Bishop Hill Silent economics
Mar 16, 2015 Climate: WG3 Economics Foreign Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute, is up in arms today about an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by the Conservative peer Matt Ridley. Ridley's article, which extolled the virtues of fossil fuels, attracted Schmidt's ire because of one sentence in particular:
The next time that somebody at a rally against fossil fuels lectures you about her concern for the fate of her grandchildren, show her a picture of an African child dying today from inhaling the dense muck of a smoky fire.
Schmidt has variously described this statement as "totally abhorrent" and "asinine".
Conflating climate change concerns w/a disregard for African children dying from smoke inhalation by @mattwridley is totally abhorrent.
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) March 14, 2015
I fail to see why. Either we think that Africans should have greater access to fossil fuels or we don't. It is neither "abhorrent" or "asinine" to consider which of the two available options is preferable. It is a question of economics and morality - a subtle one but one that must be answered.
I'm sure economists will be able to advise us about the technicalities of weighing up costs in the present and costs in the past, but here is the essence. In the schemes favoured by the green movement the theoretical costs of climate change in the distant future loom large in the present; deaths from wood fires in the Africa of today look much less important, perhaps even fading into insignificance. The accusation is not, therefore, that greens are callous about deaths in Africa. It is that they discount the future so little that they end up treating wildly hypothetical harms in the far distant future as being of greater importance than real, actual harms happening today. This is a stark contrast to the attitudes and approaches among bad right-wingers, to whom those deaths in Africa look much more like a clear and present crisis. The future, we wickedly declare, can take care of itself.
I'm therefore unequivocal in my belief that the real benefits of fossil fuels far outweigh the theoretical harms. My response is a clear "yes" to more coal and gas for Africa. Schmidt, meanwhile, will not say one way or the other. Indeed, over the weekend, I asked my many climate scientist followers on Twitter to venture their own opinions, but not a single response was forthcoming. I think many people will find this attitude surprising, given the number of deaths from wood smoke in Africa. Recognition that fossil fuels are of vital necessity for Africans might be off-message; it might impact on funding; the "colleagues" might be upset. But silence in the face of such a death toll is inexplicable.
Some might even find it "abhorrent".
Bishop Hill
Gavin's considered response:
@aDissentient Yet another leap to conclusions that justify your pre-exisiting prejudices. And you wonder why no-one serious engages with you
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) March 16, 2015Doug McNeall's considered response:
@aDissentient *sigh* nobody engages with you because your attempt to frame this is so transparently cynical. @ClimateOfGavin
— Doug McNeall (@dougmcneall) March 16, 2015
@aDissentient See. So, nobody trusts that this is a discussion in good faith, so, bye. @ClimateOfGavin
— Doug McNeall (@dougmcneall) March 16, 2015
Reader Comments (152)
@"and then there's trolling."
So you, Doug and Gavin are concerned about energy poverty and its implications in the developing world. So you have established that you "care". OK, now what about policy?
What do you propose then? And how does this sit with an objective to deter and prevent the expansion of fossil fuel energy sources?
Let's start with something simple. Would you support a large scale investment in the cheapest for of electricity generation in these countries, regardless of its CO2 emissions? Or, would you require only technologies that constrain CO2 emission, even if it costs more?
You are clearly very averse to engaging with Andrew and his site.
MCourtney,
See, you really are proving my point. Furthermore, I suspect you don't even realise that you're doing so.
HoblinMango,
The question you pose, for any sane person anyway, is both rediculous and unknowable.
We could never know if saving 1 life today will kill 1000 in a hundred years time and seems more to be some kind of abstract question only ever taken seriously in the lofty heights of academia. It is the precautionary principle on its full bullsh1t glory!!!
As already mentioned the future will take care of itself THEREFORE saving that 1 life today MUST be the priority....won't someone just think of the children!?!?!
Regards
Mailman
@ATTP
"Firstly the framing of this debate in terms of those who might be concerned about the risks associated with climate change not being concerned about the fate of poor people in the developed world is appallingly insulting".
