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Page added on March 29, 2017

The great cost of averting climate change

Scientists have published a road map of what needs to happen to meet the goal of restricting global average temperatures to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. For green investors and technocratic statists, it reads like a dream. For the rest of us, it spells certain economic disaster.

Modelling the climate – a massive, complex planetary system – may be the hardest problem we’ve ever tried to solve with computers. It requires collaboration between many fields of science, from meteorology and geophysics to advanced applied mathematics. There is far too little fine-grained data available even today; entire climate sub-systems are represented by “fudge factors”, and historical data for comparison is sparse and of low quality. Combining a multitude of causes and effects into reliable predictions has, to date, failed.

Most notably, these models did not predict a near two-decade “hiatus” in global warming. A few papers have tried to bust the narrative of such a pause, but the most prominent attempt, by Tom Karl et al in 2015, has turned out to be a fraud. It has come under intense fire over its methodologies, and for failing to disclose the dataset the scientists used, contravening the guidelines both of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for which Karl works, and Science, the journal in which he published. It is emblematic of some of the more controversial and politicised climate science with which the field is plagued.

Of course, one can learn from failures such as not predicting a 20-year warming pause. Scientists will adjust the models and feed ever more information into the computers. However, the dream of good long-term climate predictions remains a very long way off.

The climate establishment remains convinced that carbon dioxide, an essential atmospheric gas necessary for life on this planet, is the key driver of climate change. It has also decided, arbitrarily, that the world ought to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures by the year 2100, by curbing human emissions of carbon dioxide. Beyond this temperature rise, they say, the consequences for the climate will become dangerous.

To date, we’re less than halfway to this limit, although that doesn’t stop climate alarmists from attributing every spell of bad weather, every change in the natural environment, and even geopolitical events, to climate change.

The 2°C goal has been re-affirmed at several annual climate change jamborees held in exotic locations at taxpayer expense, where political delegates and their crony-capitalist hangers-on discuss how to influence policy to perpetuate their field and funnel funds to the green industry. However, attempts to forge a global treaty that would turn this goal into enforceable national policies have failed. So far, we only have vague and voluntary commitments from some countries to limit their emissions of carbon dioxide.

Now, a new paper published in the journal Science tries to lay out “a road map for rapid decarbonisation”. It tries to move from vague commitments that are difficult to link to real policy goals and actions, to specific targets for change by the end of every decade until 2050. This date was chosen because the paper believes that global carbon emissions need to peak no later than 2020 – only three years from now – and that “net-zero emissions around mid-century” are “necessary to limit warming to well below 2°C”.

It proposes a “carbon law”, analogous to Moore’s Law in electronics, that aims to halve carbon emissions every decade. If successful, this would return carbon dioxide levels to 0.038% of the atmosphere by 2100, from 0.040% today. (Yes, these are the tiny fractions that, apparently, ought to alarm us so greatly.)

Unlike Moore’s Law, which simply observed ongoing technological progress, a carbon law would have to be imposed by the state. It would require laws, taxes and subsidies to effect a great transformation in all industry sectors, to “[push] renewables and other zero emissions technologies up the creation and dissemination trajectory, while simultaneously pulling fossil-based value propositions from the market”.

Coal use will have to be phased out entirely in the early 2030s, and oil use by the early 2040s. In addition, net carbon emissions from land-use changes will have to fall to zero by 2050, despite continuing population growth and the desire of billions of poor people to achieve a better quality of life.

Even then, it’s not enough. The remainder of human carbon emissions by 2050 will have to be removed from the atmosphere. That means we’ll also have to build massive carbon capture systems that sequester carbon dioxide at double the rate that all plant life on the planet does today.

Unsurprisingly, the authors aren’t entirely convinced that their grand plan will work. “The gravest risk is that emerging economies, such as South Africa, are driven down the conventional growth path by sheer inertia,” they write.

Well, that’s true. But it isn’t sheer inertia that’s at work. It’s simply common sense.

All of the miracles of the modern world have been made possible by abundant, inexpensive energy. It has been the single greatest source of education, liberation and longer life. Without abundant energy, women would still be locked away at home, washing by hand and cooking over open fires that cause chronic lung diseases. Children would be unable to study at night and would still be working the fields by day instead of going to school. Our food supplies would be scanty and unhealthy without a refrigerated supply chain. Our health would be precarious and limited by what local healers could do with primitive equipment and medicines. Our life expectancy would at best be 35, as it was for wealthy English landowners in 1800. The vast majority of us would still live in grinding poverty, as peasants and serfs to a tiny class of rich people, most of whom wouldn’t even live that well themselves. Worst of all, we wouldn’t have universal access to Facebook and keyring laser pointers.

