The Truth, Still Inconvenient

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Lomborg: Obama should confront climate change fantasies

President Obama's new climate policies outlined Tuesday include both brilliant and useless ideas. The confusion stems from Obama's unwillingness to confront three climate fantasies:


•Renewables are a major part of the solution today. No, they are almost trivial. Today, the world gets 81% of its energy from fossil fuels – by 2035, in the most green scenario, we will still get 79% from fossil fuels. Wind and solar will increase from 0.8% to 3.2% -- impressive, but not what is going to matter.
•Biofuels should play a major part of the solution. No. For now, biofuels simply diverts food into cars, driving up food prices and starvation, while clearing forests for new fields emit more CO2 than biofuels save.
•Efficiency can cut emissions. No. While efficiency is good, studies show it has little climate impact, because its savings gets eaten up by more use. As your car gets more efficient, you drive it further, and the money you still save get used for other carbon-emitting activities.

But carefully implemented, Obama's plan also shows the way to the three climate truths.

Fracking is this decade's green solution. Obama recognizes gas as a "bridge fuel." Replacing dirtier coal, cheaper gas from fracking has cut up to 500 MT of the U.S. CO2 emissions. This is 10 times more than what renewables do, and while renewables cost the U.S. tens of billions of dollars, fracking has saved the U.S. consumer $125 billion annually in cheaper energy prices. Fracking has local environmental issues, but these can all be addressed with good regulation. Moving the U.S. fracking miracle to the rest of the world will be the biggest source of CO2 reductions this decade, and simultaneously increase global welfare by allowing energy access to billions yet unserved.

Adaptation is smart, and Obama is right to stress it. Wet-lands, tidal barriers and subway caps could dramatically have reduced hurricane Sandy's impact, irrespective of how little global warming impacted the hurricane. There are many more, smart and cheap solutions here to real world problems.

Finally, we need innovation in long-term green energy, which the president suggests to fund with $7.9 billion for fiscal 2014. As long as green energy is much more expensive than fossil fuels, it will always remain a niche, subsidized by rich countries to feel good. But if innovation makes future green energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels everyone will switch. Just like the 30-year Energy Department research into fracking made cleaner gas cheaper than coal and produced a historic US CO2 reduction, twice that of the European Union/Kyoto reduction.

The final climate fantasy the president needs to confront is the idea that international negotiations can somehow bring about meaningful cuts. We've tried this for more than 20 years and failed and we will fail again in 2015 in Paris. More than 180 countries won't meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions from the fossil fuels that power their economic growth.

The president should instead ask the rest of the world to follow the U.S. lead on green innovation. Economic models show that this is by far the best, long-term climate policy. If we all invested far more to innovate down the cost of future green energy, we could outcompete fossil fuels faster and truly solve global warming.
 
Purpleoscar: does this mean that you now accept that something must be done, and that you have moved on to debating paths to a solution?
 
Purpleoscar: does this mean that you now accept that something must be done, and that you have moved on to debating paths to a solution?

I look at the problem similarly to Lomborg but I don't believe a doubling or even a tripling of CO2 is a danger since it wasn't in the past. Th UN is utterly corrupt and cap and trade will do nothing. Climatologists are lying and hyping about the climate. We do have to move from fossil fuels eventually but other than investing in new technology (especially nuclear fusion) there has to be enough time for breakthroughs to make cheap enough power. Making people poor and preventing third world countries from developing their fossil fuel resources is criminal, especially when the scientific predictions have been woeful.
 
Except for the 3 on your side. They are the only honest scientists and they get everything right.

When you have land based temperature readings and you compare it to satellites it should be similar but it's not because of the urban island heat effect. When you have predictions that are between 6 degrees max and 2 degress min and the actual temperature is lower than the min you can see there is something wrong with the predictions. :shrug: Claiming consensus is a pointless argument that uses appeal to authority and peer pressure as argument instead of reason. It would be much more difficult for me to argue if the predictions were accurate and the logic and reason made sense. I don't want to believe that the medieval warming period didn't exist. When scientists predict global warming with their graphs but then insist climate change (including colder periods) is a part of the prediction it makes no sense.
 
