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« A blast of the 12-Gore | Main | An early leaving present »
Monday
Mar162015

Silent economics

Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute, is up in arms today about an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by the Conservative peer Matt Ridley. Ridley's article, which extolled the virtues of fossil fuels, attracted Schmidt's ire because of one sentence in particular:

The next time that somebody at a rally against fossil fuels lectures you about her concern for the fate of her grandchildren, show her a picture of an African child dying today from inhaling the dense muck of a smoky fire.

Schmidt has variously described this statement as "totally abhorrent" and "asinine".

 

I fail to see why. Either we think that Africans should have greater access to fossil fuels or we don't. It is neither "abhorrent" or "asinine" to consider which of the two available options is preferable. It is a question of economics and morality - a subtle one but one that must be answered. 

I'm sure economists will be able to advise us about the technicalities of weighing up costs in the present and costs in the past, but here is the essence. In the schemes favoured by the green movement the theoretical costs of climate change in the distant future loom large in the present; deaths from wood fires in the Africa of today look much less important, perhaps even fading into insignificance. The accusation is not, therefore, that greens are callous about deaths in Africa. It is that they discount the future so little that they end up treating wildly hypothetical harms in the far distant future as being of greater importance than real, actual harms happening today. This is a stark contrast to the attitudes and approaches among bad right-wingers, to whom those deaths in Africa look much more like a clear and present crisis. The future, we wickedly declare, can take care of itself.

I'm therefore unequivocal in my belief that the real benefits of fossil fuels far outweigh the theoretical harms. My response is a clear "yes" to more coal and gas for Africa. Schmidt, meanwhile, will not say one way or the other. Indeed, over the weekend, I asked my many climate scientist followers on Twitter to venture their own opinions, but not a single response was forthcoming. I think many people will find this attitude surprising, given the number of deaths from wood smoke in Africa. Recognition that fossil fuels are of vital necessity for Africans might be off-message; it might impact on funding; the "colleagues" might be upset. But silence in the face of such a death toll is inexplicable.

Some might even find it "abhorrent".

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Reader Comments (152)

And is China rubbing its hands with glee at current western stupidity?
Mar 16, 2015 at 7:19 PM | Unregistered Commenter michael hart

Absolutely, Michael. China had a serious problem developing in the late 1980's. The birth rate of male children was high in the period after Mao was made redundant and there is nothing worse for political stability than an excess of 20 something unemployed males. It culminated in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and has been remarkably quiet ever since. Why? China took up the gauntlet and soaked up the debt mountains of the Western world. China has more dollars than the USA. It put it's people to work. For example in the UK we have built 68 miles of high speed railway since 2007. China has built 7,450 miles. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31608679) China has built 20,000 river dams since 1950 for example; about 200 are currently under construction. (http://e360.yale.edu/feature/chinas_great_dam_boom_an_assault_on_its_river_systems/2706/ )
So what China needed the most was a series of Western governments with the ability to shoot themselves in the foot ad infinitum and boy have they got just that! Climate claptrap has exported jobs to China, and not just coffee shop jobs but heavy industrial high skill high wage jobs, and production line jobs, etc. Anti-Fracking frenzy in Europe has exported more jobs to China as the cost of power rises at the behest of Russia and the political Liberal elite.
So the decline of the Western Empire came at exactly the right time to prevent political unrest in China. It is all down hill for Europe from here unless we release the entrepreneurs back into the wild and start competing again. If we just keep whining about what may or may not happen in 100..200...1000 years time then we are doomed to be cooking over peat fires while the worlds future is decided by China, India and the SE Asia Nations.

Mar 16, 2015 at 8:27 PM | Unregistered CommenterIvor Ward

@Michael Hart
This is hardly the place. Lower energy costs are one reason why the USA is doing so much better economically than the EU. However, structural rigidities and idiotic monetary policies are the main reasons why Europe is doing so badly.

Mar 16, 2015 at 8:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol

Is Schmidt more than 38% sure the article is asinine? I wouldn't want to be misled. Again.