In Health Economics there is a well understood concept of Cost per QALY. This is central in decisions taken by NICE concerning which illnesses will get drugs funded by the NHS and which won't. If you are not familiar with this literature, see for example: http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b181
In no way does this mean that NICE are unconcerned about patients whose conditions don't meet the Cost/QALY hurdle. It just means they have limited resources and try their best to use them effectively. This, very clearly, involves making life and death decisions.
In much of the climate debate, there is no detailed discussion of alternate uses of the cash. It is perfectly reasonable to ask "Suppose we agree to spend £1tn on social welfare. Is it best allocated to reducing climate change damage or improving conditions in Africa today"? In no way does posing this question imply that we don't care about Africa or about possible climate change damage. It just means we are trying our very best to allocate limited resources to what we think is the most pressing case. Much like NICE.
"Ah, but it can all come from a tax on bankers' bonus'" I hear you cry. Well, maybe, but then you need to become an expert on optimal taxation policy. And now we really are a long way away from the expertise of climate scientists.
...and Then There's Physics, the point is people are dying now. Real people. Dead.
You seem to think the point is your feelings are hurt.
You are wrong.
Answer the question, what would you do to help the poor (if you really do care)?
I've given the answer that's proven to work in the past. You reject that... so what do you want to do?
Do you want to sulk and pout about not being given respect or do you want to earn some?
ATTP (Ken Rice) - just can't stay away though - must be hell trapped on his own blog with BBD, willard Dana, John Hartz
aTTP best wishes for your return to academia. Hopefully your students will just shut up and listen.
I think not a few readers here are wishing you would take your own advice.
MCourtney,
You really don't get this? It's not that hard. The point is that there is no possible reason why anyone with even the smallest amount of sense would bother having a discussion with someone who has already decided what the solution is, and has concluded that anyone who disagrees with them - or might disagree with them - is essentially arguing for the death of people in the developing world. Such a person is clearly not worth wasting any time on. Fortunately, it is my time to waste, as I am doing now. If you can't get this subtlety, it's hard to believe that you have the intellect, or basic decency, to have a genuinely serious discussion about what would be best for the developing world.
Even I'm not naive enough to believe that there's anything I could possibly say that would earn your respect or the respect of any of the regulars on this site. FWIW, this reflects more poorly on you, than on me.
There is no evidence that human beings are affecting the climate to a degree that can be measured. The destroyers will tell any lie they need to condemn modern civilisation.
Hansen's endorsee
Farnish writes
"The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization"
and
Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine. The process of ecological unloading is an accumulation of many of the things I have already explained in this chapter, along with an (almost certainly necessary) element of sabotage.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023339/james-hansen-would-you-buy-a-used-temperature-data-set-from-this-man/
@Mailman
You write: "We could never know if saving 1 life today will kill 1000 in a hundred years time ..."
While I write: "Given that we can't properly estimate either the probabilities or the level of damages, particularly in the tail, nor agree on the appropriate discount rate, there is no simple or uncontroversial way of balancing these claims."
Aren't we agreeing here?
You then write "As already mentioned the future will take care of itself ". Maybe, maybe not, and there is the problem, and why my position is not to like too much certainty in this debate whether it is on one side or the other.
.and Then There's Physics 's 'very clear that there is no intent to engage in good faith and the framing is clearly cynical.'
Now if you done psychology you know what you just done is 'projection ' .
And spare us the mock outrage until the day your happy to show such outrage about those who call for AGW sceptics to be killed , forcible tattooed etc or those who make jokes about children having their heads blown off for 'incorrect thoughts' about AGW.
...and Then There's Physics, I care about the poor. You say you care about the poor and so I talk to you.
I have given a solution to their suffering and said why I believe it will work. That is, because it has in the past.
You have rejected that solution because of your fears for the future and you haven't given a solution. I am desperately asking for your views here and you aren't giving it.
How is it in anyway cynical to say "In the past Greens I've met haven't cared about the poor but you claim you do so tell me what you want to do?"
