I'm workin on it. brother. Makin headway. Distracted by Christmas shopping with the RedHead, who is also known at department stores everywhere by the nickname Slowverdose. Today, I have to put in some garage time trying to chase down electrical gremlins in the BMW K75 commuter bike. So it's an episodic effort at best. Hang on.
I gotta get this posted. Isn't so polished as I wanted, but time is dragging on.
Since I began this disquisition, one motorcycle ignition switch failed, another
motorcycle ate a clutch cable, water heater sprang a leak, upstairs shower
sprang a leak, upstairs toilet sprang a leak, all in rapid succession, while
work got insane and Christmas has us hopping. At this rate, if I don't post this
now it will never get done. Too much else to do every day.
Let me preface this with a vehement rebuttal to your preface:
"since our views seem to be very different .... was thinking "live and let live" ..."
Horse pebbles! If only! I could calmly stand aside, smiling into my sleeve,
while you own any silly opinion you want. That's how I work. Nothing I say
or recommend affects you or your pocket in the least. But that's not how
it works with you. Is it? You global warming fellers want to use this Chicken
Little claptrap as an excuse for carbon credit swindles, global wealth
redistribution, crippling new taxes in a time of retrenchment, experiments in
global fascism, one absurd scheme after another. The very last thing you guys
want is to live and let live. A big bald faced smiling lie! Don't even
trot that crap out. I only get to hold my opinion so long as I keep my mouth
shut and pay through the nose for your opinion. If you want to live or let
live then stop hocking my grandchildren's future to subsidize failed Volts,
solar, battery, water heaters, windows, windmills in the North Sea, UN
bureaucrats on junkets, and the whole nine yards.
So far as I know, no wannabe dictator of any debt raddled country has ever instructed
his EPA to regulate oxygen emissions as a hazardous substance. You can plant all
the trees you want and no one will stop you. There is no cash for tree trunkers
insanity. That's live and let live.
Live and let live. The Left? Buncha fascsit bastids. God that burns me up! Lies!
Lies! Bald faced effin lies! Every last project that passes through your numb
skulls starts out with taking my money and ends up with telling me how to live!
Nothing I propose would cost you a dime or push you around -- Libertarian, baby!
I gotta take a breath. That pisses me off. Live and let live. Shitt.
=============================
Buntaro
1) Can we know anything? "Predicting the “weather next Tuesday” and predicting long-term climate change
are two, very different things."
You are completely correct. I admit it. Mea culpa. I was way too hard on you. I
thought Tuesday was baby steps; Tuesday is banana steps. Baby steps is the next
glacial epoch. My bad.
It's no excuse, I know, but here's how I fell into that trap: We've got plenty of
practice at Tuesday, we have all week to observe, plenty of weather models, plenty
of TV ad money already in pocket to fund our best efforts. And best of all, if we
take a stab at Tuesaday, we will be able to know for certain whether we are
right or wrong somewhere round ... next Tuesday!
Whereas, for any long term climate prediction, shoot, we can only work from a handful
of too recent observations and guesses, we have to devise new untested models, we
have to drum up more government debt to fund our effort (luckily there's no shortage
of that), and best of all, if we take a stab at the glacial epoch we won't know whether
we are right or wrong until way after we are all long gone. But you're right. I went
too hard on you with Tuesday. Long term certainty would be way easier to predict.
What's the minimum we need? When does weather turn to climate? Will fifteen years do? Fifteen
years ago it stopped warming. Fifteen before that it stopped cooling. Fifteen before
that -- ice age on the way. Oops. Maybe fifteen isn't long enough. How long do you
need then? Fifty? How about a hundred? Tell you what, let's make this real easy:
You predict what the climate will be, on average of course, during the 23rd century.
Let's get together in the 24th and we'll decide where to go from what we've learned.
I can accept that.
Here's what I won't accept: I won't accept any assertion that we can only know what
is beyond our ken. After all, the question is: Can we know anything? Beyond our ken
is by definition unknowable. We have more credible witnesses to Sasquatch than we
have witnesses to long term climate prediction.
Did you ever read the book Shogun? There's a Zen archer named Buntaro in that book adept
at shooting while in a Zen trance. In one scene, he demonstrates his skill to the
book's protagonist at the dinner table. Calls for his bow, nocks one up, imagines
his gate post for a few, then pulls back the string and lets fly. The arrow whips
through his paper wall and disappears. Buntaro puts his bow away and continues to
shovel rice with sticks, unconcerned. No one goes to discover where the arrow landed
because that would be impolite. It is only when the protagonist leaves Buntaro's house
later that evening that he finds the arrow buried in the gatepost outside. Are you
Buntaro? Accurate at an imagined target through the wall of time? Maybe.
Me, I want to see the gatepost. Until then, put your projects away, live and let live.
=============================
Six out of seven dentists prefer...
2) Can we rely on our sources? "...let's look at who's taking action to respond to the threat of climate change. "
What threat? Climate changes. Get over it.
... and you follow this nutty remark with a link showing how Exxon and Chevron are all
up into reducing carbon emissions? Really? This is your line of argument? Dow Chemical,
Con Ed, the same Lockheed building the trillion dollar F35 boondoggle... How do you
hold these cats up as impartial examplars with a straight face?
"I hope that we can agree that someone who chooses to make a commitment to curbing
greenhouse gases has 'very likely examined the scientific evidence and reached the
conclusion that the risks of inaction outweigh the costs of action'?"
Would you also maintain that BP have impartially examined all the vacation
evidence and truly love the Gulf as a great tourist destination, so that's why
I see a spate of TV ads? That Phillip Morris, after exhaustive and impartial
investigation of the matter has independently decided they don't want you to
smoke, so they put a warning on each pack? That none of these feel pressure
from government to get in line or suffer the consequences?
I am speechless.
Well, it's my own fault, I suppose. I ought never to have introduced an ad hominem
argument into the mix. That's never good. However, that horse is out of the barn.