Mar 16, 2015 at 9:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterAmoorhouse

Richard Tol:

However, structural rigidities and idiotic monetary policies are the main reasons why Europe is doing so badly.
Would those 'structural rigidities etc' have something to do with being stuck with the Euro and one-size-fits-all interest rates?

Mar 16, 2015 at 9:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterHarry Passfield

It amazes me that a scientist engaged in important research has the time to mess around with 'Twitter'. If I was lucky enough to work for NASA I'd be sleeping at my desk to get an early start the next day not messing around with such childish rubbish. In my opinion, the NASA 'Earth Sciences' division should be abolished and the money put into planetary exploration, Mars landings or something else exciting and inspiring. They can't even get astronauts up to the ISS at the moment, FFS!

Mar 16, 2015 at 9:49 PM | Unregistered Commenterswordfishtrombone

What a pompous bunch of arses these alarmists are. A permanent refusal to engage refutes their 'superior' position and belies the certainty of their cause yet they have the gall to accuse people sceptical of looming Apocalypse of being 'deniers'.

I look at what we're told is a global 'climate crisis' and you know what? - I see NOTHING unusual occurring. Literally nothing. Go on - WHAT IS THERE?

Temperatures have been effectively static for a quarter of a century, despite record CO2 emissions and concentrations. Does that sound like catastrophe? Without temperature increases EVERYTHING else AGW is dead in the water, hence their absurd posturing about the ocean, stadium waves, anything to divert attention from no warming worth a fig. By what twisted logic is a world with over 2 decades of flat temperatures about to cook itself to a crisp on gas mark 9?

The IPCC have refuted any tangible link between CO2 and 'extreme' weather. Not Watts, Monckton or Goddard - the IPCC itself! So that extreme goose is cooked, too.

What's happened is a collective loss of progressive marbles unprecedented in human history, and given the complete collapse of their theory v observations, the poor dears are facing the greatest collective humiliation in all of human history, too.

Mar 16, 2015 at 9:51 PM | Unregistered Commentercheshirered

jeremypoynton

firKen Rice flails

Mar 16, 2015 at 10:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterGolf Charlie

Actually, the answer of the climate activists to this question is well known. No, they don't support denying Africans fossil fuels - the goal and intent of the international climate treaty negotiations has always been that carbon dioxide emission restrictions should only apply to the rich, developed nations, not the developing world. They have absolutely no intention of cutting carbon dioxide emissions to 'save the world', it's all about wealth redistribution from the 'rich' to the 'poor'.

That's why Greens only support energy alternatives that don't work, while consistently rejecting the only one we've currently got that does. That's why they reject the free market policy alternatives. That's why island nations who claim to be under threat are building airports. That's why the climate-concerned 'elite' will blithely drive their SUVs to their own local airport to fly out to climate conferences in exotic locations, (while lecturing the rest of us about turning the thermostat down,) as if they didn't believe a word of what they preach. Because of course they don't.

The Byrd-Hagel resolution identified exactly what they were trying to do back in 1997, eighteen years ago. The US policy is and always has been that global warming is a concern and they'll support any action to actually address it by applying *universal* emission limitations. They will *not* agree to any measures that simply hurt the US economy without fixing the climate. And of course, the Greens oppose them in that, because it would defeat the entire object of the movement.

Yes, I agree with Gavin and ATTP that to imagine for one moment they're not concerned for the poor of developing nations is to miss the point entirely, and indeed, to miss the entire point of their activities. The issue is not their disregard for the poor, but their disregard for the truth.

Matt Ridley got that bit right - when "somebody at a rally against fossil fuels lectures you about her concern for the fate of her grandchildren", they're not actually against fossil fuels, because that would hurt the Africans. They're only against fossil fuels for the likes of *you*, which is what they're trying to hide, and what pointing the contradiction out risks exposing.

And that's why they won't answer the question. They're totally outraged that you'd even ask.