Tell me what you want to do? At the moment you "arguing for the death of people in the developing world" because that is the status quo. If you don't want that - and you say you don't - then tell me what you propose instead.
Because so far we have a solution that's known to work. You oppose that solution and have offered nothing. Yet, still I ask, what is your solution? Because the status quo is not OK.
Well so far, that's true.But I'm giving you every opportunity to raise your game.
You say you care about the poor so do it. Tell us what you want to do instead of the proven solution of the past - economic growth and the cheapest energy (fossil fuels).
Once you start conceding the idea that people have died, are dying or will die, you have also conceded the basic argument. Namely that AGW exists and is dangerous.
MCourtney,
I haven't actually rejected your solution. In fact, I do think that fossil fuels will almost certainly continue to play an important role. I've simply pointed out that anyone who thinks that disputing your solution is essentially arguing for the death of people in the developing world, is someone not worth engaging with in a serious discussion.
Let me try and lay this out again, as this is what I thought the point of this post was. Framing this whole discussion as "my solution is the only way to help the poor in the developing world...anyone who disagrees with this is arguing for the death of people in the developing world" is appalling.
Similarly that you've ignored this point and immediately moved on to "present your solution" is an indication of bad faith, another theme of this post. As I think I may have pointed out in my first comment: I fully expect people here to illustrate my point, without showing any awareness that they are doing so.
[BH adds: Interesting use of quotation marks there.]
Getting somewhere.
We can agree that only fossil fuels will prevent third world deaths today.
Access to fossil fuels is the same as access to food and clean water and housing.
So what do we call people who oppose fossil fuels today?
The same as we call people who oppose food and clean water and housing for the world's poor.
You can't have it both ways.
You can't object to the idea that opposing fossil fuels is akin to wishing the deaths of the poor if that actually is the case.
I asked you repeatedly if there was another way and eventually you conceded that there wasn't.
It actually is the case - use more fossil fuels or condemn the poor to die - now.
So it's a fair comparison. Fossil Fuel opponents are arguing for the deaths of the poor today. And we shouldn't support them.
HoblinMango: I would place much greater importance (value?) on a human life today than one in the future for the simple reason that we know what physically affects us today. We don;t know what tomorrow will bring. This is the difference between adaptation and mitigation. Did the Good Samaritan see the injured man and go to the next town to start a movement to prevent future muggings? No, he cared for the injured man in his presence that day.
Talking to a friend & neighbour over the weekend who's travelled to Rwanda. Their 'Never Again' program isn't some words to try and prevent future atrocities, but is a wide range of practical measures now to address the issues facing people today; and one of the outcomes is good, economy building infrastructure (which needs energy to power). He reported that the roads were good (no potholes), and everything worked. I would think if Gavin were to go there and say they couldn't generate that power using fossil fuels, but had to rely on renewables or indoor wood/dung/kerosene burning, he'd be unceremoniously escorted out of the country (if he hadn't been lynched beforehand).
HoblinMango,
The only way the future will not be able to take care of itself is if we so destroy our economic base through pursuing the worst possible solutions to Mann Made Global Warming (tm) so as to bankrupt Western economies and return us all to the stone age.
To be honest this does appear to be the objective of many cstastrophiliacs.
Mailman
"Conflating Climate Change Concerns"
Does anyone besides me hear this screaming "I'm The Silly C's OF ClimateSpeak?
Andrew
I can't think of a clearer situation. ATTP disingenously says "Framing this whole discussion as "my solution is the only way to help the poor in the developing world...anyone who disagrees with this is arguing for the death of people in the developing world" is appalling."
However, as demonstrated, the EU and the Guardian and Myles Allen and who knows how many people have effectively framed the discussion as "let's curb CO2 emissions instead of helping the poor in the developing world", explicitly stating that black carbon ought NOT be a priority.
Case closed.
The only ethical choice is to remember our responsibilities to our fellow human beings, ie our own species.
The argument of the pseudo-environmentalist that we must "think of our grandchildren" is a spurious one. We are no more beholden to the next generation but one than our grandparents were beholden to us.