The infrastructure for this ever-expanding prosperity, which leaves a smaller share of the world’s population in poverty with every passing year, took many decades, and even centuries, to build. It consists of vast networks of cables, pipelines, refineries, power stations, mines and technology designed to use the sources of power we are able to produce.

The proposals in the decarbonisation road map would rip up most of this infrastructure, to replace it with zero-emissions energy such as nuclear power, solar plants and wind turbines. It would require a complete transition from internal combustion engines to vehicles fuelled by electricity, hydrogen fuel cells, or natural gas. A vast industry devoted to the manufacture, maintenance and refuelling of internal combustion engined vehicles would have to be rebuilt from the ground up, based on technologies that are today limited to very small niche markets. Large developing countries, like India, China, Russia and Brazil, would have to be on board with these changes, as would the world’s largest economy, the United States, which is headed in the opposite direction under its new president, Donald Trump.

And this revolutionary rip-and-replace strategy would have to be completed in a matter of 30 years or so. On a limited scale, this has been done before. After the devastation of the Second World War, Europe was rebuilt on this time scale. But it required great effort, came at a great cost, and needed the support of a wealthy benefactor that had not been destroyed – the United States.

The deliberate destruction and rebuilding on the scale contemplated in this paper is, frankly, astounding. The authors describe their proposals as “Herculean efforts”. That is an understatement.

The logical consequences are easy to anticipate. Vast amounts of wealth would have to be diverted to renewable energy sources. Even the best concentrated solar plants in the world, land-hungry as they are, produce only one 30^th of the output of a single coal-fired power plant. Renewable energy is not capable of supplying more than a few measly percentage points of the world’s total electricity demand today. Solar and wind power production are impossible to synchronise with power demand, so building it out would require dramatic new developments in battery storage technology, which to date exists only on a very small scale. Even more money would have to be funnelled into creating carbon capture technologies, which so far have proven complex and expensive.

Energy would inevitably become more expensive, as it has done for residential users in Germany under its vaunted (and precarious) “energy turnaround” plan. Because the poor spend a larger share of their income on energy than the rich, this would cost people in developing countries the most. Those who invest in or are employed by green industries might become richer, but it would be at the expense of everyone else. Much of the poverty-reduction project of the last half-century could be derailed.

So, the authors of the paper are quite right. A country like South Africa, which is already mired at 0% growth under present conditions, will pose a great risk to any rapid decarbonisation strategy. We simply cannot afford the upheavals that are the pipe dreams of rich elites in their ivory towers.

Even if we accept that climate change will pose a threat to us in the future, the nature and magnitude of that threat is unpredictable. A “road map for rapid decarbonisation”, by contrast, poses an immediate and grave threat to our chances at building a prosperous future, especially in a developing world which has yet to taste the fruits of full industrialisation.

As people get richer and technology improves, there will be a natural demand for more efficient, cleaner energy. But this is an organic process that cannot be forced, and cannot even be accurately predicted. It is not rational to mitigate an uncertain long-term future risk at the cost of certain short-term economic disaster.

We should thank the authors of this paper for making it clear just how dangerous the green project really is. The technocrats of the communist project of the 20^th century would have been in awe of the ambitions of the technocrats of climate change in the 21^st. Like the grand state-led economic engineering projects that preceded them, the failure of the green project is inevitable. But the longer we let them peddle their seductive delusions, the more harm they will do.

Daily Maverick

63 Comments on "The great cost of averting climate change"

makati1 on Wed, 29th Mar 2017 9:15 pm

“The general public truly lives in two separate worlds.

We have the world of the mainstream media, popular culture and political rhetoric; a world which constantly and desperately seeks to twist or destroy any legitimate measure of reality, leading people into a frenzied fog.

Then, we have the world of concrete facts; an ugly, brutal world that upsets many people when they see it and leaves them with little more than the hope that the most innovative of us will perhaps reverse the disastrous course, or at least, survive to carry on a meaningful level of civilization.

The sad thing is, if a majority of the population studied and accepted the world of fact, then preparation and intelligent or aggressive action might negate any destructive outcome. Reality only grows more ugly because we continue to ignore it.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-29/you-will-never-hear-these-truths-discussed-mainstream

The USMSM Iron Curtain at work…

dave thompson on Wed, 29th Mar 2017 10:11 pm

“20 year pause in temperature rise” is where I stopped reading.