Mar 16, 2015 at 10:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterNullius in Verba

But, other than the faux outrage at the totally justified comment about death from smoke inhalation, no issues with Matt's article?
Nope, thought not.
Hypocrisy unbounded from the usual suspects.

Mar 16, 2015 at 10:54 PM | Unregistered CommenterJohn Catley

ATTP,

You and Gavin, et al. are climate hysterics who demonstrate continually your lack of interest in the well-being of the poor in the developing world. So sorry if you find that judgment distressing, but when you favor policies to enforce your hysteria over policies to directly benefit millions and hundreds of millions of the poor subsisting with dung and wood fires, the facts are clear. Your concern is with your speculative climate fancies and not with those hundreds of millions (ok, billion plus) poor people.

btw, let us be grateful for this comment of yours, which demonstrates to all that you are not a "serious" person, since you engage and continue to engage here:

"I also agree with the sentiment that noone serious would possibly engage with this site and with the host of this site."

so are you incoherent, or simply willing to affirm that you are not any "serious" person???

Mar 16, 2015 at 11:27 PM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky believed that the people's revolution HAD to be violent. They promoted that idea. It wasn't that they were particularly upset or not upset about an individual's death (actually, they didn't give a poop about the death of an individual) but they believed the short-term horror was justified for the long-term benefit. But they would never say so.

Schmidt et al believe strongly that short-term pain at a planetary and social level is necessary for their New Eden to come. But like the Communist hierarchy, they will never, ever admit to this. Just as they will not admit that population reduction these days is primarily about black, brown and yellow people having less kids, as the "white", European groups are in a numerical decline in many countries. Just as David Suzuki says similar things about the global population being too high IN SPEECHES TO THE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE OF CANADA, who happen to have the highest birthrate of any group in Canada.

The obfuscation of their deep down agenda is outrageous.

Mar 16, 2015 at 11:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterDoug Proctor

Nullius in Verba,

We can agree that international climate agreements focus upon the more "developed" nations, but that does not mean that the policies of climate hysterics include maximum development in poor nations, which must include enabling people to get beyond dung and wood fires in interior spaces. Leaving "developing" nations out of climate agreements is not equivalent to maximum provision of evilllll fossil fuels to said nations. Pressure (via development agencies etc.) is massive to avoid maximum uses of fossil fuels in ways which would benefit those poor peoples.

Mar 16, 2015 at 11:34 PM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

Well, that was a fun foodfight ...

and aTTP ... he actually thinks he has a point ?

What a droll little chappie he is, to be sure :)

Mar 16, 2015 at 11:46 PM | Unregistered Commenterianl8888

It surprises me that someone who considers himself a "serious" personage would call himself "Climate of Gavin"..

Mar 16, 2015 at 11:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterPeter Crawford

p.s. Considering all the vile sneers, epithets, and defamations thrown at all varieties of skeptics and lukewarmers by people like Gavin,, Mann, and ATTP, it is hugely ironic and hilarious to see such self-important, self-righteous rage when they get a little pushback. Not to mention that this current criticism of them is far more accurate than all the stuff routinely thrown at skeptics, et al.

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:44 AM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

@MCourtney

Indeed.

The actions of the green establishment are quite clear in this respect. The children of the poor must die today so that the children of the rich inherit a better world. And if the working hypotheses prove to be erroneous or simply off-the-mark, well, it is the children of the poor the ones that are died.

Schmidt is particularly hurting on this topic because some strong players in his own camp (all the way up to the billionaire club) have already brought up the issue.

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:49 AM | Unregistered CommenterBrute

And, btw, ATTP, the list of excuses for refusing to debate is as revealing as the list of the excuses for the "pause"...

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:57 AM | Unregistered CommenterTxomin

Richard Tol says:

"However, structural rigidities and idiotic monetary policies are the main reasons why Europe is doing so badly."


Harry Passfield :

"Would those 'structural rigidities etc' have something to do with being stuck with the Euro and one-size-fits-all interest rates?"


Jean Monnet, in September 1957:

"Via money, Europe could become political in 5 years."

Jean Monnet, in 1958:

"...the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would ... the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal."

