Climate is definitely much more wickedly complex than civil rights, there’s no doubt about that. But anyone who thinks that elites will spend the next 50+ years reshaping what John Broder has termed “the sinews of modern life” without the support of constituents and consumers is delusional. Do elites have a role to play? Certainly, and a substantial one. But will they have the political capital to do anything in the same league as meaningful without broad-based grassroots support? No. Even if the grassroots doesn’t ever provide a huge immediate spark or catalyst in the way that they did during the classical civil rights era, there is such a thing as a “long climate movement”, just as there was a long civil rights movement that often goes untaught and thus forgotten. 

Yeah, BBD, but that really hurts the power narrative on display. Just sit back and let Bloomberg take care of it! You know he’s looking out for us.

You’re probably searching for this.

The problem is one of CO2 accumulation and crowding out of low-CO2 energy options. It would be nice to get things written about the implications of relying on fracking to save us.

grypo – thanks for the link – we crossed.

@BBD and grypo

here’s an interesting presentation that looks at the economics of small modular reactors and the impact of natural gas prices.

I wonder how about the transfer of shale gas fracking technology. China has a lot of shale gas and is desirous of shifting away from coal. They are not alone.U.S. companies have a huge advantage in fracked gas, as they can drill a well for an average of $1.7 million, compared to about $15 million in Mexico and $10 million in Canada.Lots of oil service companies are now helping the nationalized energy companies in developing countries. Helping them get shale gas would seem a logical development.

#3 BBD

thought switching to gas wasn’t really going to make that much difference to US emissions?

It’s a twofer. The average US coal plant has a thermal efficiency of 31 or 32%. Combined cycle gas plants have an efficiency of 45-60%.

Then add in the impact of US CAFE Standards and biofuels.

Then there are positive developments on the conservation/efficiency side. In 1998 a SEER 14 central air conditioner was considered ‘state of the art’, now it’s considered ‘bottom of the barrel’..a SEER 21 is considered state of the art now. Standard fiberglass insulation for a 2″x4″ wall cavity used to be R-11, now it’s R-15

The meme that ‘nothing is being done’ to address climate change in the US has been false for 20 years.

In the US we have been ‘working the problem’ since at least the energy policy act of 1992 signed by Bush Sr.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/pdfs/2527.pdf

Of course the impacts of more efficient buildings and more efficient space heating/cooling and more efficient appliances etc take a long time to show up in emissions numbers.

Anyone seen where a “lukewarmist” applied the concept of the “rebound effect” to the switch from coal to fracked natgas?

As I understand it, according to that theory, wouldn’t any reductions in emissions per unit of energy consumed (as the result of more fracked gas) be negated by increased consumption of  cheaper energy?

I think there is some merit to the benefits of a more indirect approach, and to advocating for policies that combine exploiting the market drive to produce lower cost energy, but at some point it also seems to me to be true that: (1) A more direct approach will be required and, (2) some level of (at least temporary) sacrifice is inevitable – which leaves unanswered the questions as to who will be making the sacrifice, and how much they will be sacrificing.

Joshua I have talked about that on my weblog. The rebound effect is real, but does not equal 100% of savings achieved by energy efficiency. 

In the next few decades it will be extraordinarily difficult to identify what portion of rising energy use is due to the rebound effect as opposed to billions of people climbing the rungs of the energy ladder.

The second phenomenon is likely to swamp the first by several orders of magnitude. We want those people to use energy. Don’t we?

Tom Scharf, we may have to re-evaluate the relative merits of those like tobacco companies. After all, if the evile crony minions of tobacco companies–the cursed lawyers–can represent Michael Mann, perhaps there is hope for them yet…

 It shows that lower gas prices don’t create a large enough uptick in energy use to offset the lower carbon intensity of nat gas.

Well, that was kind of my point. I’m sneaky that way. So, is RPJr’s going to have to head back to the drawing board?

People are arguing whether or not that fall is the result of economic downturn or coal downturn + shale gas upturn, but in the end it doesn’t matter.

Well – actually I think it does matter – because it complicates simplistic conclusions. What does it mean if some folks are lauding the benefits of fracking if actually they are the “benefits” of an economic downturn? I have been watching this happen, to some extent, among “skeptics.” Which puts into question their arguments against mitigation policies based on (IMO somewhat simplistic) assumptions about lowered economic growth that would result from making some forms of energy more expensive relative to others.

The DOE was explicit in segmenting the areas driving reduced energy consumption / emissions. They published on it.

One-third due to economic downturn.

One-third to conversion from coal.One-third due to a variety of other factors (better gas mileage, energy efficiency, etc.)

They may be wrong. But they were explicit.

Tom @ 23

our GDP per person will almost double and that our CO2 emissions will remain below our 2005 levels.

The main reason for that is that the US (along with the rest of the developed economies) has exported much of its emissions to China.

Also, may I inject my habitual caution against parochialism here? The US is not the world.

He adds that, while there is persistent confusion over the specifics of climate science, which muddies the climate debate, you can’t say the same for issues like apartheid  or gay marriage:

Huh. Is that a “deficit model” I see lurking here? Sure looks like one to me.

Tom @ 29

Instead of jumping up and down saying emitters are mugging old ladies and we have to get emissions to zero (which only hysterics insist on), you could spend a morning looking at movements that have succeeded.

This is Prof. David MacKay of Cambridge University, who is the chief scientific advisor to DECC:

These possibly-safe trajectories require global emissions to fall by 70% or 85% by 2050. What would this mean for a country like Britain? If we subscribe to the idea of “contraction and convergence,” which means that all countries aim eventually to have equal per-capita emissions, then Britain needs to aim for cuts greater than 85%: it should get down from its current 11 tons of CO2e per year per person to roughly 1 ton per year per person by 2050. This is such a deep cut, I suggest the best way to think about it is no more fossil fuels.

Emphasis as original. Now, is he ‘a hysteric’?

Or are you just horribly wrong, as usual?

#28 It is possible that people are playing the Last Ton game in a cagey way, that they are aware of the situation and being or trying to be constructive in some way that is too subtle for the pedestrian likes of myself.I don’t know exactly what EDF and Bloomberg are doing. I don’t like to accuse specific people of things without taking a lot of care to know the details of what they are up to. But if they are explicitly or privately playing some other game, other than limiting net emissions to so near zero so that total accumulated emissions stop rising significantly as soon as is economically tolerable, they are not helping.Gas replacing coal is replacing bad with less bad. All I am saying is that if bad is replaced with less bad for a longer time, the overall result can be as damaging, or worse. If people mention the less bad and sort of gloss over the longer time, they are missing the point.The necessity of the Last Ton view has been explained elsewhere and it’s on my list to try to explain it myself as well. I am sorry to appear sanctimonious. I understand that it sounds that way. But it’s a simple point and it is true. I have learned my lessons. I have decided it would be best to make the point in simple terms.The point is the Last Ton.

#28 It is possible that people are playing the Last Ton game in a cagey way, that they are aware of the situation and being or trying to be constructive in some way that is too subtle for the pedestrian and socially awkward ways of someone like me.

I don’t know exactly what EDF and Bloomberg are doing. I don’t like to accuse specific people of things without taking a lot of care to know the details of what they are up to. But if they are explicitly or privately playing some other game, other thanlimiting net emissions to so near zero so that total accumulated emissions stop rising significantly as soon as is economically tolerable, they are at best not helping.

Gas replacing coal is replacing bad with less bad. All I am saying is that if bad is replaced with less bad for a longer time, the overall result can be as damaging, or worse. If people mention the less bad and gloss over the possibly longer time, they are missing the point.

The necessity of the Last Ton view has been explained elsewhere and it’s on my list as a topic as well. I am sorry to appear sanctimonious. I understand that it sounds that way. But it’s a simple point and it is true.

I have learned my lessons. I have decided it would be best to make the simple point in simple terms, add the caveats later, and then repeat the simple point.

The point is: How Many Tons Before The Last Ton?

“see how that’s working out.”

Does this mean what Bloomberg is suggesting is “working out” and we will know this within “another decade or two”.

I suppose the phrase “working out” needs an inspection, especially a definition of what ‘working out’ or ‘worked out’ or ‘will work out’ means to different players.

If the AGW scenario laid out by Hansen, Tobis, et. al. is correct (and it might be) then Tobis is absolutely right.  Reduction in emissions is useless since anything short of CO2 flux balance only delays the day of reckoning.  What I object to is the dishonesty with the public when it comes to the consequence of this.  The average guy is brainwashed to think that emissions are something that “big oil companies do”, not what he and Mildred do.  If you think there is little support for CO2 reduction now, wait until everyone is told they can have only 1 shower per week and must walk to work.  Hansen and the GCMs will get a lot of attention at that point.

Tom
“I wonder how about the transfer of shale gas fracking technology. China has a lot of shale gas and is desirous of shifting away from coal. ”

Muller’s proposed that. However I suspect some will make the perfect enemy of the good. They think life is burger king. They want it their way. It’s a dangerous game of chicken they are playing with the planet

I’m not a skeptic. But one theme a lot of skeptics have sounded sometimes has me wondering.

Natural gas puts out half the CO2 of coal. If you don’t want that, how much do you really care about CO2?

It isn’t natural gas vs. pure wind and solar. It’s natural gas vs. coal. Dr. Tobis cannot change the alternatives available to the world. If you don’t want natural gas, you get coal.

If you don’t want nuclear power, you get more coal.

If you don’t want hydroelectric power, you get more coal.

The usual hysterics keep babbling about ponies. I think some ponies should come with a mirror on the side.

grypo,

Unlike you, I would stop beating my wife and find another bood sport to work out.

I’m all for wind, solar, hydro, algae, sawgrass biofuel, thorium, fusion, carbon dioxide sequestration, accelerated weathering, mirrors in space, whatever. There is a wide array of promising technologies. (Conventional nuclear and corn ethanol do not look promising.)

I don’t think any of them will be cheaper than fossil fuels as long as we continue socializing the costs and privatizing the benefits of fossil fuels.

The damage from continued use of fossil fuels is cumulative and persistent. The accu,ulation has to practically stop, as soon as feasible.  All energy policy must take that goal as second only to reliability.

“In fact, most of us (those of us who don’t actually own fossil fuel reserves) really don’t have to give up all that much to give up fossil fuel. That’s an especially enervating aspect of all this.”

A trillion ton target divided by the number of people on the planet means that I have to consume nothing, zip, nada, after three years. no electricity. no gas. no nothing. In california my electricity alone produces 20 tons a year, and Im average.

Considering that I have already emitted more than my fair share of carbon ( sorry, my parents drove me places) I’m already in debt. There should a debtors prison for folks who have already spent their allotted carbon.

Steve, we already have our (left) foot in the door. All we have to do is continue on the path. But that ain’t good enough for some…

#45,

You’re not the only one to say it’s better to stick it out for a full solution rather than making ineffective gestures that’ll cost a lot to no effect…

“Whereas greenhouse gas emissions of Developing Country Parties are rapidly increasing and are expected to surpass emissions of the United States and other OECD countries as early as 2015;

Whereas the Department of State has declared that it is critical for the Parties to the Convention to include Developing Country Parties in the next steps for global action and, therefore, has proposed that consideration of additional steps to include limitations on Developing Country Parties’ greenhouse gas emissions would not begin until after a protocol or other legal instrument is adopted in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997;

Whereas the exemption for Developing Country Parties is inconsistent with the need for global action on climate change and is environmentally flawed;”

mt writes: “In fact, most of us (those of us who don’t actually own fossil fuel reserves) really don’t have to give up all that much to give up fossil fuel.”  Michael – I guess it is no accident that you don’t understand economics.  You also don’t seem to understand value chains.  You might be able to walk to work.  Bully for you.  But do you want to enjoy a glass of wine?  work on a computer? get a stent put in if you have a heart attack?  All the things we use and enjoy come about as the result of a long chain of industrial operations that are very energy intensive.  Moreover, most of the people involved making these things have to get to work somehow, not to mention to the kids’ dance lesson.  No, an awful lot would have to be given up.  And people are going to put up with being a little warm before they do give anything up.

@ 32 BBD – of course MacKay is no hysteric. But, in that passage I believe he was talking about one possible path to reach one possible outcome; I do not think he was firmly advocating that position….although there is no doubt he believes business as usual is foolishly risky & the bigger the reduction in CO2 emissions, the happier he will be.In any case, even if he was advocating that goal, he is among the very few that outlines how it is possible to make significant cuts in CO2 emissions. He outlines what works, what will not, and why. He’s done a great job bringing reality to these discussions with his book and the 2050 Pathway Calculator”; whether DECC or anyone else is listening to him is sadly unclear…..

However, Keith, you have hit on the analogy that will actually work to communicate with the public. Dr. Tobis and his buddies will find it sooner or later and re-invent the wheel. 

Try and sound surprised when they finally figure it out.

#56. You do not have to give up air conditioning or television. You do not have to give up private vehicles. You just have to give up emitting carbon. 

The economically details are complex but the only major aspect of our lives that wasn’t totally technically feasible until recently was aviation. As I recall, a zero-carbon flight of a commercial jet using biofuels was achieved in the last few months.

The amount of money that is at stake is indeed enormous, for the fossil fuel industries. The rest of us do have costs to pay either way, but the costs of switching to new technologies seem be small and controllable compared to the costs of further delay.

I would be happy, as a compromise, to fund the fossil fuel companies to provide the new technologies in exchange for their leaving their reserves alone. This way most of the beneficiaries of the new expenditures would be the ones that lost money on the old investments.

Keith

It’s not about possibly achieving the same goal through different means.

13%? See # 5 and #32. I’m not at all sure that mt and others have this goal in mind. Hence the pushback.

Well, Steve, you know what they say.

The most passionate are the least numerate…

“My electricity bill alone puts me at 20 tons a year” That doesn’t seem right. How many KwH per month?

I have to say, I see more merit to MT’s argument in this thread than I have previously. I wonder if a difference in tone is responsible, and if so, is the change in my receptivity due the the possibility that a different tone is accompanied by a different argument structure, or simply my response to a superficial change in rhetorical style. 

Here’s where the debate pretty much begins and ends for me.

I don’t think any of them will be cheaper than fossil fuels as long as we continue socializing the costs and privatizing the benefits of fossil
fuels.

I really have a hard time understanding why this isn’t at least the starting point for the basic conversation about the economic impact of different
approaches to mitigation.

It seems to me that we have enormous social costs to burning fossil fuels on top of concerns about ACO2 impact on our climate.

It seems to me that the discussion about the future economic impact of making fossil fuel more expensive needs to start with factoring in a full account for the existing costs. Otherwise, how to we generate a comprehensive comparative evaluation?

Further, I think that the oft’ hear equation that “cheap energy = economic growth and feeding poor people” is pretty facile. Certainly, we can think of countries where energy is cheap and many people in the constituent citizenry lack basic resources  We can also think of countries were energy is expensive and a solid % of the constituent citizenry enjoy a high standard of living. The equation needs more variable, I I would nominate adding  two specific variables as a starting point:

1) Democratic governing processes that equitably distribute agency and power.

2) Efficient maximization of human capital

Certainly, BAU with large corporations distributing energy in such a way as to maximize profit for a small % of the population is not an ideal method for giving full weight to those two missing variables to balance the equation. No – that is not blaming big oil for the problem, and it is not saying that we need to dismiss capitalism as a means to solve our “energy problem.” If you read that in my comment, then read it again. If you still read that in my comment, then you’re wrong.

Now fleshing out how to maximize the use of human capital as a way to approach the energy problem is obviously a vague concept. Fleshing it out is enormously complicated. But I see little reason to have much faith in any arguments for any solutions without explicitly giving human capital due consideration.

I would appreciate the thoughts that anyone (in good faith) might offer in that regard.

Dr. Tobis,The key question then is whether our problem with CO2 emissions is more like losing weight or giving up smoking.

Your contention–the backbone of your argument–is that climate change is a threat to civilization. You say ‘informed opinion’ backs your claim. I say it does not.

All the rest of this back and forth is useless until we settle that question.

#63 Talk about false hopes! Do you think adaptation is enough?

The concept of adaptation without mitigation is the “you’re in a hole, but keep digging and get used to it” strategy. Is this really the best we can do?

I also have to say that the back-and-forth about which  inadequate analogy is better seems to me to rather miss the point, and I find it kind of funny.

Analogies are useful: (1) if they really help to illustrate a point – to shed new light on a topic, to cast it in a new way so as to give new insight, to approach a topic from a novel angle, etc. or, (2) as rhetorical devices to make one argument seem like a wining argument.