Kenz300 on Wed, 29th Mar 2017 10:49 pm

The fossil fuels industry will do all they can to slow the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-electric-vehicles_us_56c4d63ce4b0b40245c8cbf6

Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire | Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924?page=2

How Exxon & The Koch Brothers Have Funded Climate Denial – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXm6ihnWN4A

Apneaman on Wed, 29th Mar 2017 10:51 pm

U.S. Communities Clobbered by $53 Billion in Extreme Weather and Climate Disasters in 2016

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/01/19/296860/u-s-communities-clobbered-by-53-billion-in-extreme-weather-and-climate-disasters-in-2016/

Apneaman on Wed, 29th Mar 2017 11:46 pm

As per usual they are a few years behind me.

We are facing crisis of extinction

Journalists and experts are using the term “extinction” in reference to the crisis facing our world.

http://www.cowichanvalleycitizen.com/opinion/we-are-facing-crisis-of-extinction/

You’ll only hear more of this as it becomes all to apparent what we have triggered and where we are going (bye bye). You’ll hear from less and less deniers, but the remaining ones will be shrill and stubborn even as they pull their kids face down from the next AGW rain bomb flood or as crispy critters from some, middle of December, mega wildfire wreckage.

Like I been saying for years the deniers will be scapegoated for all of it. You can already see it happening. Case in point, just look at what the King (con) of the liberal retards is laying on Trump.

Michael Moore says Donald Trump just began the ‘extinction of human life on Earth’

US President signs executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at tackling global warming

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/michael-moore-donald-trump-extinction-human-life-earth-a7656501.html

Now Trump may be one of the biggest pricks America ever produced and his denial and environmental roll backs will harm Americans in a number of ways, but the trigger for human extinction was pulled 250 years ago when industrialisation started. I will argue that it really started when the human brain evolved that last big cognitive leap some 100,000 years ago because it’s that abstract and insatiable reward seeking that is at the root. Last generations wants are this generations needs and the bar keeps rising and almost no one voluntarily slows or stops. How are humans any different than yeast in a petri dish consuming all the glucose and multiplying? The only difference I see is the yeast don’t spend half their time and energy spinning stories about how fucking great they are.

Obama did nothing to halt the growth of the Cancer and was a good US CEO in that regard, but at least when the AGW shit hit he did not ignore the victims and did something to help. Looks like y’all stuck with denier Cheeto now – on your own 100%

In wildfire’s wake, the president’s silence is deafening

http://www.hpj.com/opinion/in-wildfire-s-wake-the-president-s-silence-is-deafening/article_37dd790e-c968-51c1-bb89-43266f9a15ac.html

All you denier fucks are making things as bad as they possibly can be and people will suffer sooner and worse, in part, due to your efforts. Hopefully you and yours die first.

Apneaman on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 12:15 am

“Mananged Retreat” Underway In Coastal Communities Worldwide As Oceans Swell, Coastlines Erode

“Erosion, rising seas, ferocious storms and other coastal perils have prompted the resettlement of more than 1 million people worldwide, with an exhaustive new analysis highlighting an emerging migration crisis that’s worsening as global warming overwhelms shorelines.”

https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/mananged-retreat-underway-in-coastal-communities-worldwide-as-oceans-swell-coastlines-erode/

Plantagenet on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 12:49 am

The claim that we can pollute now and then “decarbonize” the atmosphere starting in 2050 is an example of “magical thinking.” The 2015 Paris Accords rely on this magical thinking, and now this new paper repeats it.

There is no way to “decarbonize” the atmosphere.

Cheers!

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 2:04 am

There is no way to “decarbonize” the atmosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afforestation

http://afforest4future.com/introduction-to-deforestation-forestation-afforestation-and-reforestation/

Proost!

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 3:13 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Maverick

Daily Maverick is a South African daily online newspaper founded in 2009 and edited by Branko Brkic and published by Styli Charalambous… Contributors include free market columnist Ivo Vegter, constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos… described it [Daily Maverick] as “unspeakably white and upper-middle-class”

OK, this article comes from South-African Cloggies aka “Boers”.

to replace it with zero-emissions energy such as nuclear power, solar plants and wind turbines.

Author omits the most important source of reliable non-fluctuating renewable energy with the largest potential to phase out fossil fuel: geothermal heat for space heating.

Apart from that there is still an enormous potential for energy saving via home insulation, replacement of old appliances with new energy efficient ones.

(My new fridge consumes 60 kWh/year, the old one 200; you can watch video on a 10 Watt iPad Pro rather than a 135 Watt Samsung 40 inch)

There are all sorts of developments (high speed internet, Skype, driver-less car) that enable the continued existence of a developed economy without the necessity of private car ownership. IT-infrastructure eliminates the need for commuting for a large share of the working population.

