Fixing Climate Change
OK so climate change is back on the front page thanks to soon to be Governor Herbert's comments at the Western Governors Association meetings this week. Well before everyone gets back on their high horse about yes it is real or no it isn't I would like to take a look at a few FACTS about climate change, cap and trade and living the "green" lifestyle.
The below the fold headline in yesterday's SLTribune blazed "Climate change is here - deal with it, the White House says" The headline is correct - climate change IS REAL and is indisputable. If the climate didn't change we would never get rain or snow or hot or cold. Climate change can also be called the FOUR SEASONS! Cyclical "climate change" is well documented through out human history! However, it is in the body of the article that the Tribune gets off base.
I don't know if Ms. Fahys (the author of the piece) has noticed but this has been one of the coolest, wettest Junes in a long times (as the local forecasters have repeatedly pointed out). My friends in Minnesota were told this week to prepare for a year "without summer". In FACT there is a plethora of documentation out there to show that the climate is actually COOLING. The FACT is (as Governor to be Herbert pointed out) the science is far from settled as to whether vain, arrogant mankind can do anything to control climate change. There are plenty of published scientists out there who disagree with the "consensus" that climate change is manmade.
That's not to say that we can't or shouldn't reduce our use of energy. Conserving resources is a VERY conservative principle. You want to use less energy so that you spend less on heating and cooling and lighting so that you have more money to spend on other things (like increasing taxes?). That is a no brainer! But are the "conventional wisdom" ways of cutting back really that effective? Turning off unused appliances and lights most definately does help. Taking public transit....maybe not so much according to some reports!
...and of course no one could have know that before, right????? What about solar energy you ask. Well that does not incurr the cost savings that it's proponents thought as quickly as they thought either!
So what do we do? Well, as the details start to come out (remember my recent comments about the devil in the details...) it appears that the Waxman Markey bill is not the answer either! Things are so bad with Waxman Markey that many blue dogs (like Rep Jim Matheson of Utah and Rep. Collin Peterson of MN) initially came out against it (rumor has it a deal is in the making). Why, you may ask? The liberal leaning Brookings Institute confirms what many conservatives have long said - that Waxman Markey will cripple the already fragile economy! Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget office has said the same thing!
So Waxman Markey isn't the answer, you say - are YOU REPUBLICANS proposing anything or are you just the party of "NO"? The answer is Republicans in the House ARE proposing solutions. However, the Speaker of the House has refused to give ANY of these solutions time in committee.
The bottom line is that we should conserve, but if we are going to do it we need to look at the whole picture in order to get a good idea as to whether our actions have any positive impact (turning off lights, combining errands on one trip) or not (taking the bus, cap and trade) and then chose to engage in the activities that really work. It's that simple and that much common sense - something we don't need government action to do.
The below the fold headline in yesterday's SLTribune blazed "Climate change is here - deal with it, the White House says" The headline is correct - climate change IS REAL and is indisputable. If the climate didn't change we would never get rain or snow or hot or cold. Climate change can also be called the FOUR SEASONS! Cyclical "climate change" is well documented through out human history! However, it is in the body of the article that the Tribune gets off base.
Utahns have heard it before: Climate change threatens to make water more scarce. It will shrink the ski season, and swell the demand for summertime air conditioning.
I don't know if Ms. Fahys (the author of the piece) has noticed but this has been one of the coolest, wettest Junes in a long times (as the local forecasters have repeatedly pointed out). My friends in Minnesota were told this week to prepare for a year "without summer". In FACT there is a plethora of documentation out there to show that the climate is actually COOLING. The FACT is (as Governor to be Herbert pointed out) the science is far from settled as to whether vain, arrogant mankind can do anything to control climate change. There are plenty of published scientists out there who disagree with the "consensus" that climate change is manmade.
That's not to say that we can't or shouldn't reduce our use of energy. Conserving resources is a VERY conservative principle. You want to use less energy so that you spend less on heating and cooling and lighting so that you have more money to spend on other things (like increasing taxes?). That is a no brainer! But are the "conventional wisdom" ways of cutting back really that effective? Turning off unused appliances and lights most definately does help. Taking public transit....maybe not so much according to some reports!
In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport.
...and of course no one could have know that before, right????? What about solar energy you ask. Well that does not incurr the cost savings that it's proponents thought as quickly as they thought either!
