Nice post.  

I agree that people will not be motivated to act while curled up in a fetal position.

However, to me it matters whether what is being communicated is a fact or an opinion.

For example, if it was reported that an asteroid was on a collision course for Earth – I might curl up into a fetal position.  But I would still want to know the fact – even if there was no solution.

On the other hand, if the purpose of the piece is to try to sway public opinion (i.e. advocacy) and is not necessarily fact, but one persons opinion based on items in factual dispute – I have a different reaction.  

Keith, There are two sides to the fear card affecting people’s motivation – environmental alarmism versus economic/social alarmism. The story goes something like: policies to control CO2 emissions will result in destruction of the world economy and billions around the world being forced into poverty, our essential freedoms will be destroyed as governments take over our lives etc etc..

Well, here comes my cynical self: fear might drive the fetal position in a large proportion of people. But it seems to work to drive donations among those still able to reach for their wallet and their keyboard.

For a significant part of the population the default reaction to fear-based messaging is ‘they wouldn’t be trying to scare us if they could persuade us.’

For a significant part of the population the default reaction to fear-based messaging is “˜they wouldn’t be trying to scare us if they could persuade us.’

Argument by assertion or do you have evidence? There is so much that is subjective about such a statement.

For example, was fear-based messaging about debt, taxes, government tyranny, the government coming to take away your Medicare, etc., effective for the Tea Party in 2010?

What does “significant” mean? How is fear-based messaging defined? How are you measuring the impact? How are you measuring the relative impact of other influences? At what point do you determine when the returns from educating the public about potential danger begin to diminish? At what point do they reverse?

There seems to be a basic logic to what you said. Overextending that logic would be facile.

Well, the effect of a decade and more of relentless “the scary brown people are coming to blow us all up” fear messaging has been a steady rollback of civil liberties, two wars at a pricetag of >$4 trillion and counting, acceptance of targeted assassinations, and the TSA.
Fear of the Nazis and the Japanese motivated the enormous and unparalleled military building in the US during World War II. Fear of a further economic downturn is motivating the evisceration of Europe’s social safety nets. We put a man on the moon because we were afraid the Soviets would get their first.If people were actually afraid of climate change, we’d have nuclear plants, wind farms and solar high speed trains from coast to coast. They’re not, so we don’t.Fear is an excellent motivator. If there was a significant portion of American public opinion that thought the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was no big deal, or regular debates in the media on the theme “Hitler: Madman or Just Misunderstood?” we might not have won WWII, either.

Wow!

By all means please demonstrate how we can reduce CO2 emissions without asking anyone to sacrifice what they perceive to be a “˜quality of life’

You don’t see a leap in logic from that statement and the meme posted in #4? Why would you be asking that question in response if you didn’t?

And I could add to that meme – not only will billions die from more expensive energy, but the AGW cabal is completely indifferent to that suffering because it recedes in importance compared to the importance to statists of establishing a one world government, destroying capitalism, and returning us to a lifestyle that incorporates no technology developed after the stone age. 

So if the impact of fear-based messaging is so obvious, how do we balance the impact of that kind of fear-based messaging and that of the AGW cult? 

<blockquote>My buddy with who has a pickup truck with an 8.0 liter engine needs it to go fishing and hunting.</blockquote>

And to enhance his ability to do so, we (as a society)  make decisions about how much tax revenue goes to supporting automobile travel and how much goes towards helping  my (hypothetical) neighbor, a single mother with two children, get to work. Currently she has to ride two buses that take her 1.5 hours each way to take a 15 mile round trip to her minimum wage job at a suburban mall. Should your neighbor sacrifice to enhance my neighbor’s quality of life (especially given the economic benefits we see from spending on public transportation, negative externalities we see from promoting automobile travel, etc.)?

Keith -

There  seem little doubt that support for environmental issues is down across the board. But it’s like AGW – how do we attribute that change in cause, and how to we measure degree? It’s easy to speculate, and qualified speculating is worthwhile – but conclusions need supporting evidence. If you’re going to use abstract theories about the impact of fear-mongering to attribute fear-mongering from environmentalists, then you need to control for the fear-mongering from  from opposing sides on those issues.

With endangered species, is it because of fear-mongering or because of economic priorities changing, because some measure of progress has been made, because of the effectiveness of opposing political organizing? You, yourself, give an explanation that seems to underlie the thesis – that the change may be significantly influenced by demographic changes. 

I know that you’ve been inside the bubble for a long time and that your experiences validly inform your perspective – but being inside the bubble can also have the effect of magnifying biases.

How in Gaia’s name do I do a line break on this thing? I tried <p>s and <br>s, to no effect.

PDA, in the menu bar there are two blue marks <>.If you click on them you move into HTML editing of your comment.If you center your cursory after a line break  () and hit enter twice, the line break will appear.

I tried HTML editing; that was what my reference to <p>s and <br>s meant. I’m not sure how to “center my cursory,” so I think I’ll just keep my comments short. Better for everybody, probably.

Fabulous.

I’m in your debt.

The U.S. has sharply reduced CO2 emissions. The DOE has announced accelerated closure of 27 GW of coal plants. And Anthony Watts is writing about how much instead of if.

And you can’t find a feel good story in any of that?

PDA, do you really believe that describes our situation? I surely do not.

Analysis of (perceived) consequences:An IMMEDIATE-CERTAIN-NEGATIVE (reduction in standard of living) trumps a FUTURE(2060)-UNCERTAIN-NEGATIVE (food & water wars) and certainly trumps a DISTANT FUTURE(2100)-UNCERTAIN-NEGATIVE (tens of millions displaced by rising sea levels).The communications strategy of the climate science fraternity and the energy policy change fraternity (off fossil fuel) has been very poor. They should have spent a lot more on messaging.It is essential to demonstrate that moving off fossil fuels and reducing energy consumption per se will not have long term disastrous consequences for the vast majority of people. In fact, there are very real options to move to an electrified world with three breakthrough technologies which are only 5 years and $1B-$5B (each) away from commercial scale proof.Let’s face it, over the next 40 years thousands of coal/oil fired power stations around the world will come to their end-of-life. From 2020 (give us time to plan/design/finance!) it should be possible to replace each of them (at end-of-life) with a non-fossil fuel plant/system. And the same applies to the NEW generating capacity required in places like China and India.Don’t tell me a 40 year transition off coal/oil means economic disaster.But time is fast running out for any sort of low negative consequence transition off fossil fuels.

I don’t know how, even theoretically, something like that can be proven false. How do you prove what will or won’t happen in the future?

A message promising hope is in direct competition against two groups who are actually fearful or exploiting fear for political expediency.  Further, a  lack of trust will keep the battle going, and unfortunately many in the Pielke Jr. crowd is just as invested in the jello-flinging and promoting distrust as anyone else.

So that’s my question to Keith about his approach. I don’t see him promoting tribalism like the Romm, Watts, or Pielke – and legitimate criticism is fair game and important…but…it’s a delicate balance. Over-hyping criticism will result in tribes digging deeper into their trench warfare. It’s tough to mix constructive criticism with trust-building, especially when people feel so embattled and so committed to their identity as the most victimized. But nothing constructive will develop without prioritizing trust-building, IMO.

What is perfectly clear is the fact that what has been done in the last twenty years to provoke public concern is not working.  PERIOD.

Latest Gallup poll has global warming ranked (tied) dead last again in public concern, even when teamed up with other environmental concerns.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/156347/Americans-Next-President-Prioritize-Jobs-Corruption.aspx

 

And the rent seekers such as McKibben keep pounding the same drums that nobody hears.  And the lazy media keep printing the same articles.  It is BORING, BORING, BORING.  It has become pathetic.  Nobody is listening.  Time to change tactics if you actually really care about saving the planet.  And I’m not talking about re-branding global warming again.  

This movement is so dead right now that I even feel sorry for its supporters, even as I oppose a lot of the solutions.  You guys are capable of a better game here.  Regroup.  Find better leaders.  Engage in achievable goals.  Climate guilt is done, over, kaput. 

I agree with Joshua. without qualification, nit picking or expanding. Nothing changes without trust building.

the same messaging to the same audience with different concerns is not the same messaging.
the fact that your messaging’s effectiveness tracks with economic uncertainty should tell you something. It should also guide you in developing effective messaging that is robust WRT economic uncertainty.
when I am economically secure, when my base human needs are met I am open to
A) fear based messaging
B) messaging that implies a untangible benefit for modest cost.

when I am economically insecure I could gives a rats ass about 100 years from now and I dont have the luxury to spend a few bucks to save polar bears.

Enviro messaging is optimized for economic good times. The sooner that reality sinks in the sooner you might get on a path to brand that survives in all sorts of weather.
try something aspirational.