Online shopping will stimulate developments like these…

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/29/dutch-grocery-webstore-buy-2000-electric-delivery-vans-coming-years/

In ten years time when the driver-less infrastructure will be completed, you can skip the expensive driver as well.

Energy would inevitably become more expensive, as it has done for residential users in Germany under its vaunted (and precarious) “energy turnaround” plan.

So what? Germany can easily afford temporarily higher energy prices. As technological development proceeds, renewable energy will become ever cheaper thanks to economy of scale. And early adopters will make money in the future from their previous investments and acquired skills to produce new energy sources.

South Africa is 9% white, so will obviously not operate at the forefront of the global energy transition. In-your-face-blond Europe will however, regardless if the forum Florence Nightingale THALB from Mont Real, with her pink handbag, likes it or not.

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 4:46 am

“Michael Moore says Donald Trump just began the ‘extinction of human life on Earth”

Spare me the drama fat ass you and your liberal criminals who agree with science only to deny what that science means are every much the part in extinction. It get tired of the liberal stink. The Trump science denying crowd is just pulling a band aid off a culture that is centered on affluence and techno progress and this is especially true of the Michael (fat ass) Moore types. You want to talk green embrace poverty. If you want to talk solutions talk hospices and lifeboats. If you talk liberal hypocrisy I will spit in your eye.

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 5:10 am

“Can Trump Turn Back Time on Coal Mining Employment?”
http://tinyurl.com/kuy6c37

“Like many of his supporters, Trump blames Obama’s environmental policies for the coal industry’s decline, which, as our chart illustrates, started long before Obama took office in 2009. While it is true that coal consumption and mining employment did drop significantly during Obama’s presidency, experts keep pointing out that the decline was caused primarily by the rise of natural gas and only secondarily by environmental regulation.”

“In the late 2000s, a boom in natural gas production, driven by new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, drove down prices for natural gas and the demand for electricity produced from coal subsequently plummeted. In 2000, coal accounted for more than 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation. By 2016, that percentage had dropped to around 30 percent with natural gas going the opposite direction. When natural gas surpassed coal for the first time in 2016, the EIA concluded that the rise of gas “was mainly a market-driven response to lower natural gas prices that have made natural gas generation more economically attractive”.

“Repealing environmental regulation will likely slow down the decline of the coal industry, but it is highly doubtful that it will reverse a trend that has been ongoing for decades. By easing fracking limitations, President Trump’s anti-regulation policy may even worsen the coal industry’s situation as laxer extraction rules could drive down the price of natural gas even further.”

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 5:39 am

“Liberalism used to be about freedom but now is about a kind of warped moral authority that is actually part of the moral superiority movement.”

“American Psycho” Author Blasts Hollywood Snowflakes For “Childish Meltdowns” Over Trump”
http://tinyurl.com/n2bpyhw

“would like for all of his Hollywood snowflake friends to know that he’s absolutely sick of their unending “childish meltdowns” over Trump’s victory nearly five months ago and he would very much appreciate it if you would stop ruining every single dinner he goes to with you.”

“You can dislike the fact that Trump was elected, yes, definitely, and yet still understand and accept ultimately that he was elected this time around. Or you can have a complete mental and emotional collapse and let the Trump presidency define you, which I think is absurd. … If you are still losing your s— about Trump, I think you should probably go to a shrink and not let the bad man that was elected define your self-victimization and your life. You are letting him win. Barbra Streisand says she’s gaining weight because of Trump. Lena Dunham says she’s losing weight because of Trump. Really? You’re blaming the president for your own problems and neuroses?”

“Ellis goes on to blast the hypocrisy of the left and their “Resistance” movement saying that he would prefer to resist the “childish meltdowns I’ve been witnessing at dinners and on social media and on late night TV…For some reason I started thinking about the cost of Meryl Streep’s gown at the Golden Globes and the $30 million apartment she had recently put on the market in Greenwich Village.”

“Liberalism used to be about freedom but now is about a kind of warped moral authority that is actually part of the moral superiority movement. This faction of the left is touchingly now known as ‘The Resistance.’ Oh yes, the resistance. What is this resistance? There are posters all over my neighborhood in West Hollywood urging me to resist, resist, resist.”

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 7:07 am

Europe and to a lesser extent China are the only hope for fighting climate change:

http://www.morningstar.com/advisor/t/118871403/eu-chastises-u-s-for-undermining-climate-change-fight.htm

EU chastises U.S. for undermining climate-change fight.

Even Exxon-Mobile begging Trump to have mercy with climate:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/even-exxonmobil-is-begging-trump-to-show-the-environment-mercy

(Exxon-Mobile that’s oil and gas, not coal).