When you have land based temperature readings and you compare it to satellites it should be similar but it's not because of the urban island heat effect. When you have predictions that are between 6 degrees max and 2 degress min and the actual temperature is lower than the min you can see there is something wrong with the predictions. :shrug: Claiming consensus is a pointless argument that uses appeal to authority and peer pressure as argument instead of reason. It would be much more difficult for me to argue if the predictions were accurate and the logic and reason made sense. I don't want to believe that the medieval warming period didn't exist. When scientists predict global warming with their graphs but then insist climate change (including colder periods) is a part of the prediction it makes no sense.

Well it makes no sense to YOU. You're someone who is anti-science that pretends to respect and understand science when it props up what you've already decided to believe.
 
Well it makes no sense to YOU. You're someone who is anti-science that pretends to respect and understand science when it props up what you've already decided to believe.

It doesn't make sense to a lot of people for precisely the reasons I've laid out. Your criticism of anti-science could easily be levelled at someone trying to eliminate the medieval warming period in their graphs. The attempt to isolate skeptics and equate them to flat earthers is all about politics and trying to increase the source of revenue in the government via energy taxes. $$$, that what it's about. Anybody who's aware of geology knows that climate has changed naturally forever. Climate change is loaded terminology that asserts that if changes occur it must be man's fault. How is this different from 1984 "newspeak"?
 
The attempt to isolate skeptics and equate them to flat earthers is all about politics and trying to increase the source of revenue in the government via energy taxes. $$$, that what it's about.

So when do you think the first meeting was? You know the one where all(sorry most) scientists and politicians got together to hatch this scheme. Do you have a roundabout date, or at least the year?
 
It doesn't make sense to a lot of people for precisely the reasons I've laid out. Your criticism of anti-science could easily be levelled at someone trying to eliminate the medieval warming period in their graphs. The attempt to isolate skeptics and equate them to flat earthers is all about politics and trying to increase the source of revenue in the government via energy taxes. $$$, that what it's about. Anybody who's aware of geology knows that climate has changed naturally forever. Climate change is loaded terminology that asserts that if changes occur it must be man's fault. How is this different from 1984 "newspeak"?

:heart:
 
So when do you think the first meeting was? You know the one where all(sorry most) scientists and politicians got together to hatch this scheme. Do you have a roundabout date, or at least the year?

I've got to agree with Purpleoscar's statement on this discussion. This isn't about a conspiracy theory - more a statement of how we engage in political discussion today.

Earlier in this thread, someone asked about the debate over global warming. The response was "the debate is over - accept it as fact." I found this exchange odd in that it was the exact same response I received over 10 years ago on this board. When the debate actually occurred is never identified.

Mocking and jingoism are not scientific responses to legitimate questions or evidence that runs contrary to the theory. Over the last decade, any scientific data that does not fit in with the theory is disregarded as coming from "uneducated" scientists or funded by "big oil". Correlative evidence is treated as direct evidence. Natural variability is largely ignored.

Even the recent New York Times article goes largely unmentioned. Is this due to scientific reasons or political reasons?

The best way to establish scientific theory is to challenge the data, challenge the methodology, challenge the studies - and come to the same conclusion. Politicians would rather use the tactics of the used car salesman - buy it now before it is too late. The angry language layered on top adds a "convert or be exiled" element to the discussion.
 
I've got to agree with Purpleoscar's statement on this discussion. This isn't about a conspiracy theory - more a statement of how we engage in political discussion today.

Earlier in this thread, someone asked about the debate over global warming. The response was "the debate is over - accept it as fact." I found this exchange odd in that it was the exact same response I received over 10 years ago on this board. When the debate actually occurred is never identified.

Mocking and jingoism are not scientific responses to legitimate questions or evidence that runs contrary to the theory. Over the last decade, any scientific data that does not fit in with the theory is disregarded as coming from "uneducated" scientists or funded by "big oil". Correlative evidence is treated as direct evidence. Natural variability is largely ignored.

Even the recent New York Times article goes largely unmentioned. Is this due to scientific reasons or political reasons?

The best way to establish scientific theory is to challenge the data, challenge the methodology, challenge the studies - and come to the same conclusion. Politicians would rather use the tactics of the used car salesman - buy it now before it is too late. The angry language layered on top adds a "convert or be exiled" element to the discussion.

My point is that scientists were discussing and working on this theory looooong before politicians got involved, yet oscar likes to think that now all of these scientists are just taking this stance because of money and peer pressure. Which is just a ridiculous claim, and quite insulting to science in general. This poster has a long history of showing us that he has absolutely no respect for science, but will pretend to do so when it props up his goal. He's gone as far to say that the majority of scientists are socialist or communists, hence the reason they will play along with this hoax.
 