It’s worth pointing out that the success of messaging depends on both the person trying to communicate the message and the person receiving it. If the message is not having the desired effect the fault is not necessarily with the person trying to get it across – sometimes people are simply not prepared to accept an argument, or are at least extremely resistant to it, however it is communicated. Sometimes you just have to accept that and target your communications at those who are more receptive.

ISTM that there is more resistance to the climate change message in the US than there is say here in the UK and I don’t find that particularly surprising given the difference in political attitudes generally. That’s not meant as a slight on the US public, there are no doubt areas where us Brits have similar blindspots – we are particularly attached to our National Health Service for example and it is a brave politician who makes an argument for replacing it (so they try to undermine it by stealth instead).

andrew adams

Yes indeedy. I cannot imagine ‘tlitb1′ frothing away about the disgusting enviro-bling posturing  being capable of understanding that CC is a Very Bad Thing.

Mosher:You raise good points. It is also true that to the extent that environmental “messaging” is a coordinated and deliberate endeavor (as opposed to people doing what they believe is the appropriate action to take in the face of phenomena they oppose), it makes sense to create messaging that is less vulnerable to political opposition that has grown in its institutional power.

If someone with better Google-fu than me can find the study that Great Britian did on communicating climate change, we could address much of the speculation about speculation. It was a study conducted by a group who specializes in consulting ad firms whose advertisement scheme failed for their customers. The government of GB wanted to know why the amount of money and effort that they were putting into getting the message of cc to the public seemed to have little effect or sometimes negative effect. The report analyzed the advertising scheme and rated it. In particular, IIRC, fear based calls had several problems. One,  it de-engerized some. Two, persons ended up thinking that if we are all doomed we should enjoy ourselves and would emit more CO2. And third, buyer fatigue: a lot of people tune out the same message yelled louder and more often.

John

I suspect you are thinking of the Futerra ‘Sell the Sizzle’ project. Pdf here.

John  Pittman, I just googled “communicating climate change uk” and got a rich supply of returns. Do you recall title, issuing agency, anything else?

The link between support for environmentalism and economic good times is not obvious in other parts of the world–underdeveloped countries do care about the issues, even if they cannot always act on them. Linking our own reactions to climate change to good times reduces windmills and solar panels to mini-pyramids erected to salute ourselves, and I think that’s a bit extreme.

Good climate change messaging may resonate more during good times. We don’t know at this point, as there has been no good climate change messaging–just falling polar bears, exploding children and blunt falsehoods about malaria and Himalayan glaciers. 

So we won’t really know until we try–with proper messaging.

BBD, you have been good for nothing else in the discussion about climate change since your exile from Bishop Hill. Here’s your chance–prove me wrong with examples of good messaging about climate. Should be easy peasy–even for you.

Oh, so you cannot find any examples of good climate messaging either?

Here in America a major network did a one-hour docu-drama on global warming over the course of this century. It was almost as good as No Pressure. They had the polar bears attacking the World Trade Center in one commercial, equally as scintillating.

Hi Andrew,I would argue that those are messages, which in modern discourse is far different from ‘messaging’, the dark art.

Tom,OK, in that case I would nominate An Inconvenient Truth. Yes it is flawed but it has been massively influential and still has a stronger scientific basis than pretty much anything put out by the “skeptic” side.

Tom

Address the point please:

Nice work, picking out a handful of f-ups and claiming that “˜there has been no good climate change messaging‘. One has to wonder what you think you are doing.

You are being evasive again.

Hi Andrew, AIT grossed $24 million domestically and $25 million internationally, so it counts as messaging–somewhere on the order of 10 million saw it. 

It was professionally produced and written. It was clear. It was marketed correctly and well-received. So I’m certainly willing to accept it as an exception that proves the rule. 

I would argue that it was effective in influencing the debate around the time of its release–so yes, I’ll take AIT as a counter. 

Contrast that, however, with other ‘messaging’ put out by the Brigade, and it seems much more like an anomaly than an example…

Tom -

Just for your edification, based on past experience, you have shown that there is no reason for me to respond to you directly with a goal of exchanging viewpoints. I gave you an opportunity to prove otherwise (everyone makes mistakes) but you declined the opportunity. You insisted (paraphrasing) that I don’t understand reality – and I see little reason to engage in exchanges with someone who views me in that way (there would be no point). Further, you ask for proof that all climate change messaging has been bad but you strike me as someone who is fully convinced on the topic. What would comprise “proof” for someone whose mind is already made up? Your original statement, completely devoid of any nuance or qualification, shows that you are fully convinced on the topic.

That said, because I think there is a larger benefit of using your comment as an object lesson, I will quote the following sentence:

Being a lukewarmer puts me on the extreme, eh?

I didn’t call you an extremist – yet that is how you, in your simplistic rhetoric, characterized my statement. My comment to Keith is to ask an honest questions: What is a strategy for effective communication when people are so inclined to claim victimization when it only exists in their own head? What is an effective strategy for communication when people willfully simplify what someone says to confirm their biases?

Dipping into the cooking sherry this early? Well, I guess the sun’s over the yardarm somewhere. Might have been useful if you had linked to all the criticism of the Mckinsey report–from your side…

#67 – John -

Joshua, I did not claim for the paper it would do more than it was designed to do. However, it would end some of the speculation as to what had been studied and how it had been studied if nothing else but in a particular case. Different cultures do react differently and sometimes
react the same; not a good excuse to ignore what has been studied and how, or not.

Fair points – although while I can understand why you thought so, I wasn’t implying that you thought that different cultures don’t react differently – I was just commenting on the limitations of sample set.

And without reading the paper, I suspect your certainty of bias is
certain in you but not necessarily the paper. The combined appeal to authority and implied argument from ignorance is not proof of bias in
the paper.

I wasn’t commenting about the conclusions in the paper – just to what we know about the characteristics of how humans reason.  My point is that more generally, conclusions about fear-based messaging aren’t fraught with confirmation bias, I’m open to hearing that argument. But point taken, I should have qualified my statement to:

Given the complexity of the issue, simplistic conclusions about fear-based messaging will be fraught with confirmation bias.

More object lessons:

Joshua, there’s no need for you to respond to me at all, if you don’t want to.

Why would I think there is a need for me to respond?

You can prove my opinion of you incorrect by focusing on the topic when you comment.

It is impossible for someone who isn’t in touch with reality to prove someone else wrong, now isn’t it?

@76

fair enough.

Hi Tom,By the “Brigade” I presume you mean those who, to quote another of your comments, should be making a “a co-ordinated campaign pushing the same message repeatedly across one or more media”.Who would you say constitutes that group exactly? 

Fuller:”[T]here has been no good climate change messaging”“just falling polar bears, exploding children and blunt falsehoods about malaria and Himalayan glaciers. “<br><br>TF, do you really believe that describes our situation? I surely do not. I believe it’s a grotesquely facile description of our situation.  But I am not surprised at all that it’s part of *your* ‘message’.

Sully, yes I do.

Andrew, I think you’ve described what’s going on in the UK quite accurately. I’m not sure if it’s readily comparable to what’s happening in the U.S., where climate change got ruthlessly hijacked into the partisan sphere, mostly thanks to our Senator James Inhofe and his blogger Marc Morano. They managed to make it a litmus test for true Republicanism, although not as completely as Norquist did with tax issues.

It was just 4 years ago that the Republican candidate for the office of the presidency supported Cap and Trade. Times have changed.

Once again, America is the exception in this, and I don’t think there is much in the way of intelligent communication going on in the major media at this time, although that might not be exactly new…

Alarmism is just one of the messaging techniques in the spectrum.  It works with a subset of the people it hits.  There are of course a lot of others in this debate who do not go down this road.

Where I find fault in the “failed” messaging of alarmism is:

1. It is quite easy to refute by skeptics, and by any reasonably intelligent person who performs a self investigation.    

2. The more moderate (majority?) climate concerned people allow this messaging to dominate in the public sphere without comment (KK/Revkin and some others excluded),  thus implicitly approving of it.

3. The media is compliant as it traffics in fear as a matter of course.

4. A dominant easily refutable message taints the entire movement as scientifically corrupt, causing long term credibility problems.

The movement is living with the long term credibility problem now.  The “all in” strategy of the science is settled backfired badly.  Get rid of the global treaty unicorn chasers, social justice co-opters, Hansen / McKibben / Gore types.  Get some leaders that have cross-aisle appeal and trust.  Build a bigger tent.

People have grown weary of the angry environmentalists who blame everyone but themselves.