More than half a century later:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-16/germany-slams-greece-new-government-has-destroyed-all-trust-had-been-rebuilt

So that all turned out well...

Mar 17, 2015 at 2:52 AM | Unregistered Commenterjolly farmer

The Greens are so concerned about the welfare of our grandchildren that they want to condemn them to a quality of life no better than had our GRANDPARENTS when they were children.

Breadlines and porridge, anyone?
Actually, to live in a worse state. Out Grandparents had coal to keep warm.

Mar 17, 2015 at 3:15 AM | Unregistered CommenterStephen Rasey

It is the rank stench of cowardice from the cliamte kooks that shows them for what they are.
No other area of science or study is as filled with cowardly arrogant twits like cliamte science.
It is not that cliamte science is in its infancy. It is that cliamte science is infantile, having a temper tantrum for more money and attention, depending on the most childish of sales pitches: the world is ending and we must have money to stop it.

Mar 17, 2015 at 5:03 AM | Unregistered Commenterhunter

And Then There's Pish.

Mar 17, 2015 at 5:03 AM | Unregistered CommenterJimmy Haigh

No-one in their right mind would send the grand-kids to a party organised by the proven kiddie fiddlers such as Savile, Glitter and Harris.

But apparently we should be happy to allow the future of our great-great grand-kids to be constrained by the proven fact fiddlers like Schmidt, Michael Mann, ...and Then There's Precautionary Principle, and the rest.

We even have (in the context of the tragic impact of Cyclone Pam on the poor citizens of Vanuatu) our old chum, quoted by the Grauniad:-

Professor Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said the human contribution to sea level rise over the past 100 years was well documented and makes island nations more vulnerable to storms and particularly storm surge.

“When cyclones and other storms occur, there is already a greater risk of coastal flooding because the background sea level has risen, largely due to human-induced global warming. How much more flooding has occurred due to human action is unclear, but ongoing sea level rise can be expected to further increase this risk unless coastal protection can be improved.”

Human contribution to sea level rise "well documented"? My @rse!

Mar 17, 2015 at 5:49 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Brumby

Check out The Tragedy of Climate Commons from many years ago at RealClimate. In it, Gavin tries to blame the US with an analogy of fishing, and the top fisherman wanting restrictions to apply equal to all fisherman, including those that barely scrape by.
I pointed out that China was the leader in emissions, and that his math was wrong. He retorted back
Do pay attention. The number of fisherfolk is analogous to population – do the math again. – gavin

When I pointed out that this too makes no sense,

top 5%=US with 20% emissions
top 20%=75% emissions
21-50=15%emissions
bottom 50% = 10% emissions
Where do China and India go?

[Response: Umm… let’s see. China is 20% of the people, and roughly 20% of emissions. Which splits them between the lower half of the top 20% and the top of the next 30%. – gavin]

Couldn't just admit that he was operating with old analogies that were no longer relevant.

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:03 AM | Unregistered CommenterMikeN

Interesting also that Vanuatu's President Baldwin Lonsdale, wasn't burning the midnight oil directing relief operations when Cyclone Pam struck. He was at yet another UN intergovernmental junket, this time the "3rd United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Conference in Sendai, Japan", no doubt 'passing resolutions' to forward to Paris at the end of the year.
Interviewed in his comfortable hotel room, he opined "As the leader of the nation, my whole heart is for the people, the nation." And, naturally, blamed Climate Change.
In other news from Vanuatu, (but seemingly Snopaqued from the latest reports) it was pointed out that much of the devastation and loss of life from the cyclone was experienced by those poor people still living in wooden shacks with palm frond thatch. And that the reason President Lonsdale was unsure about the situation on outlying islands, was that communications are extremely difficult even in 'normal times'.
One wonders how many decent homes and emergency communication equipment might have been funded by this latest UN party for politicians and bureaucrats?
Of course, our Green activist chums do indeed care about the world's poor. As they swan about to their endless taxpayer funded holidays, the poorer the denizens of any country are, the further their expenses account will go!

