Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Christine and John:

Excellent post. I have long been a skeptic about the science of global warming. I am not a denier. Man made global warming might be a fact.

The problem I have with the science is what I call a moral hazard.

Moral hazard occurs when a party insulated from risk may behave differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.

Many scientist are insulated in that the spend their lives on a campus filled with people with a belief system that predisposes them to a conclusion.

In addition, there is strong government insentive to come to the conclusion that global warming is in fact man made.

I can only imagine what happens to a researcher who requests funding for a project that has a premise that climate change is not as big a deal as advertized. There is simply too much money chasing a predetermined conclusion.

In addition, the last time I looked at the scientific community, they were (shhhhhhh) people. They have the same faults that the rest of us do.

Coming out of all of this I think you are very correct. I expect the scientific community to try to redeem itself over time. I will be interested to see the conclusions of the future. I will be far less skeptical because now the moral hazard has been removed, and researchers will not feel safe enough to be so sloppy with their work.

Scientist do indeed make mistakes. However those trying to make political hay out of this should avoid making Their own set of mistaken assumptions, and should realize that the problem is bigger than just missing ice on the roof of the world.

It might not all be gone in twenty-five years, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.

Folks on the Right only seem to acknowledge complexity when it confounds clear conclusions about what’s going on in the world, or to make arguments from ignorance about how the world might turn out better than expected.

Truth of the matter is, we’re not dealing with an easy system to understand. But that doesn’t mean the scientists are wrong, and it doesn’t mean you can just come up to it and nitpick, and claim that your opposing case is true. It, too, must be tested scientifically.

Your speculation fails to appreciate that these are not linear, constant phenomena. They are among the most complex systems we know of, and just beginning to understand them has lead to the foundation of new scientific lines of inquiry just around the phenomena of complexity.

And as we will see in my next comment, the IPCC has been wrong in other places, but not in ways favorable to your hypothesis of less serious warming.

The Greenland Ice Sheets are melting faster than they were modeled to by the IPCC

The Ice Sheet on the other side of the world Isn’t doing that great either:

Indications that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass at an increasing rate come from the Amundsen Sea sector, and three glaciers in particular: the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith Glaciers.[10] Data reveal they are losing more ice than is being replaced by snowfall. According to a preliminary analysis, the difference between the mass lost and mass replaced is about 60%. The melting of these three glaciers alone is contributing an estimated 0.24 millimetres per year to the rise in the worldwide sea level[7]. There is growing evidence that this trend is accelerating: there has been a 75% increase in Antarctic ice mass loss in the ten years 1996-2006, with glacier acceleration a primary cause[11].

By necessity, we’re talking about these things in somewhat more amateurish terms than these people would, but the real problem here is that public opinion on this matter is being swayed on demonstrably erroneous grounds by people who are trying to make political, rhetorical points with the science, without truly respecting it.

Folks talk about CO2 being plant food. But the big problem with that idea is that these people only use this to cast doubt on the validity of doing something about it. They never test the real world extent to which it actually happens, and whether it actually does the plants as much good as its claimed.

Folks talk about CO2 being what we breathe out, and make light of it that way. But if they even took a moment, they would know the comparison was absurd. Between a tailpipe and a person breathing, the car is pumping out way more CO2 per “breath” than we are. By definition, if you think about it, the car exhaust is the hot expanding gasses that just got done pushing the car forward. You’re literally competing, breath for breath, with the car’s entire horsepower, and the chemical energy it must burn to get it.

Climate change is more than heat and rising oceans. It’s a change of what is dry and what is wet, what is hot and what is cold, where currents and prevailing winds are, and where they’re not.

Republicans have also recently been talking about the drop in temperatures this winter. These guys blame natural variability for the differences globally, but forget that local climate can be variable, too, and that even in a warming trend there are off years. Then they turn around and confuse a local change in temperatures with a global one. The Decade we are closing out was the hottest on record.

In short, though uncertainties will always remain in the science, the science doesn’t lend crediblity to the politically motivated theories of the right on the matter. No, Earth’s Climate is not neatly cyclical. No, trace gases are not inconsequential to Earth’s climate.

On most questions, there are good, well constructed theories and findings that show where the climate is heading, what’s causing it, what’s putting all that CO2 in the air, etc. But Republicans are keyed into these industry funded fonts of misinformation, purposefully built to buy cover for continued, underregulated uses of fossil fuels, so that these companies would not see a decline in their bottom line.