The best way to establish scientific theory is to challenge the data, challenge the methodology, challenge the studies - and come to the same conclusion.

That is exactly what the scientific community has been doing for decades now, and the conclusion is overwhelming.

The challenge here is that a matter of science must be resolved through political action, which is bound to bring out passions in people, for many reasons. The climate change debate reminds me of the ozone layer debate back in the 1980s. In both cases there was overwhelming scientific evidence that the problem was mostly man-made, in both cases there were deniers, and in both cases the integrity of scientists was questioned. The difference was that reducing CFC emissions is exponentially easier to do than reducing GHG emissions, both technologically and politically. We know the rest of the story: the Montreal Protocol was ratified, CFCs were phased out, and the ozone layer is recovering.

Media coverage of the climate change issue has essentially been terrible (overblown in some cases, scientifically inaccurate in others), which sure doesn't help foster a healthy debate on how to solve the problem.
 
My point is that scientists were discussing and working on this theory looooong before politicians got involved, yet oscar likes to think that now all of these scientists are just taking this stance because of money and peer pressure. Which is just a ridiculous claim, and quite insulting to science in general. This poster has a long history of showing us that he has absolutely no respect for science, but will pretend to do so when it props up his goal. He's gone as far to say that the majority of scientists are socialist or communists, hence the reason they will play along with this hoax.

Climategate 1 & 2 already proved peer pressure. I showed plenty of interested socialists and communists at negotiations with their ridiculous hammer and sickle flags. I got opinions from the founders of greenpeace that towards the end of the Cold War that left wing radicals took over the organization. People like you (socialists) never admit who you are because you want to avoid the fact that you think the government is usually best. I showed that the UN wanted to create a binding agreement across the planet for 70 trillion over 40 years to combat climate. People should be skeptical and worry their hard earned resources and sovereignty would be severely impinged upon. The entire crusade is so left wing that even Democrats couldn't vote for cap and trade which would have been a 300 billion/ year tax hike. Stop pretending that Socialists only exist in my head and not in academia. I've met enough Marxist professors in real life. Who are you fooling? Any agenda will be discovered as soon as legislation is proposed. You don't need a conspiracy to have self-interested parties to work together. Few people will endanger their funding and not tow the line.

In Climategate 1 we saw an advertising company talk about ways to get people addicted to self-righteous beliefs on global warming so they would willfully cut their standard of living. We saw skepticism on display within supposedly non-skeptical East-Anglia.

You know I can go on and on. :)
 
You're going to find fringe elements in every group. The mistake you're making is thinking that the fringe is actually the core.

If that's the case then worldwide cap and trade won't happen and the people wishing for it are wasting their time.

But then we get stories like this:

IMF: ‘Climate change will create jobs’ - The Hill's E2-Wire

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Thursday that climate change will drive job creation.

“Climate change will create jobs. It will create disasters before it creates jobs, but it will create jobs,” Lagarde said on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.”

Her remark came in a wide-ranging interview about the global economy.

She cited climate change in response to a question about where job growth can occur at a time when workers are getting displaced by automation.

“It is a major issue, particularly at a time when robot-ization is developing in many of these advanced economies,” she said.

“But you know there will be areas of growth. You talk about green growth — that will be associated with particular jobs for which the training has not yet been invented and needs to be aggregated and put together,” Lagarde said Thursday.

She also noted jobs associated with caring for aging populations.

Her comments arrive as Republicans are attacking President Obama’s second-term climate agenda unveiled earlier this week, arguing that new power plant emissions rules in particular will cost jobs and raise energy costs.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday that Obama’s plans will hurt the coal sector, which is “tantamount to kicking the ladder out from beneath the feet of many Americans struggling in today’s economy.”

The White House is pushing back against the charge that new steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions will hurt the economy, noting that earlier Clean Air Act rules for other pollutants didn’t have that effect.

“[T]he numbers speak for themselves: between 1970 and 2011, aggregate emissions of common air pollutants dropped 68 percent, while the U.S. gross domestic product grew 212 percent. Private sector jobs increased by 88 percent during the same period,” White House climate aide Heather Zichal said in a blog post Wednesday afternoon.