And obviously, when you are campaigning for efficient and well proven affordable energy sources to be replaced by inefficient and extortionately priced energy 'solutions' which demonstrably don't work, if your 'target' population has nothing but a few ancient diesel generators, they will likely welcome absolutely anything!

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:28 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Brumby

Sorry about repetition.
Wonky WiFi in NZ at present.

Good to see the saintly Alan Rusbridger using deaths in Vanuatu as a handy hook for his latest campaign (with +350.org):-
"Join us in asking the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust to commit now to divesting from the top 200 fossil fuel companies within five years and to immediately freeze any new investments in those companies."

After all, as Rusbridger confirms:-

"The world has much more coal, oil and gas in the ground than it can safely burn. That much is physics." (sic)

Neatly confirms Ridley's point, I think!

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Brumby

Martin Brumby

There is nothing remotely saintly about Alan Rusbridger or anyone else at the HSBC Beano whose global warming reporting was funded by the HSBC carbon trading desk

Captured Guardian

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Nicholas Wilson

Update 15 February – it has just been stated by HSBC in the Treasury Select Committee meeting today that the Guardian is the biggest recipient of digital advertising revenue from HSBC.

I have been saying for some time that the reason the Guardian don’t report this massive fraud is because of their financial connections with HSBC. The Chair of the Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian is Liz Forgan. She is also a patron of charity St Giles Trust, which recently benefited from a £30m donation by HSBC. That of course may be purely coincidental.

But I have just found this in the Guardian Media Group’s financial results for the year ended 2014, which I think leaves little doubt as to why they won’t report the fraud (click to enlarge):

http://nicholaswilson.com/captured-guardian/

Mar 17, 2015 at 7:28 AM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

What do the cliscis think this discussion is all about? Would anyone on here be having an argument with them about decarbonisation if it was cost-free, or even beneficial? I doubt it very much, it's the policies that are the issue, whether they're right about global warming or not. It's the policies that have driven people look at the outpourings of the IPCC and question them. It's the policies that have us point to the uncertainties, and it's the policies that will increase fuel prices in the western world and reduce the chances of the poor in Africa by denying them cheap energy.

I'm a bit surprised at the Schmidt/McNeal response - they both do a reasonably good 'yah-boo" form of argument, and to be sure I don't believe either of them have thought through the results of decarbonisation for real people (how could they have if they want to continue with it? Do they see the impoverishment of people now a price to be paid for averting some form of unknown crises in the future? I doubt it).

I think the shock here, and the concomitant pompous responses from Gav and Doug, comes from realising that their self-images as saviours of humanity fighting against the big bad right, has been punctured by the suggestion that good guys, like them, could be mercilessly providing scientific support to those who don't give a FF how many humans die provided they can force their evil philosophies.

If we could conjure up a means of getting unlimited CO2 emission free energy supply tomorrow, like cold fusion, and distribute it throughout the world providing cheap energy to the world's populations I, nay, all sceptics/deniers would be delighted. The cliscis' environmental supporters would not. That says it all.

Mar 17, 2015 at 7:44 AM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

Increasing regulation in Western countries drives industry to other locations. This can only happen with increased wealth even though individual citizens may still be poor and trapped in poverty owing to opportunities for growth being driven out to accommodate the sensibilities about 'pollution' of their well-off fellow citizens. Other countries that step up to increase production rapidly can only do so with the use of coal. Rapid and massive coal-burning is its own negative feedback (re Chinese sending of their kids to the US). But on the other hand, campaigning to clean up coal burning increases inefficiency of coal combustion, clears up the skies and promotes further and continued coal use (re US). Rapid increases in wealth produces the needed liquidity for wasting on renewable boondoggles.

It's moving the same bits round and round in different configurations - nothing really changes.