Above all, do something useful.  Visibly.  Locally.  Way too much effort has been focused on bringing about nebulous immeasurable large scale political change and has resulted in alienating 50% of the voting population.   Environmentalism is not cool anymore to too many people. They simply don’t like you anymore.  Try changing that. 

The *reason* why the more paranoid-inclined don’t trust Hansen etc is because they have been duped. Personalise, demonise. That’s how it’s done.

We’ve been duped! It’s a cookbook! Soylent Green is people! Cassandra was right!

We’re doomed. Doomed, I tell you…

tom
“Being a lukewarmer puts me on the extreme, eh?”

no they are just repositioning the window

“It’s worth pointing out that the success of messaging depends on both the person trying to communicate the message and the person receiving it.”

Yes, this is part of what we call “the rhetorical situation” Speaker. Place. Audience. Purpose. Message.

for climate change, start by looking at the speakers. In the beginning you would want to start with speakers who already have credibility with your audience. To drive awareness and interest in your core constinuency you would pick.. Al Gore and scientists. the brainer the better. The appeal of fear works fine as does the appeal to intangibles:
leave a better planet for our grandchildren. do good.

When you switch to phase 2, moving on the uncommitted, you need to change speakers. you absolutely must.

The communications plans I’ve seen ( from the files of climategate.. not discussed too much ) saw follow on phases in the classroom. basically drive awareness and concern in the youth market. A good strategy, but it engaged the enemy too early.Opps, scaring kids backfires especially when their folks are worried about the mortgage.

Hindsight of course. I had hoped and Tom had hoped that after climategate certain voices would graciously exit the debate. Usually through a promotion to an important non speaking role. Not all prophets make it to the promised land

/p>

SMHindsight of course. I had hoped and Tom had hoped that after climategate certain voices would graciously exit the debate.Well, it seems that your robust attempts to make as much mischief as possible out of that incident failed to have any real effect. Not for want of trying though, eh? I wonder why you did it? Personalise… demonise…

And personalise… demonise…

Hey, okay, BBD and Joshua. Everything’s fine with what you’re doing. 

Everyone who disagrees with BBD is demonizing and personalizing. Everyone who disagrees with Joshua is oversimplifying. You’ve pointed it out repeatedly and all your opponents are slain and gathered in piles at your feet. Right?

So what’s the problem?

@87 BBD “What you have been fooled into mischaracterising as “˜alarmism’ is neither alarmist nor refutable…”

What is easily refutable is the certainty with which the doom and gloom are pronounced by our expert predictors.  Hansen’s latest salvo op-ed in the NYT was a prime example:

That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk. 

Are you stating that this is irrefutable by a reasonably intelligent person?  Don’t do your usual (quite transparent and ineffective) dodge and change of the subject here.  Do you or do you not agree with this statement by one of the leading scientists on climate change?

It’s a target rich environment here, I can come up with 10 similar examples.  It’s embarrassing to science.  This stuff belongs in the Enquirer.  

Are you stating that this is irrefutable by a reasonably intelligent person?

Yes. Go ahead and refute it, properly. Start with all the premises Hansen is working from, and demonstrate error.

As we can see, what BBD and Joshua do becomes a two-edged sword. They succeed in diverting discussion from the topic. They also confirm the negative opinion others have of the advocates of the cause they espouse. But apparently communication is over-rated in this day and age. 

BBD, as someone who spent weeks of vacation and spare time on the impact of CG1 on the paleo, attribution and computer modelling in AR4, if anything Fuller and Mosher were light and even handed. I must assume you did not read CG1 and do not know the context, myself and others, found that make the context worse. Their book is only a guide, you need to read both the book, CG1, AR4 6,9,10 for context. The place place to start is to sort on Yamal and larch. Read them from start to finish as you read the parts of 6,9,10. In this I assume you are well versed with 6, 9,10. If not start there, then use F&M as a guideline with the actual emails.

“If it so turns out that your neighbors are not able to go hobby-fishing, it is not an outcome equivalent to forcing billions around the world into poverty.”

Too funny.
A policy aimed at reducing global warming that would make energy so expensive as to prevent a middle class American from going fishing would, in fact, have quite a disproportionate impact on people in developing nations.
But of course you don’t see that because you expect to exempt the developing nations, which means you don’t expect to do anything about global emissions, which means you don’t expect to do anything about global warming, which means you expect middle class American to support “policy” that makes them give up fishing for absolutely no benefit to the environment.
Nobody is going to do that, so you’ll just make up more scare stories and call them stupid. Good plan.

And Tom, I am deeply fed up with your routinely abusive language. Why KK doesn’t pull you up for it is becoming increasingly puzzling. Since he has not, I will. Fucking well stop it.

A policy aimed at reducing global warming that would make energy so expensive as to prevent a middle class American from going fishing
would, in fact, have quite a disproportionate impact on people in developing nations.

That might depend. I mean your use of “prevent” is a bit vague given the earlier context of the discussion.

Balancing the impact, differentially, on people of different SES and in different countries is not mutually exclusive with raising the cost of energy for middle class Americans. And raising energy prices for Americans wouldn’t necessarily mean that someone couldn’t go hobby-fishing, but that they might need to make choices, such as using less energy in other ways, or taking a bus to a fishing hole, or driving a more fuel-efficient car.

I’d say that relatively few people who think that energy should be more expensive for middle-class Americans thinks that it should be so expensive that it should “prevent” harry’s neighbor from going fishing.

“We are tough on the scientists we call The Team, and we think deservedly so. But we want to stress from the outset that we do not for one minute believe there is any evidence of a long-term conspiracy to defraud the public about global warming, by The Team or anyone else. What we find evidence of on a much smaller scale is a small group of scientists too close to each other, protecting themselves and their careers, and unintentionally having a dramatic, if unintended, effect on a global debate.”"We see the frustration the scientists felt in getting the media and the public to understand the science as well as the desire to fight a rapid reaction battle against a host of critics who used the Internet to post their “•refutations of accepted science. This is a common theme that runs throughout the Climategate story. Working climate scientists publish their findings in the peer-reviewed journals of science: Nature, Science, and others. The process of publishing is long and tedious and open to manipulation as we shall see.On the other side, often combating them, are a variety of voices from outside this mainstream publishing world. It”˜s an internet world where anyone can post their ideas immediately, without review or rather with a wide-open unfettered review by hundreds or thousands or millions of readers. The culture shock is evident, and not just in Schmidt”˜s email. A process that formerly took months to get a polite reply from a colleague was being challenged by a world where the scientist would be confronted by dozens, if not hundreds, of blog posts from people ranging from scientifically qualified to people who had never opened a book before picking up a pen. Scientists who might flame another scientist in private mails were exposed to an internet world where the flaming was out in the open.”

If by abusive you  mean my use of the word ‘git’, it is similar to ‘tosser’ and is defined in the Urban Dictionary as

A person who feels justified in their callow behaviour. 

I think it’s descriptive and accurate, not abusive.

Keith, as you know it used to be a much more civilized place. The way you dealt with Rabbett (and perhaps with a few other assholes) shows that you are perfectly capable of maintaining civility and decorum when you want it. It follows that we have what we have because you you want it that way or at least don’t mind. You can’t have it both ways.

Rather than play silly games with you trying to direct the conversation, let’s get back to the burning question: why did you do it? What made you think that any good would come of selectively misrepresenting the stolen emails to make your targets look as bad as possible?

Joshua #114 If so (not expensive) 1. Would it work?  2. Is that is what has been proposed? The answer is that the proposals have to work as reasoned. As shown by Tol and others, there are assumptions that are unjustifiable. In fact are the opposite of what economists state about economics. The most glaring is the energy mix. There is an assumption that as demand for wind and solar increase, purchases will casue an economy of scale such that the price decreases. This is a basic error, economy of scale will flatten not reverse price demand ratios. Thus the IPCC becomes the greatest in the Polyanna contest and is hands down winner.  So, the conclusion is 1. No. 2. No. What the consumer will see is about a deflation of buying power of about 45% when fully implemented minus the flattening by the economy of scale where 10% to 20% of the total (45%) is considered phenomenal, the last time I looked at such. At current levels, consumer resilience is about 10%. The maximum that could be expected would be consumers facing 36% net loss of buying power. Not survivable at current conditions. So, yes, when fully implemented over a period of time, one would expect that your neighbor would have to give up recreeational fishing, non local produce and a host of other changes, OR a fundamental change in energy will occur, and do not mean going to wind and solar. It will have to be a source as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels.