The level of wrangling here – about which analogy is best or which minor tweaks might make an analogy more accurate – seems to me to track away from analogy as useful explanation and towards analogy as point-scoring. It seems to me to be beneficial only within a very limited realm – the realm of wining an argument.

#74

More fundamentally, we all tend to be wildly over-optimistic. Many of our institutions are, in Kahneman’s view, monuments to our irrational optimism. Take the finance industry, a large portion of whose business consists in taking people’s money and investing it for them. Many of us entrust a portion of our savings to someone in a finance company who promises to provide us with an above average return. It isn’t only individuals who do this: institutions such as pension funds and charities do so as well. Finance companies charge fees for taking your money and investing it for you “” but they almost always fail to keep their promise to provide better returns. They frequently lose money for their investors.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/issues/28-july-2012/mad-money

JoshuaIt’s not just energy.  Placing environmental priorities on CO2 and Climate ahead of bacteriological, toxic and carcinogenic pollution is criminal.  You said we need more human capital to work the carbon-energy problem.  If we assume that’s the solution, then doesn’t it make more sense to help lift 5-billion people out of a pre-20th Century lifestyle?  Just think of all of the potential Steve Jobs’ and Wright Brothers of those billions who live, suffer and die in squalor never having the chance of reaching their potential. 

Joshua #76, since I like to say nice things about Tom Fuller when he gives me the chance, and since I actually disagree with you, I will say I disagree with you. #72 is a useful formulation of the issue I have with the people who consider themselves the “rational middle”.

Keith, I can’t decide if you’re being tribal (i.e. refusing to acknowledge legitimate criticisms of your preferred narrative) or simply have a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the problem we face when it comes to climate change and the trade-offs that different approaches entail. Despite your continued refusal to engage the substance of the arguments that I and others are directing your way, I will, in the interest of your readers, try one more time in the form of a list. Again, I’ll leave it to readers to determine who is acting in good faith and who isn’t.

1. the goal of climate  policy is to avoid ‘dangerous interference’ with the climate system.

2. Given what we know about the most likely value for climate sensitivity and the earth’s ecosystems, warming above 2C constitutes dangerous interference.

3. Because of the cumulative nature of CO2 emissions, it is more appropriate to think about emissions in terms of an overall budget rather than in terms of emission rates.

4. The current best estimate for the total budget of CO2 that can be emitted to the atmosphere without risking dangerous interference with the climate system is about 1 trillion tonnes.

5. We’ve currently emitted about 560 billion tonnes, so we have less than half our total budget left to emit.

6. Policies which reduce the rate  at which we emit carbon can only be considered ‘progress’ if they are consistent with an overall strategy of zero ‘net’ emissions in the future.

7. Absent the invention of some ‘breakthrough’ technologies, the cost of mitigation will be higher the longer we delay because reductions will need to occur more quickly to make up for previous emissions. This would presumably result in lots of stranded capital (e.g. power plants, refineries, steel plants) and expensive mitigation options such as carbon capture.

7. On a lifecycle basis natural gas is marginally less carbon intensive than coal.

8. The positive climate effects of cheaper natural gas (in terms of displacing existing coal plants and delaying the construction of new capacity) may be offset by other negative efffects (e.g. retarding the deployment of nuclear and/or renewables).

@ Michael,

FWIW, I think many of the WG I inclined folks (e.g. you) have been far too pessimistic about the usefuleness of waxman-markey. for the record, i’d prefer a carbon tax, but ACES was the only game in town at the time. when it was making its way through the sausage grinder (aka D.C.) the main complaint was that allocations were far too generous and the provisions for compliance via offsets would make the whole thing leak like a sieve. i still have nightmares about additionality arguments . 

I think those criticisms were for the most part on the mark but miss the larger context. Once you have a system setup, you’ve got a price signal in place. now the price signal may be weak in the beginning -owing to the weaknesses outlined above – but at least there is an opportunity to improve the system moving forward; either by tightening the caps, reducing free allocations, stricter offset rules etc.I think the loss is understood even better when you place it against the narrative that keith is presenting. once those investments in shale gas are made you’re stuck with that carbon. sure you might tinker around the edges a bit to reduce fugitive emissions and groundwater contamination, but those are small potatotes relative to the potential scope of emission reductions that you could contemplate under a cap and trade system, warts and all.

Tom Fuller Says: August 27th, 2012 at 6:37 pmWell, Steve, you know what they say.The most passionate are the least numerate”¦

speaking of numeracy…unless mosher lives in one of rupert murdoch’s mansions or he has a boatload of mp3 players charging he’s off by 500-600% give or take . 

Howard -

If we assume that’s the solution,

To clarify, I don’t think that I’m making any such assumption – so much as arguing that it needs to be considered, explicitly. I am not saying that such considerations will be easy..

then doesn’t it make more sense to help lift 5-billion people out of a pre-20th Century lifestyle? 

Well – yes. So then we might consider the question of whether it makes sense to keep spending trillions of dollars (arguably) to keep oil flowing in countries where despite massive income from oil many citizens remain living as you describe. Or whether it makes sense to keep investing in expanding a system that diverts so much profit to one extremely profitable industry as opposed to exploring other capitalistic enterprises that distribute profits across a wider cross-section of the population.

Fracking is an interesting question in that regard. One potential benefit of fracking is that it potentially distributes profits across a wider cross-section of the population than other forms of energy harvesting. The arguments I read about people in struggling communities who stand to gain from selling royalties are pretty compelling to me. More compelling, perhaps, than the differential gains w/r/t ACO2 emissions. Still, there are a lot of problems there – more specifically in weighing the potential  negative impact across everyone in the local communities – questions that may well be swept under the rug by “lukewarmer” arguments about the ACO2 benefits of fracking.

That’s what happens when you start drinking too early, Johnson. Your numbers are all screwed up. We went over this trillion ton crap on another thread. Go and read Dr. Tobis’ concession to reality. It’s 1.8 trillion tons of CO2 in your crazed budget. We have 1.3 trillion left to burn.

Joshua:http://3000quads.com/2012/05/01/what-the-world-needs-now/ 

A lot’s been written about that subject, Joshua. A lot.

Joshua – I agree with your concerns about oil and the horrible despots, corporate enablers and the required US military protection forces.  Natural gas combustion contains much less toxic pollution than crude oil and has a relatively small conversion cost as a motor fuel and electricity generator.  I agree the CO2 benefits are more toward the “blue sky” end of the sales pitch, but that is an externality of carbon demonization in the twitter gossip era we enhabit.  ************************************************************************************The problem remains that despite our wishes, economic low carbon energy is a tough problem to solve.  To solve that problem, more people need to become middle class tinkerers, engineers and entrepreneurs to grow the human capital that will eventually develop the solutions.  Heavy taxation of fuel and energy to reduce CO2 is not the solution.  Unfortunately, the world needs to step harder on the gas pedal to create enough wealth to get past fossil fuels.  It’s already happening in China and India and they are cranking out more and more smart people every day.  Getting more smart people to emerge from China and India is the lowest hanging fruit.   Unfortunately, they are still living with 1950′s LA smog, drinking 1960′s Cuyahoga River water and pooping in the gutter.  I just don’t see CO2 being the top environmental justice issue now or in the next couple decades. 

It is easy to remember a trillion tons but not so easy to remember whether that measured as C or as CO2; different communities in the climate world prefer different ones. This is a scaling of about three and two thirds (3.67).

According to the trillionth tonne website they are counting carbon not CO2. So the multiplier applies, as Tom Fuller suggests. But we are a bit over halfway so the amount left to burn is 440 GT carbon or 1.61 TT CO2. I don’t think Tom Fuller’s calculation is right but his point is. The whole trillion tons of C is equivalent to 3.67 trillion tons of CO2; of that we have 1.61 trillion left. Of these we presently consume at 30 Gt/yr so at the present rate we hit the wall in 53 years. However, the rate is climbing rapidly so that is less time than it sounds like.

Again I refer you to the final graph in the Copenhagen Diagnosis which gives the flavor. The three trajectories compare three ways getting to 750 GT as the final ton, so a more aggressive target than I am advocating here. (This is the 2 C target also; 1000 GT probably misses 2 C and I think we missed that boat by a wide margin in Copenhagen. We will not have a treaty for a decade at least.) Still, the shapes of the curves are qualitatively illustrative of any target.

I am not asking for anything unreasonable. In particular I am not asking for Mosher to impoverish himself, though it seems he really ought to seal his windows better. I am just suggesting that we need to get serious about getting to zero, and that policies that bring new sources of fossil carbon online need to be considered with care for more than just the shareholders’ stake.

I really have a hard time understanding why this isn’t at least the starting point for the basic conversation about the economic impact of differentapproaches to mitigation.It seems to me that we have enormous social costs to burning fossil fuelson top of concerns about ACO2 impact on our climate.It seems to me that the discussion about the future economic impact of making fossil fuel more expensive needs to start with factoring in a full account for the existing costs. Otherwise, how to we generate a comprehensive comparative evaluation?Further, I think that the oft’ hear equation that “cheap energy = economic growth and feeding poor people” is pretty facile.

Methinks this pretty much excludes you from the RPJr/TBI/Kloor/Revkin tribe. If it helps I have a pony i can lend you…

It’s curious that this tribe never seems to want to talk about the costs of inaction and evaluating policy options on that basis? i’m downright perplexed. 

Crickets.

I think your shirt’s ripped, willard. Not my fault if you can’t find it.

Keep searching, shirtless wonder. It’s hiding in plain sight.

By the way–your shirt? I wrapped it around a stick, dipped it in kerosene and used it as a torch. Perhaps you should do something similar to light your way through the internet.

BBD,

Do you recall where you asked about that 1.9C?

Speaking of shirt-ripping, here’s a time whence it did not go that well:

I was playing their twisted game by their rules. I wasn’t writing with an audience in mind. But I stand by what I wrote”“they don’t care about science at all. To them it is a religion and I am worse than an atheist”“I’m a heretic.

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/dilemmas-in-science-communication/#comment-16515

BBD it’s no accident that Tom refuses to accept the fact that carbon accumulates on human timescales. it makes his lukewarmer pose rather awkward doesn’t it? of course he could always try the Judy Curry trick and suggest that there is no evidence that a 4C rise in temperature over the next century would be catastrophic. the freedom of tenure must be grand….

> I’m sorry to be harsh here, but maybe in time you will learn basic economics.

Perhaps we should tell that to those economists too:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/30384880042

Curry’s jaw-dropper that I was referring to is here:

2C warming is a distinct possibility, even 4C. What has not been convincing is that such a warming in any way would be apocalyptic in the 21st century. 

willard -Thanks for that link to that thread. It’s interesting. And unrelated to the interesting topic being discussed in that thread – I had to chuckle at the evidence it provides for the arbitrary (in the sense of “subject to individual judgement without restriction) way that Tom Fuller defines who is or isn’t a “troll.” 

Tom C -

Thanks for reading my comments. That’s a start.The next logical step would be for you to consider reading them more closely, and giving what I write some thought before you respond. Let me know when you get to that next stage in your journey.

keith,

for starters:

1. do you think that the MSM adequately conveys the crucial feature of the climate change problem (i.e. that carbon is forever and delay is costly)

2. do you think the recent boom in shale gas investments are a sign of ‘progress’ from a climate mitigation POV?

FWIW, i would say absolutely not to #1 and most likely not to #2.

Keith (114) -

Perhaps more simply than what Marlowe asks for in #120 – I would be curious as to whether you disagree with anything on Marlowe’s list in #84?

Keith (118)

Yes, I’m sure that a heaping helping of your patronization will grease that next step on his journey.

My intent is not to help him in any particular direction. I think I have no illusions that I have any influence in that regard. My intent is to have a chuckle at his expense. I think he’s a lost cause w/r/t my input because he has made it clear, repeatedly, that he has no interest in good faith discussion on any topic of substance with me. I think he’s going to respond to my posts how he has continuously responded to my posts irrespective of how I respond to him.

But I’m open to a new way of looking at it. How would you suggest that I respond to Tom C’s posts directed at me? I think it’s an endless loop no matter which way I turn. Let me give you an example to explain my inability to see any option other than mockery. Here is the last sentence in the paragraph from which he lifted the excerpt he quoted.

I don’t see how to isolate one factor from the other.

Now he comes at me with a clearly patronizing implication that he has a far superior understanding of economics (indeed, that I have none – which he has stated numerous times). Seems to me that with an interest in actual dialog, he might direct a comment towards helping me to gain insight as to that question.

But I don’t want to muck up your threads with flying food – so I am asking you with real interest how you’d suggest I respond.

I could simply don’t respond and perhaps less jello will be flung. Short of that, how do you recommend that I respond?

4C. What has not been convincing is that such a warming in any way would be apocalyptic in the 21st century

I suppose we could hang on until 2101. Then perhaps Satan will rise from the ashes.

I haven’t been to Judith’s in a while, and I see things going from bad to worse in the bridging experiment. The ‘apocalyptic’ stuff is the same as the CAGW stuff. A canard. What is it? Definitions are always nice.

I suppose the right answer is to ask why no one has shown convincingly that such a warming in any way would be heavenly in the 21st century. Jeez.

And BTW – Keith

One of the reasons why I am focusing on the causal linkage between freedom and growth, as opposed to a more simplistic focus on the causal linkage between (free market) cheap energy and growth – is because of what I’m reading in Development as Freedom,   a book by Amartya Sen, who is a Nobel winner in economics. 

Now certainly my interpretation of his writing can fairly be questioned, and certainly his analysis can fairly be questioned – I welcome such debate. I specifically asked for such debate. But how do I address someone who says that trying to discuss the influence of freedom – as a variable affecting growth – is a reflection of complete ignorance about economics?

“Now to specifics. mt ““ Have you ever seen the calculations on what it would take to convert the energy infrastructure to nuclear, let alone wind and solar? The costs and time are mind-boggling. To just assert we can live our same lifestyles and not emit a pound of carbon is ludicrous, however stongly you might want it to be true.”

My estimate is that the entire fossil fuel infrastructure we need to replace is worth on the order $10,000 per capita. Given that those capitae include the indigent, the infirm, the under-educated and the under-resourced, that’s a pretty penny indeed. But amortized over the replacement cycle (say forty years) it is an achievable $250 per capita, just as building it over the past forty years was. 

The problem is that we have to start, and the payoffs are far into the future. The longer the start is delayed, the greater the value of the reserves that the fossil fuel industry has in hand are. So they are woefully tempted to confuse the issue, and enough of them have done so that Tom C expresses the impossibility of the program. But the existence of an enormous infrastructure (which needs replacing) proves that such an enormous infrastructure can be built using resources of the past.

If the all the intervening “growth” has been real, then surely we can afford to do as well or better. This ought to be true even though the replacement systems are construed as somewhat more “expensive”. 

But that is a trick, really, given that somehow we have neglected the socialized costs of fossil fuels. (You can throw half the US military expenditures on the account just for starters.)

Anyway, on to specifics indeed. My estimate is $10,000 per capita. What is yours? Given that we afforded it in the past, how is it that we cannot afford it in the future? Are you saying that all that intervening economic “growth” was so fake that we are worse off than we used to be?

Tom C,

Incredibleisn’t it?

I believe both the EIA and the IEA concur with industry estimates of $5-6 trillion to overhaul the existing energy transmission grid. That rises to $8 trillion if we make it a ‘smart’ grid.

That doesn’t put a grid anywhere new. It’s just long-deferred maintenance and repair to grids that have been basically left untouched since they were put up–some of it a century ago.

I guess my point is I would like to see what formed Dr. Tobis’ estimate of $10K per capita.

#45 MT,

In fact, most of us (those of us who don’t actually own fossil fuel reserves)

Most of the worlds oil and gas reserves are owned by either state owned companies or the states themselves. Exxon Mobil is 14th in terms of oil and gas reserves. Exxon Mobil isn’t worried about whether if will get a return on investment from it’s existing reserves. They are puny by global standards.

http://www.petrostrategies.org/Links/Worlds_Largest_Oil_and_Gas_Companies_Sites.htm
In the US 400 million tons a year are mined and transported by rail from Gillette,Wyoming. The railroads make more off the coal then the mining companies do. The value of the reserves in private hands is trivial compared to the ‘delivered price of coal’. What has value is the existing investments in a mine. I’ve seen quotes that the capital cost of developing an underground mine can be in the range of $40-50/ton. Mines have a life of 20 to 30 years. Obviously if you’ve  already sunk $40/ton in capital costs to develop a mine you are going to fight tooth and nail to keep that mine profitable for 20 or 30 years so you can get a return.