So what do we do? Well, as the details start to come out (remember my recent comments about the devil in the details...) it appears that the Waxman Markey bill is not the answer either! Things are so bad with Waxman Markey that many blue dogs (like Rep Jim Matheson of Utah and Rep. Collin Peterson of MN) initially came out against it (rumor has it a deal is in the making). Why, you may ask? The liberal leaning Brookings Institute confirms what many conservatives have long said - that Waxman Markey will cripple the already fragile economy! Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget office has said the same thing!
So Waxman Markey isn't the answer, you say - are YOU REPUBLICANS proposing anything or are you just the party of "NO"? The answer is Republicans in the House ARE proposing solutions. However, the Speaker of the House has refused to give ANY of these solutions time in committee.
The bottom line is that we should conserve, but if we are going to do it we need to look at the whole picture in order to get a good idea as to whether our actions have any positive impact (turning off lights, combining errands on one trip) or not (taking the bus, cap and trade) and then chose to engage in the activities that really work. It's that simple and that much common sense - something we don't need government action to do.
Labels: Global Climate Change
posted by The Lady Logician at
9:43 AM
15 Comments:
Climate and weather are not the same thing. Once you get that, you can begin to understand climate science.
By
rmwarnick, at 1:16 PM
Is that the best you can do Richard? Have you NO defense for cap and trade? Come on...you can do better than that....
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 5:25 PM
I am only a mechanical engineer but I am confused. We had glaciers covering most of North America thousands of years ago and an ice bridge connecting Russia and Alaska. That melted. So, how did that happen? Have they found ancient coal fired power plants and SUV's? I think real scientists say it was the effect of the sun. Fast forward to today. There has been melting in the arctic and Greenland and whatever. So, can we conclude that it must be the sun, right? Oh no, we instead use a climate model that does not take the effects of the sun into their model. Kind of like looking at a car that doesn't start and ignoring the engine for the root cause. Smart, right. But wait, who pushed this theory? A politician that claims he invented the internet. Are you kidding me? We are going to pass laws that will reduce our quality of life in order to "fight" global warming? We contribute less than 5% of carbon dioxide on this planet. The majority is from water vapor. Maybe we need to put a big cover over the oceans to stop the carbon dioxide. This is a direct result of common sense people not voting in elections. Watch the movie idiocracy and you will see a cautionary tale of things to come.
-mplsbob
By
Anonymous, at 11:35 PM
Actually, the headline is exactly right. Too bad it doesn't match the proposed policy "solution." There is an old rule of medicine, engineering, and a number of other fields that applies, here. If the cost of prevention is higher than the cost of remediation, you pick the lower cost. The estimated global cost of full compliance with Kyoto was $70 Trillion. For roughly $1 trillion, we could move people inland, adapt our crops, and do the dozens of other things required to "remediate" a serious global warming situation.
The other advantage to the remdiation approach is that it does not depend on the CAUSE of the warming. Prevention, on the other hand, requires that we know EXACTLY what the cause of the warming is, and the exact extent of the problem, before it ever happens. That's not possible, in this case, so we are left with doing what humans do best-- ADAPT! If Global Warming IS real, we WILL deal with it. Right now, I've pretty well got my end covered. It's almost summer solstice, and the temp outside is about 64 degrees, and it's raining, again. Maybe I'm not seeing the problem, but isn't that the point?
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 6:46 PM
I get soooo tired of hearing AGW alarmists throw around the phrase "weather is not climate", as if they are the only ones enlightened enough to know the difference. Although the comment is correct on its face, in fact, it is almost always used in a classic "double standard" fashion. For example, if a certain weather event seems to prove the Alarmist's point, then it is evidence of global warming. If the weather seems to discredit their dire assumptions, then it's just weather! So after this, the third straight cooler than average spring in Minnesota, I wonder how many more below average seasons it will take to stop being "weather" and become "climate"? Inquiring minds would like to know!
Rep Mike Beard
By
Mike Beard, at 9:57 PM
Exactly right. My standard reply is that I don't give a whoop about climate, if it doesn't affect the weather. These "scientists," if that's what they are, actually predict things like having certain states or countries becoming drier, or hotter, or having more hurricanes. Are they predicting weather, or climate? For that matter, if all of your evidence is in support of Global Warming, why is it now called Climate Change?
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 2:08 PM
Richard - some scientific "facts" to lay on ya...
Fact 1) at one time during early history of the Earth, much of the upper Midwest was covered in VAST SHEETS OF ICE. What caused them to melt? Global climate change....
Fact 2) at one time during the early history of the Earth the Salt Lake Valley was covered by the ocean - we have a remnant of that with us today in the form of the Great Salt Lake. What caused THAT ocean to recede and evaporate? Global Climate change!