So let's look at who is taking action to respond to the pretended threat of climate
change. Here's a list of the Doha roster of experts (not my term -- theirs):
http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/roe/ . I don't ask you to count them, cause there's
thousands crowding exhorbitant Qartar hotel lobbies on the public dime at this point.
Just scroll down close your eyes and
click on countries at random. Here, I'll try if for you: Eyes closed. I nailed Andorra.
There's a hotbed of science. I get these experts: test TEST, sdfas, and kfjl;adj.
That can't be right. Lemme scroll down some more. Eyes closed. I hit Belaruss.
Okay. That's a bit better. I get
-- Yauheniya BERTOSH - Junior Researcher - Belarussian Research Center
-- Mikhail KALININ - Director - MInistry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
-- Lidiya N. OREKHOVSKAYA - Chief Specialist - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
-- Dennis RUDOV - National Inventory Compiler, Junior Scientist - Bel RC
-- Vladimir SHEVCHENOK - Project Manager, GEF project - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental
Protection
-- Olga VAVILONSKAYA - Research Officer - Belarussian Research Center "Ecology"
-- Vladimir LOGINOV
Not too bad. The GEF project googles up as "integrated solid waste management" in
the City of Grodno, funded by $70 million from the World Bank. No PhDs; but at
least we've got some Junior Scientists, one who even compiles inventories, and a
guy who's apparently logging off.
Try again. Eyes closed.
Marshall Islands has one expert. Espen from the Department for Economic and Social Affairs.
Social affairs on remote atolls in the doldrums are nice affairs if you like coconuts. I've
been to Majuro. A ring of sand round a lagoon full of trash and terds, sand never more than
a foot and a half off the water, a few peepul bushes, coconut trees, zero source of water.
Not even a nice place to visit.
Close my eyes. Wow. Korea has 81 junketeers.
Korea Environment Corporation is certainly well represented. Handing out plenty business cards I
suppose. OK, that's not fair. Maybe Jae-Young LEE, the only one so far who does have a PhD,
from the Korea Railroad Research Institute, may actually have a crapload of expertise to deliver,
railroad-wise.
Try this yourself. It's fun.
Here's a list of the Parties to the Convention attending the Doha IPCC conference:
http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/parties/items/2352.php
You count them up. How many countries in that list are hopeful of a handout? That's
right, handouts. Check this out:
The United Nations Doha Climate Conference resolved that developing nations should be
compensated for "associated loss and damage" from climate change caused by wealthy nations.
"Developing" nations can now sue industrialized nations in the International Court of Justice
for compensation from sea level rise, extreme weather, and any other crap they can dream up
caused by greenhouse gases. Who is on the hook? The US was the world’s leading emitter of
CO2 until 2007, when China took the lead. Unrealistic? Read Hillary Clinton in 2009, "We
acknowledge - now with President Obama — that we have made mistakes in the United States,
and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the
problem we face with climate change."
Live and let live?
Geological data shows that sea levels have risen about 390 feet since the last ice age
20,000 years ago. That averages two feet per century. Last century? Seven or eight inches.
Since Gorebull Warbling? Three eights inch. We are about to be sued by Tuvalu, Kwajalein,
Majuro, and other such god forsaken atolls where if the people had any gumption they would
have settled on an island with mountains, streams, and soil, because it is our fault the sea
rose three eighths. And the White House has already agreed we ought to pay.
I am not making this idiocy up.
These are the people "taking action to respond to the threat of climate change."
This is the action they are taking. This, my brother, is your live and let live.
I think they're out to skin us. I don't trust em. You?
=============================
Where's the Bear
3) Is it settled and 4) Is it science?
"Suppose you're right, and that it's not settled science… then what has to
happen for it to be settled?
A certain number of natural disasters in a week, sustained increasing global temperatures
for 100 years in a row, when all of the sea ice and glaciers have melted, when the tropics
are no longer inhabitable or agriculturally productive due to extreme weather and the Earth
looks like the scenes from Waterworld starring Kevin Costner? "
Jesus Christ, take a breath, dude. I hate to spoil the ending, but everything's going to be
okay. Waterworld? Did anyone even watch that epic nonsense?
Yes, a hundred years might do it, but only if things go right. Hey, I don't make the rules.
To be science, you have to test and experiment and repeat the results. A prediction of
a hundred years may require a hundred years to prove. Sorry, this is how everything else
gets proven. I was the one willing to cut you some slack and accept Tuesday, remember?
You don't like Tuesday. Okay. So. If not Tuesday, then what? You have to make your
prediction, watch it unfold, deal with the unexpected, and show that it works. That's
exactly how science works everything from drug trials to fuel pellets. Hey, especially
when your "sustained increasing global temperatures for 100 years in a row" begins with
15 years warming followed by fifteen years without any! And was preceded by fifteen years
cooling. All you are saying is you can't wait to find out. If you don't freak out and go
off the deep end now you won't have a chance to later. I don't care how many links you
linketty link link, that's still the essence of it. People have reached consensus on
dumber crap than this and had to eat crow. You cannot settle science predicting a dire
glacial epoch based on what happened for fifteen years, ending fifteen years ago. No.
Bottom line: I think what we have here is not enough bears. The human mind is geared
to face challenges. You drove a saber tooth out of the cave so Olga and the man chicks
could have a place to sleep out of the snow; now a cave bear wants in. You're out
hunting lizards for lunch, you hear a scream, run back, and find Big Bad Wolf is looking
for lunch as well. We're made for that. We need to face challenges. Some time back,
we got a handle on tigers and bears, so we began to challenge a wider world. When days
grew intolerably short, we gathered at the henge, drank loony potions, banged drums,
prayed in altered states of mind, fornicated in the bushes, and sure enough the days
lengthened, When a black disk ate our sun, we strangled a virgin on a high altar and
our Sun came back. Yay.
Now we have a problem: no problems is our problem. Neither bears nor wolves trouble
our humdrum. Even solstices and eclipses hardly break a sweat. This week many of us
will attend a Mayan Apocalypse party; but it will only be for mockery. Nobody believes
it is a bear.
