Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Brian H]

Breakable wrote:

There’s no possible way to reduce the nuclear guys’ costs by a factor of 10. ….

I’ve read a fair amount of Marx, btw. … “The state pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work.”

….

Well it seems you disagree that CO2 can cause global warming. In my opinion this is a job for a scientist.
I cannot refute your points, because I am not a climatologist, and don’t follow that debate closely. I can only offer a few more ideas to consider:
Would you think that all those scientists that defend global warming and CO2 link are perpetuating a fraud and falsifying their data/results?
Well plants love co2, what about mammals?
It seems we are still 2 orders of magnitude away from deadly levels, but the curve is exponential and there does not seem to be any changes from 1985. Anything needs to change? What about if we get some fusion power online and everything continues to be “business as usual”, is it ok?

I think its pretty important to agree that there is no complete model of our planet, and scientists cannot predict outcome to the changes in its atmosphere accurately, but if there is even a remote possibility that by a slight reduction the quality of living a catastrophe can be prevented isn’t it a good idea to take that chance?

Returning to Cap & Trade. We should talk about it only if we agree that CO2 is a problem and should be addressed. Now as I understand Cap&Trade;is a multinational agreement. It works best when all the countries are involved, but even if not it should alleviate the problem. There are technologies that can monitor the outcome such as satellites that can measure the CO2 emissions on the ground. Of course there are problems lots and huge (such as USA refusing to ratify Kyoto protocol), but they can be addressed more or less, sooner or later. If there is no better alternatives there seems little reason not to use this solution.

Some are fraudulent, some are following the money, and many are simply covering their butts. To “deny” is to kiss your grants and tenure prospects and publication hopes goodbye. The IPCC has about 20 of its 54 “contributing” scientists who have ANY background in “climate science”, and they review each others’ papers and research glowingly, and reject all others who dare to quibble. There are now thousands of QUALIFIED scientists who are either rejecting the IPCC models and conclusions outright or say that so little is known that no conclusions are justified.

As for the “precautionary” principle, it is to laugh. The IPCC’s own figures show that the proposed agreements MIGHT cut temperature by 0.2°C in the next century. Which is below the error bar of measurement accuracy of the global temperature system (notwithstanding that the models pretend to predict fluctuations of 0.01° );. And as the legendary genius Dr. Freeman Dyson points out in other publications ( yes, he has DIRECT involvement in some of the basic data collection and analysis that is the basis of the field ) , relatively minor adjustments of horticulture and silviculture would have many times the CO2 mitigation impact of even the most drastic human industrial restrictions, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

The whole thing is a venal sham.

Here’s Vaclav Klaus, President of the recently Obama-shafted Czech Republic in an interview:

* Q: On Wednesday, the European Commission (EC) has approved limits on carbon dioxide emissions for new cars. One week ago, the U.N. climate panel (IPCC AR4) released a report that has described, much like previous reports, the global warming as one of the major threats for the whole civilization. The Stern review about similar threats was published before that. At the same time, you decide to declare that the global warming is a myth. Try to explain, how did you get your idea?
* A: The idea is not mine. Global warming is a myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says so. It is unfair to refer to the United Nations panel. IPCC is not a scientific body: it’s a political institution, a kind of non-government organization with green flavor. It’s not a forum of neutral scientists or a balanced group of scientists. Its members are politicized scientists who arrive there with one-sided sentiments and one-sided tasks. Also, it’s an undignified practical joke that people don’t wait for the complete report that will appear in May 2007 but instead react, in such a serious manner, to the summary for policy makers where all the “ifs” and “whens” and “buts” are scratched, erased, and replaced by oversimplified theses.
* This is obviously such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians… If the European Commission were instantly going to buy such a trick, we would have another solid reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar matters.
* Q: How do you explain that we can’t see any other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would defend your viewpoint? No one else seems to offer such strong opinions…
* A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-tier politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voices.
* Q: But you are not a climatologist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?
* A: Environmentalism as a meta-physical ideology and as a world view has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or the climate itself. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Despite these facts, it is getting fashionable and this process scares me. The second part of the assertion should be: we also have plenty of reports, studies, and books of climate scientists whose conclusions are diametrically opposite.