John -“1. Would it work?”“Work” is a rather vague term. By itself, would it reduce ACO2 sufficient to reverse global warming? No. Would it reduce the rate of global warming -  IOW buy some time? Assuming no “tipping points” are trigger, I doubt it -  as one change among others think it is theoretically possible. Would it generate revenue that might go towards researching better replacement technologies, and might it have other associated benefits – I’d say yes.  “2. Is that is what has been proposed?”It has been proposed by some. “The answer is
that the proposals have to work as reasoned. As shown by Tol and others,
there are assumptions that are unjustifiable. In fact are the opposite
of what economists state about economics.”The findings by Tol and others are disputed. From what I’ve seen, Tol is subject to some biases. I have seen very few (any?) analyses that incorporate differential pricing for people of different SES. I think that there is no solution w/o people with higher standards of living sacrificing more (or at least facing more changes) than people of lower SES (and I think there is room for that sacrifice and change) – so projections that don’t incorporate such differentiation are not optimal, IMO. And there are follow-on benefits in addition to revenue for research – reduced pollution, for example – that would reduce cost to society in other ways. How do we account for other possible external economic benefits – e.g., with less use of oil, fewer wars to keep oil flowing.  “There is an assumption that as demand for wind and solar increase,
purchases will casue an economy of scale such that the price decreases.
This is a basic error, economy of scale will flatten not reverse price
demand ratios.”Economy of scale is not the only benefit. Again, revenue used for research, the potential benefits of efficiencies resulting from experience.  If more infrastructure is in place and more usage is taking place, even if the initial benefits of scale are limited – once the usage is greater any benefits from reduction in cost is magnified – something not caught by economy of scale. ”Not survivable at current conditions.”Not survivable by whom? And with the consideration of what sacrifice? Not survivable if more people live in cities? If more people use public transportation? If we eliminate massive waste in food production or have massive efforts for conservation? “So, yes,
when fully implemented over a period of time, one would expect that
your neighbor would have to give up recreeational fishing, non local
produce and a host of other changes,”Hey – conservation and higher energy prices are all well and good, but keep your hands off my heirloom tomatoes.

Screwed up on the formatting – I think you’ll be able to get through it.

Jeffn -I don’t understand this point.

“Differentiating between a middle class emission of CO2 and one from a poor person makes no difference to the climate, so is an unsustainable climate policy.”

What people advocate for changes over time due to circumstances, insight, information, etc.  Why would anyone expect anything different? Further, I think that you are over-generalizing, to the point where it is difficult to respond. For example, problems with nuclear extend much farther than just opposition from the “concerned,” and not all “concerned’ are in opposition.

‘Tom, your book was a very deliberate attempt to make a select group of scientists look bad”

well since the ICO agreed with us, I suppose you can take it up with them. heck, Jones agreed with my assessment of him.

Need to take a break for a while. I’ll respond to this since you highlighted it.

“But one aspect I find unassailable is that such a program of taking discriminates against those that would prefer recreational fishing and dislike mass transit for example.”

I’m not sure I fully understand your point, but while what you say is, in some sense no doubt true, we also need to consider a legacy of past discrimination (decisions to spend money promoting automobile travel over providing public transportation), and consideration of societal economic good and magnitude of emissions benefit. For example, how do we weight the emissions benefits from one guy fishing and the follow-on societal economic benefits from him being more self-sustainable (others?) versus emissions benefits from someone being able to  take public transportation and the follow-on economic benefits from economic activity in transportation hubs, less time spent in traffic, fewer traffic fatalities, etc. I’m not trying to portray that as being as one-sided as it sounds – I don’t doubt it is a very complicated calculus.

Joshua, at 134, that is an example of diverting an environmental policy to a political policy. Focus. A policy that doesn’t necessarily reduce emissions, but satisfies a desire to offer a sacrifice to “past discrimination” isn’t a policy to reduce emissions and therefore isn’t a policy to address global warming.
That was my point earlier- it doesn’t matter where the molecule of CO2 comes from if you believe it will kill us all. Once you start down the path of exempting this group or that group out of some sense of political fairness, you’ve lost the argument that CO2 is dangerous. Fred the fisherman might give up his truck for a necessary 85% reduction in global emissions, but for a plan that doesn’t reduce global emissions a bit, only shuffles things around according to what Joshua thinks is fair? Hell no.

i will tell you why i did it. nov 29. tom wrote me and asked me to. i hoped revkin would have. i wrote tohim ondayone. follow foia. he didnt. the story hadbecome a joke. either fraud or boys behaving badly. i tried to stick to thechronology. at times editorializing distracted from that. demonizing.. no see my piece on big government site. excuse sent from phone

BBD, when you re-enter the fray, I have something to say to you.

It’s really clear why you got kicked off Bishop Hill’s site. You are dishonest as well as a troll.

Steve Mosher went out of his way to find ways to humanize those we criticized in our book. He was one of the first, if not the first, to drag the concept of Noble Cause Corruption from the realm of police studies precisely to allow for the possibility that those we criticized felt that their cause was so important that it permitted them to exceed the normal bounds of propriety. He was one of the first, if not the first, to hypothesize that those we criticize felt not only within their rights but part of their duty to adopt the tactics of Big Tobacco, precisely because they expected the tactics to be used against them.

I can understand why you don’t want discussion to proceed on how the consensus team has overplayed the climate fear card, the topic we are to putatively discuss. The consensus has overplayed the fear card, sowing the wind and now reaping the whirlwind as a result. So you and your fellows try to lead the discussion astray and have more success than you deserve.

But when you lie about what others have written and are unable to produce even one example of what you claim they have done, you reinforce the image others have of you. You are very much like the character Bob Hoskins played in Unleashed–a vulgar thug with dreams of being a bit more cultivated than he is. At the end of the day, for you it all comes down to ‘Get ‘em.’ It’s too bad your weapons look more like Peggy Lee than Jet Li.

You lie.

steve mcintyre came up with noble cause corruption. we were talking. trying to make sense out of the behavior. fighting mcintyre made no sense. Neither of us thought mann or jones or briffa was evil. My explanation was that Mann felt embattled. he says as much. Jones after years decides to help and do his part. and briffa, the story shows was really bullied into a corner first by mann and then by overpeck and jones did nothing to protect him. kinda like screwtape. steve objected to me seeing briffa as a hero of sorts. His suggestion was noble cause corruption. Once he said that I saw that too. this was not fraud or hoax. For a while Tom and I debated over titles; noble cause corruption or CRUTAPE. We felt noble cause corruption while accurate would be pissing n two tents. sceptics would howl about “noble” and the other side would scream about corrption. plus corruption was a bit too harsh. anyway, Tom let me pick and since I liked my crutape idea, I picked that. Probably egotistical and too impressed with my own cleverness.
would I write the same book. No. I ( not tom) made two mistakes. one about Jones which gavin caught and another about briffa that arthur smith caught. I’d spend more time talking about the luke warmer stuff. Tom wanted this to be a bigger part and I said no. i was beat, exhausted. I’d probably tone down some of the rhetoric, trim some of the speculation. People who dont live on the internet tell me we were balanced. Skeptic friends say the last part of the book ruined it. Richard betts likes the last part of the book. i regret not listening to Tom who wanted to end with more stuff from the middle of the road. I would rather write a book that richard betts likes than one that BBD approves of.

Did we achieve perfection in finding a way between the two extreme frames of climategate.
Nope. anybody who reads through the book can see that its rhetorically uneven. I dont think its fair to say that we demonized people. unless you literalize the screwtape trope. we did personalize because its story about how personalities intersect with science. So, I will accept the “personalization” charge. I wont accept the demonizing charge. humanize is more to the point. thsoe who tried to charge fraud, demonized. those who excused the behavior,tried to canonize. they were men. who believed strongly and failed to live up to an ideal that perhaps we shouldnt hold them to. I dunno.

Steven Mosher

Thanks for your latter response. You know well that I don’t buy most of it except as an internally coherent explanation for what you did. You had a similar discussion with MT some time ago, so to save time, pain, and this thread, take it that I am of his position.

The claim that the “˜consensus team’ (see what you did there? see what your distorting book was doing?) “˜overplayed’ the “˜climate fear card’ is IMO a fiction. It grows from the crypto-denialist discourse you, Mosher and zillions of other motivated commenters have assiduously substituted for what the rest of the world calls the mainstream scientific perspective.

+1

Oh, and I’d suggest that @142 is about as close to a mea culpa as we’re ever likely to see from the divine Mosher. Can’t wait to see if similar whispers of contrition are forthcoming from McIntyre,Watts and Pielke the elder given recent events. I’m not holding my breath. 

#136 – Jeffn -From what you wrote, it seems to me that you’ve misinterpreted some of what I said. Try rereading what I wrote and what you wrote. Maybe you can reframe in such a way that I feel I can just respond without first having to explain how you misunderstood me.