Something is missing. Where's our bear? If we don't have one, we have to invent one.
Waterworld, forsooth.
=============================
Pick your poison
5)Do we know that the climate is warming? "Scientists are certain the Earth has been warming for 100 years."
And about here is where you begin to overwhelm me with internet links. Linketty
linketty linketty link link link. Dang, An avalache of stinkin linkin. It's a good
thing for you there was no internet back in the late sixties, when enviro-nuts wanted
us to freak out about the coming ice age apocalypse. Then I might be tempted to
avalanche you back.
I am not about to get in a link war. Look, at the very best, I could avalanche you
with links which you would deride as biased, innacurate, reactionary fringe loons.
You can go find them yourself. Just google up "global warming alarmism". But then
you would avalanche me with more linkage which I would regard as paid shills. And
back and forth we would get nowhere.
Here's the deal: How can it be settled if there are plenty of studies either way?
I'll even grant you can find plenty more than I can. Of course you can, since for
the last thirty years governments all over the globe have been ladling out grants
to anyone who can prove apocalypse? You know this is not impartial. I am not going to get
into a linkfest. I am trying to make sense of the main facts.
But any amount of stinkin linkin is not the point. I am more than happy to admit it's
warmer now than it was a hundred years ago. Everything depends what date you pick.
It's also warmer than 1965. It's also cooler than 1930. It's way warmer than the Little
Ice Age. It's also a whole hell of a lot cooler than when mammoths ate buttercups in
Siberia, and even significantly cooler than when Vikings grew hay to feed their cattle in
Greenland. That's what it does: It goes up and down. Don't freak out about it. It
happens. Up and down is normal. Seems like everything we know in nature goes in waves,
doesn't it? Nothing stays still. You want to pick a date to freak out about, why not
pick the Year Without a Summer, back in "eighteen hundred and froze to death", when
birds fell frozen from the sky and so many Yankees packed up to move west cause there
was nothing to eat at home. A phenomenon blamed on solar activity, by the way. It is
drastically warmer today than then.
Here's all I am saying: Ever since Global Warming Alarmism took hold, global temps
have hit a plateau. In our lifetimes, warmer, colder, warmer, then flat. Where's it
going next? Who knows? Nobody predicted the plateau we're at now, did they? If it
started to warm some more next year, I would not be surprised, but you GWAs would
crow intolerably. If it started to cool again, I would not be surprised, but you GWAs
would scramble for a million excuses why warming produces cooling, like you did when
Europe turned into an ice cube a couple years back. The only thing that would surprise
me is if it stayed the same for long -- but if it did you GWAs would still continue
freaking out. Admit it. Come on, admit it.
I miss the Al Gore Effect. Don't you? That was a whole lot of fun. Like Nature herself
was making fun of that fat conniving son of a bidch. Gave me something to chuckle
about every time I went to the gas pump and paid through the nose for that bastid's
gasohol boondoggle.
=============================
Linkalanche
6) Do we know why?
Here is where your avalanche of links leaves me struggling for breath. When it comes
to orthodoxy, I must cede the high ground. There is no way I can find the time to match
you link for link. That's not my approach Let me just propose a few pointed questions
for you to think on:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? -- Given that 95% of the planet's CO2
is trapped in the vast sea, while 0.117% of CO2 is contributed by man, which is more
likely, that water vapor releases CO2, or that man made CO2 swings the bat? That's a
mighty small bat to hit such a huge home run. Can this be why the ice record reflects
warming preceding CO2 and not the other way round?
How is it that when we ask what made it warmer in any other era we always get solar
activity or some such periodical business as a reasonable response, but when we ask what made
it warm 20 years ago we get man sinned against nature? How come every other time it
was natural but now it's us?
Being that we are 18,000 years into a period between ice ages, and ice ages swing by on
average every 100,000 years, wouldn't we expect it to warm over a hundred years anyway?
Which came first, impartial research or the well funded hysteria?
If global warming were blamed on anything not attributable to human activity, could we then
tax the living crap out of a terrified public, could we figure a way to set up, say, a
solar radiation tax credit exchange where we could swindle billions, could we satisfy
either the Luddite instinct or the recurring insistence by all apocalyptic fantasies
through history that the sins of evil Man will soon bring divine retribution?
But I don't care. None of this is essential to my point. And I am eager to get to the most
preposterous bit of your argument.
=============================
The Sky Is Falling
7) Is it a bad thing?
"Everything I've read says the opposite; yes global warming is a bad thing."
Then stop reading nonsense. Step outside for just a moment. Get away from your screen and
just enjoy the great outdoors. Is it too warm for you? We're gonna hit fifty degrees
this December day. I love it. I can remember couple Winters back we had snow up the wazoo.
I can remember fifteen years ago, when global warming was still called warming, and had
peaked, we had terrible ice storms. I had to chop ice off the key hole to start my
motorcycle. I'll take this.
I love this part: "Limit birth rates or lower life expectancy -- that's how we we would do it."
That is preferable to a navigable Northwest Passage, less heating oil, a longer growing season,
more arable land? You really need to give this lunacy up. Is live and let live the newest
Politically Correct euphemism for die early? I don't keep up with all the newest PC. Maybe it is.
Does what people really want carry any weight with you? Or is it all about "we" scientific
and political elite telling the rest of us ignorami how to live and when to die? Ask your average
guy whether he would rather retire to Florida's warmth and enjoy the grandchildren or die in
Saskatchewan before the tots are born. What do you think most people aspire to? I'm thinking
old age and Florida and a happy lapful. I might be wrong. I haven't asked any Saskatchewanders.
But I'll bet any cigar you name that's what they'll say.
At present, anyone who does not support the most radical solutions to supposed global warming
is deemed an irresponsible outcast and a tool of the evil oil lobby. I suggest to you that
if you're telling people they ought to put a screeching halt to industry, write fat checks
to Nauru, oh, and, by the way, die young childless, all to prevent milder winters, then, sign
me up for outcast. Couple winters back was miserable; I got my finger crossed for this one.