Every generation has properly seen the well-being of its own generation as its priority and given the advances that the human race has made I venture to suggest that they have all broadly got it right. The ethical choice is to do what we can for those alive today and the cost of providing the undeveloped parts of the world with clean, reliable energy would be less of a burden than the costs of implementing the Kyoto accord or any other of the scams that are currently lining the pockets of the already wealthy at the expense of the destitute.
Our blinkered attitude to the welfare of those peoples still broadly reliant on dung for cooking and forest clearance for land to scratch a sub-subsistence living is shameful. The future will take care of itself as it always has. We should be concerning ourselves with the actual well-being of those alive now, not the theoretical well-being of unborn generations.
The undeveloped world needs the benefit of the fossil fuels that made us the best-educated, wealthiest, healthiest, longest-lived generation ever and I cannot see why Schmidt and his cronies consider that they have a right to pull the ladder up and leave the rest of the world to rot.
Wittering on about CO2 doesn't hack it, I'm afraid. That particular scare has passed its sell-by date and if it hasn't then it's long past time that those who still believed in it started putting their money where their mouths are. The future of the undeveloped world ought to be a higher priority than unlimited travel, expensive oil-based (ie plastic) gadgetry, and all the other delights that the modern world (Schmidt and all the little hobbits that hang on every word of the Climateers as if it were gospel included) demands.
So what are the chances that this year's Conference of the Partygoers (© Willis Eschenbach) will actually be held by video conferencing? No? Hypocrites!
Whilst MCourtney keeps aTTP tied up it may be worth pointing out that the investment put into climate science over the past two decades would have been better invested in solving the problem of the worlds serious poor.
But.
The portrait that is now being painted is that the money invested in climate science IS solving the problems of the worlds serious poor because their problems are climate related.
The AGW(tm) is big business and rapidly gobbles up all investment for different causes by proclaiming it is the cause of all mankind's woes.
Even the UKMO has no qualms in promoting this theme:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/british-science-week
Even the poor of the world will suffer from climate change, even though they are starving, thirsty, dieing they will still be suffering from climate change AND THAT IS IMPORTANT.
That is important because without the constant recognition of AGW(tm) being the big bad problem then the likes of Gavin, Doug and weasels like aTTP just don't count for Jack s**t. They go back to being an employee, a number on a payroll that is bankrolled by an affluent society that has to most parts broken free of societal poverty by utilising cheap energy to make great technological leaps and bounds.
This kind of crap that the alarmists come out with when challenged really infuriates me. It is fine when the headlines are super cyclone devastates Pacific islands due to climate change with absolutely no proof, a death toll of 8 and a need to replace wooden housing but when thousands are dieing of malnutrition on a daily basis well they had better be aware of when climate change catches up with them because then they will really be in trouble.............
@@(***)++###~~$$!!
ps I have managed to find a grand total of 2 blog entries where ATTP mentions soot alongside death or asthma. I am not surprised, but I might be wrong. Countless participate in the neglected death of millions, and don't even realise it.
Intergenerational equity would mean to make all abortions illegal - think of how many children of children of children are prevented from being born by the death of each single fetus.
Not to mention the use of any resource by a human being now could make it unavailable to billions of human beings in the future - so that to be equitable, nobody ought consume anything at all, for ever.
I wonder how many greenies would be ready to go down those routes.
I agree with the Bish that this is a question that should be asked.
Not sure the answer is simple.
If Europe moves away from fossil fuels, the world price falls and the African poor would increase their use.
Then again, Europe's economies would grow more slowly, which would imply slower export growth from and reduced investment in Africa.
It is not clear which effect is larger.
aTTP your immediate contribution to the carbon footprint generated by this site, may have been noticed by the Central Electricity Generating Board.
Unfortunately Big Oil don't send cheques to sceptic blogs. Ask Joe Romm or Gavin for further misinformation.
Big Lies pay better than simple truth.
Planet Earth is not as easy to model, as a model planet, in a computer model. Discuss with your Phd students, if relevant.