Climate scientists of course know their contribution to society has been to block off access to fossil fuels. Witness V.Ramanathan of Scripps trying to promote solar cookers in Tamilnadu, India to obviate damage from indoor cooking with twigs and dung cakes

http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/SuryaWhitePaper.pdf

(Nice pictures from a previous project with people lined up in the streets to 'cook', which he calls a 'practical experiment')

The cooker is on four caster wheels and can be transported short distances easily, especially for moving inside the house at night in theft-prone areas.

If Ramanathan was concerned about soot clouds melting the Himalayas, why wouldn't he want these people to gain access to gas/electric indoor cooking, with ventilation and refrigeration and instead be fussing around with parabolic mirrors on wheels? Ask the poorest person what he or she wants - the answer is - what the neighbour has, not what will save the planet.

Scientists should treat people like people, i.e, if you are a climate scientist and you don't cook with dung cakes at your home but instead use gas or electric heating, you should want everyone to do the same even if global temperature rises to 20C.

Mar 17, 2015 at 8:37 AM | Registered Commentershub

Wow, I've just read through some of the comments. They're impressively appalling. I had thought that I couldn't think less well of this site, but you've really outdone yourselves. Well done. Kudos. An impressive committment to the narrative, at the expense of common decency.

Bishop,


[BH adds: Interesting use of quotation marks there.]

Did you think that I was quoting someone directly, rather than paraphrasing? Is so, my apologies for not being clearer. I had thought that starting the sentence with "Framing this whole discussion as...." would make it blindingly obvious that I was paraphrasing. Of course, it is really my fault for forgetting that bad faith is the standard on this site, so I should really have been clearer.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:02 AM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics

For a group that thinks nothing of accusing others of not caring about the future of the poor and helpless, it's amusing how (faux) offended they are to be accused of not caring about those groups now. Of course they miss the most important issue in Ridley's article, that fossil fuels are now and will continue to be essential for the foreseeable future. You could view Ridley's writing as cheerleading for something evil or as a sensible assessment of reality. Warmists have the tendency to pretend that someone is orchestrating the protection of coal, oil and gas but everyone who drives their car or demands cheap energy is doing a far better job at making a future for carbon based energy than a news paper article ever could.

I'll make a prediction - no matter what promises the UN or warmist politicians make, the developed world will not give up fossil fuels in any significant way until there is either a viable alternative or until the vast majority of people in the developed or undeveloped world agree to a budget they can and want to all stick to. No nation, not even ours will commit energy suicide ahead of the rest. The more that warmists whine, the more closed the public will be to any real solution.

Now, do warmists want to deal with reality or continue to hope their dreams will come true? Do I even need to ask that question?

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:08 AM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

ATTP: "Wow, I've just read through some of the comments. They're impressively appalling. I had thought that I couldn't think less well of this site, but you've really outdone yourselves. Well done. Kudos. An impressive committment to the narrative, at the expense of common decency."

It is axiomatic that two counterposed positions in a debate where so much is at stake will believe the other argument to be made in bad faith. But it seems to be the tendency for the green argument to use bad faith as a pretext for not having the debate at all.

Bad faith. QED.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:08 AM | Unregistered CommenterBen Pile

ATTP is just posturing because he's got no arguments. If he thought he had them, he would try to use them.

That's fine, of course.

@geronimo

Indeed.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:27 AM | Unregistered CommenterBrute

"Wow, I've just read through some of the comments. They're impressively appalling. I had thought that I couldn't think less well of this site, but you've really outdone yourselves. Well done. Kudos. An impressive committment to the narrative, at the expense of common decency"
The truth hurts, doesn't it Dr Rice? It is clear, to me at least, that a raw nerve has been touched for you with this conversation. Ponder why this is so and free your conscience from the shackles of your well-meaning but murderous Faith.
A well-wisher.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:28 AM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR

"They're impressively appalling". But not yours, of course, attp. I suggest you come here to purposely disrupt the blog. Of course, that can't happen at your blog because a: you don't get the traffic, and b: your use of the delete button would mean any comment counter to your self-important view would die in the ether. I suggest you could improve your profile if you stopped handling yourself and got a PR in.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterHarry Passfield

Surely ATTP was just following McNeall's guidelines for winning at blogging (he said, following McNeall's first principle).