There's another way to look at this. Listen carefully:
I also suggest to you that if the outcome of warming is sure to be as dire as what you read,
then that outcome itself will soon effect your stated goal of limiting birth rates and lowering
life expectancy. If that is what you want, and it's going to happen if we don't do something
wacky, then let's stand aside and don't do anything wacky. If that's the alternatives,
what are you worried about? Seriously. Think about it.
=============================
The Sillygism
8) Can it be prevented?
You say "that's based on one's opinion" and "only time will tell" and conclude from that that
"yes, it can be prevented".
Come again? I musta missed this logic in philosophy class. Is that the one they call a sillygism?
- Major premise: I think so
- Minor premise: we don't know yet
- Conclusion: yes we can!
Sterling. Who shall we put in charge of effecting such precise logic. I know, how about the most
fumbling bunch of futile fruitless feckless fatuity on the planet -- the United Nations. After all,
they have amassed such an uninterrupted record of resolving issues between nations through diplomacy.
Might as well turn their boundless attention to topics they are even better qualified to handle.
What have they done so far? Twenty years into a crisis where if we don't do reduce CO2 in twenty
years we'll face disaster in a hundred years we have more CO2 every year.
What did they do in Doha? They prepared the ground for more talks in 2015.
Yes we can!
=============================
Typical Gummint Horse Manure
9) Do we know how to prevent it? and 10) Should we prevent it? "I'm tired and not going to spell it out for you,"
Too bad you ran out of steam here. I don't blame you. Trying to show that
government can do anything effective is a headache and will wear you right
out. That's for sure.
Showing the opposite is easy. I can go on all day.
The last Sylvania light bulb factory in America shut down last year because our wise
and benevolent gummint decreed that incandescent bulbs use too much electricity
in generating which we burn too much fossil fuel. We have to buy curlicue bulbs
from China because we cannot make them here because they contain mercury. Meanwhile,
here in my back yard, the last Saturn plant was shuttered by central planner fiat
and handed to a Finnish outfit owned by investors from Qatar named Fisker, along
with $580,000,000,
to build an electric luxury sports car charmingly named Karma, because our wise and
belevolent gummint decided for us that cars using electricity will save fossil fuel.
The Administration trumpeted that 5,000 jobs would thus be created. That plant is
still shuttered now. Between Fisker and battery companies like A123, we are out over
a billion. A handful have been made in Finland. None here. They cost $110,000 apiece
even after subsidies. Notably, Justin Bieber owns one, entirely chromed. Whether he
drives it we do not know, because they are infamous for catching fire. Battery power
did not work out, so the Karma was built as a hybrid with a BMW engine. Each Karma
does, however, sport woodwork made from sunken logs recovered from Lake Huron and
from storm felled trees on the Pacific coats. The interior carpet backing is also
100% recycled plastic fiber. We hope to strike a deal to avert the fiscal cliff which
was our deal to avert running out of debt so that we can extend the unemployment
benefits paid to the light bulb factory workers and Saturn workers so that they
can pay higher taxes on their unemployment benefits so that we can pay interest
on the bonds we sell the Chinese to get the money to pay the unemployment benefits,
subsidize Fisker, and buy curlicue light bulbs. The Chinese, in turn, bought A123.
I have not seen any scientific analysis comparing eveil sparkies saved by curlicues
versus good sparkies burnt by Fiskers.
So. Thats's green about the carpet and trees and Bieber is a teenybopper magnet, but
here's the thing: How does trading bulb sparks for car sparks reduce our so-called
carbon footprint?
Are we particularly inept? Are other coutries better? Are countries in the aggregate
better? How about this tale from the science channel:
A team of Australian agronimists and biologists got a grant from the UN to trek to
Mongolia to collect authocthonous chick-pea seeds. Yepper. Their premise was that the
native chick-pea which had been a staple of Mongolian diet for many centuries would
soon face extinction owing to the ravages of global warming. Therefore, the educated
master races had a duty to rescue some seeds, take them back to their lab and genetically
alter them to be more resistant to heat, then re-introduce them to Mongolia. Save the
world one chick-pea at a time. Alas, they couldn't find any chick-peas. Turns out the
ignorant aborigines of that retarded region gave up on chick-peas some time ago in
favor of wheat, which they found tastier and more productive. A chick-pealess Mongolia.
Spurred by the remainder of their grant, this team of intrepid scientists persisted
anyways until they finally encountered a two-toothed old fellow in a marketplace in
nearby Turkistan or Dagistan or some such hell on earthistan who sold them a handful
of chick-peas. I switched to cage fighting before they got back to the lab.
So. That's inspiring that our intrepid lab rats were so undeterred and all, but here's
the thing: How does any of this produce a salutary result which would not otherwise
ensue?
See, here is what we will accomplish if we do our determined government best: We will
multiply boondoggles and follow endless blind alleys at tremendous cost ad nauseum
without doing any good. Here's what we won't do: The leopard will not change his spots.
On the other hand, if we simply adapt, thw way the Mongols have, the way that even grolar
bears have, then big fat deal. It will all work out.
=============================
Apopemptic
I tell you, I'm with Lord Monkton, the quirky Brit who crashed the IPCC Doha convention.
I do not say he isn't a kooky old Brit. But that's one of the things we love about the
Brits, innit? Their supply of kooks over many centuries who are ready to stand up on their hind
feet and state the unorthodox to the unwilling. It is the secret of the island's inventive
genius from Newton to Darwin to Hawking.
I don't care about his million pound puzzle nor what rags he edited.
Monkton just makes common sense. Here's his report of what he had to say after he crashed
the IPCC Doha stage:
"On behalf of the Asian Coastal Co-operation Initiative, an outfit I had thought up on
the spur of the moment (it sounded just like one of the many dubious taxpayer-funded
propaganda groups at the conference), I spoke for less than a minute.
"Quietly, politely, authoritatively, I told the delegates three inconvenient truths they
would not hear from anyone else:
" - There has been no global warming for 16 of the 18 years of these wearisome,
self-congratulatory yadayadathons.