ATTP: "Firstly the framing of this debate in terms of those who might be concerned about the risks associated with climate change not being concerned about the fate of poor people in the developed world is appallingly insulting."
You protest too much, as ever.
What is insulting to everybody is the predominance of the 'risks associated with climate change' in the development agenda in particular, and the political agenda in general.
It is insulting to the people in question, because in fact the risks associated with (Nth-order effects of) climate change are orders of magnitude lower than the risks from (first-order effects of) poverty. Even in High Mortality Developing Countries (HMDCs), being overweight is a far bigger problem than climate change. See the table at http://www.climate-resistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/whoWHR2002.jpg for many more examples. From a purely empirical perspective, climate change is perhaps the least significant risk factor in HMDCs. Climate change is a Western, mostly European preoccupation.
It is furthermore insulting to those people in HMDCs, because the argument for urgent action on climate change makes instrumental use of their plight, for political ends, by the likes of Barry Gardiner MP. See this post, for example. http://www.climate-resistance.org/2015/03/barry-gardiners-timetoact2015-photo-album.html The claim in Gardiner's argument seems to be that by mitigating climate change, poverty will be eradicated.
And such instrumental use of images of third world victims is insulting to us. It frames the debate in shallow moral terms, and precludes deeper understanding of development. Emphasis on 'doing something about' climate change makes us feel good about ourselves, while failing to understand what causes poverty in the real world. Smug ignorance is bliss. It is as if only CO2 could be abolished, and green lifestyles encouraged, the world would be peaceful and safe.
The truth of that claim can be seen by comparing environmentalists' arguments with actual outcomes. In 2009, Andrew Simms (of 100 Months, Guardian, and New Economics Foundation fame) wrote:
We have seen in the last few days what being "happy" on the green view means in Vanuatu. We can see also, that these events are being attributed to climate change, not need for development.
The reality of that claim can be further interrogated by comparing the outcomes of natural disasters of the same magnitude in different economic circumstances. Where a magnitude X phenomenon might kill tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people in a poorer region, it will barely kill a thousandth as many people in a developed economy.
The withdrawal of finance from power projects in the developing world is a demonstration firstly of the material consequences of prioritising climate change over development. Secondly, it is a vivid demonstration of precisely what you claim is not the case: that emphasis on climate change belies indifference to poorer people. You care about poor people with brown skin when they are victims of bad weather. The rest of the time, when they fail to serve as puppets in some kind of morality play, you want to deprive them of proven, but fossil-fuel powered technologies, which promise the potential to change their circumstances within a generation. In short: you want to make them *more* vulnerable to climate change, not less.
You have no right to feel insulted.
It is interesting that the population density in Africa is a lot lower than the USA, China, UK, Europe etc. All the regions have proportions of desert, mountain and forest that are broadly similar. Yet somehow the majority of the populations in middle and East Africa are starving. The USA does a stirling job of growing and sending grain to these populations yet at the same time, via the world bank, it seeks to impose financial restrictions on Africa to prevent it developing a modern Electricity supply and transport infrastructure through fossil fuel use. We now have the US government crying foul at the UK Government for supporting the Asia Bank which may unlock these funds for African development and break the stranglehold that The World Bank has been using to stifle Africa. The day that a Mum in Africa can turn on the electric cooker, and cook food for her kids without having to crouch over a pile of burning shit is long overdue. I suggest that Gavin, if he has finished playing musical chairs with Dr Spencer takes a trip to Ethiopia and pins a label to each and every child that he wants to die from respiratory disease and then comes back to his air conditioned, climate controlled office and thinks about whether he will sacrifice those children for the sake of a chimera of possibilities somewhere off in the future. Happily he is part of the irrelevant few and people like Modi of India and Wen Jiabao of China are going ahead with the improvement in their own peoples lives (in physical terms) and when they have achieved that no doubt they will take on Africa and the lower Asian States. At this point the USA and Europe will be screaming in frustration and throwing their toys out of the pram because they have lost their grip on reality and the world has passed them by. Much like we no longer bow to the Greek of Roman empires, the empire of the west will have gone into history.