So this is what we come to. Another big problem stares us in the face, that the Republican solution is either do nothing, or worse than nothing.

When is policy going to stop being about simply contradicting and counteracting liberalism, and instead become about recognizing problems, finding solutions, but just going at it from a different direction than the folks you disagree with? Why does there seem to have to be another set of facts, a surprise Perry Mason revelation staged in every argument?

(You would think by now that Police would wait a few seconds before assuming that the person found standing over the corpse is the prime suspect. But I guess you couldn’t run a formula show that way.)

But seriously, I get tired of people questioning whether scientists factored in solar irradiation, when I keep on telling them they did that and it couldn’t explain the state of the climate as it is.

But folks will repeat this kind of stuff because the words are used as bludgeons to the arguments of the scientifically illiterate, not as a means to actually inform people in a manner consistent with consensus understanding. Folks also use the popularized notion of Paradigm shifts, underestimate just how conservative (in the old sense of the term, meaning cautious and painstaking in dealing with chain) science really is. Paradigm shifts, if we can really talk about science in such ways, are not arbitrary in either their structure or their. Put another way, you cannot simply dream up a theory from thin air and expect it to be pronounced true by acclimation when people somehow see you as right.

The purpose of scientific methodology is to weed out errant assumptions from the good, to put what we would like to believe is true, due to our preexisting knowledge and sensibilities, to the test.

But you won’t find many folks on the right out there willing to allow their precious beliefs about the way climate works put the to test. They’ll keep on insisting that the contrary or contradictory cases are simply liberal conspiracies.

And that’s not scientific, and never will be, and won’t offer us truly credible alternative explanations, if they exist.

Winning an argument, even if you manage it, with such premises and methods is simply setting yourself on a course to disaster, debunking and discrediting. If somebody human doesn’t expose you, nature and the evidence nature provides will. But by that time, whatever changes you should have prevented will be long underway.

It’s part of the problem I always had with the way the Bush administration approached different debates. They cared more about short term victories and persuasion than they did about getting things right and square. As a result, though they won many arguments, they made collosal, cataclysmic mistakes in the process. They won the right to be in control and wrong at the same time.

Never that good of an idea. That’s why I prefer grounded evidence to free-floating rhetoric. You can argue yourselves in knots, win those arguments in a twisted position, and suffer misfortune as a reward for your victory. Or, while still fallible, you can be more likely to win when you win, not putting yourself in a position of being exposed for a fool.

We need politicans who win arguments because they’re right, not simply because they push the requisite buttons and flood the field with BS.

John and Christine, this is a classic logical error to extrapolate the anecdotal to the general and universal. Faulty claims for political purposes by persons of the U.N. Assembly, do NOT invalidate the overwhelming consensus of empirical and replicable research done which concludes global climate change is underway and human activity is very likely exacerbating the changes.

Nice try, but your political spin constitutes as invalid an argument as that proffered by some in the U.N. It should be noted, that much of what is reported by members of the U.N. citing the consensual research is valid and should be acted upon in prudent and wise fashion.

BTW, John, you were once an advocate for cap and trade. Has your position on this changed because your Party’s official position is now opposed? Just curious as to what drives your positions.

Verses the left’s political spin?

Craig it is healthy to be skeptical of information one has not empirically validated or invalidated for oneself. But, in our society of specialization of labor, you wouldn’t hire a doctor to erect your masonry wall, nor a mason to treat your hemmorhroids. Similarly, in our specialization of labor economy, it is generally wise to eventually accept the broad consensus of the scientific community on widely validated and replicated research results. Global climate change and some human activity contribution to it through greenhouse gases which in turn release natural contributions to increased greenhouse gases as in the melting of the permafrost, should be taken at face value, even for those healthily skeptical as a general rule.

Methinks the political preferences of conservatives are shaping their opinion on the science, and over activating their skepticism to support unreasonable conclusions in contradiction to the reality of the results of scientific measurements and replicable experiments.

Beware the cognitive dissonance induced rationalizations that ease the conflict between empirical reality and political wishful preferences. Global climate change was accurately described as “An Inconvenient Truth” for very accurate and valid reasons regarding the Right’s consternation over the results of the science. To resolve their cognitive dissonance, they had to go to great and extraordinary lengths to discredit the science, even if the methodology and rationalization for doing so was blatantly faulty at best.