" - It is at least ten times more cost-effective to see how much global warming happens
and then adapt in a focused way to what little harm it may cause than to spend a
single red cent futilely attempting to mitigate it today.
" - An independent scientific enquiry should establish whether the U.N.’s climate
conferences are still heading in the right direction."
=============================
I've enjoyed the debate, but now I want to turn my attention to another topic, one which
I believe illuminates why we have such polarized politics these days, why liberals are
so eager to swallow every new untenable project such as this global warming apocalypse
while conservatives are so unwilling to relinquish every old untenable project such as
outlawing pot and why both these tendencies feed the real threat which continues
to be ignored so long as no one is willing to live and let live.
Comments
Let me preface this with a vehement rebuttal to your preface:
"since our views seem to be very different .... was thinking "live and let live" ..."
Horse pebbles! If only! I could calmly stand aside, smiling into my sleeve, while you own any silly opinion you want. That's how I work. Nothing I say or recommend affects you or your pocket in the least. But that's not how it works with you. Is it? You global warming fellers want to use this Chicken Little claptrap as an excuse for carbon credit swindles, global wealth redistribution, crippling new taxes in a time of retrenchment, experiments in global fascism, one absurd scheme after another. The very last thing you guys want is to live and let live. A big bald faced smiling lie! Don't even trot that crap out. I only get to hold my opinion so long as I keep my mouth shut and pay through the nose for your opinion. If you want to live or let live then stop hocking my grandchildren's future to subsidize failed Volts, solar, battery, water heaters, windows, windmills in the North Sea, UN bureaucrats on junkets, and the whole nine yards.
So far as I know, no wannabe dictator of any debt raddled country has ever instructed his EPA to regulate oxygen emissions as a hazardous substance. You can plant all the trees you want and no one will stop you. There is no cash for tree trunkers insanity. That's live and let live.
Live and let live. The Left? Buncha fascsit bastids. God that burns me up! Lies! Lies! Bald faced effin lies! Every last project that passes through your numb skulls starts out with taking my money and ends up with telling me how to live! Nothing I propose would cost you a dime or push you around -- Libertarian, baby!
I gotta take a breath. That pisses me off. Live and let live. Shitt.
=============================
Buntaro
1) Can we know anything?
"Predicting the “weather next Tuesday” and predicting long-term climate change are two, very different things."
You are completely correct. I admit it. Mea culpa. I was way too hard on you. I thought Tuesday was baby steps; Tuesday is banana steps. Baby steps is the next glacial epoch. My bad.
It's no excuse, I know, but here's how I fell into that trap: We've got plenty of practice at Tuesday, we have all week to observe, plenty of weather models, plenty of TV ad money already in pocket to fund our best efforts. And best of all, if we take a stab at Tuesaday, we will be able to know for certain whether we are right or wrong somewhere round ... next Tuesday!
Whereas, for any long term climate prediction, shoot, we can only work from a handful of too recent observations and guesses, we have to devise new untested models, we have to drum up more government debt to fund our effort (luckily there's no shortage of that), and best of all, if we take a stab at the glacial epoch we won't know whether we are right or wrong until way after we are all long gone. But you're right. I went too hard on you with Tuesday. Long term certainty would be way easier to predict.
What's the minimum we need? When does weather turn to climate? Will fifteen years do? Fifteen years ago it stopped warming. Fifteen before that it stopped cooling. Fifteen before that -- ice age on the way. Oops. Maybe fifteen isn't long enough. How long do you need then? Fifty? How about a hundred? Tell you what, let's make this real easy: You predict what the climate will be, on average of course, during the 23rd century. Let's get together in the 24th and we'll decide where to go from what we've learned. I can accept that.
Here's what I won't accept: I won't accept any assertion that we can only know what is beyond our ken. After all, the question is: Can we know anything? Beyond our ken is by definition unknowable. We have more credible witnesses to Sasquatch than we have witnesses to long term climate prediction.
Did you ever read the book Shogun? There's a Zen archer named Buntaro in that book adept at shooting while in a Zen trance. In one scene, he demonstrates his skill to the book's protagonist at the dinner table. Calls for his bow, nocks one up, imagines his gate post for a few, then pulls back the string and lets fly. The arrow whips through his paper wall and disappears. Buntaro puts his bow away and continues to shovel rice with sticks, unconcerned. No one goes to discover where the arrow landed because that would be impolite. It is only when the protagonist leaves Buntaro's house later that evening that he finds the arrow buried in the gatepost outside. Are you Buntaro? Accurate at an imagined target through the wall of time? Maybe.
Me, I want to see the gatepost. Until then, put your projects away, live and let live.
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Six out of seven dentists prefer...
2) Can we rely on our sources?
"...let's look at who's taking action to respond to the threat of climate change. " What threat? Climate changes. Get over it.
... and you follow this nutty remark with a link showing how Exxon and Chevron are all up into reducing carbon emissions? Really? This is your line of argument? Dow Chemical, Con Ed, the same Lockheed building the trillion dollar F35 boondoggle... How do you hold these cats up as impartial examplars with a straight face?
"I hope that we can agree that someone who chooses to make a commitment to curbing greenhouse gases has 'very likely examined the scientific evidence and reached the conclusion that the risks of inaction outweigh the costs of action'?"
Would you also maintain that BP have impartially examined all the vacation evidence and truly love the Gulf as a great tourist destination, so that's why I see a spate of TV ads? That Phillip Morris, after exhaustive and impartial investigation of the matter has independently decided they don't want you to smoke, so they put a warning on each pack? That none of these feel pressure from government to get in line or suffer the consequences?
I am speechless.