If you want to consider a ‘conspiracy’ then you need to look no further then the United Auto Workers. GM,Ford and Chrysler don’t know how to make a small car in the US paying the wages and benefits that the UAW membership would like to have.  It costs the same wages to assemble a big car as it does a small car, since people will generally pay more for a big car GM,Ford and Chrysler along with their friends in the UAW fight CAFE standards tooth and nail.

If you want to ‘win a war’ then you need to do the hard work of determining who your enemy is and why.

Big Oil and Republicans doesn’t explain why Harry Reid never brought Waxman-Markey to the floor of the Senate.

Tom, so a 20% reduction really would cost “a postage stamp a day”. For 61 years. 244 years for a family of four.
Except, you caN barely upgrade your windows for $10k and that won’t reduce emissions 20% per capita in the house, will it?

JeffN, I was thinking more along the lines of $30K invested for a family of 3 in the developed world. You pay more for a higher mileage car, put leased solar on your roof, and upgrade your windows et al.

Doing a little shirt ripping of your own, willard?

#136, It hardly matters what the number is. We can afford it because we have already afforded something much like it. Unless all this “growth” the economists keep telling us about is a lie, we can afford something comparable but more expensive.

Arguing otherwise is arguing that capitalism will not survive fossil fuel depletion. I don’t think that shows much confidence in the system. All we are trying to say is that the atmosphere will be used up before the fuels are depleted. The technical and economic problem is inevitable anyway. Only the regulatory problem can be avoided by taking huge risks. Let’s just get it all over with and leave a better world to the next generation.

I don’t recall in detail how I got the $10 K estimate. We should start over.

Let’s try to estimate the replacement value of the existing carbon-based part of the energy infrastructure and start from there.

Big Oil and Republicans doesn’t explain why Harry Reid never brought Waxman-Markey to the floor of the Senate. 

I call liar liar pants on fire Harry.

Working with Senators Lieberman and Graham, Kerry succeeded in getting the support of actors as diverse as T. Boone Pickens, the American Truckers Association, and all the major environmental groups. Nevertheless, he was able to secure less than the filibuster-proof 60 votes in backroom negotiations and none of the various iterations of the legislation ever reached the Senate floor.

Dr. Tobis, perhaps you can explain why the energy transmission infrastructure is in such a state of disrepair? 

I don’t think anybody is arguing that capitalism wouldn’t survive such an energy revolution (for such is what you advocate). But there would be many losers as well as winners, and some of those losers are current winners with political clout. 

Ponder the fortunes of General Electric…

“But there would be many losers as well as winners, and some of those losers are current winners with political clout. “

Yes. Agreed. I think that is the root of our incapacity to deal with the problem to date. 

Here are some facts on decarbonization from Pielke Jr., who has, actually, um, studied the topic:

1) To reduce carbon emissions by the approximately 80% required to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere at a target of 450 parts per million by 2050, the developed world would have to bring its “carbon intensity” (carbon emissions per unit of GDP) down to the level of Somalia and Haiti today.

2)Hitting that target would require “in round numbers, construction of one nuclear power plant per day (worth of carbon free energy) between now and 2050 “” and that does not include the energy needed to provide energy to1.5 billion people who currently lack energy access.”

I don’t have time to get my calculator out, but if 80% reduction takes “one nuclear power plant per day from now until 2050″, 100% reduction sounds like a lot more than $10 K per capita.

I think there is a lot of innumeracy and sloppy thinking from some commenters here.

Dr. Tobis, a watt that is never consumed is a watt that never has to be generated by any source at all. It is the most effective way of reducing fossil fuels, and your disinterest in the subject is startling.

Your blithe assumption that since we built an energy infrastructure once we can do it again would require reallocation of resources that ventures beyond the heroic and into the absurd.

The drunken natterers that throw quotes in from the IEA are perhaps not familiar with what they do and how they do it. And yes, Marlowe, that means you–and I may not be smarter than those at the IEA (but I’ll bet harry is) but I count better. Because I don’t have to count to predetermined totals.

Marlowe – I read as much of that document as I could stomach.  AFAIC, it should be titled “What we Want Santa Claus to Bring Us”.

Keith -

I like your analogy of rabbit  hole.

Now look at this statement from my friend Tom C:

Joshua thinks expensive energy won’t hinder development in poor countries.

Now maybe you think that is a reasonable facsimile of my argument. If so, then I can see where you’d take me to task for my earlier condescending argument.

But from where I sit such a statement from him – as are more or less all of his posts directed towards me -  is nothing but an entrance into a rabbit hold. I see no reason to chase down after him into that dark, dank warren – no doubt filled with his little droppings. 

Clearly, Tom has a hard-on for me. Has for a while now. As is obvious from his follow-on posts that further distort my argument, even lack of response on my part doesn’t serve as a cold shower.

I’m all ears, Keith. Really. I’m interested in exploring how to promote reasoned dialog in blog comments. Is it possible? If so, what does it take? 

Keith,
an example of an the kind of article that i hope gets more attention moving forward appeared yesterday in the NY Times:

The good news is that we could insulate ourselves from catastrophic risk at relatively modest cost by enacting a steep carbon tax. Early studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that a carbon tax of up to $80 per metric ton of emissions “” a tax that might raise gasoline prices by 70 cents a gallon ”” would eventually result in climate stability. But because recent estimates about global warming have become more pessimistic, stabilization may require a much higher tax. How hard would it be to live with a tax of, say, $300 a ton?If such a tax were phased in, the prices of goods would rise gradually in proportion to the amount of carbon dioxide their production or use entailed. The price of gasoline, for example, would slowly rise by somewhat less than $3 a gallon. Motorists in many countries already pay that much more than Americans do, and they seem to have adapted by driving substantially more efficient vehicles.A carbon tax would also serve two other goals. First, it would help balance future budgets. Tens of millions of Americans are set to retire in the next decades, and, as a result, many budget experts agree that federal budgets simply can’t be balanced with spending cuts alone. We’ll also need substantial additional revenue, most of which could be generated by a carbon tax.If new taxes are unavoidable, why not adopt ones that not only help balance the budget but also help make the economy more efficient? By reducing harmful emissions, a carbon tax fits that description.

Keith – (161)

Yes, sometimes just for the sport of it. I have no illusions that mocking Tom C will promote good dialog. My point is that not responding doesn’t seem to work either.

I see Tom C as a lost cause either way. Where I think that good faith dialog may be possible, I approach it differently and if I go into mock-mode in such a situation, it is absolutely correct to call me on it. I offer an open invitation to all here to call me out when I break faith in a good faith exchange. (Which I kind of did earlier today with my snark directed at Tom Fuller who has, more recently, been open to exchanging views in good faith even when I’m not clear, he doesn’t agree, or he thinks that my views are naive.)

As for the sporting aspect – I will admit that with Tom C it’s a bit like a canned hunt. But think f it like target practice so I can work on basic skills I can later use when going after big game.

Tom C -

Thanks for that advice. I will take it under advisement with due consideration of the source. For now, I will repeat my assertion that you are misconstruing my argument. 

It is the necessary but not sufficient condition (obviously good government is also required

Now while you still have a way to go,  I will commend you for getting closer. My advise now would be for you to go back and reread the excerpt from Sen. As I said, that would be a good place to begin. Try thinking about what you just wrote as you reread what he wrote.

And here’s an interesting and related article. It gives a little background on Sen, and it provides some information detailing his perspective on Gates’ approach. The last sentence on the section about Sen sums it up:

“It can do a lot of good,” he said. “But it’s not the way of solving the problem.”

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/0082533

All-in-all not bad, though. I find only a few smudges that can be easily cleaned off. I do consider that progress. Keep this up and I may have to return some of that lettuce I bought in preparation for further discussions with you.

is it too much to ask for proponents of poverty alleviation to point to the vast body of literature from economists (of which bill gates doesn’t belong) which suggests that *cheap* energy is the yolk that keeps poor countries poor? I would think that Nigerians, for example, would beg to differ…

oh and bbd, as bleeding heart liberal, i tend to prefer less gruesome metaphors. consider for example ‘feeding two squirrels with one nut‘

just a friendly suggestion

Michael Tobis Says:

#44
“I don’t think any [other technologies] will be cheaper than fossil fuels as long as we continue socializing the costs and privatizing the benefits of fossil fuels.

Do you  not recognize the myriad “socialized” benefits cheap energy ““ that is, fossil fuels ““ have delivered in the preceding 100 years?  Vaccines?  Transportation?   Food surpluses?  Sanitation?  Educatoin?  Could any of these things have been achieved by burning wood and whale blubber and hay?  If so, would the environmental damage be lesser or greater?
 
By your logic, what should we do with Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Apple and all the other titans of the technology age that receive “socialized” benefits in the form of “incentives” (e.g., tax breaks) to locate in various areas, to innovate (reduced taxes on stock options) etc?  Do these firms and the products they produce provide insufficient social benefits to justify the cost of reduced taxes?

#55
“Yes, in the west we are in carbon debt.”

How so?  How will the developing world repay us for the technology that we’ve developed and the knowledge that we’ve acquired and granted to them at no cost?

One of the main thrusts of this post was a suggestion that environmental justice in developing nations may be the latest silver bullet to sell climate change remedial action by creating western guilt grassroots outrage.  I repeatedly made the point that climate action effectively reduces environmental justice in the developing world by sucking time, money, resources and human capital away from environmental research and development that deals with known, documented harm occurring IN THE NOW.  Climate change, however, seeks to solve problems that are predicted to perhaps impact decades to a century from now.  This de-prioritization of ongoing human and environmental harm is puzzling given the recent consensus about the wisdom of Alan Watts and other zenophyllic spiritual gurus who claim that the NOW is all there is.

Joshua – I don’t have the time tonight to respond in a more detailed way.  But just one thing.  In your post # 91 you seem to say that energy would be cheaper if a government distributes it to its citizenry.  Is this really what you think?

Tom C,

Well, by some miracle #176 answers my question.

Thus I will answer #175:

The prominence has to do with mt’s Keith’s interest in the Easter Island story. You can find this bizarre all you want. Not that this comment of yours has anything to do with the price of tea.

The post you do not get tries to make a distinction between two stances: the skeptical one and the incredulous one. I believe that #176 is a good example of a skeptical one. I believe that #167 and its copycats are a good example of an incredulous stance.

In the case of #176, you are asking questions.

In most if not all the other cases, you claim that lots of people hold a belief that goes against some (aluminium?) law of economics and are therefore (paraphrasing) barely rational individuals.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly prefer the first stance.

Your contempt toward Joshua makes might not suffice for you to teach anyone the valuable lessons in economics that you could provide.

#173
 
Education is related to energy because it’s paid for by tax revenue generated through economic growth, and the economic growth is generated in substantial part by low-cost energy derived (currently) from fossil fuels. 
 
Crank up the cost of energy by funding more costly forms of energy with taxpayer support (subsidies, carbon taxes, “green energy” quotas – all amount to a mark on the minus side of the ledger) and there is less wealth to spend on social programs, which include education.
 
Re: Tech Titans, I agree, dropping taxes to attract employment is a bad thing.  OTOH, if govs didn’t drop taxes, off the Techs go to India.   So that’s the calculation governments make: what’s the minimum I can lower the taxes and still get the social benefit?  It’s the calculation Obama refuses to accept WRT foreign profits of US corps. 

“at present [fossil fuel] is no longer cheap”

The value of a product is determined by the price of that product relative to replacements available on the market.  “Cheap” is meaningless without a comparison. 
 
Comparing the cost/benefit of electric cars to that of gasoline cars reveals that oil is still cheaper.  Comparing the cost/benefit of wind turbines and solar plants to coal plants reveals that coal is still cheaper.

“[Environmental] costs are not factored in at the point of sale, so it amounts to a hidden subsidy.”

This is conventional wisdom, and it’s true.  But it’s only half the story.  Long range benefits are not factored in at the point of sale either.  What is the long range value of vaccines?   What is the long range value of fertilizer?  Drought resistant corn?   Air transportation?  Sanitation?  3D printers?  Our patent system ensures that the company or individual that develops a marketable technology has time-limited rights to that technology.  Beyond that, the product becomes a commodity and its price falls.  As the price falls, the value to society increases, yet the creator of the technology no longer has rights to that value.    It is these long-range benefits that accrue free of charge to developing countries ““ they get the benefit but did not pay the costs of development.

“the environment is creaking under the load of the carbon we have emitted already”¦”

And yet every cent we devote towards poor technology today reduces our ability to improve tomorrow’s technology.

#181, perhaps, but that is a different argument. It seems to me that agreeing in principle comes before actually finding a mechanism. 

The lack of agreement in principle is what prevented adequate mechanisms from being put in place at Copenhagen. We have an agreement to avoid “dangerous interference”, but not sufficiently understanding that an all-time cap is equivalent to avoiding dangerous interference. Once we understand the need for an all-time cap we can argue about the actual numerical threshold. The trillion tons is riskier in a climate sense, and more moderate in a policy/economics sense, than the Copenhagen target, which was about equivalent to 3/4 trillion. 

At what point the actual damages actually cost more in dollars than the policy to avoid them is hard to estimate. Many people with a good sense of the problem think 3/4 trillion is pushing our luck. A trillion is likely suboptimal but it accounts for the decade we just lost on the political front. We won’t do better than that. The only question is how much worse.

McKibben’s Rolling Stone piece shows that we are in much deeper trouble without a cap, as there are already more than three trillion tons in carbon equivalent in proven fuel reserves, on the books as assets.  If you are right and McKibben’s number is right, we are going to pretty much leave the earth in ruins in service of political expedience.

Willard – I realize that I am coming across quite nasty regarding Joshua and mt.  Perhaps that is not helping my persuasiveness, so thanks for pointing it out.  That said, my animus is due to the fact that the political agenda they espouse would be disasterous, not just for us in the West but most especially for those in developing countries.  Howard and jim have laid out the case very well.  I don’t know what jim does for a living but he understands economics.  If mt and Joshua want to propose grand re-structuring of the global economy they have to at least make an effort to understand the basics of economics.  Again, this is not a conservative/liberal thing.  This is a reality vs. fairyland thing. 

Tom C we’re still waiting for your links showing the consensus among economists that climate mitigation policy will doom the poor of the world to stay poor. you haven’t forgotten have you?

Marlowe

I’ve asked time and again for *evidence* that climate mitigation policy kills poor people. I have never, ever been shown a damn thing. Just opinion based on nothing. Same old same old. Reminds me of those nonsense ‘lukewarm’ ECS claims.

Tom C,

Thank you for your candor, which means a lot to me.

I neither believe that mt or Joshua know nothing about economics, nor that jim and Howard know economics. As far as I can see, the discussion (let’s be generous and call that a discussion) is just one step below political slogans. These two pairs of commenters emphasize different material constraints, that’s all.

Let’s take that Bill Gates talk I just linked. Gates starts with acknowledging what you said: the best way to improve our daily lives is to have more energy, and usually that means cheaper energy. But he follows that with this challenge: we need to get our CO2 emission to a full stop in a somewhat near (on a geological scale, at least) future.

This is a very big challenge.

I don’t believe there is a bigger challenge, standing aside understanding half of my comments.

This challenge underlines two constraints.

We won’t solve this challenge by forgetting about one of these constraints.

Nor will we be able to solve this challenge by sticking to an analysis of the material constraints that stays just a bit below political slogans or by questioning each others’ competence. The competence of people should speak by itself, btw. If a commenter needs to underline another’s competence, chance are that we’re witnessing an illegitimate behavior that hides a weakness in one’s own competence, and perhaps more importantly, one’s incapacity to meet the challenge at hand.

Speaking from my own experience, the polarization of constraints led to intellectual debates that were quite energizing, but perhaps a bit sterile in retrospect: rationalism vs empiricism, realism vs nominalism, formalism vs intuitionism, etc.

There are other hypothesis that lack of knowledge of economics. Not that they matter much.

What matters is the challenge of energy and CO2 emission, not what Joshua does not know about the aluminium law of economics.

One might almost call it “alarmist.” Almost.

Almost the biggest irony to be found in the climate debate lunchroom food fight. Almost.

For those who tldr that last comment:

We don’t know what to do exactly.

We’re afraid of our selves.

We’re waiting for Godot at Keith’s.