China supports EU in climate change:

https://www.aseanbreakingnews.com/2017/03/china-says-committed-to-paris-accord-as-trump-undoes-u-s-climate-policy/

https://eblnews.com/video/bernie-sanders-president-trump-climate-change-real-69728
“Bernie Sanders To President Trump: Climate Change Is Real”

forbin on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 8:06 am

410 ppm and rising – the ship has left , its too late

forbin

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 8:28 am

Climate change: China calls US ‘selfish’ after Trump seeks to bring back coal

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/30/climate-change-china-us-selfish-trump-coal

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 9:14 am

Let me rephrase it: Environmentalist need to leave their hypocrisy and embrace the reality of a failing planet. It is their pursuit of affluence through techno progress that is as much of the problem as the science denying Trumpsters. It is the fake news liberal green hypocrites that are spreading the word that oil sands are bad as they fly and drive all over the place. They enjoy their fancy houses and great food. Phony environmentalism is a joke and that is what 95% of green environmentalist are. They are all talk. Until environmentalist embrace poverty and real social justice all they are doing is parading moral superiority and believing they are right and just. We have plenty of finger pointing blame and complain here with little action.

This is just more of the same stuff throughout human history of groups who corrupted by power pursue agendas without actual substance. We can go all the way back to the bible and the scribes who forced obedience to the laws of Moses. Today we have climate talk but no action. We have hollow laws that are massaged with loopholes. We have people making these laws that don’t live them.

The reality is that there is likely little we can do in regards to climate. Populations are too large and economic alternative unworkable. A growth based system cannot degrowth all it will do is bifurcate into parts that will be much less capable to produce goods, services, and development. These are all the things a population needs and with less of this there will be a die off. Runaway negative feedbacks of climate, development, and social/political/economic decay will make our global civilization experiment very costly. We have dumbed down people. We have taken them away from the land. We have pillaged the planet. How can that end well?

How can fake liberal green environmentalist deny this reality? Until green liberal environmentalist practice what they preach they will get my scorn. Trump and his crowd are deplorable socially and environmentally but they are honest about it. They believe in this. That said any side benefits of renewable buildout, real social action, and real green activity gets my support. Not that I matter at all and I too am living in the status quo. My point is some good is coming out of the hypocrisy but fake hope and science is not one of them. Fake science is embracing the science until the solutions don’t agree with attitudes. That is where denial and hypocrisy enter the equation.

onlooker on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 9:38 am

Unfortunately,from my reading of humanity at this point, we will go to our collective species grave thinking technology will somehow solve “it”

joe on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 9:51 am

“Europe and China are our only hope”! When I stopped laughing my ass off I wrote this to say, if they are our only hope then we’re fu**ed.

All climate models are busllhit because they they are based on lies and they are are used to project a climate ideal which will never happen. Trump is right. The US is a powerhouse and why should China get a pass while America who worked so hard to take over the world be forced out? Lets leave a smoldering cinder for the jihadis to enjoy when its over. Saving the earth liberal crap is only denying human nature. Live in the real world peakoil.com

onlooker on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 9:52 am

Oh and all these figures are wildly optimistic. Dr. James Hanson said a 2C rise is a recipe for disaster. And does anybody truly think we will limit it to 2C? With feedbacks having already kicked in and with fine particulate matter disappearing once the world economy crashes and with the oceans ready to be sources of CO2 rather than sinks. If you do, your living in extreme delusion. I forgot and with humans addicted to and dependent on the modern fossil fueled world

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 9:53 am

Let me rephrase it: Environmentalist need to leave their hypocrisy and embrace the reality of a failing planet

What does this mean, a “failing planet”?

And what should we do to avoid being called a “hypocrite”?

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 10:03 am

Clog, give we a chance to quit laughing with a Joe and I will explain.

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 10:14 am

Trump is right. The US is a powerhouse and why should China get a pass while America who worked so hard to take over the world be forced out? Lets leave a smoldering cinder for the jihadis to enjoy when its over. Saving the earth liberal crap is only denying human nature.

Brit joe volunteers to confirm my point that the only hope for fighting climate change is in Eurasia, where Trump and joe are determined to leave posterity with a “smoldering cinder”.

Thanks joey boy. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Glad we got rid of you. Let’s prepare for a hard Brexit, which will consist of a British refusal of meeting its financial obligations, a subsequent blockade of Britain by the Continent and next many British firms following the example of Lloyds of Brussels and move to the Continent, together with Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

Interesting right-wing article about the Brexit-hoax:

http://newobserveronline.com/brexit-hoax-begins/

Non-white Immigration to Britain was entirely the work of London, of ALL parties, not Brussels. In a couple of decades will Britain be the most “diverse” country in the former West and True Brits the minority after 2066.