Well, it's my own fault, I suppose. I ought never to have introduced an ad hominem argument into the mix. That's never good. However, that horse is out of the barn. So let's look at who is taking action to respond to the pretended threat of climate change. Here's a list of the Doha roster of experts (not my term -- theirs): http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/roe/ . I don't ask you to count them, cause there's thousands crowding exhorbitant Qartar hotel lobbies on the public dime at this point. Just scroll down close your eyes and click on countries at random. Here, I'll try if for you: Eyes closed. I nailed Andorra. There's a hotbed of science. I get these experts: test TEST, sdfas, and kfjl;adj. That can't be right. Lemme scroll down some more. Eyes closed. I hit Belaruss. Okay. That's a bit better. I get
-- Yauheniya BERTOSH - Junior Researcher - Belarussian Research Center
-- Mikhail KALININ - Director - MInistry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
-- Lidiya N. OREKHOVSKAYA - Chief Specialist - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
-- Dennis RUDOV - National Inventory Compiler, Junior Scientist - Bel RC
-- Vladimir SHEVCHENOK - Project Manager, GEF project - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
-- Olga VAVILONSKAYA - Research Officer - Belarussian Research Center "Ecology"
-- Vladimir LOGINOV
Not too bad. The GEF project googles up as "integrated solid waste management" in the City of Grodno, funded by $70 million from the World Bank. No PhDs; but at least we've got some Junior Scientists, one who even compiles inventories, and a guy who's apparently logging off.
Try again. Eyes closed.
Marshall Islands has one expert. Espen from the Department for Economic and Social Affairs. Social affairs on remote atolls in the doldrums are nice affairs if you like coconuts. I've been to Majuro. A ring of sand round a lagoon full of trash and terds, sand never more than a foot and a half off the water, a few peepul bushes, coconut trees, zero source of water. Not even a nice place to visit.
Close my eyes. Wow. Korea has 81 junketeers.
Korea Environment Corporation is certainly well represented. Handing out plenty business cards I suppose. OK, that's not fair. Maybe Jae-Young LEE, the only one so far who does have a PhD, from the Korea Railroad Research Institute, may actually have a crapload of expertise to deliver, railroad-wise.
Try this yourself. It's fun.
Here's a list of the Parties to the Convention attending the Doha IPCC conference: http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/parties/items/2352.php You count them up. How many countries in that list are hopeful of a handout? That's right, handouts. Check this out:
The United Nations Doha Climate Conference resolved that developing nations should be compensated for "associated loss and damage" from climate change caused by wealthy nations. "Developing" nations can now sue industrialized nations in the International Court of Justice for compensation from sea level rise, extreme weather, and any other crap they can dream up caused by greenhouse gases. Who is on the hook? The US was the world’s leading emitter of CO2 until 2007, when China took the lead. Unrealistic? Read Hillary Clinton in 2009, "We acknowledge - now with President Obama — that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem we face with climate change."
Live and let live?
Geological data shows that sea levels have risen about 390 feet since the last ice age 20,000 years ago. That averages two feet per century. Last century? Seven or eight inches. Since Gorebull Warbling? Three eights inch. We are about to be sued by Tuvalu, Kwajalein, Majuro, and other such god forsaken atolls where if the people had any gumption they would have settled on an island with mountains, streams, and soil, because it is our fault the sea rose three eighths. And the White House has already agreed we ought to pay. I am not making this idiocy up.
These are the people "taking action to respond to the threat of climate change." This is the action they are taking. This, my brother, is your live and let live.
I think they're out to skin us. I don't trust em. You?
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Where's the Bear
3) Is it settled and 4) Is it science?
"Suppose you're right, and that it's not settled science… then what has to happen for it to be settled?
A certain number of natural disasters in a week, sustained increasing global temperatures for 100 years in a row, when all of the sea ice and glaciers have melted, when the tropics are no longer inhabitable or agriculturally productive due to extreme weather and the Earth looks like the scenes from Waterworld starring Kevin Costner? "
Jesus Christ, take a breath, dude. I hate to spoil the ending, but everything's going to be okay. Waterworld? Did anyone even watch that epic nonsense?
Yes, a hundred years might do it, but only if things go right. Hey, I don't make the rules. To be science, you have to test and experiment and repeat the results. A prediction of a hundred years may require a hundred years to prove. Sorry, this is how everything else gets proven. I was the one willing to cut you some slack and accept Tuesday, remember? You don't like Tuesday. Okay. So. If not Tuesday, then what? You have to make your prediction, watch it unfold, deal with the unexpected, and show that it works. That's exactly how science works everything from drug trials to fuel pellets. Hey, especially when your "sustained increasing global temperatures for 100 years in a row" begins with 15 years warming followed by fifteen years without any! And was preceded by fifteen years cooling. All you are saying is you can't wait to find out. If you don't freak out and go off the deep end now you won't have a chance to later. I don't care how many links you linketty link link, that's still the essence of it. People have reached consensus on dumber crap than this and had to eat crow. You cannot settle science predicting a dire glacial epoch based on what happened for fifteen years, ending fifteen years ago. No.
Bottom line: I think what we have here is not enough bears. The human mind is geared to face challenges. You drove a saber tooth out of the cave so Olga and the man chicks could have a place to sleep out of the snow; now a cave bear wants in. You're out hunting lizards for lunch, you hear a scream, run back, and find Big Bad Wolf is looking for lunch as well. We're made for that. We need to face challenges. Some time back, we got a handle on tigers and bears, so we began to challenge a wider world. When days grew intolerably short, we gathered at the henge, drank loony potions, banged drums, prayed in altered states of mind, fornicated in the bushes, and sure enough the days lengthened, When a black disk ate our sun, we strangled a virgin on a high altar and our Sun came back. Yay.
Now we have a problem: no problems is our problem. Neither bears nor wolves trouble our humdrum. Even solstices and eclipses hardly break a sweat. This week many of us will attend a Mayan Apocalypse party; but it will only be for mockery. Nobody believes it is a bear.
Something is missing. Where's our bear? If we don't have one, we have to invent one. Waterworld, forsooth.
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Pick your poison
5)Do we know that the climate is warming?
"Scientists are certain the Earth has been warming for 100 years."