Mar 16, 2015 at 2:48 PM | davidchappell
Entirely agree with you David.
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:28 PM | HoblinMango
Your 'difficult question' may be such, if you are taking an entirely theoretical question. However, as you say earlier we are considering a possibly large number of people with an unknown probability of suffering. Indeed we appear to be asking people to suffer now on the basis of an unproved theory, where the probable effects of the 'cause' that is being treated appear from the science to be becoming smaller and smaller. And, if the alarmists are really serious about solving the future problem (and not just stopping all fossil fuels at any price) why are they causing billions of pounds to be spent on, what are at present, non solutions (wind and solar). They know that the logical approach would be to continue with fossil fuels while serious research is made to find renewables that will provide dependable supplies (I include dramatic innovations in storage technologies).
As millions left jobless by carbon taxes shiver for lack of coal, and snow buries solar cells and freezes wind turbines solid, who pays UN political operatives billions to jet to tropical Nairobi to preach the big lie of global warming? They don't worry about spewing CO2 into the atmosphere because preading Antarctic sea ice proves climate is too complex for computers to model, and it only takes a pocket calculator to prove the consensus of 30,000 scientists that natural cycles, not plant nourishing CO2 from clean coal, are taking Earth into a new ice age which will force any surviving neanderthals who believe this sort of facile bilge to evolve into unicorns.
will someone please sent Gavin and Matt some Havanas ?
Pot kettle black. Being british gav will understand.
Ben Pile, it is every Green Luvvies right to feel offended, by anything, anytime, anywhere.
It is intended, that this be enshrined within EU Human Rights Legislation, punishable by death, because according to Green Luvvies, people who are sceptical about anything Green, have no human rights, as demonstrated by the peer review process. Therefore, by definition, discrimination is supported by peer reviewed literature.
AndThenThere'sFlouncing,
"I'm completely with Gavin and Doug here."
Gasp.
"I also agree with the sentiment that noone serious would possibly engage with this site and with the host of this site."
So, you're saying that you're not serious? It's something of a relief to hear that.
Ivor Ward: "At this point the USA and Europe will be screaming in frustration and throwing their toys out of the pram because they have lost their grip on reality and the world has passed them by. "
I don't think this can be understated. Europe is using the last of its remaining power in an attempt to slow the rest of the world down, so as to lessen the speed of its own decline.
I spent 4 years in Zambia in the early 70s and so experienced first hand the grinding poverty.
This lack of comprehension of the unintended consequences by the CAGW clique is something that should be thrown back into their faces at every opportunity.
Gavin, and the trolls here, consistently demonstrate atrociously poor comprehension, or mendacious duplicity. Nobody accused them of "not caring", rather it was being pointed out to them just how blinkered and stupid they are to not consider the unintended consequences of their actions.
"I'm completely with Gavin and Doug here." I don't believe there's a person on the planet who gives a FF what Khao Pad thinks, yet he turns up here telling us he doesn't believe we are worth engaging with. If you want to suck up to Gavin, Doug, Dana et al do it on their sites.
It looks as though Matt's hit a nerve here. Neither Schmidt nor McNeal have addressed the issue, they've focussed entirely on being outraged that they don't care about Africans. I don't believe they've thought about it. I've never seen any discussion on the problems for the third world of reducing fossil fuel usage either at real climate or Doug's blog.
I've often wondered why I am so concerned about the rising cost of energy being enforced to avoid unknown dangers in the future and clearly intelligent people in the climate science community aren't. We have evidence of countries like China and India bringing hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through the widespread deployment of cheap energy. It's clear that if Africa is going to join them then they have to follow the same route.
I don't know I've ever heard anyone, with the recent exception of Mark Lynas, in the cli-sci community mention the poor in any of their deliberations on climate change, or the its remedies and consequences. It just doesn't figure in their thinking - they'd rather throw insults at people who won't take their bizarre claims that they foretell the future.
It's all faux outrage. It's diversionary. They must, whatever happens, steer the conversation away from this hidden truth. This is the achilles heel of the entire religious movement of depopulation and de-industrialisation.