GregT on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 10:38 am

“Europe and to a lesser extent China are the only hope for fighting climate change:”

There is no fighting climate change Cloggie. We either put an end to modern industrialism and deal with the consequences of what is already baked into the cake, or we don’t. There is no middle ground. Considering the fact that we’ve already exceeded the 1.5ºC threshold set out in the Paris accords, it shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out where this is all headed.

“What does this mean, a “failing planet”?”

What does the word ‘catastrophic’ mean to you?

GregT on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 10:42 am

‘Glad we got rid of you.”

We’re all in this together Cloggie. No matter how you choose to divide humans along national, political, religious, or ethnic lines, we all live on the same planet. There aren’t any magical forcefields separating us. We all breath the same air, and drink the same water.

onlooker on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 10:57 am

Correct what Greg stated. I see that as a dividing line even here. Some of you stick with parochial or local viewpoints highlighting the advantage of one region or group over others. While, some here take the broader view of the whole planet and what is happening on the whole planet. Even Davy and Makati, sometimes have petty divisive discourses. Yet both also recognize the entire planet spectrum of problems for humanity. I think Clog, you would do well to re-examine your positions into a more broad viewpoint. The entire planet is connected and reliant on a planet whose prospects are fading and on a trade system which very soon can quickly disappear. Not to mention how use of force can play a role in interventions around the world.

drwater on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 11:15 am

There are so many lies in this article, it’s hard to know where to start. Get revenue-neutral carbon pricing with border adjustments in the US and Europe, and China and India will have to follow suit. Then everybody has a level playing field. Following on to Cloggie’s comment on technology, there doesn’t have to be a hit to the overall economy.

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 11:29 am

There is no fighting climate change Cloggie. We either put an end to modern industrialism and deal with the consequences of what is already baked into the cake, or we don’t.

Ending “modern industrialism” is not going to happen. The Paris Accords are the best you can hope for. And if that is not enough, well too bad then.

I think Clog, you would do well to re-examine your positions into a more broad viewpoint.

That’s all too abstract, too non-binding.

Europe aiming to get rid of 95% of 1990 CO2 output by 2050, now you are talking. That requires research, investment, installation and Europe is going to do it, with China in its wake.

If America wants to operate in the beta league, with 50 billion extra for “defense” and revitalize the coal industry, just to “Make America Great Again” (whatever that may mean) and no new alt-energy program whatsoever on the federal level… and as such make a global fool of itself, be my guest. Gives Europe and Eurasia a head start in the economy of the 21st century.

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 11:34 am

We have borders separating us and they should be enforced just to keep different people in different compartments. Don’t know about you, but I’m not to keen in fighting ethnic wars if I don’t have to. I have zero interest in following America’s example and get stuck with a depressed white population with declining life expectancy, just because some moral self-gratifiers insist that all people on this planet should live mixed lives. Thanks, but no thanks. No Kumbaya for me.

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 11:49 am

It is not all doom and gloom with climate change. Here a Dutch beach today, March 30, with 24 degrees Celsius (75F):

http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2017/03/heet_heet_heet.html#comments

Hot, hot, hot (graphic).

This was the warmest March 30 in recorded history.

Apneaman on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 12:05 pm

Another positive self reinforcing feedback. I can’t even remember how many that makes now.

The Arctic Is Turning Green at an Alarming Rate, and Scientists Finally Know Why

“As darkness absorbs more light than unmelted sea ice – which is bright and reflective in its pristine form – the proliferation of these melt pools has allowed unprecedented levels of sunlight to permeate the thinning ice and reach the ocean below.

The team’s simulation revealed that 20 years ago, just 3 or 4 percent of Arctic sea ice was thin enough to allow large colonies of plankton to bloom underneath.

Fast-forward to 2015, and nearly 30 percent of Arctic sea ice was thin enough to let phytoplankton blooms crop up in the summer months – and the melt is continuing to hit record levels today.”

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-arctic-is-turning-green-at-an-alarming-rate-and-scientists-finally-know-why

Get ready for the final lessons, a la Albert Bartlett, in the exponential function.

Dredd on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 12:55 pm

Yep, committing omnicide is so cheap eh?

BobInget on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 1:43 pm

Our weather here in arid, drought prone, Southern Oregon remains chilly and rainy. We’ve been exceeding rainfall (and snow) records since December.

Even deep critics of AGW have been wondering, how will our ‘Ducks” do this week-end. Last time Ducks made it this far, FDR was President.
Must have to do with Climate Change!