@ 194 yup. But I read your #190.

oh and for those who like to play with models, Nordhaus has a nifty little excel model here.

jim -

MT:“[Environmental] costs are not factored in at the point of sale, so it amounts to a hidden subsidy.”

YOU: This is conventional wisdom, and it’s true.  But it’s only half the
story.  Long range benefits are not factored in at the point of sale either.  What is the long range value of vaccines?   What is the long range value of fertilizer?  Drought resistant corn?   Air transportation?  Sanitation?  3D printers?  Our patent system ensures
that the company or individual that develops a marketable technology has time-limited rights to that technology.  Beyond that, the product
becomes a commodity and its price falls.  As the price falls, the value to society increases, yet the creator of the technology no longer has
rights to that value.    It is these long-range benefits that accrue free of charge to developing countries ““ they get the benefit but did
not pay the costs of development.

From where I sit, you haven’t really dealt with MT’s point. Yes, there are long-range benefits derived directly or more indirectly from fossil fuel energy. But those long-range benefits would also be derived from other sources of energy. The long-range benefits from commoditization would also accrue with other energy sources.

Those issues could be the focus of interesting discussion, but for now, I will repeat my assertion (in part because it annoys Tom C), that an equation that cheap=energy equals economic growth and feeding poor people is simplistic. To quote my friend Tom C – cheap energy “is the necessary but not sufficient condition,” except I will point out that his use of the definite article there is not correct.

It is a necessary but not sufficient condition (or perhaps depending on an examination of a less binary and simplistic conceptualiztion, we might have to modify the statement even further;  i.e., that statement is fairly meaningless without qualifying “cheap energy” into comparative structures that weigh cost of energy against other variables such as concentration of profits in small sectors of the population or cheap energy that concentrates economic and political power into the hands of authoritarian regimes) .I think that in order to unpack the simplistic equation of cheap energy = economic growth and fewer hungry people, I think it is necessary to discuss a couple of variables. I am suggesting a prioritization of those variables, and I am adding one more to an earlier statement:

1) Democratic governing processes that equitably distribute agency and [political] power.

2) Efficient maximization of human capital

3) Quantifying the full range of externalities (positive and negative) associated with different sources of energy.

I’m sure that there may be other, very important variables. But that third variable is the one that comes to my mind when I read your post. Again, I think that your treatment of that variable as reflected in your post needs more work. You seem to lean towards a focusing on the positive externalities associated with fossil fuels w/o full consideration of the negative externalities of fossil fuels or control for how the positive externalities associated currently with fossil fuel might be provided by other sources of energy.

And again, I tend to think that in balance substituting other sources of energy will required sacrifice. But if we’re assuming that mitigating the impact of climate change is worth sacrifice, then the follow-on questions become how much sacrifice and how that sacrifice will be distributed.

Just out of curiosity – did you read the article I linked that talks about Gates and Sen? I think that Sen’s arguments are relevant to this dicussion, although they aren’t directly focused on climate change policy but more on issues related to growth generally. Keep in mind that Sen pays a lot of respect to the economic theories of Adam Smith and Arthur Pigou.

MT  (199) -

However, to use my favorite ten dollar word, there are epistemological
differences in the actual models used and the purposes to which they are
put. Economic models are far less empirically constrained. One has to
know a little bit about both fields and about modeling to make the
comparison.

I don’t understand how you’re using epistemological there. Could you explain a bit more?

Just a couple of quick questions–why do alarmists spend so much time slamming Nordhaus and now turn to him in this discussion?

More importantly, for those of us who actually are doing something now, why do alarmists think they are the ones pushing for change when they in fact are either blocking it as inadequate or dismissing others’ efforts as irrelevant?

And why are comments about the ability of scientists to hack code good to know in this context but not when evaluating climate models or HarryReadMe?

@203

still early days, but your prediction seems to be holding up….

(207) Tom -

Are there no lessons to be learned from recent successes?

To the extent that the lower emissions are a product of an economic downturn and more emissions in other countries, I’m not sure that those could be called “successes” or lessons (in that it was something we already knew would happen)

We already knew that a price advantage for an energy source that results in less ACO2 would reduce emissions. So I don’t think that is a lesson.

There is a related question that has existed all along – and I don’t think there are lessons gained from recent emission reductions about how to answer it That question is how to predict the impact of cost advantages resulting in lower emissions work when applied very differently: When it is applied by increasing the cost advantage non-ACO2 emitting sources by making fossil fuels more expensive.

I think that the recent success does not provide instruction on how to affect the question of whether we need should be focusing on reducing the rate of ACO2 emissions as opposed to working on ending ACO2 emissions. It seems to me that MT and some others have made some strong arguments in this thread on that topic, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone address the fundamental point they keep raising.With all that said – I would like to know what are the lessons you see that can be learned from recent success?

Okay, kiddies–nothing to see here, let’s all just move along. When you do your Trillion Ton March, it will be more like a Long March, but not because you got a lot of people to participate…

Marlowe,

Have you noticed how the shirt ripping in #210 helps our Groundskeeper Willie to respond to your argument (one rhetorical metaquestion notwithstanding), and that the “trillion ton march” jab almost fulfills our prediction?

Hey willard–your shirt’s all ripped. What’s Up With That?

> What’s Up With That?

Reminds me of a team:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/21794194024

Seriously?

Fuller is in a picture titled “Team WUWT?”

Say it ain’t so, Tom. Say it ain’t so.

That’s what Eschenback looks like? If ever I expected anyone to look like shirt-rippin’ Willie, it would be Willis.

In fact, I always assumed Willis was the inspiration for the character.

Has anyone ever had a problem finding an economist who made an argument
supporting his side of an argument?  Can anyone make a coherent argument about the net value to society that economists bring and how their efforts rise to the level of a Nobel prize?

Has anyone ever been able to find a true Scotsman?

Cutting carbon emissions significantly in the near term has very negative economic consequences now.

I don’t dispute that there will be consequences, but I question the timing and severity of those consequences. There may also be benefits to decarbonization.

What I’m saying is, I’m skeptical. Why won’t those economists release their code and data? The burden of proof is on them.

To the original question raised by Keith:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-f-jones/bridge-or-dead-end_b_1837015.html

Willard – I don’t have time to read the entire document and I don’t agree with all his assumptions, but as far as I can tell, what Nordhaus says in 197 does not contradict the points I am trying to make. Re Bill Gates, he is pointing out that (assuming AGW predictions are true) we are in a quandry regarding the effect on the poor.  Again, this seems to support what I am saying.  What I have objected to all along is the position that total transition to a decarbonized economy is feasible (mt) and that it won’t hurt the poor (Joshua). As far as 201, well, I don’t get what the point is.

Joshua – There are many factors that influence economic development: culture, political system, climate, etc.  But, all things being equal, more money spent on energy means less money spent on everything else, including investment, charity, education, you name it.  This is so basic as to not warrant debate.  Your excursions into Amartya Sen’s thought have no relation to the topic under consideration in this thread. Your posts #81 and #91 are incoherent and reveal a lack of basic understanding. 

@227

I predict he’ll try and walk that one back pretty quick.

Sooner or later, comments like the one you posted on August 29th, 2012 at 12:58 pm will be used against you, Tom C.

Such ceteris paribus clause alone makes you lose, as now you’ve just admitted using armchair economics.

Such dismissal of Sen does not bode well for your integrity.

Such constant questioning of your interlocutors’ competence fizzles as soon as we see that it’s based on a shameless caricature.

A wasted opportunity.

#201 has a lot of general truth, it would be hard to disagree or specifically agree other than state it seems a reasonable comment.#197 depends on the part bolded My research shows that there are indeed substantial net benefits from acting now rather than waiting fifty years. The problem is that this is a very general comment in that the reasearch depended on the assumptions of value, cost, cost of externalities, etc. It may be reasonable, but is speculation.One can use other assumptions and paint the opposite picture. One of the problems in this discussion is the continuing refusal to acknowledge what the founders of Ecology determined, and that is the use of energy is what defines man. As far as the economics, there is a continuing refusal to acknowledge that if an energy source costs more it will have an adverse economic effect due to market inefficiencies. All the economic work I have read to date that agree with this research  have the following types of asssumptions: 1. Eventually oil/carbon will be as expensive or more than renewable; 2. the cost of the externalities are much higher than economists use for other future cost decisions; 3. ignoring the cost of failure in investing in immature technology; 4. discounting the cost savings of incremental capitalization versus capital outlays because of the assumptions of 1,2, and 3. The economics is every bit as wicked and I would say more so than climate science itself.

#226  Wow, more really creative thinking, sarcasm.  When all you have is a hammer…

Careful policy measures can enable a more compelling coexistence of natural gas and renewables. For example, one option would be to place a tax on natural gas (as well as coal and oil) that begins in ten years and increases by a set amount every five years. 

Joshua:

Yes, there are long-range benefits derived directly or more indirectly from fossil fuel energy. But those long-range benefits would also be derived from other sources of energy.

The long range benefits are exponentially reduced by the cost difference between any two sources of energy.  The cost difference already accounts for relative abundance, availability, portability, energy density, and likely short- mid-term environmental impacts. 
 
The fact that FF were far cheaper throughout the 20th century than any other source of energy in terms of these cost tradeoffs is demonstrated by the rapid disappearance from the market of almost every other energy source. 
 
Thus, I reiterate my point: so far, the socialized benefits of fossil fuels far outweigh the socialized costs.  We can argue about whether that will remain true in the future.

“weigh cost of energy against other variables such as concentration of profits in small sectors of the population”

The “concentration of profits in small sectors of the population” is allowed because it serves the public interest.  It drives innovators to compete for the capital that allows them to spread beneficial innovations rapidly through society. 
 
Consult your government regarding the degree to which this concentration should be allowed.  From an economic standpoint, it should be set at the minimum level necessary to encourage the necessary risk and effort.  IMO, it is currently set far too high, allowing far too much concentration of wealth.

looks like we’re going to need more coconuts. anyone know what the record for gish gallups on a single blog post is? 

i’m not doing your homework for you jeff. there’s lots to choose from. try google.

Hmm, I read it as

Marlowe – Let’s stop hidden subsidies for the dirtiest and most dangerous forms of energy!

Everyone – How?

Marlowe – By making the people who do the damage pay for the damage.

Everyone – Look! A squirrel!

I guess, as ever, ymmv…

I read it as the simile of this:

If liberals respond to the provocations of the Right with rigidity, vitriol, outrage, and a growing unwillingness to compromise, they only strengthen the hand of their opponents, contribute to the gridlock of our political institutions, provide Republicans with an easy justification for obstruction, and ultimately make the unthinkable — the dismantling of the postwar welfare state — thinkable. Conservatives, in this sense, are playing a long game, happy to starve the beast and delighted by dysfunction, even when they control the government. For this reason, as liberals unwittingly conspire to turn American politics into a zero-sum game, conservatives win even when they lose.

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/issue-3/the-polarization-paradox/

Rhetorically speaking, of course.

Or, to use the expression of our armchair economist, I see nothing in that quote that is contradicted by the content of the thread.

Well, almost.

jim -

The long range benefits are exponentially reduced by the cost difference
between any two sources of energy. 

Makes sense.

The cost difference already
accounts for relative abundance, availability, portability, energy density, and likely short- mid-term environmental impacts. 

I don’t really know what that means. I mean the underlying logic seems sound, but how are you accounting for illness due to particulate matter, environmental damage from, say, strip mining, deaths attributable to the coal industry, etc? Without quantifying those phenomena, how do you make that statement with such confidence?

The fact that FF were far cheaper throughout the 20th century than any other source of energy in terms of these cost tradeoffs is demonstrated
by the rapid disappearance from the market of almost every other energy source.

See comment above.

The fact that FF were far cheaper throughout the 20th century than any other source of energy in terms of these cost tradeoffs is demonstrated
by the rapid disappearance from the market of almost every other energy source.

[...]Thus, I reiterate my point: so far, the socialized benefits of fossil
fuels far outweigh the socialized costs. 

See comment above. I would say that is certainly true to some extent – but I think that the discussion of how true it is really needs to be fleshed out to determine what the basis is for…

We can argue about whether
that will remain true in the future.

That is the crux of the matter. How do we have that discussion without gaining some better assessment of those other questions you raised?

The “concentration of profits in small sectors of the population” is allowed because it serves the public interest.  It drives innovators to compete for the capital that allows them to spread beneficial innovations rapidly through society.

I see the relevant question as to determine whether it maximally serves the public interest, how well it “spread[s] beneficial innovations, and how it might compare in those respects in light of alternative policy options.

Consult your government regarding the degree to which this concentration should be allowed.  From an economic standpoint, it should be set at the minimum level necessary to encourage the necessary risk and effort. 
IMO, it is currently set far too high, allowing far too much concentration of wealth.

Yes. That is one of the questions I’m trying to build on. How do different energy alternatives correlate with costs/benefits from centralization vs. decentralization of benefits? How do those costs/benefits correlate with maximizing the productivity of human capital?

jim -

http://www.dblinvestors.com/news-2011-9-23.php

Thoughts?

So, MT, why not demonstrate some actual courage of your convictions. Way back in 162, Marlowe actually did present one tiny little specific idea- a $3 increase in the gasoline tax.
It’s an election year here, be my guest and insist on a $3 gas tax hike. Make it a condition for receiving the vote of any believer in AGW. Ask – no, demand! – that Obama pledge to make gas cost over $7 gallon by Christmas.
And by all means, tell us all about how this regressive tax couldn’t possibly hurt a poor person.

#254 We’re talking past each other. The political infeasibility under current conditions is real. That doesn’t mean something is a bad idea, just that the public doesn’t understand the necessity yet.That said, going after gasoline first makes little sense. Cars are good symbols but they aren’t the central problem. Go after electricity, industrial and freight uses first, and increase consumer-facing taxes very gradually, I’d say.But yes, a pure price mechanism is regressive. In the US, especially rural areas, fiercely so. Unfortunately that is true. All the bad news about the possible solutions doesn’t resolve the problem, though. It’s childish to suggest that since you don’t like any of the solutions there can;t be a problem. I’m not saying whether you personally do that or not, but that does seem to be the right’s position on it these days.

#234 Willard – I don’t understand how my use of ceteris paribus discredited me or invalidated my point.  I guess you will have to explain further.  But remember, opaque prose does not make for a compelling argument. Quite the opposite.  Also, I most certainly did not “dismiss” Sen.  I said that the points Joshua invoked were not germane to the argument.  Finally, I don’t know what you are referring to in regard to a “shameless carciature.” 

Marlowe – I have no idea what “gish gallop” and “coconuts” etc refer to.  That’s another reason why I have not felt the need to respond to you.

Marlowe,as an energy economist, why do you make the kind of unequivocal satements you do? Is it point out others’ errors? Why don’t you include that what Nordhaus has written is dependant on the assumptions used and discuss that others who see costs different either fit in the CI’s or fit in with the same methodology by making differetn assumptions? Then we could discuss what these differences mean, and which are likely, important, or even unknowable in a strict sense, but still banded in terms of potential paths.

Ok WIllard – I’ll give it one last try.  If gasoline prices rise the media point out that it will have greatest impact on the poor.  If a utility rasies the price it charges for electricity, concerned folks everywhere will anguish about the impact to the poor.  But for some weird reason, raising the price of gasoline or electricity does not impact the poor if it is for the purpose of fighting AGW.  Or so Tobis and Joshua, and I guess you, would have us believe.  The simple principle I have been trying to make is that raising energy prices has a detrimental effect on everyone, particularly the poor, regardless of the whether the cause if noble or ignoble.  If you want to dispute that, go ahead, I’m done. 

Joshua ““
 
Read your piece by DB investors.  Renewable energy investors seeking grounds for more Federal support for renewable energy investors?  Is this a credible source?  J
 
Aside from that, I can’t imagine how one could quantify the myriad direct and indirect supports for energy research and development. 
 
1)      Every utility, city, town, county, etc has different quotas for “renewable” energy and probably different definitions of what “renewable” actually means.
 
2)      Today we spend billions of dollars on basic research that’s not credited to any single form of energy, yet contributes substantially to all.  
 
3)      Computer technology alone is responsible for most of the gains we’ve made in recent decades and will make in future decades.  Its value is immeasurable.   Imagine doing these solar projects that concentrate reflected light to boil water without a computer to do the calculations!  Impossible.  
 
Aside from that, R&D and subsidies for promising technologies are obviously necessary at some level ““ the minimum needed to encourage the risk.

> Centralization of wealth is a societal issue, not an energy issue.

