Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/29/2012 8:18:58 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The threat of climate change is an increasingly important environmental issue for the globe. Because the economic questions involved have received relatively little attention, I have been writing a nontechnical book for people who would like to see how market-based approaches could be used to formulate policy on climate change. When I showed an early draft to colleagues, their response was that I had left out the arguments of skeptics about climate change, and I accordingly addressed this at length.
But one of the difficulties I found in examining the views of climate skeptics is that they are scattered widely in blogs, talks, and pamphlets. Then, I saw an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal of January 27, 2012, by a group of sixteen scientists, entitled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.” This is useful because it contains many of the standard criticisms in a succinct statement. The basic message of the article is that the globe is not warming, that dissident voices are being suppressed, and that delaying policies to slow climate change for fifty years will have no serious economic or environment consequences.
My response is primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change.1 I have identified six key issues that are raised in the article, and I provide commentary about their substance and accuracy. They are:
(Excerpt) Read more at nybooks.com ...
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Economist William Nordhaus takes a pop at the sixteen concerned scientists, in the latest skirmish kicked off by their Wall Street Journal editorial.
My response is primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change.1 I have identified six key issues that are raised in the article, and I provide commentary about their substance and accuracy. They are:
- Is the planet in fact warming?
- Are human influences an important contributor to warming?
- Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
- Are we seeing a regime of fear for skeptical climate scientists?
- Are the views of mainstream climate scientists driven primarily by the desire for financial gain?
- Is it true that more carbon dioxide and additional warming will be beneficial?
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CO2 is a pollutant because I say it is.
Oh, really? On the basis that Nordhaus argues from every species on earth has been polluting by its very existence since it first developed lungs.
And the day that the EPA actually becomes an independent objective scientific body will for sure be the day that pigs take to the skies.
And I agree with mac.
Mike Jackson **********************EXCERPT*********************************
Surely question 2 should be quantified - i.e. "How much of an important factor are human influences warming?" with a subsidiary question "Of the human influences, how much is due to CO2?".
Unfortunately Nordhaus quotes the IPCC as saying "“No climate model using natural forcings [i.e., natural warming factors] alone has reproduced the observed global warming trend in the second half of the twentieth century.” which says in other words human influence is >0
AndyL 
It's going to be getting cold.
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A typical warmist exhortation.
Starts with convincing and undisputed scientific arguments, but rapidly drifts into mass production of straw men like "Lysenko" and "Madison Avenue".
I stopped reading at The big money in climate change involves firms, industries, and individuals who worry that their economic interests will be harmed by policies to slow climate change.
No honest person could have written that.
Foxgoose ******************************EXCERPTS*******************************************
Mike Jackson, James Lovelock has been trying to reframe the production of CO2 from living processes as "pollution" for some time.
His argument is that lower forms of life unknowingly and blindly "pollute", whereas we should recognise that the very act of our existence is pollution (and presumably should be curbed).
As the BBC repeats:
"When bacteria started releasing it as a waste gas, a billion or more years ago, it was the worst pollution incident in the history of the planet."
Link to audio here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00d43dw
Skip to Lovelock's contribution at 08:30.
We must ignore the specialisation and diversity that this event prompted of course; statis is the only option, change is always counterproductive and evil
mrsean2k Author is knowledgable (or thinks he is) on one topic, and assumes that transfers to all other topics.
Too bad so many will bother listening.
for an issue that is supposed to be the cause the human civilization as we know it is "increasing important" the right adjectives? Should he use language like "immediate life threatening events" ?
Thin Air
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We not only live in the air, we live because of it. Air is about much more than breathing. It is a transformer and a protector, though ultimately also a poison. It wraps our planet in a blanket of warmth. It brings us wind, rain and fire. It sustains our bodies and at the same time it burns them up, slowly, from the inside. In this episode, Gabrielle Walker investigates the good side - and the bad - of two components of air: carbon dioxide and oxygen.
