people will face the peril with stoicism and Pimms.
No, but things like the Hockey stick do. And the ‘Climategate e-mails’ and the ridiculous ‘97% of all scientists are believers’ nonsense and the name-calling of ‘deniers’ and then lumping all ‘deniers’ in with ‘flat-earthers’ and ‘moon landing deniers’, (tell that to Harrison Schmitt).
And then there’s the fact that all the adjustments to the temperature data done by the likes of NCDC, NOAA the Australian BOM and even the New Zealand Met Office somehow have the effect of cooling the past and heating the present thus increasing the slope of warming.
Then there’s the hysterical reaction when a scientist, one of their own so to speak, goes of the reservation. The sometimes quite vicious denigration, the belittling of their papers and the journals they are published in then the arrogant proclamation that because the papers aren’t published in the ‘right’ journals they are non-science and that all who disagree are non-scientists and paid shills of big tobacco.
And that’s only the scientists. Wait till I get to the politicians, academics and the rest of the climate establishment.
Well Colin, you can keep chanting “The science is settled! The science is settled!” all you like, but this Popperian here laughs at the theories associated with the models that have been trotted out. And some of the best take downs have come from statisticians rather that climate scientists. I only mention that fact your side is getting its arse handed to it politically at long last because, in case the original post mystified you, this thread is about politics.
So a lot of folks out there who do not have grants and tax subsidised business models to protect have noticed that the science is not even close to being settled, therefore I will continue to burn your straw men, for the sake of the national grid naturally.
If I may pile on to what Perry said so eloquently, I would also add that as far as I am aware there has never been a credible cost-benefit analysis done to determine whether (assuming climate change to be at least partly caused by human activity) the costs of mitigating it would be less than the benefits to be derived from a slightly warmer climate. In fact, I have yet to see any CAGW believer even acknowledge that there would be benefits from a warmer climate and a higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 (and there most assuredly would be), let alone attempt quantify or even list them. So before you go destroying our economy in the name of Gaia, and condemning our descendants to penury and misery, we need to know how much it will truly cost us. For the children, you understand.
Colin West wrote:
‘It is possible to generate electricity whilst still cutting use of fossil fuels and not relying on expanding nuclear capacity.’
A true statement.
As long as you accept that the whole world must then make do with significantly-less electricity overall, and significantly-less reliability in the supply – in other words, an immediate reversion worldwide to a third-world standard of electricity supply. Not enough to go around, and only available part of the time.
The only way to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels to generate electricity, while maintaining the current level of supply and standard of reliability, is by a major expansion in the use of nuclear generating technologies. Anyone who suggests different is simply ignoring basic math and physics.
llater,
llamas
And that is a terrific time to drop in this link: Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)
Cheers.
Colin West: Eco-tripe. If subsidies were dropped windpower and its “significant contribution” would start to disappear the next day. The increasing problems that the AGW gang are facing are one of the bright spots in the battle against anti-life leftism.
Mr West – you smell “straw men” and I smell a troll.
But I will feed the troll once (and once only).
The German government (under Green pressure) has agreed to wipe out nuclear energy (and has turned to coal including brown coal) so spare us your “scientific environmentalism” – Greenism makes no sense (even from an anti C02 perspective).
The Greens have also attacked nuclear power (and regulated it to a high cost – without improving safety, quite the contrary as making things absurdly complex [with regulations] makes them LESS safe).
As for “renewables”
They are massive Corporate Welfare – a way for the “usual suspects” (Google, J.P. Morgan Chase and so on) to loot the taxpayers to pay for failed schemes.
Rob.
Yes Tom Steyer – a classic “crony capitalist”.
It is often forgotten that there are many leftist billionaires – including the Canadian billionaire behind (the totalitarian) Green – “Agenda 21”.
These people are like baddies from James Bond stories – rabid collectivists who are also billionaires.
But there is no contradiction because they are billionaire CROOKS – people who made their money from government favours.
Of course they hate “capitalism” (and cheer when they see German family owned manufacturing companies being crucified by endless “Green” regulations and taxes) – because they assume that all businessmen are like themselves (scumbags).
“I am evil, and I am a businessman – therefore all businessmen are evil and capitalism should be destroyed”.
This seems to be the “reasoning” here.
Very, very stupid Collin West. The evolving technology ALWAYS tends to solve the problems best and without the destructive intrusion of hallucinating eco-fascists.
And as for the proof? I used to live ten years at the bank of the sea here in Melbourne and close to a small jetty. Never believing in that “global warming” crap I personally was taking the measurements of the water’s level for the entire ten years.
The “global warming” fanatics used to warm us of water raising hundred metres during the incoming fifty years.
As my measurements established beyond any doubt, the water level hasn’t raised even a centimetre, so hasn’t the temperature.
It is only the level of the quasi environmental hysteria that is constantly on the raise.
Greetings from Aussie – Bogdan
So where is the evidence for AGW? Clue: no ‘models’, no hockey stick graphs, just real science, not fiddled data and insertions or assumptions.
One can see the scorn for the common man in that second sentence, and bluster in the first.
‘Anthropogenic’ a fake, meaningless word that actually means ‘giving rise to man’, not ‘man-made’. Fake, made up science, fake, made up data, fake made up words, real costs.
I agree with the talking horse. (Always loved your movies)
Bogdan, ah but you’re not a grant-reliant climate scientist, and not published in any of the important peer-reviewed journals. Therefore, your measurements are meaningless and your tape measure will be taken away. Don’t you realise that you need satellites and massive computing power to measure such things ?
Just being facetious. Your post is one of the best pieces of “evidence” I have yet seen regarding this new world religion – albeit that is is just a reworked version of Hinduism or similar. We really do need more of this real-world reporting. Thank you.
Likewise to Mr Ed.
It is very difficult to find Climate Kool Aiders to talk about this:
http://en.mercopress.com/2014/11/27/antarctica-sea-ice-thicker-than-anticipated-reveals-an-autonomous-sub