Like my co-author, I wouldn’t write the same book today. I certainly wouldn’t try to do it in 30 days. 

Like my co-author, I’m proud of what we managed to accomplish.

Like my co-author, I know we didn’t demonize people and we tried to humanize them.

Unlike my co-author, when pathetic ratbags lie about what we wrote I will get in their face. 

BBD, you claim to have bought the book. You claim to have read it. You say we demonize and personalize in it. I call for an example.

Jim at 149, there is a distinction in what you write from what others are writing. You note correctly that the alarmists have cried wolf once too often and their jeremiads are losing their punch. 

But they are different from environmentalists, as you note. And public acceptance of environmental messages and willingness to support them has not changed.

But some refuse to see what you have noted. Pity, that.

jim — #149

“… people dont accept the alarmist message because it is simply wrong.”

Not to say that people do accept wrong messages, but you are laying out a cause-and-effect relationship there without providing any evidence. I have seen quite a few folks make similar claims, and haven’t seen them provide supporting evidence.

Given that you seem likely to have a partisan perspective on the science of the debate, it stands to reason that your bias in that regard is affecting your assessment of the cause-and-effect in public opinion amongst people who largely don’t share your view of the science, are uninformed about the science, are misinformed about the science, or don’t even know what climate scientists have to say about the science.

Is your assessment based on anything other than pure speculation and argument by assertion?

I agree with your comments #147. However, whereas you find the “”"

What I happen to find particularly interesting is when “skeptics” who pride themselves on their objective analytical processes, base determinations about the morality of their opponents on nothing other than speculation (how could someone who’s never met me judge my morality ““ simply because they think I’m a “warmist?”).”"”
What I happen to find particularly interesting is when activists who pride themselves on their objective analytical processes, base determinations about the bias of their opponents on nothing other than speculation without examining the institutional bias of their own position (how could someone who’s never met me judge my bias ““ simply because they think I’m a “skeptic?”).

It’s not like I didn’t anticipate that, John.

There may be a difference more generally, I’m not sure (regarding the primacy of identifying oneself as a rational analyst – seems to me that “skeptics,” as a group, are more singularly focused in that regard by definition)….

But I’m arguing with “skeptics” here, some of whom fit my description. At this very site, I’ve had “skeptics” make determinations about me based on mere speculation. BBD did that once also, but later apologized. We all make mistakes. Some folks own up to them.

“Let’s bear in mind that your position proceeds from your own private version of physical reality where ECS is 1.9C.”

Huh? I’ve characterized the lukewarmer position many times over at Lucia’s where we actually discuss these things. Stop mispresenting our position. If presented with an over/under bet of 3C Lukewarmers take the under bet. That is, its more than 50% probable that the value falls below 3C rather than above 3C. The floor for lukewarmer is 1.2C. Below that and you are a lindzenite.

- 161 – Marlowe -

I’m on board with that also. I don’t see how you can talk about the “climate fear card” without talking about the “economic apocalypse/deaths of millions from lack of cheap energy card.”

Discussing each is important.

We have plenty of people discussing each in isolation. What’s interesting to me is to examine them in relationship to each other.

I thought you might reply that way in 158. I agree and glad we got to confirm agreement about ones I would tend to think would fit your ideal. See it all the time. But it also occurs on the other side. I would give you my example, but Mosher in 160 does it well. Except I would add after lindzenite, or beleive that low probabilty results means that they have to happen. So I could contrast the low probability fear mongering that claim such for 12C that this thread is about, with its opposite low probability polyannism.

Harrywr2, when I did the survey for Examiner.com a couple of years ago, those identifying themselves as Republicans were willing to pay $250 a year for upgrading the grid and other energy efficiency measures.

I actually think that packaging sound policy without climate labels makes a difference in reaching agreement.

My famous example is Sen. Inhofe making common cause with Sen. Feinstein about improving energy expenditures in the Capitol Building–as long as they didn’t call it fighting climate change, they were able to agree.

@160: How do you figure the probability?

Joshua, you wrote much in reply, to my argument that AGW policy that doesn’t address AGW is unsustainable, but this sentence of yours pretty well summarized it.
“Only if people see an effort to reduce pollution, or sprawl, or dependence on foreign oil as necessarily a political product that they object to. ”
If CO2 is “pollution” we have the technology to reduce it without a carbon tax- gas and nukes to start. The concerned are the most significant obstacles to those solutions.
There is no consensus that “sprawl” is a bad thing – see the deep blue sprawl of greater Washington DC for an example. If sprawl is a problem, energy pricing is not the solution. Fixing schools, crime, corruption are far more important.
Domestic energy production, including drilling and fracking, are the most effective means of addressing energy independence.
In short, you’re 0 for three on the “benefits” of an AGW policy that doesn’t address AGW. On a meta level, let me try an analogy- you own a business. Your new CFO says you must fly cross country to attend a meeting tomorrow or you’ll be bankrupt. No problem, you say. There is a sacrifice- cost, time away from home, but you’ll book a flight and…
No, no, the CFO says. Can’t fly, you must walk across country.
How long would you spend walking before deciding this is a ridiculous way to cross the country?

@ 160

Huh? I’ve characterized the lukewarmer position many times over at Lucia’s where we actually discuss these things. Stop mispresenting our position.

You urgently need to speak to TF. 

If presented with an over/under bet of 3C Lukewarmers take the under bet.

Trying to pretend that fractionally under 3C is ‘lukewarm’ is wholly disingenuous. You know what it says in AR4 WG1. Like Tom, you backed the wrong horse a long time ago and like Tom, you are stuck with the consequences now. Like Tom you are obliged to wriggle and play word games, and like Tom, it does not convince. We’ve had this discussion at least three times before. Let’s not bother having it again.

‘Trying to pretend that fractionally under 3C is “˜lukewarm’ is wholly disingenuous. ”

I think you should read what I’ve written from the very start. The first discussions of lukewarmer started at climate audit. In fact that is where the term was coined. The question on the table was
“how much of the warming is attributable to man” There were three classes of readers.. people put there numbers up and there were basically three classes. The middle group was called Lukewarmer.
I liked that term, so I started using it. others picked it up. But there really wasnt a good definition at that time. Discussion moved to Lucia’s. At that point we were discussing models and how they relate to observations. The IPCC projection was .2C warming per decade. We defined luke warmer as being something more in line with the observations.. like .15C. You go find those those discussions and remain teachable.
Finally, folks started to ask what our psotion on sensitivity was. The answer was pretty clear.
Since a .2C/dcade rise is predicated on models that have an average ECS of 3.2C and SINCE we all decided that this was too hot, I cast the definition in terms of ECS. None of us would take the over bet at .2C/decade so none of us would take the over bet at 3.2C ECS.

Fundamentally here is the difference.
we pretty much agree with the IPCC PDF, although I think you will see work and we have seen work that lops off the high end of the tail and moves the mean below 3C. Some folks like to emphasize the high end of the distribution. we like to point out that the low end is more likely. You sell fear. which gets us back on topic.
You sell fear and it doesnt work to sell fear.
We need to take some action to prevent future damage. That action has been delayed for 20 years because of people who sold fear about nuclear. You sold fear on nuclear and now we have a potential problem with Carbon. and you still want to sell fear. You’ve sold fear on climate change for at least 10 years and it still doesnt work. I may not be angry at you ( Toms a little hot ) but my grandchildren will want to know why BBD refused to fight loudly and strongly for nuclear. They will want to know why he wasted his time talking to mosher and fuller rather than using his brain to promote nuclear. they will wonder, if he was so afraid, why did he waste his time with morons like fuller and mosher. Maybe they will question whether he really believed the fear he was peddling? Why? because he didnt act like a man who was really concerned.

To extend my earlier comment, I’d suggest that those who suggest that an effective mitigation portfolio would produce economic catastrophe are further out relative to the mainstream economic consensus that those who argue that the physical impacts of unchecked emissions will be catastrophic. That is, there is far more evidence to support the risks of the latter than the former. And yet no one — in blogland anyway– seems willing to confront this line of reasoning head on . Will it cost money to switch to lower carbon energy sources? Of course. But if you put it into proper perspective, it’s a no-brainer.

Now perhaps Harry would like to argue that cheap perfume or 0-60mph in 3 seconds vehicles are more important than a livable planet. In fact, I’d like to see him try .

“That action has been delayed for 20 years because of people who sold fear about nuclear. ”

I call bullshit.

the link I meant to point to @176 is here.