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 2:17 pm

Clog, not all whites are in decline in America. You forget we are a 1st/3rd world country more than any other country so your generalization are off the mark. In addition a very large country like the US has more room for diversity than Holland.

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 3:51 pm

UK greenhouse gases now 42% lower than they were in 1990

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-greenhouse-gases-fall-climate-change-a7658981.html

There was a six per cent drop from 2015 to 2016 due to a dramatic decline in the use of coal to make electricity, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) reported.

Electricity generation saw a decline of 54 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions compared to 1990, but those from transport have actually increased, albeit by just one per cent. Residential emissions have fallen by 15 per cent.

“Most of this fall is thanks to a big reduction in the use of coal to generate electricity, but the lack of progress on buildings and transport is deeply worrying.

Take that, doomers!

Boat on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 4:11 pm

Clog,

WTG UK.

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 4:27 pm

Clog, those numbers sound suspect to me….42% ???

Cloggie on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 4:29 pm

Davy, these are UK government figures.

#GrainOfSalt

Davy on Thu, 30th Mar 2017 4:37 pm

Alright, just there is a lot of fake and manipulated new these days

DerHundistlos on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 12:36 am

@ Davy: “Phony environmentalism is a joke and that is what 95% of green environmentalist are. They are all talk. Until environmentalist embrace poverty and real social justice all they are doing is parading moral superiority and believing they are right and just.”

For the umtenth time I am asking you to tell me who are these people you refer to? Name names and not one or two.

I know lots of caring and giving “environmentalists” who without their money and moral support the mass extinction crises would be many times worse. I have gotten to know these wonderful people thanks to their support for conservation work in Colombia. The people whom you condemn I know personally and they do not fit your ugly stereotype. These people are my heroes. Governments do very little to create wildlife sanctuaries so private individuals must step in and fill the void. These fine human beings do not have to give. You are so fucking wrong. You are constantly passing judgement about the most selfless and caring people in the world. Anyone actually making a demonstrable difference for life on Earth you routinely trash and hate. Man, you have some screw loose.

Davy on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 5:45 am

Der hund, you have eyes, look and you will see or not see. If you don’t see then you are the ones I speak of. Maybe it is you who are passing judgment and you who miss my point. Maybe some of those you know who are wonderful are of the 5%. I don’t know them so I can’t comment. I do know you have demonstrated to me denial and delusion found in self-righteousness. You think because you are an environmentalist you are right and others wrong. That is not for you to decide. Try showing some humility and respect and your great work will find new vigor.

Cloggie on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 6:08 am

Here more on (impressive) UK carbon emission reductions:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-cuts-carbon-record-coal-drop

They seem to be fairly independent from the UK government:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/about-us

The media parrot carbonbrief:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/uk-carbon-emissions-drop-to-lowest-level-since-19th-century-study-finds

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4366658/Britain-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-continue-fall.html

Well done, Britain. Let’s hope you keep up the pace after you have left Europe.

Davy on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 6:13 am

The Texas Ratio in Europe’s extend and pretend
“Here’s Why Italy’s Banking Crisis Has Gone Off The Radar”
http://wolfstreet.com

“For a country that is on the brink of a gargantuan public bailout of its toxic-loan riddled banking sector, or failing that, a full-blown financial crisis that could bring down the European financial system, things are eerily quiet in Italy these days. It’s almost as if the more serious the crisis gets, the less we hear about it — otherwise, investors and voters might get spooked. And elections are coming up.”

“But an article published in the financial section of Italian daily Il Sole lays out just how serious the situation has become. According to new research by Italian investment bank Mediobanca, 114 of the close to 500 banks in Italy have “Texas Ratios” of over 100%. The Texas Ratio, or TR, is calculated by dividing the total value of a bank’s non-performing loans by its tangible book value plus reserves — or as American money manager Steve Eisman put it, “all the bad stuff divided by the money you have to pay for all the bad stuff.” If the TR is over 100%, the bank doesn’t have enough money “pay for all the bad stuff.” Hence, banks tend to fail when the ratio surpasses 100%. In Italy there are 114 of them. Of them, 24 have ratios of over 200%.”

The Italian government knows that this approach could end up wiping out retail investors (otherwise known as voters) who were missold, in many cases fraudulently, subordinated bonds by cash-hungry banks in the wake of the last crisis, in turn wiping out the government’s votes. To avoid such an outcome, the government has proposed compensating those retail bondholders with public funds, just as the Spanish government did with the holders of preferente bonds. Which, of course, is in direct contravention of EU laws.