Global climate change is real but as the previous two examples SCIENTIFICALLY PROVE mankind has nothing to do with it. There were NO coal-fired power plants, no SUV's, mega-opolis' full of people then. Just a living changing planet that circles a living changing sun.
To actually think that there is something that puny man could do to change the climate is the HEIGHT of arrogance.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 9:24 PM
Well, I wouldn't say that. I think we have the potential to have an effect, temporarily, on climate. Certainly the presence of urban "heat islands" changes the local climate in big cities, and for a ways downwind of them. Vast quantities of particulates and sulfates kicked into the atmosphere cause the areas all around them to cool slightly, while the amount of CO2 all this coal-burning creates warms the planet slightly-- about 0.1 degrees every 100 years, according to the vaunted IPCC report.
So I guess that's the difference between climate and weather, now that I think about it. We can't predict the weather within plus or minus 10 degrees for tomorrow, but we can predict climate down to the 1/100 of one degree a hundred years hence. The other difference is that a difference of 0.1 degree in the weather is unnoticeable, and in the climate it's a catastrophe worth spending $70 trillion to avoid.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 10:47 AM
LL- You want to know about cap-and-trade? Look no further than the CBO report, which costs out Waxman-Markey at 18 cents a day.
Paul Krugman:
The point is that we need to be clear about who are the realists and who are the fantasists here. The realists are actually the climate activists, who understand that if you give people in a market economy the right incentives they will make big changes in their energy use and environmental impact.
By
rmwarnick, at 2:55 PM
You are going to have to prove that Richard. I read the CBO report and it says nothing of the kind.
Plus I want you to tell us WHY WE NEED IT. Defend the bill.....
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 9:25 AM
The Paul Krugman column I linked to explains the 18 cent figure.
I'm not going to defend American Clean Energy and Security (ACES). It's not my bill. By itself, it's not the answer to climate change, either. Maybe it will get people thinking about making some changes, or maybe not.
On the Climate Progress blog, "Joe" wrote:
If Waxman-Markey becomes law, then I see a genuine 10% to 20% chance of averting catastrophe — not high, but not zero.
By
rmwarnick, at 12:05 PM
The IPCC report says that if we drastically cut CO2, the climate change will be reduced by 0.1 degrees a hundred years from now. And that's based on computer models which can't predict the present, and can't predict the past. Not the sort of thing I would want to get exercised about, certainly not worth destroying our economy over.
The problem with this "market based" cap and trade system is that it creates an artificial market that no one would trade in if it were not forced upon them by government. The government will then arbitrarily limit the supply of this commodity, driving up the price, which the consumer will be forced to pay. It's a bad system all around. A carbon tax would be more honest and straightforward. It would prevent sham companies like Al Gore's from profiting from the government regulation they have lobbied for.
The simple facts still stand. There is no consensus because there is no clear evidence of a manmade-CO2 catastrophe 100 years hence. It is almost impossible to predict such events with any reliability. We should NOT be doing anything to prevent this unknowable disaster, but be prepared to adapt to it IF it materializes, regardless of cause. It will be a lot cheaper, and a lot easier to leave to the free market.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 8:04 PM
J. Ewing--
Global warming isn't 100 years in the future. It's happening now. Have you been to Lake Powell lately?
By
rmwarnick, at 12:56 PM
Yes, I have. So is the lowering of the water level in Lake Powell caused by Global Warming, Climate Change, or just a simple lack of rainfall-- the weather? Have you been to Northern Minnesota lately? They had snow in June! Been to Bolivia? They had alpacas freezing to death last year! These things happen because weather (and climate) change all the time. For example, it seems like every year about this time the Northern hemisphere gets warmer. Is that Climate Change?
You have no credible evidence of a direct causal link between human generated CO2, an increase in atmospheric CO2, any current or future global warming, and the potential for a catastrophe 100 years hence. Even if you DID, you couldn't prevent Lake Powell from going lower by cutting CO2. According to the IPCC, that would take a hundred years or more.
Instead of spending trillions of dollars to avoid this highly unlikely catastrophe, how about we figure out how to ADAPT to what happens in the here and now, if and when? Lake Powell too low? Close the dam! Problem solved. See how easy it is?
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 8:49 PM
JE - not just northern MN - Canada got snow this month!
http://www.canada.com/Technology/Alberta+Saskatchewan+snow+June/1670900/story.html
This really does remind me of the 1970's when the new Ice Age was all the rage. I suspect we will start hearing about that again soon enough.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:20 AM
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