Joshua,Here is one of the studies done in 2007 related to the ‘price’ people are prepared to pay to address ‘climate change’.

http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/Global-Warming-New-Scientist-Poll-Technical-Report.pdf&nbsp;

An interesting new poll out as well…that doesn’t ask the ‘how much question’ but has another interesting question

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/global-warming-no-longer-americans-top-environmental-concern-poll-finds.html

Trust in scientific opinion on global warming continues to be less than robust. About a quarter of the public trusts what scientists say about the issue “completely” or “a lot,” while 35 percent, trust scientists only a little or not at all. Thirty-eight percent trust scientific opinions a moderate amount.

Funny, Steve–we’ve never talked about that but I’ve heard the same story from a climate scientist who wished to remain nameless. He described listening to Teller give a speech back in the 50s, using AGW as a means to hype nuclear. He was shocked. I wasn’t.

Question for Joshua and Marlowe:

Which is more important, on balance:Addressing the demand side of the climate issue (as in, global energy demand) or raising public awareness/concern about increasing risk of catastrophic dangers of global warming?  

readers interested in a reality-based view of nuclear and the reasons it hasn’t taken off since the 60s might wish to start here.

Keith at #186, I am trying to focus on energy consumption (not quite the same as energy demand, sadly…) at my normal place of business.I think the figures I present there are enough to frighten anyone. Funnily enough, nobody seems to want to discuss the subject. I’m very interested in where my traffic is coming from–I kinda think the right people are reading it. But for some reason the idea that energy consumption is going to rise more than projected just to meet energy demand and total about 3,000 quads by 2075 does not seem to merit as much conversation as the trade-offs between perfumes and livable planets.The lamentable focus on the very slight rise in temperatures over the past 150 years has diverted our attention for the slamming CO2 is going to provide over the next century. We’ve been straining at gnats and counting how many pinheads can dance on an angel and sleepwalking into a cloudy future.China doubled energy consumption between 2000 and 2010. It is their stated policy to do it again by 2020. 70% of their energy is provided by coal. That percentage is not expected to change much over the next 50 years.

Sorry–formatted:

Keith at #186, I am trying to focus on energy consumption (not quite the same as energy demand, sadly”¦) at my normal place of business.

I think the figures I present there are enough to frighten anyone. Funnily enough, nobody seems to want to discuss the subject.

I’m very interested in where my traffic is coming from”“I kinda think the right people are reading it. But for some reason the idea that energy consumption is going to rise more than projected just to meet energy demand and total about 3,000 quads by 2075 does not seem to merit as much conversation as the trade-offs between perfumes and livable planets.

The lamentable focus on the very slight rise in temperatures over the past 150 years has diverted our attention for the slamming CO2 is going to provide over the next century. We’ve been straining at gnats and counting how many pinheads can dance on an angel and sleepwalking into a cloudy future.

China doubled energy consumption between 2000 and 2010. It is their stated policy to do it again by 2020. 70% of their energy is provided by coal. That percentage is not expected to change much over the next 50 years. 

yes marlow, 30 years ago when people discussed nuclear, the environmental movement was clear in its messaging. Nuclear will cost too much.
Nobody in the environmental movement ever used a message of fear. nobody ever raised issues of safety, either for the operation of the planets or the disposal of waste. And the china syndrome is what you get if you eat too much beef chow fun.

And if people did you a message of fear, they didnt mean to. err. nobody listened to them.. politicians ignored them.. ya thats it. There never was a message a fear ( keep repeating that 0 but if there was, we didnt mean it and nobody listened to us. we were right for the wrong reason.

denial runs pretty deep.

Steven -

Just to pick out one of a number multiple fallacies:

Nobody in the environmental movement ever used a message of fear.

That is a straw man.

It is always significant when smart people make fundamental errors in logic. Particularly true when a “lukewarmer” fails to address the magnitude in attribution of different variables to create a binary construction of either it’s all or nothing.

Back off the facile rhetoric and we might have a discussion about the different components that retarded growth in the nuclear industry in the United States as compared to other countries. Of course, environmental messaging is one of them.

@198

How do you propose to get around that? 

Honestly, I don’t know.

It’s a failure of our political institutions as much as anything else. We simply don’t reward our political leaders for taking a long-term view of many of the problems we face, including climate change. If anything, the 24hr news cycle, and the increasing polarization in u.s. politics (and elsewhere) makes it even more difficult, since the political calculus of every policy decision is viewed through the lens of the next election cycle.

wrt to china and india, I think you’d see far more action on their part if the west got serious about using trade measures (e.g. border tax adjustments). the showdown between the E.U. and chinese airlines could be a preview of what’s to come on that front, but it’s still early days.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a Wattsian blunder, but accusing BBD of not ‘fighting loundly and strongly for nuclear’ is precious indeed.

We all know he’s a paid shill for Sheffield Forgemasters ;)

Keith  -

If I had to choose, as a theoretical construct that views the options as mutually exclusive, I go with door #1 (addressing energy demand). The more pressing goal at this point in time is addressing global energy demand but with movement towards emissions reduction.  How much emissions reduction should be prioritized is a problem, and where to trade-off economic growth for the sake of emissions reduction is a problem. But sure, I’d say that spreading knowledge about the dangers of climate change takes a back seat to addressing the underlying mechanics of ACO2 reduction. Simply increasing awareness will not, in itself, solve the technical issues that need to be solved one way or the other.

BBD when you use your real name I’ll take you seriously. sorry mate. you have a choice. stand up with your real name for what you believe or cower in fear. I think anybody who cares about the future shows it through their actions. including being public. get it. I watch what you do. not what you say. so out of the closet bud. I have no problem unlike others admitting when I’m wrong. easy peasy.

Hiya SteveThat’s really cool for Will! I’ve been to the Fringe Festival–it’s a riot. You should go with him–be his manager for a week…

Steven @ 208

BBD when you use your real name I’ll take you seriously. sorry mate. you have a choice. stand up with your real name for what you believe or cower in fear.

An artless misdirection. I’m irrelevant. This is about misrepresentation, not pseudonyms. The scientific consensus is your problem, not my name.

@Tom FullerChina…coal…70%…doubling…not changing in the future

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8578451

CEC said China’s design power generation capacity is expected to increase by about 86,000 MW, or 8.2%, year on year to 1,140 GW at the end of 2012. Of the 86,000 MW, about 50,000 MW will come from coal-fired power units and about 20,000 MW will be contributed by hydropower units

50/86 = 58% according to my calculator…in any case coal fired construction in China is slowing

Whoops! formatted:Hi John,If solar merely continues to grow at half the pace it has maintained for the past 30 years, it will supply enough to eliminate the need for coal. I haven’t worked out the math for wind power, but it’s not dissimilar.

I don’t expect it to happen in either case, but they will each be able to make a serious contribution. Hydropower is set to double by 2035, but that’s not going to make a real dent.The solution is not really that difficult to map out.

Developed countries need to make like France.

Developing countries, especially the heavily populated ones, need to leapfrog a generation of technology and use solar for rural electrification programs. They’re popping up all over”“they just need to be a Millenium-type goal.

As for we rich-worlders, I advise everybody to visit France. It’s clean. The TGV works really well. The lights stay on. And it’s all run on nukes.

A few years back we were laughing at their cheese. Can you imagine how they’re laughing at our coal? (I don’t think they are”¦ but they should be”¦) 

#206

The more pressing goal at this point in time is addressing global energy demand but with movement towards emissions reduction. 
How much emissions reduction should be prioritized is a problem, and
where to trade-off economic growth for the sake of emissions reduction
is a problem.

Wind,Hydro and Nuclear are all cheaper then coal in India and China. The problems with rolling them out have more to do with regulatory, technical and industrial infrastructure.

I.E. In 2011 the Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration had a staff rumored to be about 300 people and was overseeing construction of 25 nuclear reactors. By comparison the US NRC has a staff of over 3,700.

One of the fundamental problems in the whole ‘climate/energy debate’ is that so many of those debating/setting the agenda see the issues thru a parochial lens and insist that a policy that might reasonably expected to succeed in a local environment will exceed in a global environment.

I.E. Southern California has really good sunshine, it also has a serious ‘summer peak/winter peak’ imbalance. They need about 15GW of summer only/daytime only generating capacity. Solar makes a fair candidate as part of a solution.

The UK is a winter peak country…even if they spend on the solar they are going to have to spend again on something that works in the winter…solar is a poor solution for the UK but the UK ‘Climate Activists’ have expended goodwill and trust pushing a solution inappropriate for the locality.

