re: The mass freakout over Bret Stephen's climate change article on NYT

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China is taking steps to improve their emissions situation.

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They are lying because they know if they can goad the U.S. (and its merry band of useful idiots) into adopting "tough emissions standards," it will be our death knell and the Chinese will keep on trucking (and polluting).

World's Worst Polluter Is Probably Emitting More Than We Thought

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I'm trying to figure out whether there's a broader principled skepticism toward science at play here, or whether it's a knee-jerk reaction toward something perceived as a liberal cause.

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I've just given you SIX separate and distinct FACTUAL basis for questioning this scam and you think my reaction is knee-jerk?

Why is it that NO AMOUNT OF FACTS and EVIDENCE can convince you that this cult is a complete f*cking scam despite the fact that it is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that this has been politicized by the left and the left has been engaging in MASSIVE FRAUD to perpetrate this HOAX?


Back in college I was arguing religion with a friend. She was extremely religious. What I learned is that you just don't debate religion. Religion is something that is based on faith and no amount of factual evidence can destroy or make someone question their faith.

I've come to see that Climate Change and its believers are no less persuadable -- despite the ABUNDANCE OF FACTS that would show any sane/rational person that their belief is misplaced and dependent entirely on faith, i.e., faith in those who control the data, the models, and who make their money off of this scam -- the same people who have been shown to be engaging in wide-spread fraud with the underlying data.

And, I'm sure you know the old scientific acronym -- GIGO -- Garbage In, Garbage Out.

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I've come to see that Climate Change and its believers are no less persuadable -- despite the ABUNDANCE OF FACTS that would show any sane/rational person that their belief is misplaced and dependent entirely on faith, i.e., faith in those who control the data, the models, and who make their money off of this scam -- the same people who have been shown to be engaging in wide-spread fraud with the underlying data.

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I've posted this before but...

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The articles have a total of 33,690 individual authors. The top ten countries represented, in order, are USA, England, China, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, and Netherlands. (The chart shows results through November 9th, 2012.)


Global warming deniers often claim that bias prevents them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. But 24 articles in 18 different journals, collectively making several different arguments against global warming, expose that claim as false. Articles rejecting global warming can be published, but those that have been have earned little support or notice, even from other deniers.

A few deniers have become well known from newspaper interviews, Congressional hearings, conferences of climate change critics, books, lectures, websites and the like. Their names are conspicuously rare among the authors of the rejecting articles. Like those authors, the prominent deniers must have no evidence that falsifies global warming.

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LINK

LINK

If the side denying the scientific consensus is convinced of their arguments, they have a way to make their case: The peer review process. If the consensus is wrong, prove it. Then put up for scrutiny for the rest of the scientific community.

And before anyone pulls the conspiracy card, revisit the first paragraph and note China was included in this number. You know, the worlds biggest polluter, the country with the most to lose by acknowledging the global consensus? A closed system where they could easily suppress or completely propagandize things if wanted.

Yet even China has done the homework and as such have decided pretty publicly, that if we step down from the Paris accords, they will gladly take our place . Taking with it the clout and leadership positioning that will provide their industries with the best seat at the table. Which is why Exxon, Shell, and other fuel industries have told Trump not to leave the table. That it is misguided, bad for America and even bad for them.

And its not just scientists, insurers and the military have done extensive research into the science because it is pivotal to their operational duties to know what risk factors are out there that could affect them. Even if the bean counters in the insurance industry ignored it for quite some time.

I'm not saying there aren't plenty on the left that act like irrational fanatics, this hyperbolic reaction to the NYTimes can speak to that, but the foundations from which that fanaticism is built from is starkly different. One has tens of thousands of peer reviewed research, the other(religion) is still stuck on coming up with a falsifiable hypothesis that can even be considered under the umbrella of "science." ....Without saying anything about the issue of miracles and amputees.

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The big obstacle

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The big obstacle is do we condemn billions of people to poverty while the billion of us with the means converts to expensive lower emissions energy.

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The government is skewing the market (again) through crony Capitalism.

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Or, from another perspective, the government is performing a less then ideal solution to deal with the negative externalities that wind and solar's competition are not being accounted for, and their own government subsidization along the way toward their maturity and in their present state.

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Highly subsidized by government, wouldn't you say? Coal-fired plant permits are hard to get ($$$), natural gas is frowned upon, while solar and wind have had most of the red tape cut out.

The government is skewing the market (again) through crony Capitalism.

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Just last month, Dong Energy in Denmark won the first unsubsidized clean energy bid for a wind farm for Germany. That is the new reality - wind and solar can compete with coal and oil without subsidies, and innovation in the short term will drive costs below them.

There are regulations for solar and wind as well. There are indeed fewer because these pose fewer dangers to the environment (and therefore the public interest) than coal and natural gas do.

I'm not sure I'd equate allowing coal and oil companies to keep more of their profits (which are erroneously considered direct tax subsidies in the liberal playbook) with truly direct tax subsidies through money transferred from the feds to private companies (renewable energy).

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I'm not sure I'd equate allowing coal and oil companies to keep more of their profits (which are erroneously considered direct tax subsidies in the liberal playbook) with truly direct tax subsidies through money transferred from the feds to private companies (renewable energy).

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I am speaking about the fact that coal and oil companies do not have their negative externality costs accurately reflected in the price of their goods. There is not currently a comprehensive mechanism to internalize the totality of the external costs their product produces. So the market price is lower then it would be had those costs been accurately accounted for.

I.E. for coal, external costs include: the impacts of water pollution, toxic coal waste, air pollution, the long-term damage to ecosystems and the atmosphere, and human health and the costs derived from that.

So one could argue that subsidizing solar and wind is largely just a poor roundabout way of compensating for the failure of dealing directly with the externality costs in the coal, natural gas, and oil industry.

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That is the new reality - wind and solar can compete with coal and oil without subsidies, and innovation in the short term will drive costs below them.

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That isn't reality at all kid. Wind and solar are nowhere close to competing with coal, NG, nuclear in terms of cost/kW or kW/unit-area on their own. You have no idea what you are talking about, you simply chugged the kool-aid and parroting the hype.

Yessir, I logged back on to say that Germany (a leader in renewable energy) has double the average electricity price than the U.S. LINK

They are having rolling blackouts and are building more coal-fired plants.

India... same story.

California... rolling blackouts and having to import electricity from places that use production methods that pollute, whether nuclear, coal or natural gas.

They are fooling themselves by virtually banning pollutive power production in their own state, while consuming pollutive power produced two or three states over.

I think we've come full circle. If it's not in a liberal's face, it doesn't happen. It's someone else's problem (conveniently).

For bonehopper: You don't think lawsuits, EPA fines and exorbitant permitting costs have ameliorated those "negative externalities" (pollution), at least to a significant degree? I do.

I'd also posit that the jobs created from coal-fired and natural-gas fired plants far exceeded the costs of pollution with their economic output.