So far, the European Commission has stayed silent on the issue, presumably in the hope that the resolution of Italy’s financial sector can be held off until at least after the French elections in late April, if not the German elections in September. Then, if those elections go Brussels’ way, a continent-wide taxpayer funded bailout of banks’ NPLs can be unleashed, as already requested by ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio and European Banking Authority President Andrea Enria.

Cloggie on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 6:31 am

There is not going to be a “collapse” in Italy. What is going to change is that Italians will find out that they were not as rich as they thought they were.lol

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-19/bail-ins-coming-italy-world%E2%80%99s-oldest-bank-%E2%80%9Csurvival-rests-savers%E2%80%9D

#BailInNext

Davy on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 6:42 am

Just like Northern Europe. LOL #bail-in-next-next = 0

joe on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 7:34 am

Cloggie you keep trying to bait me with your assumption that im patriotic and will defend blighty against your idiotic drivel. I am here to be a witness to the death spiral opera that is western civilisation, to sit and watch powerless as our liberal politicans spit on the graves of the men and women who died in 2 world wars to keep antisemites from taking over the earth, go have another splif man and dream of a world that will never happen dude.

Cloggie on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 8:04 am

Well, you keep on insisting that Brexit is a mega-event that will cripple the EU, so a little patriotic you are alright. I’m happy to witness together with you the Death of the West…

https://www.amazon.com/Death-West-Populations-Immigrant-Civilization-ebook/dp/B000FA5QIG/ref=sr_1_1

…which can’t happen soon enough and start all over again with the nucleus Paris-Berlin-Moscow and perhaps a remnant of North-America (if they are lucky enough to be part of European civilization and not locked away in the Soros-Gulag).

to sit and watch powerless as our liberal politicans spit on the graves of the men and women who died in 2 world wars to keep antisemites from taking over the earth, go have another splif man and dream of a world that will never happen dude.

Exactly right. You could of course formulate the same essence in different word, namely that Anglos and Soviets, that is those whites who were conquered by the “Semites” early 20th century, took over the European core of the white race after WW2.

And now the Anglos are under threat of being wiped out by the very same people (hi George) on whose behalf they volunteered to do the killing of their white brothers in Europe. It must be extremely difficult to be proud to be an Anglo, if not impossible.

MAGA and Brexit are two vain attempts to revitalize old Anglo glory. Not going to happen. Every geopolitical top dog gets a century:

http://tinyurl.com/jmuygkf

There won’t be a third Anglo century ever again. The struggle for who will be the top dog in the 21st century is to begin.

This is the best voice in Europe, better than Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders, let alone Nigel Farage. Viktor Orban has it exactly right in his speech today for European conservatives. He is pro-EU, pro-Russia, pro-European man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3RJI8m93ZI
(English subs)

EU, Russia, Scotland, Heartland USA, united Ireland, that’s the winning formula for a resurrection of European civilization after the end of…

https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-Yuri-Slezkine-ebook/dp/B005646E32/ref=sr_1_1

Bye, bye Islamic London.
Welcome Lloyds of Brussels, the rest of British industry will follow soon:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/lloyd-s-of-london-picks-brussels-for-post-brexit-eu-headquarters

Cloggie on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 2:55 pm

As I expected: there goes Gibraltar:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/brexit-staerkt-spanien-in-gibraltarstreit-mit-grossbritannien-a-1141446.html

EU backs Spain in stand-off over Gibraltar.

Gibraltar was conquered by a combined Dutch-British fleet at the cost of the Spanish in 1704:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Gibraltar

But these power constellations are history.

It is obvious that any self-respecting great military power can’t allow to have an alien force control access the Mediterranean, the southern flank of the EU.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/31/outrage-spain-given-effective-veto-future-gibraltar-eu-plans/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/future-of-gibraltar-at-stake-in-brexit-negotiations

Life is getting interesting again.

DerHundistlos on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 4:31 pm

“You think because you are an environmentalist you are right and others wrong.”

Saving life on Earth is right PERIOD. Otherwise, what the fuck are you talking about?

Who are all these terrible libertard environmentalists you routinely condemn? You always make sweeping generalizations without any specificity. You are engaging in the same behavior as racists.

Davy on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 5:48 pm

Der hund, taking a jet down to Columbia to save the planet is killing the planet to save it. That’s what I am fucking talking about.

Boat on Fri, 31st Mar 2017 6:17 pm

Onlooker,

Tech has been a very powerful tool to solve many problems. Tech will not solve population overshoot. Tech will not affect religions that encourage large families. Tech does not set immigration policy, Tech cannot compete with countries who are willing to burn coal. Of course there are more examples. Humans are still in charge of tomorrow’s future.

The great cost of averting climate change

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