Backers of tougher steps to curb emissions, such as power plant rules and beefed-up appliance efficiency standards, say they spur innovation in the economy.

The purpose of attacking "climate change" is not to create regulated jobs but fits into my self-interest theory correctly. Then you've got the problem that these jobs cost taxpayers more than they create because green energy is not cheaper than fossil fuels so it still damages growth. The IMF better be fringe or energy prices will "necessarily skyrocket" as Obama would say.
 
I have often wondered why climate change is like this holy grail of causes for purpleoscar. Just my curiosity...

Hi nbc! :wave:
 
Apart from:

1) The president naively believes climate change is "the greatest global threat of our time."

2) In an economy where 75% of Americans recently reported living from paycheck to paycheck this scheme will result in much higher energy prices as well as shortages.

3) This will result, purposely, in a greatly expanded regulatory state and increased government intervention in the private sector economy.

4) The president is a petrophobe hence his war on Big Oil and coal.

5) The president Emperor Obama plans to unconstitutionally bypass the legislative branch and unilaterally "act when Congress fails to."

this president's plan is just swell.
 
Could you, just once, not make an issue about how nasty you can be towards Obama?

I'll destroy you and Mr Scalia on SSM tomorrow.
 
2) In an economy where 75% of Americans recently reported living from paycheck to paycheck this scheme will result in much higher energy prices as well as shortages.

How is this even an argument? Let's say that you're wrong (you are) and climate change is a real issue. You would rather continue destroying the Earth than add a little bit of hardship to the general population? It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
 
This is really a new level of delusion.

I like how people like Indy love to try to co-opt terminology that describes them and use it on the opposition. I'm a homophobe? Ya, well you're a petrophobe. I adhere to religious dogma? Ya, well you adhere to the dogma of scientism. I see it all the time and it's a bit pathetic
 
What do purpleoscar and INDY have to say about the Great Barrier Reef and coral bleaching? Is it all a government conspiracy? Are MPs taking buckets of bleach and spreading them all over the coral?

Explain that. Infuriating.
 
Climategate 1 & 2 already proved peer pressure. I showed plenty of interested socialists and communists at negotiations with their ridiculous hammer and sickle flags. I got opinions from the founders of greenpeace that towards the end of the Cold War that left wing radicals took over the organization. People like you (socialists) never admit who you are because you want to avoid the fact that you think the government is usually best. I showed that the UN wanted to create a binding agreement across the planet for 70 trillion over 40 years to combat climate. People should be skeptical and worry their hard earned resources and sovereignty would be severely impinged upon. The entire crusade is so left wing that even Democrats couldn't vote for cap and trade which would have been a 300 billion/ year tax hike. Stop pretending that Socialists only exist in my head and not in academia. I've met enough Marxist professors in real life. Who are you fooling? Any agenda will be discovered as soon as legislation is proposed. You don't need a conspiracy to have self-interested parties to work together. Few people will endanger their funding and not tow the line.

In Climategate 1 we saw an advertising company talk about ways to get people addicted to self-righteous beliefs on global warming so they would willfully cut their standard of living. We saw skepticism on display within supposedly non-skeptical East-Anglia.

You know I can go on and on. :)

I love it :heart: With the exception of one other poster, you are the most predictable.

99.9% of your post doesn't even address my post. You will always mention the UN. You will always mention some fringe movement. You will always mention socialist, and in this case accuse me of being one. And you will always mention "towing the line" as you fail to recognize the irony that that is all you are doing.

I understand the science that I post or talk about, I'm not someone who posts contradictory "science" just throwing shit hoping something sticks. You can continue to be a coward and call me "socialist" while truly ignoring my posts, I won't stoop to that level, but if and when you're actually ready to debate then please come back, address my actual post, and refrain from bullshit.
 
4) The president is a petrophobe hence his war on Big Oil and coal.

Of all the myths perpetuated by the GOP about Obama, the "Obama hates oil" one is the most utterly ridiculous. I wish it were more true than it is.

I'll give you coal, although that stuff is horrible, and the rise of cheap natural gas is probably more responsible for bringing the coal industry down than are government restrictions.
 
Of all the myths perpetuated by the GOP about Obama, the "Obama hates oil" one is the most utterly ridiculous. I wish it were more true than it is.

It's truly laughable isn't it? Obama's even been called "Fracker in Chief" in here, by a conservative nonetheless. I guess they need to get their talking points straight :wink:
 
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