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:33 AM | Unregistered CommenterCapell

aTTP is trying to control the argument by delineating what can and cannot be said. S/he has added the refinement of predicting that people on this site will not be limited in this way, so as to "win" whichever happens. It is just a debating trick.

aTTP recently supported a troll on here who thought the solution was to "unload" by having a plague to wipe out a large proportion of those pesky humans who "despoil" Gaia with their evil "carbon". Far from wanting poor people to get fossil fuel generated electricity he sides with those who promote the death of much of humanity. Though, oddly enough, not themselves.

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:53 AM | Unregistered CommenterBudgie

Main learning point is that one cannot be a climate alarmist and really aware of the suffering brought by the alarmism at the same time. Our good friends refuse to debate because they're not a peace with themselves.

Mar 17, 2015 at 10:43 AM | Registered Commenteromnologos

Gavin, speaks like a rich, spoilt maroon. He has no idea what it takes to live with burning coal, wood and leaves for every day energy use. Having been through a childhood of that existence, cooking gas etc. is a lot less smoky.
Now if you can model deaths and over estimate them, while reality actually tracks the bottom 5% of your range, a la GCMs and continue to use the death models, sure I see Gav's point.

Mar 17, 2015 at 11:01 AM | Unregistered CommenterDEEBEE

@ omnologos

My conclusions from my interactions with (intelligent and educated) people who buy into the whole climate alarmism agenda, but who are also clearly decent, kind people, are these: they do not really understand or accept that fossil fuels (and nuclear power, for that matter) are as important, and as irreplaceable (in terms of easy alternatives), as they are. The implicit assumption seems to be indeed that some mix of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biofuels, tidal power, "something new", etc), plus "changes in our lifestyle" would be enough for a fairly easy transition.

Further, they do believe that the main reason why that is not done more quickly - or why it hasn't been done yet - is the "greed from oil companies and the politicians they control". If I try to explain the obvious problems and inaccuracies with the above, they either ask "but then why are so many people saying the opposite" or just silence.

My guess is that a large part of the "climate scientists" - despite all their self-proclaimed understanding of "physics" - are as ignorant of the realities of energy economics as the people I mentioned above. I'd add that "climate science" is probably has a self-excluding mechanism whereby only people who already share such beliefs get into the field in the first place.

The problem, I think, it's not so much that they "don't care about poor people" - they probably do, and hence the outrage. Further, they probably do think that climate skeptics' only possible motivation is "greed" or "conservatism" - who could possibly defend the continuation of the reliance on fossil fuels?

Their main problem is their ignorance and stupidity.

Mar 17, 2015 at 11:33 AM | Unregistered CommenterPeter B

""The world has much more coal, oil and gas in the ground than it can safely burn. That much is physics." (sic)

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:35 AM | Martin Brumby
=========================================

Like we're going to burn it all at once, FFS. The stench of sanctimony wafts around Arsebridger, as ever.

Mar 17, 2015 at 11:59 AM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

Peter B The problem, I think, it's not so much that they "don't care about poor people" - they probably do, and hence the outrage.

There's a problem with caring. Who is it for? We care for pets and for children. So to care for others might mean to deprive them -- to make them pets or dependents. I have no doubt that Ken believes he cares for others. But it's not enough to care for another, for oneself, to oneself. Ken gets angry because he thinks we we disagree with the depth and authenticity of his feelings, not the argument he expresses his feelings through. Environmentalism as a symptom (not a cause) invariably means internalising an abstract set of ideas, hence, even scientists in the climate debate take abstract argument personally.

People who believe that tackling climate change will create world peace and abolish poverty (and the corollary: that CO2 causes war and hunger) no doubt *feel* it very strongly. But they also seem to believe that anyone who would challenge them is an evil b**tard, in favour of war and poverty. The impulse to divide the world into passive victims (pets) and evil monsters to be vanquished is not so caring, after all.