Therefore, energy issues are not societal.

Good to know.

Tom C -

I see it’s still raging, eh?

You know, they say on those Viagra commercials that after four hours you should consult a physician. It has been considerably more than 4 hours.

Joshua:  Are you saying that cheap energy (which means available to the wealthy and poor alike) is not the essential lifeblood of Western Democracies that produce superior industry, housing, agriculture, education, healthcare, environmental protection, sport and recreation?

Joshua – I’m not very impressed that you are wandering around lost in a book by Amartya Sen.  Your posts, despite containing lovely pseudo-intellectual buzzwords like “binary” and “false dichotomy” are largely incoherent.  You seem to think that energy would be cheap if only governments would “distribute” it to the citizenry.  You seem to think that because Nigeria has oil resources that energy costs there should be low.  You don’t think that huge increases in energy costs will adversely affect the poor, as long as they are done in the name of AGW mitigation. So, to cover up all that ignorance you have taken to crude sexual insults. I would suggest giving up pretensions to inellectualism and a return to carpentry. 

#239

Policy choices like frakking create and lock in emissions generation.

Really? How much ‘gas burning infrastructure’ was built in the US as a result of frakking? In 2008 natural gas prices were at record highs in the US yet we had 400GW(net summer)  gas generating capacity.The reality is that 70% of the electric generating infrastructure needs to be capable of being used for peaking and 30% of the infrastructure can be dedicated to base-load. Even if the US our 300 GW of coal fired capacity never achieved greater then a 70% utilization rate.If I look at France 50% of their generating capacity is nuclear..and that is somewhat made economically possible by the fact they can export ‘off peak’ to neighboring countries.The first power plant my brother in law built in the early 1970′s was oil fired. It still runs, about 80 hours per year. What creates lock in is building things that can’t be relegated to ‘reserve peak capacity’, like windmills or baseload coal plants that can’t be started quickly.

Willard – Please go back and read my comment #40 in this thread. I said that if the AGW threat were as real as the Tobis/Hansen tribe say it is, then reducing CO2 emissions to the requisite level would involve substantial pain and sacrifice for Everyman. I don’t think Everyman has been told the truth about this.  mt and Joshua both disputed this, saying that bringing CO2 emissions down to the necessary level would not involve substantial sacrifice.  What is your opinion?

Willard -

You asked for quotes. I’d give more specific quotes but the Keith’s filter is angry at me today, so here are some references to statements:
Check out Tom’s post at 1:47 today.Then look at my posts at 12:20 on August 27th, and 10:25 on August 29th

I admire your persistence, your patience, and your ability to engage in good
faith. A rabbit hole is a rabbit hole.

Joshua 273 – Fair enough.  What would you suggest as other factors of equal or greater value than cheap energy?  Liberal democracy perhaps.  I cannot think of another vital thread that we depend on for all that is good and right in the developed world.  As for judging the relative merits and costs of energy sources, the quasi-free market, in response to customer demand and government restrictions has already done that.  This is why the US has favored dirty, filthy coal over clean, scary nuclear.  This is also why natural gas is now gaining momentum, ie:  Mike Bloomberg has calculated that responsible fracking is a winner. The question becomes, what additional government restrictions and/or popular preferences can be used to further distort the energy market forcing CO2 reductions without harming the economy to the point of restricting luxuries like toxic environmental protection, cheap food, affordable housing, abundant jobs and the development of technical human capital?  The over-drafting of groundwater, nitrates in groundwater, auto,  transport and energy toxic pollution currently impacting human health and the environment must be weighed against the computer model speculations of CO2 climate impacts that *might* occur at the end of this century.  IPCC needs to run those numbers to determine the human and environmental priority and feasibility of near-term climate policy actions.

WIllard – Tobis makes the claim that substantial sacrifice is not required in posts # 45, 62, 146, and 151.  In the last he says we would “hardly notice the difference, except in our energy bills”.  The situation with Joshua is more complicated due to the fog of words he generates.  He forcefully disputes that poor people will be effected in # 70 and 200.  He will undoubtedly retreat to the all-purpose rhetorical dodges that “I only said simplistic” and that “externalities” are not factored into fossil fuels.  The fallacy here is that wind and solar externalities are never discussed. In fact, there are environmental externalities with these technolgies also, such as land use and rare earth metal mining.  The externalities argument would be a valid one to have, and I would not have taken to questioning his competance, were it not that he signaled his ignorance of economics by assuming that because Nigeria has oil resources there energy costs should be low. Also, that energy is cheaper when governments “distribute” it to the citizenry.

#279, Willard. Here you go:
Joshua at 7:38 p.m. Aug. 27:
“Further, I think that the oft’ hear equation that “cheap energy = economic growth and feeding poor people” is pretty facile. Certainly, we can think of countries where energy is cheap and many people in the constituent citizenry lack basic resources We can also think of countries were energy is expensive and a solid % of the constituent citizenry enjoy a high standard of living.”

There you go.

I know, I know. Now you want to redefine what “enjoy a high standard of living” means. Who says you need food, air conditioning and the light bulb? Materialistic corporatist fat-cats, that’s who!
Sigh.

jeffn -

As with Tom C – I’m honored that you’re spending so much time reading and rereading and quoting my posts. 

However, it seems that like him, you have misconstrued my opinions.

Please feel free to ask me directly what I think. If, upon receiving answers to such questions, you still think that some of my arguments are inconsistent with other things that I’ve said, I would be happen to explore with you perceived (or real) inconsistencies.

There – I have stepped towards your rabbit hole just like I earlier did with Tom C’s. I will wipe off my shoes and await your response. I have lettuce waiting, and you can have some also, but you won’t get any more lettuce by asking me to advance towards your warren. You will only get some if you move away. Training rabbits isn’t difficult, but you need to be disciplined in your approach.

Tom C -I have some lettuce for you if you want to come get it.

Tom C,

Thank you for providing indirect quotes. That’s better than nothing.

Now, you seem to imply that when mt says:

Substantial sacrifice is not required, such that we hardly notice the difference, except in our energy bills.

contradicts a long-held principle of armchair economics, according to which:

Ceteris paribus, raising energy prices has a detrimental effect on everyone.

I’m not sure how the first claim entails the negation of the second one.

Please mansplain your inference steps the clearest way you can. I’m trying to learn how to be as limpid as possible, and emulating your own thinking style can only be a boon to my life.

Many thanks!

292, Thanks for confirming your inability to read. Tom C didn’t provide the quotes and they were direct, not indirect.

By your formula, “hardly notice” is the equivalent of “detrimental” because everyone is negatively impacted?
But how does someone fail to notice something harmful? Perhaps you seek a better word to accompany those reading glasses.

Joshua, remove the log from your eye. Willard sought a quote from anyone that suggested a high energy price would be anything less than “detrimental.” I provided.
I have noticed that in different contexts and in different spots you agree that someone, somewhere must “sacrifice.” Your refusal to say who or how much is noted when coupled with your eagerness to demand evidence from anyone who says this sacrifice might actually be a sacrifice. Your discussion partners are assuming (based on your own vague pronouncements) that this sacrifice will have something to do with energy prices and they know, better than you obviously, that enforced energy price hikes are particularly regressive.
But if you exempt those most hurt by a regressive price hike, you don’t accomplish the goal of the price hike- a shift in energy use. Hmm.
But no matter, the poor can avoid all this by taking their entire life savings to the dealer to trade the used 1998 Ford Fiesta on brand new hybrid. And skip a few meals to find the cash to bolt solar panels on the roof.

Willard – I am not going to fall into your pathetic trap.  Yes, I said that a large increase in energy prices would be detrimental to everyone,  especially poor people.  So, you are going to quote his statement in #151 and say “Tobis did not say that prices would experience a large rise, he said they would not rise very much!”  So, his statement is not at odds with yours.  So there!” 

What is at odds with his claim is reality.  In another post you kept badgering Tom Fuller by incessantly (and obnoxiously) typing “300 quads” in every post, as if that was argumentation.  It would be better to incessantly refer to the 1 nuclear plant per day until 2050 that would be required to fulfill Tobis’s fantasy.  Add to that huge changes to distribution infrastructure, a new transporation fuel infrastructure, along with a new fleet of vehicles that run on said transportation fuel plus a massive increase in new manufacturing capability to support all this new stuff. 

I’m sorry, this is “magical thinking” as Pielke says, or “demented” as I say.  So, the missing part of your comparison of statements is that just because Tobis claims prices will not rise that does not mean that it is true.

Tom C,

I must admit that you do express yourself in a very clear way:

I am not going to fall into your pathetic trap.

I’m not sure in which trap you are afraid to trap. But your declaration sure expresses very well the way you feel. It might even justify why you do not show any willingness in clearly mansplaining your interpretation of mt or Joshua’s claims, and the inferences upon which your interpretation is based.

I’m asking you to mansplain something to me. You say it’s a trap. No: a pathetic trap.

Just when the audience crave for your brilliantly mundane mansplanations of armchair economics, you desist.

Please don’t let your modesty interfere with the public need to understand long held principles of armchair economics.

C’mon, Tom C!

***

In any case, now you say:

So, the missing part of your comparison of statements is that just because Tobis claims prices will not rise that does not mean that it is true.

Are you suggesting that Tobis claims that?

If yes, do you have a quote for that?

Many thanks!

#282 Howard

As for judging the relative merits and costs of energy sources, the
quasi-free market, in response to customer demand and government
restrictions has already done that.  This is why the US has favored
dirty, filthy coal over clean, scary nuclear.

You might want to read the 1979 US EIA Energy projections. The natural gas was going to be gone by 2000. We were going to need the coal plants as peakers. The US was also projected to be consuming 2.4 billion tons of coal in the year 2010 rather then 1 billion tons that ended up being reality. US Total Energy consumption was projected to grow from 80 Quads to 125 quads by 2010(we made it to 95 quads)http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/archive/aeo79/pdf/0173%2879%293.pdf

Considering that 30 of the 45 Quads worth of increased energy demand that was supposed to appear, didn’t appear and the natural gas didn’t run out both coal and nuclear took big hits. Blame is on ‘conservation’.

My apologies, Willard. It appears TomC and I Posted the same quote from mt and I missed it.

jeffn -

After reading this, I am willing to up your serving of lettuce:

Your refusal to say who or how much is noted when…

and with this:

But if you exempt those most hurt by a regressive price hike,

I will double your portion yet again. Here little rabbit. Here little rabbit.

If you want to know my opinion on something, feel free to ask. And if you see something inconsistent between my stated beliefs and my arguments, I’ll be happy to discuss.

Howard -

I appreciate an opportunity to move enough of the garbage out of the way to find common ground. 

… my assertion that basic environmental improvements are significantly more important now and in the coming decades rather
than CO2 reductions.

Well, as you know, a concern that now and the coming decades is the time when lowering climate change in priority may have exponentially greater impact in the future. Whether or not that is  a worthwhile trade-off is a subject worthy of debate. But even more so, I’m interesting in finding common ground w/r/t what the trade-offs would look like. Without reaching such common ground, discussion of what trade-offs would be worthwhile is pointless.

Willard… when you say “geological time scale” (repeating B. Gates) that means about 10,000-years to me.  Can you state the order of magnitude of what you really mean.  Thanks.

Let’s try that again, without a random CTRL-Z:

Howard,

I don’t mean any order of magnitude: I’m just expressing Bill Gates’ point in a most obscure way.

But I believe that some say that if by 2075, our projected 3,000 all come from coal we’re ruined. What would be your response to such a claim?

Besides, is it not a question to ask to armchair economists? Or perhaps we could ask Marlowe: Dear Marlowe, what would be your own order of magnitude? Just a rough ballpark.

But if you really want me to speaking for myself, for once, I’d say this: people should not throw insult they do not have the patience nor the talent to sustain. At the very least, people should be able to put cite and discuss the sentences they wish to discuss. That way, caricatures will become obvious.

Prudence saves energy, cf. Hulk Hogan.

And why not close this thread with Bill’s conclusion:

So this is a wish. It’s a very concrete wish that we invent this technology. If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years — I could pick who’s president, I could pick a vaccine, which is something I love, or I could pick that this thing that’s half the cost with no CO2 gets invented — this is the wish I would pick. This is the one with the greatest impact. If we don’t get this wish, the division between the people who think short term and long term will be terrible, between the U.S. and China, between poor countries and rich, and most of all the lives of those two billion will be far worse.

So, what do we have to do? What am I appealing to you to step forward and drive? We need to go for more research funding. When countries get together in places like Copenhagen, they shouldn’t just discuss the CO2. They should discuss this innovation agenda, and you’d be stunned at the ridiculously low levels of spending on these innovative approaches. We do need the market incentives — CO2 tax, cap and trade — something that gets that price signal out there. We need to get the message out. We need to have this dialogue be a more rational, more understandable dialogue, including the steps that the government takes. This is an important wish, but it is one I think we can achieve.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html

Cf. with #285.

Was Lomborg talking about 2050 too?

#305 Willard

because of what follows: gradually, over decades. I am still unsure how this sentence contradicts the 200 years axiom of armchair economics.

Innovation tends to go in step changes rather then gradually.

I.E. If you talk to serious nuclear engineers about thorium  one of the problems is there will need to be a massive investment in  fuel cycle processing equipment. You can’t just build one or two as a result. You have to decide up front that you will build 100 or 1,000 of the things. As a result if and when thorium reactors become reality they will become reality in a big way. That’s why US DOE gave away to China everything we know about molten salt reactors.

100GW of new baseload generating capacity in the US is huge. In China it’s small potatoes.

harrywr2,

I believe the subject of the qualifier is “difference”, and that this difference does not refer to innovation per se.

Not that innovation shan’t be an important part of the package deal. Let’s recall Bill Gates’wish:

[Countries] should discuss this innovation agenda[.]

On the other hand, Bill’s wish does not stop there:

We do need the market incentives “” CO2 tax, cap and trade “” something that gets that price signal out there.

To talk about a “dilemma” (e.g. #285) might not render justice to Bill’s wish.

Bill’s wish does not stop there:

We need to get the message out. We need to have this dialogue be a more rational, more understandable dialogue, including the steps that the government takes.

And yet, we still have silly debates about CO2, false dilemmas between adaptation and mitigation, wishful thoughts that a challenge of this scale does not rely on international efforts, and neverending goat busting.

There is no debate about who is ripping shirts: Groundskeeper Willie is the only one playing victim, here and elsewhere, from time to time.

When Groundskeeper Willie will stop his shirt rippin’, discussions about victimization will stop.

Tom (319) -

As PDA picks up on – it’s all about trust.

Those arguments you list are about trust. As such, I think that they are important.

They are mostly ways that people express a lack of trust. Discussing them might be a way to build bridges of trust, but that can’t happen when good faith is lacking, and it won’t happen when people argue about them, specifically, to validate their distrust.

#321,

Interesting article.

Again he smiles. “˜I am the same as everyone else. If I ask myself, “Why do I believe global warming is happening?”, the answer isn’t that I have gone through all the arguments and analysed the evidence – because I haven’t. I believe the experts from the National Academy of Sciences. We all have to rely on experts.’

And most of the people who believe do the same. But then the next obvious question is how do they decide who to believe in? How do they identify the ‘experts’? On what basis do they decide who is trustworthy? Are there fixed criteria, or is the choice as irrational as all the others?

It’s a magazine article so a bit of hyperbole is forgivable, but Kahneman goes a bit too far. People are less rational than they think they are, but what they do isn’t devoid of reason either. People operate according to a set of heuristics that have arisen because they’re often right.

People act in what they believe to be their own best interests; a point economists like Hayek have made forcefully. Their ability to trade risk with one another allows individual irrationality and error to be mitigated collectively. It’s like an iterative scheme or a genetic algorithm – by applying a flawed but not meritless filter over and over, the effect is much more rational than we are individually capable of. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got – and it’s why the economists’ idealised approximations still work despite their fundamental inaccuracy.

Where it goes wrong is often when the signalling is distorted, most commonly by people trying to ‘correct’ the collective ‘irrationality’ in line with their own individual beliefs. (Or when the interests of the decision-makers are not aligned with those of the decision-owners. Like Kahneman’s example of market traders, who have individual career interests separate from those of their clients.) Ironically, they often use the fallibility of human judgement to justify their interference – “We’re only acting in your own best interests. It’s for your own good.” Who can you trust with that sort of power?

#318 Willard

something that gets that price signal out there.