Mosher, the nice thing about being a septeganrian GASBAG who made his money making crappy mp3 players (creative MuVo par example) is that you can act with impunity. don’t need to worry about your day job right? you can matherbbate all you want about the virtues of ‘model E’ and try and put all your ‘pre-Damascus’ vitriol down the memory hole. image rehab is a worthwhile goal, but you’ll forgive me if I doubt your sincerity (despite your epic intellect). I get that you are the second coming of christ…but forgive me my skepticism…particularly in light of the company you choose to keep.

in case you’re too dumb to take my meaning — playing the ‘i’m a real person and you’re hiding behind a pseudonym’ card is the last refuge of blog scoundrels. one might almost call it an ad hominen

well that didn’t take long. 

was it the ‘septegenarian gasbag’ bit that set of the alert Tom? I’d have thought you’d be in bed by now…

Keith, thanks for letting the cat out of the bag when you say “Your view reflects the conventional wisdom that is reflected in the
climate discourse shaped by climate scientists, environmentalists, etc.”<br /><br />As opposed, of course, to what churnalists, political science guys on the make and paid propagandists mouth.  If you want Eli can name a few in each category.

Eli has a point, Keith -

Your view reflects the conventional wisdom that is reflected in the
climate discourse shaped by climate scientists, environmentalists, etc.

I could read that comment two ways: (1) climate scientists and environmentalists contribute, along with “skeptics,” Inhofe, etc., to shape the discourse or, (2) climate scientists, environmentalists, etc. actually shape the discourse (without influence from others).

Given that the extracted phrase is “the climate discourse shaped by….” the meaning is a bit ambiguous, but it does suggest that you are overplaying the influence of the different sides inaccurately. As the definite article, “the” seems more likely to refer to the entire discourse than one specific discourse among many discourses.

It also treats the input of climate scientists, environmentalists, etc., as monolithic.

This kind of ambiguity, I think, is a danger when people  develop an agenda. Pielke Jr.’s latest post shows the same kind of problem: when you allow an particular agenda to drive your input, it is often reflected in a lack of objectivity. Needless to say, I’m not exempting myself (and my focus on motivated reasoning) from the same phenomenon.

Not to defend schticks!!!11!!11  - but everyone here has a schtick.

Trust is built when we can all own our schticks in discussion. That’s hard to do when someone’s always pointing at you and saying “They/you have a schtick.” – which is the climate debate in a nutshell.  

When a blogger/commenter engages in zero sum tactics, I don’t trust that person to engage with me honestly.

That is a very useful frame for viewing blog discourse.

Heh – The honest broker calls me a “troll.”http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/08/ipcc-lead-author-misleads-us-congress.html?showComment=1343922780475#c603814462424839706I feel honored.Ya’ gotta love the blogosphere.

I know this will not surprise you Joshua, the discussionof CO2 at JC’s is more about tribe posturing than science. An example of this are the FACE studies. In general CO2 will help most native species only a little, and may eventually have some negative effects. In specific, the results for species may not reflect that CO2 may have a much larger impact, and where the impact occurs. Understand that with farmers adding pest and herbicide control, modern techniques generally make CO2 or water the limiting growth factor, such that the known effect of CO2 on transpiration, and CO2 itself, both would need to be assumed positive. Another factor is that many plants that humans are interested in are better at storing sugar and starches than the general model.Such that you should doubt that any claims that farming would not benefit from increased CO2. After all, in the greenhouse environment, elevating CO2 is possible. Note that greenhouses also control, as do farmers, pest, water, and other nutrients. The part that is missing is the ecosystems’ responses which where a single species may not see much dis or advantage to CO2, this is not true of the system. Another factor usually left out is that we are adding the other nutrients in large scale around the world such that the conditions of the Face studies become less real in general, and the greenhouse more real in general. We are adding usable nitrogen at rates that match organic ratios almost on par with CO2 emissions. There are a lot of disagreement as to the quantity. We are producing and mining fossil phosphate in increasing quantities such some of the Bern model assumptions may soon be invalidated, and the model constraints for the ocean should be suspect first. CO2 geologic sequestering is not the only sequestering that has been ongoing. Though mechanisms and the actuality are not the same nor simple.And in general, many species will benefit from the increased warmth, and at least some will suffer. The quantities and specfics are not a simple yes, no, though for what humans tend to eat, it is a general yes.

Keith,

I agree that corporate interests in the U.S. are by no means monolithic, but I also think that fossil fuel industries have sufficient political influence in key swing states to effectively stymie action. 

The other elephant in the room at this particular point is of course the Republican Party. First, do you agree that fossil fuel companies disproportionately favour the Republican party? Given that support, it then seems obvious that the Republicans would adopt a position that is in line with their interests. 

wrt to the u.s. centrality in the discussion, I agree that they’re not the only game in town. But surely we can all agree, that as the world’s largest economy, they are a key part of the solution.

Count the non-partisans in the room. You’ll have one hand free for a cocktail by the time you’ve finished.

I am a partisan for the lukewarmer side. I don’t apologize for it. I also think that you’re exaggerating a bit, Keith.

Certainly outside America, the debate is not as toxic. Here, it’s been hijacked by domestic political agendas. But those are the opposite of debates–they are planks in a platform and brook no discussion, let alone disagreement.

If you ignore Sessions and Boxer and look at Fields and Christy, there is a debate that, while vigorous, is far from cancerous.

Keith, many have noted in this debate that critics and their criticisms are pointed in one direction.

For those criticizing the consensus (including me) the reason appears obvious–to us. The power is in the hands of the consensus. If they are misusing that power, that is where our attention should be focused. 

Further, I at least don’t see much to attack in Pielke (other than his personal attributes of stubbornness and perhaps ambition), McIntyre and other ‘focused’ bloggers. Anthony Watts is frequently wrong, but it gets pointed out so quickly that there’s little need to add to the chorus. Morano and Monckton are driven by politics and personal need, and don’t really seem to merit focused criticism.

What for me needs to be confronted vigorously is the culture embedded at the top of the IPCC, the clannish self-protectionism of the self-labeled Hockey Team and the closed minds of the consensus bloggers and their commentators.

Those on the consensus side surely have their own reasons for attacking those on the other side and I’ll let them put those reasons forward, if they want. But I’m satisfied that pointing out error in the positions and policies of those in power is the right way for me to go.

Okay, PDA, I will give you my two cents worth:The consensus team holds the data. They are in senior positions at the principal government agencies dealing with climatology, including those that fund research. They are the ones directly reporting to elected politicians. John Holdren is a pretty senior official. They comprise the staff at the IPCC. They have direct access to major media. They get funding for projects ranging from CAP to Real Climate. Because a majority of scientists, politicians and the public agree in principle with many of their positions, they have broad acceptance. They have allies in NGOs with millions of members and hundreds of millions to spend on media campaigns.Industry does not oppose them–not as a united front, not as a conspiratorial grouping. They fund the consensus. British Petroleum was the first funder of CRU. Exxon gave $100 million to Stanford for environmental studies. The regulations the consensus would happily impose gives industry more opportunity to collect rents on the natural resources they have access to. The millions they donate to established consensus organizations dwarfs the tens of thousands they give to thinktanks that occasionally publish a skeptic piece.I do agree about the inept hegemons stuff, though. Never in the course of human history has so little been done with so much.

So, they have all the power but are still completely unable to affect the course of human events? I’m not trolling: seriously, is that what you’re saying? 

I’m seeing the laundry list of complaints about the consensus, whose name is Legion, and I’ve seen it before. What you seem to be saying – and I agree with you if so – is that this power amounts to bupkes in the real world.

(Sorry, I clicked the button by accident. That’s probably something that shouldn’t be as easy to do…)

Tom if that is your conception of political power then you live in a very different world than I do. Maybe it’s time to take a break and read up on the subject? 

Geez, I mention beer–even small beer–and Marlowe staggers in.

Marlowe, I have no doubt that I live in a very different world than you.

PDA, no, I don’t think that describes the extent of their power. I think it describes the miserable little they’ve done with it.

You certainly have the power to squander your power, not use it wisely. Which is what happened.Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever argued that Britain did not have the power to crush the American rebellion. They frittered it away, fought other countries, lollygagged and argued amongst themselves, and failed to use their very real superior power to achieve their desired end.

Well, I thought I was very clear. People can of course disagree with my assessment, but I find it astonishing that you don’t understand it. But, whatever keeps you in bed in the morning…

Keith – In terms of Roger’s post, and my little dust-up with him – I go back to your comment about zero sum gain, or perhaps more appropriately zero sum game (part of the problem is some people take themselves too seriously and don’t see how they’re playing a game). It may be a more useful concept than partisanship in some ways, or at least a complimentary concept.It’s striking how few people I’m able to have a discussion with in the blogosphere where we can exchange thoughts in good faith, without an assumption that any movement on any issue would be viewed as a complete loss. People frequently immediately launch into a scorched earth carpet-bombing of anything I have to say – which includes ridiculous straw man building, taking things out of context, etc.I find non-zero sum game mentality to be a rare commodity within the blogosphere – with you and John Pittman to be among the exceptions. Of course,  it takes two to tango, but I see scorched earth debating to be ubiquitous when I’m not involved as well. Even clearly knowledgeable and mild-mannered all around good guys like Fred Molton and Pekka Pirila over at Judy’s crib are frequently demeaned, and often get sucked into death matches where only one debater can be left standing.