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:06 PM | Unregistered CommenterBen Pile

Peter B
Your point is well made. But my experience is that if you get the chance to explain the real-world effects of doing away with oil and coal as abruptly as the environmentalists wish then you can make progress in convincing people that, whatever the putative benefits of a "low-carbon" economy the immediate dis-benefits are overwhelming.
Ask them to remove from the room you are sitting in every item that depends on coal or oil for its existence or its presence in the room and when they have gone through that exercise you can itemise virtually everything else and explain why. In most people with an open mind the light will come on fairly soon.
One major problem is that, as DEEBEE says, the present generation of "intelligent and educated" have no experience at all of anything other than a comfortable, even pampered lifestyle. There are relatively few of us left who were brought up in low-standard accommodation with no running hot water, no flush toilet, an electricity supply that meant you needed to be careful how many appliances you switched on at the same time and other similar privations.
They cannot really understand that at least half the world still lives in conditions analogous to those.

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:12 PM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

They can't even get astronauts up to the ISS at the moment, FFS!
Mar 16, 2015 at 9:49 PM fishtrombone

NASA lost its way years ago.

The Shuttle was built on a foundation of bullshit (cost per launch, launches per year, rate of catastrophic failures - all orders of magnitude different from the reality). From there on it was downhill.

Mar 17, 2015 at 12:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterMartin A

ATTP is not a serious person....

Mar 17, 2015 at 2:33 PM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

The world has much more coal, oil and gas in the ground than it can safely burn. That much is physics
The reason Gore and his like are now pushing for this is because of the coming 'benefits' from 'stranded assets'.

Gore's carbon tax has failed (hehe) so now he needs another boondoggle to allow him and his cronies to make more money. Stranded Assets is the vehicle, IMHO. If he can somehow get to 'own' some of these 'assets' and then get the UN/EU/US to compensate him for their non-use he'll be even richer than Croesus. (in fact, for the purpose of spelling check I looked up Croesus in Wiki....a fascinating story with many analogous parallels to old Gore. Worth a read; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus )

Mar 17, 2015 at 2:55 PM | Unregistered CommenterHarry Passfield

Harry Passfield

Excellent point

Gore's pals in the oil industry are exactly the people to benefit from that. I suspect Gore still owns a substantial proxy holding in his former company, Occidental Petroleum.


Here is a BBC story about an Amazon tribe called the U'wa. They threatened to commit mass suicide if an oil company destroyed their land. Al Gore stepped in on behalf of the oil company . He is a political front for Occidental Petroleum.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/677105.stm

Mar 17, 2015 at 3:15 PM | Unregistered Commenteresmiff

"When environ-mentalism becomes a crime against humanity"

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-03-17-when-environmentalism-becomes-a-crime-against-humanity/#.VQhIA_msXh7

Read on.

Mar 17, 2015 at 3:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton

On one issue here I actually agree with Gavin; the problem of a child choking on woodsmoke in Africa has absolutely nothing to do with the climate change argument :)

Mar 17, 2015 at 3:49 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Dung -you're wrong and Gavin and Doug almost unforgivably so. The root issue is the political economy of energy. In layman terms, where and how people will source and use the non-human energy they need to live.

When the EU decides it's more important to worry about co2 emissions than soot filled homes, they are deciding the present certain deaths because of the latter are less important than preventing the future possible deaths because of the former.

It's an either-or situation and not because we say so. There are only so much resources in the world wrt energy so by fixating on one you're bound to neglect another.

Attp no doubt sleeps soundly as his priorities get all the front pages. This won't change the reality of the millions of preventable deaths.

Remember: there are zero soot skeptics. No soot denial lobby. No Big Soot companies. None got elected by sponsorships based on dung, not of the bovine physical variety at least.

The only reason we don't embark in a massive cheap conversion of kitchens and stoves toward soot free devices is because the people who should take care of that are fully taken by co2 emissions reduction.

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:16 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

Of course it goes without saying if the world fought soot more and co2 less, the resources for the Serious People would be less than they are now. What a coincidence.

Mar 17, 2015 at 6:21 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos

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