Coal mine productivity in the US has dropped 30% in the last 10 years. Coal transport costs have risen on average 6.5% per year in the last 10 years.The Chinese were exporting steam coal at $22/ton in 2002 and they are importing it at  approximately $100/ton in 2012.If you would like something more substantial then numbers that I can recall from memory then page 30 of the BP Statistical Review of Coal is interesting.http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2011/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/coal_section_2012.pdfNorthwest Europe Market price – 2002 = $31.65, 2011= $121.64Japan Steam Coal Import price – 2002 = $36.90, 2011 = $136.21Central Appalachian Spot Price – 2002 = $33.20, 2011 = $87.38How big a price signal was Bill Gates looking for?

Howard -

IPCC and many celebrity status climate science stars have eroded trust. 

I disagree to an extent.

Yes, the evidence suggests that those disinclined to trust the IPCC see what they produce as reason to have trust eroded.

But those who are inclined to trust the IPCC move in the other direction. Those not particularly inclined either way don’t move much in either direction. This is all fairly well predicted by research  that examine the cognition and psychology of reasoning, and these phenomena are by no means specific to the climate debate. I have found Kahneman’s writing on these issues to be quite interesting. You might also.

I feel the same way about the guy who wrote #328. And in addition to being completely trustworthy, he’s also obviously very smart.

And no doubt handsome.

Howard has uncovered the secret conspiracy, by Googling a publicly available document.

Don’t laugh. How else would we have found out about Agenda 21?

#333 BBD

The experts are easily identifiable. They are people whose ideas have not been falsified by their peers.

And how does one define the universe of  peers?

Howard -

I couldn’t find any writings of his regarding how public views of climate change are predicted by his theory. 

His writings on how people assess probabilities – even scientists and statisticians with expertise in evaluating probability – are useful for understanding how people view the climate debate (IMO). The value of his work for examining the climate debate is not limited by the amount of writing he has done specifically about the climate debate.

FWIW – I see little of use in your discussion of the EDF document (btw, your link didn’t work). Quite honestly, your description of that document seems to me to be very inaccurate, and maybe even a touch paranoid. For example, although I basically skimmed the document, I did a search for TMI, nuclear, catastrophe, cognitive dismissal,  and landfill, and didn’t even get a single hit. You seem to be reducing Kahenman’s work to the degree to which the EDF finds it useful for framing the climate debate. That seems to me like a very odd way to look at the value of his work.

Howard,

Indeed, simple sales techniques. Forget Kahneman. Look, squirrel: EDF.

People swayed by apocalyptic speculation to be manipulated into swallowing the go-green, feel good, accomplish nothing programs. Phony assertion. Phony catastrophe. Sweeping decisions based on fear.

Cognitive dismissal. Usurpation of democratic decision making. Manipulate the public. Theatrics of Hollywood disaster porn. Peak behind the curtain.

Trust.

Whom do you trust?

How to decide?

Look for speech patterns.

Who to trust? Much easier to identify those not to trust.Those who hide behind a pseudonym.Look for speech patterns. Those who rely heavily on nicknames they have made up themselves. Those who instantly dismiss the arguments of others with insiderisms like DK, Overton Window, ad absurdium.Look for those who paste the same tired quotes in post after post, regardless of relevance. Those who send readers chasing after links that turn out to be less than relevant, less than authoritative, less than a normal human could have written into a blog comment in less than two minutes.Look for those who think that Monty Python is the only thing on YouTube.Don’t trust them.

#325,

“This would tend to discount the heuristic NiV proposes of the more-or-less rational actor.”

Not really – you’re criticising heuristics for being heuristics, rather than exact reasoning. If you work out the consequences of an action and see gains and no losses, that’s a good decision, and if you see losses but no gains, that’s a bad one. That’s perfectly sensible, and usually works. The heuristic doesn’t check to see if the reason you don’t see losses is because there aren’t any, or because you just haven’t been given the information. It trusts that any forgoing analysis of consequences would have spotted this already, and that if the choice is phrased to discount one or the other it is for a good reason.

You trust the questioner to give you an honest analysis of the consequences. In a test setting, there is conventionally a suspension of disbelief anyway, as you accept the hypothetical situation of the question for the purpose of answering it.

#327,

I’m sure. This was just a magazine article after all, as I said.

#328,

I don’t know about that. When I started in this debate, I was inclined to trust the IPCC. The impression I initially had was that there was genuine reason for concern based on the science, although the activists and media were probably exaggerating somewhat what the science said. As a scientist in another field, you tend to assume that other scientists have done their job properly.

But when I first saw the science plausibly challenged on scientific grounds, as a matter of principle I looked into it. I do exactly the same when I see a good perpetual motion machine or faster-than-light idea – not because I’m seriously entertaining the possibility they’re right, but because it’s how you learn the subtleties of the science. If you look at the proposal and can’t instantly see why it’s wrong, it means your own knowledge of the subject is incomplete. Figuring it out is a good exercise, usually leads to a deeper understanding, and sometimes reveals where what you’ve been told previously isn’t quite true. Science education simplifies and glosses things over a lot more than people suppose. (You can’t trust your science teachers, either.)

It was as a result of looking into it that my mind was changed. I will admit that I was previously sceptical of eco-catastrophist end-of-the-world claims generally, based on their past record, and that I was well aware of cases where the scientific community had gone off the rails in the past, but I truly hadn’t been expecting to find that.

#332,

So you’re saying that Agenda 21 can’t be a conspiracy theory because there’s actual evidence for it?

#333,

What they’d actually say, if their ideas were falsified, would be: “It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”. Operating, as you say, in their own professional self-interest.

You are implicitly assuming what you’re trying to prove. If the scientists are doing their jobs, then when they see problems like this they’ll object loudly. If they haven’t objected loudly then there isn’t a problem. And since there’s no problem, there’s no reason to suppose they’re not doing their jobs.

And since there’s no problem and the scientists at the heart of it are all doing their jobs, when other scientists do object loudly, they can’t be real scientists, and there can’t possibly be anything to what they say.

Privately, of course, the scientists at the heart of it were objecting (e.g. 1024334440.txt). But quietly, so they wouldn’t rock the boat. However, the toroidal knot of logic is so firmly established now that such minor details are easily dismissed.

Trust and distrust can easily form an unbreakable circle – contrary evidence automatically dismissed because it comes from an untrusted source. Trust is another one of those heuristics – technically irrational, but used as a shortcut that often works. But it’s not science. Don’t take anyone’s word for it.

Nullius

As I’ve been forced to point out before, you are a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theorists by definition exclude themselves from rational discussion, so this matters here.

People who claim that ‘climate science’ is ‘corrupt’ would have us believe in a multi-disciplinary collusion aimed at deceiving the public over man-made climate change. I won’t bother speculating on the motive as it’s a waste of time.

Strip away the rhetorical frills and what remains is simply a paranoid delusion of the standard type embraced by conspiracy theorists.

Out of curiosity, what other conspiracy theories do you believe in?

Agenda 21 and conspiracies are bullcrap in this case.  Applying prospect theory is all you need.  CO2 AGW is real.  Catastrophic AGW is speculation.  Fears of apocalypse are hardwired into the human mind, probably based on the four horsemen who killed most of our ancestors.   It’s not a conspiracy that the right fears government power and foreigners while the left fears corporations and environmental collapse.  I believe this was one of Joshua’s points about how the different groups of people square off over controversial issues.  Great sales and marketing folks know this stuff and is how they sell their junk to everybody.  It’s quite pathetic, but there you are.  We must face the future with the gray-matter hard-wiring we have and account for it. 

#342 Niv

Trust is another one of those heuristics ““ technically irrational, but used as a shortcut that often works.

We all have to make an enormous number of fight or flight, friend or foe decisions everyday.  It’s called survival. If we had to stop and think about each individual fact or piece of evidence we would never make it out of bed. So we use bins.

Nullius

I’ve told you numerous times that it requires no collusion to explain ““

Of course it does. Unless there is in fact no collusion at all.

This is rather awkward isn’t it? Either you are a conspiracy theorist, or you are seeking to create fake doubt about ‘the science’ by insinuating ‘corruption’ which you actually don’t believe exists.

Tricky.

#351,

Are you saying the Mannean Hockeystick isn’t science?!

Are we making some progress, then?

#338 True, but you cannot be trusted.

harrywr2

One doesn’t need to believe that the potential deception is deliberate.

Deception, whether actual or potential, is by definition deliberate, and banking is not science. Reactors aren’t the climate system, fatalities at Fukushima had nothing to do with radiation, and I have no idea why you are dragging in Yellowstone. Can we clap a stop over the gallops of non-equivalence and start making sense? 

NiV – (342)

I don’t know about that. When I started in this debate, I was inclined to trust the IPCC.

FWIW – I will say that this seems to me like the kind of response that that leads Marlowe to call you a sophist. My guess is that you know what I was talking about, and that nominating yourself as an exception to what I was talking about does not really address my point. In any case, on the possibility that I’m wrong about all of that, I will elaborate a bit.

Let’s use reaction to “Climategate” as an example. Despite claims of “skeptics” I have often read, only a small % of the public are very familiar with “Climategate.” Of those who are, only a small % had it change their views. Of that small %, some became more dubious of the dangers of climate change, (and some became less so). Political ideology was strongly correlated with the direction of movement.

My guess is that prior to reading in-depth about the product of the IPCC, you were disinclined to trust the analysis of international organizations more generally, and the United Nations more specifically. My guess is that you were relatively disinclined to accept “consensus” opinions among groups of scientists. My guess is that you were disinclined to agree with conclusions favoring international action involving government interference into the energy market segment as a way to achieve positive policy outcomes.

I would guess that other characteristics of your reasoning, as someone who subscribes to libertarian ideology, would disincline you towards the IPCC. Perhaps you were an exception in those respects, and you were not particularly disinclined towards the nature and or outcomes of the IPCC stripped from its scientific underpinnings. If so, then I’d say that you would be in a distinct minority of those who “lost” faith in the IPCC.

My estimate is that most people who have “lost” faith in the IPCC had little to no faith in it from the outset, and who went from not having much faith to having less faith the more information they got. This is the predicted by analysis that describes the process of motivated reasoning – which shows how we use additional information to confirm biases. The type of analysis of reasoning that Kahneman does is related to the concept of motivated reasoning.

If you haven’t read Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow,” I think that you might find it interesting. I certainly did, and I think that he helps me to understand the junior lunchroom food fight nature of the climate debate. In his writing, you will find much discussion of the role of heuristics in reasoning.

#358,

My goodness, that’s a lot of guesses.

You seem to know better than I do what I think. And it’s not like my believing all that conforms to your own preconceptions, is it?

Anyway, you can probably work out for yourself what my answer to that is.

Howard -Outside of TFTS, I haven’t read anything of his that isn’t easily available through use of The Google – and nothing that I can think of that was particularly notable. If you do come across something, please drop off a link in this thread.

#361,

“Curious, NiV, that in your shock about what I supposed about your thinking, you overlooked confirming whether or not my speculation was correct.Well?”

I said I was initially inclined to believe them. You said I wasn’t. What’s to confirm?

If you didn’t believe me the first time round, why should you believe what I say now?

“Do you disagree with my point about whether or not “trust” in the IPCC is most likely correlated with inclination”

Was that your point? I thought you was answering the comment to the effect that the IPCC behaviour had eroded trust, to which your answer was that you thought all the people who don’t trust them now didn’t trust them before – that the events around the Hockeystick and contents of Climategate had no effect, except to strengthen pre-existing ideologically-based beliefs.

I didn’t think that was the case, since I and many other sceptics and lukewarmers I know have, at some point in the story, changed their mind about them. Take Judith Curry for another example – initially a strong advocate for the IPCC, now a critic.

Of course trust in the IPCC is correlated with inclination – there are ideologically-invested people who would forgive it any behaviour. But that’s not an answer to the charge that the IPCC has eroded trust.

My claim is that there are plenty of scientifically-minded people, on both ends of the ideological spectrum, who out of principle put scientific evidence ahead of their personal desires, who admire and respect science and scientists generally; and who consider the IPCC corrupt not because of their own preferences and preconceptions, but as a result of looking at the record on their behaviour. They believe it because of evidence.

The main question I see here is whether you can say people only believe the IPCC process is corrupt solely because of their pre-existing ideology; that they’re not doing so on the basis of evidence. If all you’re saying is that there’s a correlation, I don’t disagree with that.

Well, you had to dodge # 363. As for the evidence that vested interests misdirect politicians, you could write a book about it.

Who cares, nullius? The facts speak for themselves. One’s attitude to the facts speaks for itself.

I know the previous link is bad…sorry.  Here is a nice interview about TFTS.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_UVDD7ErJ4

> Take Judith Curry for another example ““ initially a strong advocate for the IPCC, now a critic.

I’d like to see a quote showing Judy’s being an advocate for the IPCC.

Not “I was an advocate of the IPCC”: a real quote showing advocacy.

Since then, Judy is warning against scientific advocacy:

http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/30/activate-your-science/

willard, I am pointing out that NIV is a conspiracy theorist and consequently suffering from a credibility deficit. This is, to my mind, a central issue and one generally overlooked in our conversations. I do take your points, but perhaps you would do well to take mine.

NiV (364)  - Thanks – in general, that response is more of the type I find useful to engage with:

If all
you’re saying is that there’s a correlation, I don’t disagree with that.

Thanks for getting around to my point.

The main question I see here is whether you can say people only believe the IPCC process is corrupt solely because of theirpre-existing ideology; that they’re not doing so on the basis of evidence.

No. I would not be so absolute. Of course not.

I should have used more well-qualified wording earlier. You and I, I would guess, disagree about the extent of the correlation (I would say it is quite strong), but certainly it isn’t absolute, and I’m not suggesting causation (but that both tendencies are driven by the same causal mechanism). 

I don’t want to say that I don’t believe you –  I don’t know you personally and so have no reason to not take you at your word. But then again, I have to be honest that I find your description implausible because of your strong libertarian leanings. So what to do?

If you didn’t believe me the first time round, why should you believe what I say now?

Well – that’s why I brought up issues for clarification. That is why I explained my reasoning more explicitly by outlining my guesses.  To help me sort things out, why don’t you address those issues I raised that would suggest a linkage between libertarian ideology and an inclination to not trust the IPCC?

I have seen not a few a self-described libertarians outline exactly that linkage that I described. Why are you an outlier among libertarians w/r/t your view of the United Nations, “consensus” opinions among scientific groups, orientation towards centralized international policies directed at addressing climate change, etc.?

I didn’t think that was the case, since I and many other sceptics and lukewarmers I know have, at some point in the story, changed their mind about them. Take Judith Curry for another example ““ initially a strong advocate for the IPCC, now a critic.

Judith would be a good example (willard’s caveat is interesting – but I think it is reasonable to say that she was a strong supporter of the “consensus” perspective previously).. But she is a rare example. I have seen very little evidence of “many other skeptics and lukewarmers”… “on both ends of the political spectrum.”…. who have had trust in the IPCC eroded. 

How do we define “many?” Given that the world’s population is so large, can we call an tiny, tiny % of the world’s population “many?”

The climate blogosphere is a tiny minority of people. It is a self-selecting group who are highly engaged. This group is not particularly representative w/r/t their level of engagement. Now in that group, I would say there is a remarkably consistent pattern w/r/t political ideology and orientation towards the IPCC. 

So let’s look beyond the climate blogosphere. Outside the climate blogosphere,  people are less inclined to be strongly moved in either direction – which would suggest that very few people among the general public have had their trust eroded in any significant way.

Among those that have – I would guess are most are quite likely to have a strong ideological orientation –  just as I see a strong ideological orientation inside the blogosphere.  Indeed, polls show strong ideological patterns in belief on climate change. More than likely, the stronger the political orientation the stronger the impact on views on climate change and the IPCC.  Do you think it likely that there would be that type of correlation true for views on climate change more generally but not for views on the IPCC?

Analysis of samples who said their position was strongly moved by “Climategate” (a sample that is likely influence by a non-validated selection criterion, e.g., participants would likely downplay the extent of ideological influence as they’d rather think that their beliefs are based on an objective scientific analysis even if the aren’t.) show just such a pattern of ideological orientation.

I have actually seen evidence of a false claim of a non-ideologically oriented conversion w/r/t distrust in the IPCC.

Many times I have seen claims of an objective conversion only to later find an association with a strong ideological orientation.

So – yes, there are quite a few who make personal statements such as yours in the blogosphere but I have seen time after time where the  degree to which those experiences are somehow representative of a larger phenomenon look to be significantly overstated by “sketpics.”