Carbon dioxide makes up a tiny fraction of 1% of air, yet it at once protects, transforms and threatens life on Earth. Carbon dioxide is infamous for its contribution to the greenhouse effect that is causing global warming. But without it we would both freeze and starve. It is also the basis of everything we eat. The mass of all plants and hence, the creatures that feed on them comes from carbon dioxide. Billions of years ago, as the young Sun began to warm, bacteria and primitive algae began their insulating blanket, fossilising the air as limestone, coal and chalk. Now we are releasing that carbon to the air again, double-glazing the global greenhouse.
The greatest transformer in air is oxygen. It is the giver and taker of life. Without it living things cannot be vigorous - or larger than a pinhead. Yet it is also the bringer of death. When bacteria started releasing it as a waste gas, a billion or more years ago, it was the worst pollution incident in the history of the planet. Life was forced to hide or evolve. Even though we have adapted to depend on oxygen, we are playing with fire. In a slow and mostly controlled way, oxygen burns up the food we eat. It also chars the genes, molecules and cells within us, bringing about ageing and, ultimately death.
Hotter (just in time to be reported before the 2016 elections). High sunspot numbers indicate greater solar activity (which may have some effect on Earth temperature)
I don’t know....but see #11.
Is the SUN, the source of all energy on our planet, increasing it's output?
Are human influences an important contributor to warming?
Important, yes, but Major, no. We can mess up the lower 200 feet of our atmosphere, in a localized area, like LA, but we have proven we can also clean it up.
Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
Have another drink of Coke. Then tell me.
Are we seeing a regime of fear for skeptical climate scientists?
Only through fear can the masses be driven to find a savior, which then allows the 'leaders' to rape and pillage in exchange for offering a solution, no matter the merits of the solution.
Are the views of mainstream climate scientists driven primarily by the desire for financial gain?
They have been put in a position where one gains financing based on the ability to lie for those who control the purse strings. That many have succumbed doesn't seem surprising.
Is it true that more carbon dioxide and additional warming will be beneficial?
Up to a point. Given enough time, I suppose we could develop more heat protective skins, and learn to breathe in CO2 and breathe out O2, but.... the Earth is fairly self-regulatory about the contents and condition of the atmosphere, so the only thing that might change is that plants will grow better (more food produced...oh my).
Good to see that global warming debate is officially “not settled”. The position for the warmist’s is in retreat from “they are all either fruit cakes or energy company dupes” to “we understand their arguments but we are still right and we have the following logical fallacies to support our position”.
Next stop will be the deconstruction of each logical fallacy used to support the alarmists agenda until the entire structure collapses.
I suppose that we should all stop breathing immediately and see how that works out for us? whatta bunch of drivel.
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* Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
As evidence that it is, Nordhaus quotes the US Clean Air Act:
The US Clean Air Act defined an air pollutant as “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive…substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” In a 2007 decision on this question, the Supreme Court ruled clearly on the question: “Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt ‘physical [and] chemical…substance[s] which [are] emitted into…the ambient air.’
It seems that by the US Clean Air definition of a pollutant, the biggest pollutant of all is oxygen, which most certainly is "a substance which is emitted into the ambient air."
I await Nordhaus's suggestions for ridding the planet of this troublesome pollutant.
Scottie The author completely mischaracterizes the skeptic case. Skeptics do not dispute that warming has occurred. The only issue is whether positive feedback causes warming to occur in response to CO2 in an amount far greater than the response predicted by actual lab experiments. Nothing in the article about that. Yet the positive feedbacks are the entire argument.
Then, I love this: (1) He complains that the big money in climate change doesn’t help the AGW professors. They work for the IPCC for free (aren’t they great). Then read footnote 1: “The author is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University. He has received support for research on the economics of climate change during the last decade from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Glaser Foundation.”
But it is the BBC pushing the Drivel.....
Geez....he is working off of Public money.
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