They know that this is not an argument they can win, on any level, least of which ethically. No matter which side of the debate you fall, there is no escaping the moral choice which the climate change debate forces us to make.
Unless we don't have the conversation at all, and the world sleepwalks into decarbonisation. And it IS to that end that the fearmongers MUST steer the conversation away from their (most) effective condemnation to death of millions in the under-developed world.
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:15 PM | ...and Then There's Physics
"I'm completely with Gavin and Doug here. Firstly the framing of this debate in terms of those who might be concerned about the risks associated with climate change not being concerned about the fate of poor people in the developed world is appallingly insulting."
Appalling or not, it is a fact that poor and underprivileged people are dying due to restrictive policies predicated on the premise that humankind is deleteriously affecting the climate. Difficult as it may be to understand, those people really don't give a fig about your or Gavin's or Doug's umbrage.
The models are not tracking reality. Things are not unfolding as you expected. What if you were wrong? What if all those people are being sacrificed for nothing? I suppose you will look at it in a detached way, and say you were following the science, and had no real choice.
The rest of us don't see it that way. We see that your models have failed. We see that a warming world would be of net benefit regardless. We genuinely believe you are acting out of ignorance and fear, and are little different from primitive tribesmen sacrificing virgins to the volcano.
ATTP - do you have a washing machine?
hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine?
I've never come across anybody in the renewable energy industry, who all justify their existence on tackling climate change by replacing fossil fuels with renewable generators (which don't do anything to reduce CO2 emissions anyway), express any concern for the impact that the increased cost of energy that they cause has on those in fuel poverty and in leading to extra winter deaths. The establishment "climate scientists", the renewable energy industry and the green blob are all dangerous hypocrites.
Richard, some might say that Europe has already done it's best to lower its own use, and thus depress prices in the rest of the world by taxing the bejeesus out of fossil fuel use for many decades.
Irrespective, what are your thoughts on the matter that the USA overtook the the European economies at least partly because the US produced cheap (hydrocarbon-based) energy for industry?
And is China rubbing its hands with glee at current western stupidity?
As far as I can see, the post by John Carter about McNeall's Twitter tactics seems not to be the joke that McNeall claims as we witness our local pedant slavishly following them. So far, I reckon he's ticked off at least three of them; while I am stuck at rule 1: The man's full of cr*p - which is the same as saying, full of himself - and posts accordingly!
ATTP is a pompous and boring ignoramus. One of the great joys I discovered some time ago that come after retiring from the teaching profession is that I no longer have to suffer the ATTPs of the profession bludgeoning anyone within earshot in the staffroom with what he fondly imagines to be his superior knowledge derived from his superior intellect and his superior qualifications gained at a superior university. In my experience, most schools become afflicted with one of these.
I believe ATTP keeps returning to this blog as he is lonely at his own.
All our modern comforts come from fossil fuels and Capitalism. Those who would deny these to the Third World are in effect, genocidal. Shame on them. They know who they are. Indeed, some of them post here.
Two old saying spring to mind:
"What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" and
"people in glass houses should not through stones".
Is this the sound of pigeons coming home to roost, for Gavin?
And The There's Ego....
Mar 16, 2015 at 7:07 PM | lapogus
=====================================
Oh ATTP I am sure enjoys all the comforts of the modern world. He just doesn't want other to enjoy them.
I don't use Twitter and really don't know much about it except an increasing number of people seem to make idiots of themselves because they don't seem to understand the speed that a comment on the internet or any social media platform can spread.
But do these numbers on the first tweet posted above : " 6 Retweets 9 favorites " give an indication that not many of Schmitt's followers really care on this rant? I'm assuming GS has a large number of followers.
Nero fiddled while Rome burnt
Climate scientists fiddled while billions were wasted on their research whilst people die in their millions from starvation and disease?
It is a fact that low downs always take the high ground before they fall. However long it takes.
What was it ATTP said to somebody he disagreed with? "Back up. And fuck off". Was that it, Ken?