And many of the times that I have seen statements of how “It wasn’t my politics it was my objective evaluation of the science,” it also becomes evident that those statements are being offered by people who are unusually focused on climate change and who have very strong ideological orientation. That doesn’t disprove the claimed irrelevancy of political orientation as a factor in belief about the IPCC for any one particular claim – but I’m sure that we can agree that in some cases it is likely a lie, and in other cases it is simply a reluctance to admit the truth, and in other cases people are just fooling themselves because they are blind to their own biases. This is completely consistent with what we know about how political, cultural, and personal cultural identities affect reasoning – even when we aren’t aware that they are doing so.

You, yourself, frequently talk of some vague differentiation between your beliefs and many “skeptics” in the blogosphere – which suggests you yourself are identifying your orientation as being out of the norm — even among a group that is out of the norm by very definition. 

Of course trust in the IPCC is correlated with inclination ““ there are ideologically-invested people who would forgive it any behaviour.

Very cute. Since this pattern has now been  established, I will develop an acronym for future exchanges. I will call this kind of statement a STSWMWCYAS (Statment That Shows Why Marlowe Would Call You A Sophist). At least in this most recent post, more of your comments rise above that level.

BBD,

I understand your point. There is no need to say to someone that you don’t take him seriously. And if you do, you must be prepared to show why you believe so.

Also, please bear in mind that it’s tough to prove a conspiracy. Would you be able to prove that Nullius is a conspiracist?

Finally, how would you respond to YesButClimategate? Because that’s what’s coming, if you insist on talking about conspiracies.

nullius

And everywhere it’s tried, annoyed sceptics pop out of the woodwork to object that they believe as they do because of evidence, they only care enough to argue about it because of politics. I’m not alone in being annoyed by the tactic.

How many times have I asked you to present your evidence? You never have, presumably because there it doesn’t exist.  All you ever do is wheel out tired old irrelevancies like the Mannean Hockey Stick – because it is *all you’ve got*. There’s no scientific case that the mainstream is wrong. Your previous counter to this was to argue that the dissent was being suppressed, which is bollocks as you know perfectly well.

Which leaves the insinuation of ‘corruption’, of conspiracy. But nothing else. No substance. No depth.

NiV -

I think Marlowe calls me a sophist because it’s a persuasive rhetorical technique. It uses the plausibility of an argument as evidence against it, without actually having to come up with any specific objections.

I think that part of what you are saying there is true – in that I often see the charge of “sophist” leveled in such a way. But I do think there’s something else at play. Your attempt at wry humor seemed much more to me like a rather useless avoidance of the point I was asking you to address.

Your comment on the connection between libertarian preconceptions and
the corresponding IPCC conclusions was one-sided, considering only how libertarians were predisposed to mistrust the IPCC independently of the evidence.

That is incorrect. I didn’t use sufficiently qualified language, but I extended the effects of motivated reasoning out in all directions.

I simply reversed the logic, 

As such, your attempt at humor was not a reversal of my logic, but a distortion of my logic – one which could have no real impact of advancing the discussion (except, perhaps, as being a useful object lesson unto itself).

and acted as if it were left-wing
preconceptions that led one to trust the IPCC independently of the evidence.

So this is one statement in a series of statements – others that follow that I will also comment on – that show a fundamental distortion of what I’ve been saying. I am saying that everyone acts in ways that are independent of evidence in the sense that the actions are a product of a motivated handling of the evidence.

And you objected, rightly; but shouldn’t I object just as strongly to you implicitly suggesting that it is not the evidence that has eroded the IPCC’s reputation, but our ideological preconceptions?

No – because I am applying that rule across the board – and basing it on what we know about the psychological and cognitive aspects of how humans reason.

If it turned out that the only people who didn’t trust the IPCC were of the libertarian/right, don’t the ideological predispositions of the left explain that as easily as those of the right?

If you would read what I am writing more closely, you would see that I have said that numerous times. You have been too busy deflecting the implications of what I am saying to “skeptics” and righwingers to see the full range of what I have said. Ironically, I would argue that your selective intake of what I’ve been saying is a evidence of the motivations behind your reasoning (no doubt, we could find a similar phenomenon in my reasoning).

This attempt to “˜psychologize’ the debate is just the latest phase in the war ““ having gained no traction trying to portray sceptics as ignorant amateurs, paid shills, conspiracy theorists and cranks, there is a concerted effort to show that sceptics are only sceptical because of the way their brains work ““ either saying there’s something wrong with sceptics, or that it is just normal irrational human fallibility. Chris Mooney was one of the first to move into the area, and I had many long debates over there on the subject.

Here, again, you show a propensity to show some of the motivations in your reasoning. What I am talking about is fundamentally different than the kind of phenomenon that Mooney thinks that he can identify. Further, even though they are fundamentally different, you can even find writing by Kahne and Mooney as to why they disagree about the validity of Kahne’s theory.

I have discussed this with you before, and told you before that you are invalidly linking what I’m saying to what Mooney is saying. In fact, I see some serious problems with Mooney’s claims. If you need more information about that, then ask. But why would you repeat this mistake? Well, one reason is that apparently you haven’t bothered to read about the issues enough to have a better understanding of them. That may or not be a product of your “motivations.” But another, I would say, is that your repeated mistake reflects how your motivations are biasing your reasoning.

So now we’re all trying to say
beliefs (meaning sceptical beliefs) are formed by ideology and motivated reasoning. And if they’re only doing it because their poor li’l Republican Brains are malfunctioning, it’s OK to ignore them and override their views.

Wrong, in many ways. In the very least that doesn’t resemble I am saying very much at all.

And everywhere it’s tried, annoyed sceptics pop out of the woodwork to object that they believe as they do because of evidence, they only care enough to argue about it because of politics. I’m not alone in being annoyed by the tactic.

See above.

It annoys left-wing climate sceptics too, to keep getting stereotyped as right-wingers. Steve McIntyre reports himself as left-wing, although he rarely refers to politics. According to the polls there are a significant number of them.

Irrelevant, for the reasons I’ve stated.

I think a lot of it is just that different groups have different sources of information, different trusted authorities, and find arguments and counter-arguments more or less accessible. You will read about a new climate paper in an article where the conclusions are summarised approvingly and the climate catastrophe implications highlighted. I will read about a new climate paper in an article where the data and methods are being torn apart. It’s perfectly natural to draw a different impression.

This phenomenon is not in the least separate from motivated reasoning. It is a phenomenon that rests on top of motivated reasoning. I really think that the problem here is that you are making assumptions about the concept rather than seeking to understand it. 

There is, clearly, a correlation between politics and climate belief. But I don’t think it’s as simple as just motivated reasoning, although it no doubt contributes.

This would be an interesting topic to discuss – but we can’t do that until you understand better what I’m describing as motivated reasoning.

You could say that people of different ideologies choose where to get
their information depending on their preferences, but then draw conclusions more rationally from what they find there. Libertarians and right-wingers mistrust the IPCC based on the evidence, but only libertarians and right-wingers would have gone looking for it.

Of course. You seem to think that somehow what you’re describing there isn’t subsumed by the concept of motivated reasoning. It isn’t.

And any time that you’d like to get around to explaining why you’re an outlier among “sketpics,” I’d love to read it. I have to wonder why you still haven’t answered that question.

#382,

“If you would read what I am writing more closely, you would see that I have said that numerous times.”

Where?

@274 BBD

 I am pointing out that NIV is a conspiracy theorist and consequently suffering from a credibility deficit.

Do you ever hear yourself. How about how the ‘rich’ are taking over the rights of US citizens..or the evil Koch Brothers…or how Republicans are in the service of Big Oil.You are the #1 commenter here that is incapable of accepting that others have ‘life perspectives’ different then your own. You are far and above the greatest lover of conspiracies and the clearly one the most offensive people on the internet.Before you came along people of differing life perspectives could have constructive conversations. Now it’s just a bunch of huff and puff moral indignaion and superiority nonsense.One of my best friends is a retired Russia Officer whose plattoon was pretty much decimated by an American made rocket in Afghanistan during the Afghan/Soviet conflict. (I don’t ‘wonder’ how the rocket got into Afghan hands and neither does he).We could have meaningful discussions about world affairs. There isn’t a meaningful discussion to be had about anything on a blog where BBD isn’t banned.

One way to defuse false psychology is with actual data from sources considered unbiased by all participants.One such source is the U.S. Department of Energy. Although they make mistakes they have not shown signs of bias in either direction when speaking of energy.With that in mind I offer a link to a chart of Heating Degree Days by Month from 1949 through 2010. This is a metric used widely to estimate demand for energy. The link is here: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec1_16.pdfSince 1949, the records for highest demand for each month has been 1978 or earlier, with the exception for December, when the record was 1989. There is lower demand for heating in recent years than previously measured. This tracks global warming theory–the number of very cold days in winter has been expected to decrease.However, the records for lowest demand for each month has only 3 of recent vintage–November’s record for lowest demand was in 2001, January’s in 2006 and March in 2000. Two records were set in the 50′s and one in the 60′s. Recent years have not been uniformly warmer than those in the modern record as measured by the DOE.Interesting.

Tom:  Energy as a proxy for temperature just verifies what most people not regularly commenting at WUWT or Bishop Hill already know.  The 70′s were cooler, it’s warmer now.  There is a very high probability that CO2 is responsible for a portion of that warming.  Psychology (see EDF-Columbia paper) and personal psychosis (my own paranoid conspiracy hero complex) is applied by everyone in the debate to frame and project probabilities of future prospects dominated by emotional and instinctual thinking.  There is no actual data to support these projections, just our own experience of climate, climate as documented in history and geology and highly sophisticated model ensembles of dubious predictive value.  One side believes that we must be free to invent our way out of any potential pickles, the other believes in unmitigated disaster lurking in phat tails unless government forces an immediate 180-degree flip to a carbon-free life.  

I make no “demands.” Of course it’s up to you to decide what you will and won’t do. If you don’t want to address the more significant points I’m making, that’s up to you. If you want to ignore questions repeatedly asked, it is up to you. If you want to distort what I’m saying to respond off-point, or if you want to respond to points related to Kahan’s work by saying that you disagree with Mooney, it’s entirely up to you. Of course you can decide to do all of that if you want to.

John -

Do you have a link for Fischhoff?

 While I see mt and Joshua stating that the fat tail of climate change
and disruption be considered, they have little but contempt for those who look at the fat tail of economic ruin and disruption.

Only some, John.I like to think that contempt isn’t a part of my processing at all, but I know that it is there sometimes. But I think you are overgeneralizing. If you can point out where you find “contempt” in what I write, please do so.

I think that the fat tail of economic ruin and disruption are worthy of investigation. That is precisely what originally drew me into looking at RPJr’s work. The problem I have is when confidence is overstated. Now my inclination is to think that any statement in that regard are overstatements – and that’s what I need to control for. But I think that when projections of economic ruin and disruption are well-qualified, I have no contempt for them.

The difficulty for me then lies in that I don’t have the brains or the skills to assess the full range of technical analysis. So, then, I look for “tells” of errors in reasoning process. When I see other statements being made that betray a weak attention to objective reasoning, then I speculate about the probability that such a pattern will be generalized. That is why I engage people in debate about the politics, to see how frequently they fail to carry out objective reasoning processes. When people are political extremists – (no matter which direction of extremism) – we can almost always find gaping holes in logic. 

When I then offer a window into how “motivated reasoning” has biased someone’s conclusions, and they then show that they are closed to the very notion that their reasoning is so biased, then I have what I think is a fair confirmation of the problem with their analysis. 

It is times like these I think Joshua should take some of his own advice, and words, and actually realize what they mean wrt himself and
the argument he is in.

No doubt. That’s (at least part of the reason) why I’m here. I offer my thoughts to you so that you can help me to gain those insights. You’ve been pretty good at that. For whatever reason (I have my theories), I have found that to be a rare commodity in these discussions. 

The irony is that it does not matter that the CAGW advocates started it first, as in the Mommyism: they did it first;

I agree that it doesn’t matter in as an issue of direct substance. But I do think that it matters when people think that they can say who did it first. For example, Climategate was not only a product of a apecific context that had well-identifiable antecedents, it also exists within a larger political context. It is only one example of many that display the same basic phenomena at work.

Who started it isn’t important. That people feel compelled to identify who started it is important, and the fact that people reach confident conclusions about who started it is just another manifestation of motivated reasoning. The only way that you can reach a determination of “who started it” is by ignoring the implications of motivated reasoning. It is in itself a nonsensical determination,  in addition to the fact that it “doesn’t matter” in that it is irrelevant to the process of making progress.

John (#394)

Without agreeing to assumptions or at least discussing them to see the differences, an honest and relevant discussion, of costs and effects, is extremely unlikely.

Agreed. Again, you go back to definition of terms as a necessary condition of honest discussion. I agree, I agree, I agree.

Now my question to you is whether you agree that same rule applies to the issue of “in the pipeline,” and whether any discrete reduction in rate of ACO2 emissions is not really a part of a solution (unless it is explicitly defined as one part of an overall effort to reduce ACO2 to practically nil).

I did not have much sympathy for MT’s arguments in that regard until I began to see how none of his interlocutors were really willing to agree to or discuss that assumption. I also have a sense that he has changed his tone in presenting his case, as well – which could also be a factor in my shift.

I must admit I could have qualified my statement as referring to a discussion between (titularly titled) adults. So okay, Joshua, parents can ask kids that question.

If you want to think my schtick is Climategate, go ahead. You won’t be the first to try and put my opinions in a box of your own sizing. You would be wrong, but that amounts to a minor error compared to some of the other things you write.

Your own schtick is pretty easy to tease out of any of your long and irrelevant comments–we can just go to comment #396, where you write that you  

did not have much sympathy for MT’s arguments in that regard until you began to see how none of his interlocutors were really willing to agree to or discuss that assumption.

There’s a word for that. It has nothing to do with the understanding you might get by looking at the level of understanding of the operation of the five great carbon sinks or how much remains to be done to improve that understanding.

Impressive use of brackets there, willard. 

> I’ve never seen someone say “˜it doesn’t matter who started the fight’ who didn’t start the fight.

Spot the fallacy.

Meanwhile, an audit showing that Joshua started the fight would be nice.

willard, {}. Not to mention <>. You’re pretty good at finding work for others to do. Do some yourself.

Rational conversations and willard’s participation have a low correlation coefficient.

> If you don’t want to exchange with me in good faith, why bother at all?

Deck stacking, ignoratio elenching, red herring, and springboarding are important tactics for gaming theorists.

Examples: ”" For now, I will repeat my assertion that an equation that says that cheap energy = fewer starving people is simplistic.”" It is not that all cheap energy betters all starving people; however, cheap energy = fewer starving people since even though not all starving people use FF or other energy, some do and due to near subsistance farming, would starve with higher energy prices. Another case are those who recieve surpluss as a result of excess, not all starving would be due to higher prices in energy causing fringe farmers to quit or switch, but that it would cause some farmers to react and thus some poor to starve. So, how could one make a simple argument to you if the conversation has to get to such a level? Another example: “”So here would be an example of what I’m talking about that ignores what institutional bias in the IPCC effects: “”A smart person making absurd overstatements that betray gaping logical holes that are a tell of motivated reasoning:

I’ve never seen someone say “˜it doesn’t matter who started the fight’ who didn’t start the fight.”"  

Joshua:”"Now my question to you is whether you agree that same rule applies to the issue of “in the pipeline,” and whether any discrete reduction in rate of ACO2 emissions is not really a part of a solution (unless it is explicitly defined as one part of an overall effort to reduce ACO2 to practically nil).”"           My answer: There are good physical reasons for both “believing” and “not believing” of the in the pipeline issue. I tend to fall in the middle as it can’t be much or it would be measurable, and would have been measured. I disagree strongly with those who oppose discrete partial reductions in ACO2 because it “locks in” emissions. I understand their point. However, I have not read any analysis to date that was believable that did not include ACO2 to grow our economy such that we can afford what humans really do. In other words, they are talking about Organians  and not humans, or their understanding of costs and benefits is horrid. Some are economists who make assumptions to such items as discount rate, economy of scale, social costs, environmental costs, or some such, that are truly extremely low probabilities as the BASIS! I would rather read sci-fi, at least it tries to be believable, and can be entertaining without thinking you are catering to an idiot. Whether that is in the mirror or the pages of the book, I opine not.