- 238 – John -

Thanks for that input.

I think there’s a confusion here between scientific and political power and the false assumption that a reigning scientific paradigm necessarily has transferable power over the political sphere. 

Precisely.

+1

I would use those adjectives about those who complain about them. Remote relationships have been in existence for centuries and have provided a rich source of satisfaction–think pen pals and the like. They are what you make of them, I imagine. I don’t know if you’re making much of them.

I will also note, Tom, than in answer to a question about how you would characterize an action, in addition to a non-sequitor about a completely different topic, you answered how you would characterize a person. 

Since you’re into assigning labels for people, how do you characterize folks who repeatedly display difficulty with logical coherency?

Fun Fact: “Joshua” is in actuality an elaborate bot created by an M.I.T grad student.

I understand what Fuller and PDA are saying, but I see it different. IN GENERAL, the AGW group has won. This is indicated by the science; where the nations that tend to lead in environmental action are going; and the general opinions of the populace including the USA that indicate at least a “weak” positive to AGW. The problem is that at least some, and I would include the IPCC, do not want to admit what the general population has agreed to. IN GENERAL, people want the status quo. In other words, they will not tend to, nor their representatives agree to draconian measures, or in the case of China, measures that are not in China’s interest. And of course different cultures and countries vary. As the “skeptics” label them, the catastrophists of CAGW are the ones that I would agree are wasting time, money, and political geld, not actual power in one sense. However, in another sense, for the longterm they may be right and they may be on the right path; they may be 180 degrees from the truth. We don’t know. The real issue has not been resolved by science. We do not actually know what the future climate holds. This is intrinsic to the fact we have have one X, the temperature/climate history, and bunches of Y, paleo, models, etc. Mapping X:Y is not the same as Y:X and uncertainty will tend to grow rather than shrink, until we do have enough X to do Y. As Tebaldi and Knutti have indicated wrt present rates and knowledge, we may need more than 135 years to validate a 100 year “prediction.” To me, the real failure has been the advocacy, yes, even extreme advocacy, in an increasingly uncertain determination. IN GENERAL, people do have buyer fatigue, and I would submit, they are fatigued.

Menth

Fun Fact: “Joshua” is in actuality an elaborate bot created by an M.I.T grad student.

Nope, that’s me. MIT just rents me out to Sheffield Forgemasters to fund the ongoing development of the code.

#251,What is this “power” that the consensus has, in your judgment? Where are
the strong public policies that this powerful group has been able to
enact? Where is the evidence of their influence on the thinking of the
American people?

I can look out the window of my wife’s rental house that ‘shadows’ a house ‘down the hill’ and see two solar panel’s facing my wife’s rental house have been recently installed on an otherwise ‘moss covered’ roof..Having recently driven US Route #2 from ‘sea to shining sea’ I can attest to the presence of numerous ‘mega-wind farms’. I also had the chance to examine the blades at various ‘oversized load’ parking areas.

I also got to visit the $5 million ‘carbon sink’ my mothers community bought. My mother took me to visit it so I could explain to her how this ‘worthless piece of land that no one in their right mind would buy’ was going to ‘help climate change’. (Her politics are generally a lot further to the left then mine).

Even the ‘McChimpy BushHitler’ signed the energy act’s of 2005 and 2007 into law creating such things as ‘substantially higher CAFE standards, a requirement that biofuels be mixed with gasoline and diesel, various financial incentives for the regional greenhouse gas initiatives, subsidies for windmills and solar panels plus various energy R&D programs.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-109publ58/pdf/PLAW-109publ58.pdf

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-110publ140/pdf/PLAW-110publ140.pdf

The one ‘wild success story’ in reducing US CO2 emissions, hydraulic fracturing was made possible by section 322 of the Energy Act of 2005 signed by McChimpy BushHitler as well.

SEC. 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.Paragraph (1) of section 1421(d) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300h(d)) is amended to read as follows:”˜”˜(1) UNDERGROUND INJECTION.””The term “˜underground injection’”””˜”˜(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids bywell injection; and”˜”˜(B) excludes”””˜”˜(i) the underground injection of natural gas forpurposes of storage; and”˜”˜(ii) the underground injection of fluids or proppingagents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulicfracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermalproduction activities.”.

Republican’s ‘addressed climate change’ in 2005 and 2007. Every conceivable form of ‘alternative energy’ got financial help.

Now it’s time to wait and evaluate ‘what worked and what didn’t’ and at ‘what cost’ before we make commitments that we have no idea how to meet or what the costs vs the benefits will be.

Harry at 286, that certainly looks like “action” to me.
Is it possible that we are being asked to “discuss the science” behind claiming a normal heat wave is man-made because the Limits to Growth gang fears that evaluation?

Tom S, Andy Revkin has been following a case where some political hacks are trying to co-opt breast cancer.
I would also say that climate solutions that don’t include a progressive agenda are ignored, but are actually happening. The US reduced emissions thanks to switching to gas and that continues. The US issued it’s first permit in decades to a nuke plant this year. Those aren’t Progressive solutions, so they are ignored. Which really means, progress continues because we don’t listen to Progressives. Again.

Joshua 287: I read it and a couple of links. They make some good points about different power structures. Hope you appreciate my reaction to the tribe drum banging. I think we should have a post of “Merchants of Certainty: Hijacking Good Science in the Name of Moralizing Demonization of Your Opponents and Making Low Prability Claims as Certain Such That Your Tribe Feels Self-Righteous”

” I think we should have a post of “Merchants of Certainty: Hijacking
Good Science in the Name of Moralizing Demonization of Your Opponents
and Making Low Prability Claims as Certain Such That Your Tribe Feels
Self-Righteous””

Sounds like a good post, John. Will you write the section that discusses Christy, Monckton, Watts, Inhofe, etc.?

Joshua, due to your previous anal comments on Mosher, I must tell you that it is non sequitur. I sure hope that you are not a teacher of French. That you are not teaching science has been clear for a while.

I’d like to read that, John. That said, I don’t see the categorical differences as you state them. Sure, I get the superficial categorizations and parallels as you imply with your list of names, and I agree that outlining the parallels in detail is important,  but I think that your original title applies equally well to everyone mentioned (except maybe Schneider – most of my information about him comes from the “skeptosphere,” and based on their track record, my initial gut reaction is that they fail to understand what he was saying and/or deliberately exploit mischaracterizations of what he said for political/partisan expediency).

That’s called Grammar Nazi, Joshua. I’m really not, though. Just thought you might appreciate the taste.

Oh, come on now. I know you’re smarter than that. Calling a guy “grammar Nazi” is no more analogizing with Nazies than calling a guy troll is analogizing with those little fellas from fairy tales. It’s just bloggers vernacular. But I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.

When a blogger/commenter engages in zero sum tactics, I don’t trust that person to engage with me honestly.<p></p><p></p>That covers about all of he said she said journalism, but be assured Keith we all know how you are trying to balance the capture of the media by those who see a threat from climate change.

jim -

No nerves struck.  I agree that a  hypothesis that assumes that “belief” in the “AGW hypothesis”  is valid, (or that anyone that doesn’t hold such a “belief” is a “denier”)  – for the purpose of examining the impact of messaging about AGW – is a problematic hypothesis.

Beyond that, you would have to be more specific for us to discuss whether or not any particular study makes such an assumption, or centers on a hypothesis that would be spuriously affected by such an assumption. I will say, however, that given the choice, I would prefer flawed conclusions that are based on problematic hypothesis but that also have substantiation in controlled data collection over broad arguments by assertion that are likely based on similarly flawed hypotheses.

No one seems to know why no one really cares all that much about climate and why the messages of apocolypse get no traction.

Although I think that your claim of “no traction” is poorly quantified to the point of essentially being useless (would you say that widespread societal change as the result of concerns about climate change  = “no traction”?), that is, essentially, my point:

Many people make arguments about cause-and-effect w/r/t messaging and cause-and-effect on public opinion (e.g., Keith in his posts, “skeptics” in the “skeptosphere), IMV, based on insufficient data. 

The best analysis I’ve seen uses data collected through a controlled process to conclude that the single-biggest influence on public opinion w/r/t climate change are antecedent variables related to social, cultural, and ideological identity.