And about here is where you begin to overwhelm me with internet links. Linketty linketty linketty link link link. Dang, An avalache of stinkin linkin. It's a good thing for you there was no internet back in the late sixties, when enviro-nuts wanted us to freak out about the coming ice age apocalypse. Then I might be tempted to avalanche you back.
I am not about to get in a link war. Look, at the very best, I could avalanche you with links which you would deride as biased, innacurate, reactionary fringe loons. You can go find them yourself. Just google up "global warming alarmism". But then you would avalanche me with more linkage which I would regard as paid shills. And back and forth we would get nowhere.
Here's the deal: How can it be settled if there are plenty of studies either way? I'll even grant you can find plenty more than I can. Of course you can, since for the last thirty years governments all over the globe have been ladling out grants to anyone who can prove apocalypse? You know this is not impartial. I am not going to get into a linkfest. I am trying to make sense of the main facts.
But any amount of stinkin linkin is not the point. I am more than happy to admit it's warmer now than it was a hundred years ago. Everything depends what date you pick. It's also warmer than 1965. It's also cooler than 1930. It's way warmer than the Little Ice Age. It's also a whole hell of a lot cooler than when mammoths ate buttercups in Siberia, and even significantly cooler than when Vikings grew hay to feed their cattle in Greenland. That's what it does: It goes up and down. Don't freak out about it. It happens. Up and down is normal. Seems like everything we know in nature goes in waves, doesn't it? Nothing stays still. You want to pick a date to freak out about, why not pick the Year Without a Summer, back in "eighteen hundred and froze to death", when birds fell frozen from the sky and so many Yankees packed up to move west cause there was nothing to eat at home. A phenomenon blamed on solar activity, by the way. It is drastically warmer today than then.
Here's all I am saying: Ever since Global Warming Alarmism took hold, global temps have hit a plateau. In our lifetimes, warmer, colder, warmer, then flat. Where's it going next? Who knows? Nobody predicted the plateau we're at now, did they? If it started to warm some more next year, I would not be surprised, but you GWAs would crow intolerably. If it started to cool again, I would not be surprised, but you GWAs would scramble for a million excuses why warming produces cooling, like you did when Europe turned into an ice cube a couple years back. The only thing that would surprise me is if it stayed the same for long -- but if it did you GWAs would still continue freaking out. Admit it. Come on, admit it.
I miss the Al Gore Effect. Don't you? That was a whole lot of fun. Like Nature herself was making fun of that fat conniving son of a bidch. Gave me something to chuckle about every time I went to the gas pump and paid through the nose for that bastid's gasohol boondoggle.
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Linkalanche
6) Do we know why?
Here is where your avalanche of links leaves me struggling for breath. When it comes to orthodoxy, I must cede the high ground. There is no way I can find the time to match you link for link. That's not my approach Let me just propose a few pointed questions for you to think on:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? -- Given that 95% of the planet's CO2 is trapped in the vast sea, while 0.117% of CO2 is contributed by man, which is more likely, that water vapor releases CO2, or that man made CO2 swings the bat? That's a mighty small bat to hit such a huge home run. Can this be why the ice record reflects warming preceding CO2 and not the other way round?
How is it that when we ask what made it warmer in any other era we always get solar activity or some such periodical business as a reasonable response, but when we ask what made it warm 20 years ago we get man sinned against nature? How come every other time it was natural but now it's us?
Being that we are 18,000 years into a period between ice ages, and ice ages swing by on average every 100,000 years, wouldn't we expect it to warm over a hundred years anyway?
Which came first, impartial research or the well funded hysteria?
If global warming were blamed on anything not attributable to human activity, could we then tax the living crap out of a terrified public, could we figure a way to set up, say, a solar radiation tax credit exchange where we could swindle billions, could we satisfy either the Luddite instinct or the recurring insistence by all apocalyptic fantasies through history that the sins of evil Man will soon bring divine retribution?
But I don't care. None of this is essential to my point. And I am eager to get to the most preposterous bit of your argument.
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The Sky Is Falling
7) Is it a bad thing?
"Everything I've read says the opposite; yes global warming is a bad thing."
Then stop reading nonsense. Step outside for just a moment. Get away from your screen and just enjoy the great outdoors. Is it too warm for you? We're gonna hit fifty degrees this December day. I love it. I can remember couple Winters back we had snow up the wazoo. I can remember fifteen years ago, when global warming was still called warming, and had peaked, we had terrible ice storms. I had to chop ice off the key hole to start my motorcycle. I'll take this.
I love this part: "Limit birth rates or lower life expectancy -- that's how we we would do it."
That is preferable to a navigable Northwest Passage, less heating oil, a longer growing season, more arable land? You really need to give this lunacy up. Is live and let live the newest Politically Correct euphemism for die early? I don't keep up with all the newest PC. Maybe it is.
Does what people really want carry any weight with you? Or is it all about "we" scientific and political elite telling the rest of us ignorami how to live and when to die? Ask your average guy whether he would rather retire to Florida's warmth and enjoy the grandchildren or die in Saskatchewan before the tots are born. What do you think most people aspire to? I'm thinking old age and Florida and a happy lapful. I might be wrong. I haven't asked any Saskatchewanders. But I'll bet any cigar you name that's what they'll say.
At present, anyone who does not support the most radical solutions to supposed global warming is deemed an irresponsible outcast and a tool of the evil oil lobby. I suggest to you that if you're telling people they ought to put a screeching halt to industry, write fat checks to Nauru, oh, and, by the way, die young childless, all to prevent milder winters, then, sign me up for outcast. Couple winters back was miserable; I got my finger crossed for this one.
There's another way to look at this. Listen carefully:
I also suggest to you that if the outcome of warming is sure to be as dire as what you read, then that outcome itself will soon effect your stated goal of limiting birth rates and lowering life expectancy. If that is what you want, and it's going to happen if we don't do something wacky, then let's stand aside and don't do anything wacky. If that's the alternatives, what are you worried about? Seriously. Think about it.
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The Sillygism
8) Can it be prevented?
You say "that's based on one's opinion" and "only time will tell" and conclude from that that "yes, it can be prevented".