> This [They Started It is fallacious] would be true if there was not the institutional bias that was set up by the Rio Declaration and the precautionary principle. By locking in the discussion to preclude conservation of capital, they give up the backfall of being less than completely open and honest in their assessments i.e. just being human.

So “they started it” would make sense if they did not start it.

So this justifies pushing any limits of dis-ingeniousness, in this case begging the question.

Yet another important tactics in gaming theory.

***

Note, Joshua, how by begging the question put forward by your comment helps John F. Pittman coat-rack the Rio Convention, the precautionary principle, openness and honesty.

Is coat-racking part of ignoratio elenching or just springboarding? Tough question.

***

BDD,

Note how the concept of honesty suffices to insert intentional concepts into the discussion.

I believe this is what you have in mind when you talk about the C word.

Dishonesty entails one is beyond justified dis-ingenious. It would be interesting to know how far John F. Pittman will push the limits of justified dis-ingeniousness about honesty, and if he knows what he’s doing while doing so.

John F. Pittman,

Is that a challenge?

The last guy who told me I can’t read is not commenting in this thread anymore.

John F. Pittman

Odd remark about willard being ‘tribal’. Occasionally willard points out when my reasoning is less than crystalline, as is his prerogative (see above). He is good enough not to point to all flaws, and I am grateful. This is essentially useful and IMO intended constructively, but hardly the with us or agin’ us mentality implicit in tribalism. 

Risk management is as limpid as your “dis-ingeniousness,” except that RM is part of the science of engineering from the NSTB as recognized by the EPA, OSHA, and even international standards of safety. It is a continuation of ASME and other professional societies who were given the power to determine and enforce safety by many of the world’s governments. They have standards; and the preservation of capital is recognized as valid within the constraints of the standards. What are your postulates, system, and measurements for “dis-ingeniousness,” and what is its science, standards, and its history? You have not been specific. The first they is for skeptics, the second they is who wrote the Rio in the post 409. The point is that Rio precludes the conservation of capital by way of its postulates. The record of the Rio and climate science is that they did do “it” first. The Rio first got rid of a tool of risk management. The climate scientists did engage in restricting science through peer reveiw and data mangement, while claiming the opposite through the IPCC. The problem, besides invalidating the claim of openess and thoroughness,  is that the answer is biased with respect to conservation of capital. An example of this is not including items in the uninformative prior that CO2 induced warmth would be great for a number of degrees C, and we should take environmental risks in order to maximize warmth. This is not allowed by the Rio, and is specific in the precautionary principle due to risk. But if such a number of degrees C were true and desirable, then this optimum approach of maximizing is not allowed. BBD I consider him “tribal” in that he assigns such as dis-ingeniousn(ess) and does not define such that it can be discussed.

LOL BBD. I think it  is funny that peer reveiw did work, and that it as far as I can tell made the science better. Kind of what happened in the public discourse. As the failure of Copenhagen may actually lead to a better policy. Funny how that works.

Whose confidence in 3C sensitivity has increased? The believers already believed. The skeptics haven’t changed their point of view. It certainly isn’t statistical levels of confidence that have increased… So who changed their mind?

Quien es mas Macho?

JFP-

Our exchange seems to have gotten a bit out of hand, so I think I’d like to walk things back with you a bit to see if I can understand better what you are arguing. I think that part of that walking-back process would be to work a bit on definition of terms – something that you have stressed the importance of in the past (and in my view, a much overlooked key point in blog discussions).

I also do not dismiss the importance of Kahan and Kahneman. However, I
do think that Dr. Fischhoff’s work is more relevant. I note with irony that Fischhoff’s work directly addresses the communications issue that climate wars have devolved into.

I looked at the link you provided. Yes, it adds some depth to the application of the principles behind Kahan and Kahneman within the climate wars context. However, I don’t see what you find ironic about the application of his work. I don’t see why you say “However,” when you say that you find his work more relevant (suggesting a directionally-pointed nature to the contrast rather than just simply a contrast of depth which might be indicated with an “also” or “in addition” or a “perhaps more directly applicable,” instead of an “however.”). I  gather from your use of “however,” and your observation of irony that you see the information in the paper you linked as justifying a statement that “[they] did it first.” I don’t get that from reading the paper you linked. Could you elaborate?

And as you are doing so, I really think it is necessary to define “it.” When you say this….

The irony is that it does not matter that the CAGW advocates started it first, as in the Mommyism: they did it first;

I can’t get past what seems to me to be an ambiguous antecedent problem here. I shouldn’t have reacted, previously, to your statement without first clarifying. What do you mean by “it?” You do seem to add a qualifier in the next clause:

The irony is that it does not matter
that the CAGW advocates started it first, as in the Mommyism:

Does this mean the “it” is Mommymommyism? In other words, are you saying that the “CAGW advocates” were the first to say “they did it first” as a justification for their actions? E.g., “CAGW advocates” were the first to say “they did it first?”

Or, are you saying that “CAGW advocates” were the first to do “it?” In other words, they were the first to do something as opposed to say something - with perhaps “it” meaning: “CAGW advocates were the first to apply motivated reasoning.”

The antecedent could also be “communications issue.” Are you saying that “the CAGW advocates “started the communication issue“?

Maybe, based on the preceding sentence,  you are saying that the “it” the CAGW advocates started was the climate wars?

As a side note – I think there is also a problem in that “CAGW advocates” is pretty ill-defined. At some point that needs to be addressed also, but at another level asking you to address that might rightly be called sophism. I do, roughly, have an idea of what you mean by that – so it is at least a workable concept and not really a foundational definition of terms issue. However, I also do think that the term is in itself problematic and that those problems are important.

But that, as with the other points you raised, I think need to be addressed after I understand better what you’re referring to with these two basic foundational pieces. Again:

1) What is ironic about the information in the article you linked?

2) What do you mean by the “it” that the CAGW advocates started?

TomC, for willard, a dropout due to fatigue is a victory.

Tom Fuller @ 424

Whose confidence in 3C sensitivity has increased? The believers already believed. The skeptics haven’t changed their point of view. It certainly isn’t statistical levels of confidence that have increased”¦ So who changed their mind?

No Tom. Not ‘believers’. It’s the *scientists* that agree. The credentialled experts. Almost unanimously. This is why a scientific consensus has emerged over the last several decades that ~3C is the most likely value. Only contrarians, ‘sceptics’ and deniers reject this. The vast majority of these nay-sayers are not even scientists, let alone climate experts.

None of them has a shred of good evidence to support their claims that ECS is significantly lower than ~3C, which begs the question of what the hell they think they are doing.

They should by rights be ignored, but the politicised nature of the discourse means that these unsupported, fringe views are treated as if they actually carried the weight of scientific respectability.

All efforts should be directed at ending this dangerous state of affairs, not prolonging it. 

It certainly isn’t statistical levels of confidence that have increased”¦

Rubbish. See Annan & Hargreaves (2006).

Oh pathetic. But exactly what I’d expect given the facts outlined in # 432. 

Last time I saw a PDF of sensitivity estimates it had not narrowed, except to the extent that the fat tail at the high end was being removed gradually. It’s still 1.5C – 4.5C, exactly as it was in the 1970′s. 

JFP -I need to take this one tiny bit at at time:

Yes, Joshua and Willard, "it" is the climate wars with the accent on communications and communications strategy.

I have to stop right there in responding to your comment and go no further without clarification.I still don’t understand. Are you saying that the CAGW advocates “started” the climate wars? Are you saying that they were the first to accent communications and communications strategy? If so, I can’t agree. I assume that you have seen the documents that lay out anti-AGW communications strategies prior to the first IPCC reports? Do you disagree that  the debate about climate change has long roots in long-standing political battles?How could a method of communication have started with this one particular group? Aren’t various forms of communication as old as the hills? Aren’t the political battles being fought by proxy in the climate war much older than the theory of AGW?I’m really torn here because as I said,  I think that the debate about who started it is nonsensical. There is no realistic answer possible.  I see it as (effectively) childish and shirking accountability (no matter which side is making the claim).  I don’t want to engage in that battle, but I want to get to the other points that you made and to the argument you’re making about why it is important, and I can’t get there unless we reach some clarity on these fundamental points. Keep in mind that I’m not saying that everyone in the debate is
necessarily making these claims, and I  am not saying that some CAGW
advocates aren’t guilty as charged of engaging in battles.

BBD, I tried to claw that last comment back but it went through. My apologies.

Tom @ 439

Not to worry. We’ve all hit Submit a little too soon.

What’s instructive about this unfortunate slip is that your unedited response to # 437 contained *no references* to any published studies supporting your view. 

We all know that there are some studies you could reference, but none presents a serious challenge to the scientific consensus on ~ 3C.

So why hold an unsupported view on a serious matter that runs counter to the scientific consensus? 

Why?

#444,

“So why hold an unsupported view on a serious matter that runs counter to the scientific consensus?”

You should be telling us.

The scientific consensus is that the value is poorly constrained, the 95% interval ranging from 1-6 C/2xCO2, with the mode of the distribution skewed slightly to the left at 3 C/2xCO2.

You persist in misunderstanding the term “most likely”, thinking it means “likely”. It doesn’t and it isn’t.

Your view is unsupported and runs counter to the consensus position. And even the consensus position is poorly supported, relying mainly on the assumptions built in to models. But far be it from me to criticise you for being sceptical of the science…

Joshua, I would state that the politics has been the debate about climate change and other environmental battles long before the science came in on either side of an issue. You ask how could a method start with one side or the other, and  most, if not all, are old as the hills. My answer is that is why I tend to want to discuss what is in the Rio and what was stated, claimed, or promulgated.  Much of what you listed I consider little better than gossip. I agree that most considerations of who started it are stupid, if I may be blunt. But this does not include demonstrable institutional efforts whether it is Cato or the IPCC. Though, I find persons on both sides tend to ascribe motives which I think is suspect. I try not to claim “all” either and I assumed that if I stated that CAGW activists were claiming such and such that you would realize this was shorthand for I think the majority or concensus of the CAGW activists was such and such. In defense of who started it meme, I would point out that I usually talk about Rio and institutional bias, and it is a matter of record who started that. But I would note that there have been claims that skeptics were started by so and so, funded by so and so, and the claim made that this is the majority or actual make up of skpetics. I would point out sometimes it is relevant who started something and how, though I usually think of historical starts of war. But even there one can find all sorts of c**********y theories that I like to avoid. On the question of have I seen the documents that lay out anti-AGW communications strategies prior to the first IPCC reports? Yes, as I have seen the pro CAGW and socialistic communication and policy strategies prior to the first IPCC reports. But it is this point that I ask did the anti-AGW occur as a reaction to the CAGW and socialistic agenda that occurred prior to the IPCC? This would be a case as to why it is important as to who started what when.

There are no convincing cases for any specific value of ECS. Primarily because there is insufficient knowledge at present of the operation and constraints on the major carbon sinks.

What little evidence there is would equally support an argument that the biota comprising the planet’s environment have been operating in a CO2 starved state for geological epochs and are gulping down our emissions and expressing Gaian gratitude for our generosity, repaying us with calmer weather and promising us increased biodversity if we only will continue with our pumping it into the atmosphere.

Hopefully this will exit moderation shortly. Willard could you please check your that it was I who claimed (2) (1) Joshua says that Who Started makes no sense.(2) You claim that those who, like Joshua, claims (1) always Started It.If I did I apologize. If not, I did not make that case. I don’t think I can demonstrate an argument I did not make. I made the argument in 410 with repect the institutional bias being ignored was the same as what Joshua found fault with (2). Not understanding this bias can lead to “”"A smart person making absurd overstatements that betray gaping logical holes that are a tell of motivated reasoning:”" I left in the (2) statement from habit. I agree such a statement is a rhetorical jab, not really either a discussion nor an argument, just an assertion of perhaps some tactical worth. I would not agree that it is those who signed it Willard, but in the case of 410 my point of not accounting institutional bias can lead to a poor argument.

#447 Yes. That it could be co created is possible. Though it may be a matter of a reaction by one to a proposal by another. One of the points I like, or perhaps it would be a collary for the article I linked, is that this positioning should be expected with AGW. Because a percieved problem of AGW by CO2 would indicate a solution that effects most, if not all of mankind; and thus, one would expect tribes, camps, or a position in a Venn diagram that reflect their approach to risk taking. When one adds in the political, as in freedom or socialists attitudes (beliefs/values), I do not think a battle could have been avoided.

BBD, I think most luke warmers find the scientific concensus on ECS unconvincing. It may make them conservative in their attribution, but that is not the same as being unscientific. After all, in the literature, there is a range that goes from about 1C to 12C. This is the evidence that luke warmers use or point to.

BBD, nobody is saying that 3C is not plausible. It just is not more plausible than many other figures. 

BBD,

Nullius’ point (and kdk33 before him) is simply that “likely” and “very likely” have specific meanings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likelihood_function

Saying that one point can’t be likely makes no statistical sense.

As long as you stay away from this equivocation, I believe they have no case. That might explain why they do seem to use a Zero-Determinant strategy against you, and not against people who could use that same strategy against them, e.g. the authors of

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf

who rather say that

Many different approaches have been tried, but for the most part, even though most agree that the maximum likelihood estimate is close to 3C , they have also concluded that the upper limit of climate sensitivity is difficult to constrain, with most estimates unable to rule out a climate sensitivityas high as 6C at the 95% confidence level, and many reaching even higher levels [Andronova and Schlesinger , 2001; Knutti et al., 2002; Gregory et al., 2002; Forest et al., 2002; Frame et al., 2005].

All you need is a small terminological erratum, really.

I may have been unclear. With a probable range of about 2 to 4.5, they don’t necessarily agree to 3. The range is large. 

I won’t be providing one because I don’t have time to look up the suite of PDFs published that had the vast majority clustering around a value of 2C. I won’t be providing it because I don’t have time and because you’ll just say they don’t measure ECS. But neither does Hansen. He models it and the assumptions are too wide to depend on.

And understand me–Hansen might be right. But so might those who estimate 2C. And we don’t know the answer now. I hope we know it soon. But we don’t know now.

Tom

You won’t be providing any scientific case because none exists. So why the determined effort to deny the scientific consensus on ECS? It doesn’t make sense.

#462,

Don’t forget that the range 2-4.5 is the 66% confidence interval (‘likely’ in IPCC jargon) which roughly corresponds to a 1-sigma interval on a Normal distribution (1-sigma would be 68%). The common scientific convention when quoting uncertainties is to use 2-sigma, or 95%, which ought to be about twice as far out if the distribution is roughly Normal.

JFP -

We are clearly reaching a point of diminishing returns here. The conversation has become too fractured and repetitive to get much out of it at this point.Maybe just a couple more points for clarification:

But I would note that there have been claims that skeptics were started
by so and so, funded by so and so, and the claim made that this is the majority or actual make up of skpetics.

There is a gap between identifying specific antecedents in the early opposition to AGW theory and saying that is the majority makeup of “skeptics” at this point. In terms of the discussion of “who started it,” the claims being made about the makeup of “skeptics” now is not relevant (and certainly not relevant to what I am saying). As related to “who started it,” I am speaking to the specifics of the antecedents to the scientific debate about AGW theory, and the early politicization of the AGW debate.

But it is this point that I ask did the anti-AGW occur as a reaction to the CAGW and socialistic agenda that occurred prior to the
IPCC?

And my answer would be no. This all takes place in context. As far as I’m concerned, it is a fallacy to look to identify some discrete origin, and even more to look for an origin in the actions on one side but not the other. And even if it weren’t the evidence that I’ve seen is that there was a bilateral nature in the politicization from the very early stages. This is not the same thing as saying that there was no politicization in the early stages on the “CAGW advocate” side.

I understand your point Joshua. My interest and point appear somewhat different. Though, I did like finding a couple of good links in the discussion, so let’s go to  other threads and next time perhaps we can find another area of overlapping interest that will yeild a few more good links and papers. Perhaps we will find common areas of interest on the politicization from a different direction.

Someone repeatedly using the phrase ‘butt-hurt’ is a homeophobe. Just sayin’.

BBD,

Try shirt-rippin’. It fits Groundskeeper Willie really well. That and his ripped off shirt.

Besides, we’ll note that our Groundskeeper Willie still fails to own his tu quoque in #395.

Instead, we have yet another spitball.

Tom

Ah. Since you imply that I’m not being reasonable, I’ll bookmark # 439. Any more nonsense and I’ll take willard’s advice and rip me shirt! Woo!

This is getting silly nullius.

#481,

Thanks! It’s just a matter of lots of practice. That’s what BBD is for, after all.