Come again? I musta missed this logic in philosophy class. Is that the one they call a sillygism?
- Major premise: I think so
- Minor premise: we don't know yet
- Conclusion: yes we can!
Sterling. Who shall we put in charge of effecting such precise logic. I know, how about the most fumbling bunch of futile fruitless feckless fatuity on the planet -- the United Nations. After all, they have amassed such an uninterrupted record of resolving issues between nations through diplomacy. Might as well turn their boundless attention to topics they are even better qualified to handle.
What have they done so far? Twenty years into a crisis where if we don't do reduce CO2 in twenty years we'll face disaster in a hundred years we have more CO2 every year.
What did they do in Doha? They prepared the ground for more talks in 2015.
Yes we can!
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Typical Gummint Horse Manure
9) Do we know how to prevent it? and 10) Should we prevent it?
"I'm tired and not going to spell it out for you,"
Too bad you ran out of steam here. I don't blame you. Trying to show that government can do anything effective is a headache and will wear you right out. That's for sure.
Showing the opposite is easy. I can go on all day.
The last Sylvania light bulb factory in America shut down last year because our wise and benevolent gummint decreed that incandescent bulbs use too much electricity in generating which we burn too much fossil fuel. We have to buy curlicue bulbs from China because we cannot make them here because they contain mercury. Meanwhile, here in my back yard, the last Saturn plant was shuttered by central planner fiat and handed to a Finnish outfit owned by investors from Qatar named Fisker, along with $580,000,000, to build an electric luxury sports car charmingly named Karma, because our wise and belevolent gummint decided for us that cars using electricity will save fossil fuel. The Administration trumpeted that 5,000 jobs would thus be created. That plant is still shuttered now. Between Fisker and battery companies like A123, we are out over a billion. A handful have been made in Finland. None here. They cost $110,000 apiece even after subsidies. Notably, Justin Bieber owns one, entirely chromed. Whether he drives it we do not know, because they are infamous for catching fire. Battery power did not work out, so the Karma was built as a hybrid with a BMW engine. Each Karma does, however, sport woodwork made from sunken logs recovered from Lake Huron and from storm felled trees on the Pacific coats. The interior carpet backing is also 100% recycled plastic fiber. We hope to strike a deal to avert the fiscal cliff which was our deal to avert running out of debt so that we can extend the unemployment benefits paid to the light bulb factory workers and Saturn workers so that they can pay higher taxes on their unemployment benefits so that we can pay interest on the bonds we sell the Chinese to get the money to pay the unemployment benefits, subsidize Fisker, and buy curlicue light bulbs. The Chinese, in turn, bought A123. I have not seen any scientific analysis comparing eveil sparkies saved by curlicues versus good sparkies burnt by Fiskers.
So. Thats's green about the carpet and trees and Bieber is a teenybopper magnet, but here's the thing: How does trading bulb sparks for car sparks reduce our so-called carbon footprint?
Are we particularly inept? Are other coutries better? Are countries in the aggregate better? How about this tale from the science channel:
A team of Australian agronimists and biologists got a grant from the UN to trek to Mongolia to collect authocthonous chick-pea seeds. Yepper. Their premise was that the native chick-pea which had been a staple of Mongolian diet for many centuries would soon face extinction owing to the ravages of global warming. Therefore, the educated master races had a duty to rescue some seeds, take them back to their lab and genetically alter them to be more resistant to heat, then re-introduce them to Mongolia. Save the world one chick-pea at a time. Alas, they couldn't find any chick-peas. Turns out the ignorant aborigines of that retarded region gave up on chick-peas some time ago in favor of wheat, which they found tastier and more productive. A chick-pealess Mongolia. Spurred by the remainder of their grant, this team of intrepid scientists persisted anyways until they finally encountered a two-toothed old fellow in a marketplace in nearby Turkistan or Dagistan or some such hell on earthistan who sold them a handful of chick-peas. I switched to cage fighting before they got back to the lab.
So. That's inspiring that our intrepid lab rats were so undeterred and all, but here's the thing: How does any of this produce a salutary result which would not otherwise ensue?
See, here is what we will accomplish if we do our determined government best: We will multiply boondoggles and follow endless blind alleys at tremendous cost ad nauseum without doing any good. Here's what we won't do: The leopard will not change his spots.
On the other hand, if we simply adapt, thw way the Mongols have, the way that even grolar bears have, then big fat deal. It will all work out.
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Apopemptic
I tell you, I'm with Lord Monkton, the quirky Brit who crashed the IPCC Doha convention. I do not say he isn't a kooky old Brit. But that's one of the things we love about the Brits, innit? Their supply of kooks over many centuries who are ready to stand up on their hind feet and state the unorthodox to the unwilling. It is the secret of the island's inventive genius from Newton to Darwin to Hawking.
I don't care about his million pound puzzle nor what rags he edited. Monkton just makes common sense. Here's his report of what he had to say after he crashed the IPCC Doha stage:
"On behalf of the Asian Coastal Co-operation Initiative, an outfit I had thought up on the spur of the moment (it sounded just like one of the many dubious taxpayer-funded propaganda groups at the conference), I spoke for less than a minute.
"Quietly, politely, authoritatively, I told the delegates three inconvenient truths they would not hear from anyone else:
" - There has been no global warming for 16 of the 18 years of these wearisome, self-congratulatory yadayadathons.
" - It is at least ten times more cost-effective to see how much global warming happens and then adapt in a focused way to what little harm it may cause than to spend a single red cent futilely attempting to mitigate it today.
" - An independent scientific enquiry should establish whether the U.N.’s climate conferences are still heading in the right direction."
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I've enjoyed the debate, but now I want to turn my attention to another topic, one which I believe illuminates why we have such polarized politics these days, why liberals are so eager to swallow every new untenable project such as this global warming apocalypse while conservatives are so unwilling to relinquish every old untenable project such as outlawing pot and why both these tendencies feed the real threat which continues to be ignored so long as no one is willing to live and let live.