Never underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance to make fools of the best intentioned through rationalizing away reality to preserve convenient political wishes.

In the North Atlantic every year there are ice flows is this a natural occurance or part of global warming. Last year there was snow on the ground in my city this year there isn’t. The picture in 1921 what time of the year was that taken? The picture in 2008 what time of the year was it taken? Was 1921 an unusually cold year? Was 2008 an unusually warm year? Or we can ask is this the natural cycle of this planet? Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about this planet we live on far from it. I once heard, I can’t remember from who, but the person said Science Disproves Itself Daily. There are arguements that this planet is millions of years old some say less then 10,000 and each have their proof. SO WHO DO WE BELIEVE?

David:

I fully accept that conservative leanings lead to a view of climate change. I also accept that liberal leanings lead to a view of climate change. It’s obvious!!

For instance, much of Al Gore’s movie has proved to be an overblown and shall I say dramatic? Who when to the movie? Who went to hear a politician talk about the climate and believe him as a scientist?

I also have no problem with science proving anything including that global warming is man made and that terrible consequences are upon us.

I simply remain a skeptic of the current science. Too much money and too much politics on the line. Scientists are people just like you and me. They are exactly as vulnerable to dishonest gain, as the next person. Also, the whole issue of group think is a concern of mine.So we have a bunch of democrats funded by the federal government who are PHD’s, who believe the same thing.

Let me give you and example:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

I cannot fathom why original climate data EVERY would be thrown away, can you?

The science is developing. We are getting better at understanding climate. The projections made a few years ago are being challenged by newer science. This will help us understand the nuances.

Stephen

I think it is a manageable problem. That means it is still a problem but manageable. You say the science is uncertain. Yes. Uncertain means just that. It doesn’t mean that because we are uncertain we jump to the craziest solutions.

I don’t say “the scientists” are wrong. I am just explaining that science is all about change. Some political people have tried to freeze science as it was understood a couple years ago. They are wrong.

David

I never said that we should be doing nothing. I am learning from experience and changing my opinions as the science develops. The European experience with cap & trade has not been good. Russia is in possession of lots of CO2 credits that they got just from the collapse of the Soviet Union. They will ruin any pricing scheme. Of course, we also have China, Brazil and India.

I support carbon taxes and I support cap & trade - if it is done right. What I saw happening in Copenhagen was an attempt by developing countries to get a hand-out based on bogus projections of how much they suffered or hypothetically would suffer from global warming. This would do nothing to remove carbon from the air but would just serve to support kleptocracies. I was particularly insulted by the delegate from Sudan - one of the bloodiest regimes on earth – lecturing us. President Obama got the best possible result from the negotiations – i.e. nothing. I don’t say that as a joke. The bill of goods they were trying to sell us in Copenhagen should have been rejected.

Cap and trade worked well for acid rain. It could work for CO2 if it is kept to domestic providers. I don’t want to drain American money to bogus projects in developing countries. It will not address the right problem.

The best is a carbon tax. It is clean and elegant. Unfortunately, the politicians cannot make political hay on something like that so it is not among the serious proposals.

I don’t trust the IPCC. There are scientists who work there, but it is run by politicians with axes to grind. Climate change has become the successor to that old north-south dialogue. That was stupid and the proposed solutions now being offered to climate change mostly are too.

If you want to address the problem of CO2, you have to make CO2 more expensive. Everything else is just people talking, which is what the UN does to little practical effect.

David:

Shoud have been “EVER”.

Their reasoning sort of sounds like “my dog ate my paper”.

Here is another article:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/282951

Now isn’t it rational to be a skeptic when people are throwing out evidence oooops data?

I just can’t find any scientific reason at all for throwing away origianal data. I can find lots of legal reasons and lots of political reasons, just no scientific reasons.

The models used by the people involved with global warming are constantly changing. That means that the output from their models is constantly changing. There is still too much to consider that is not being included in the investigation of global warming. I still believe that the only global warming problem is where there is too much hot air: Washington, DC. The models used are like any type of model used to set up a foregone conclusion or mindset to the situation at hand. You get out of the model what you want it to give you. It is just another level of GIGO. BTW—I am doing my job of lessening the CO2 in the atmosphere. I have COPD and the CO2 stays trapped in my lungs so you won’t be bothered by it.

Craig said: “I fully accept that conservative leanings lead to a view of climate change. I also accept that liberal leanings lead to a view of climate change. It’s obvious!!”

And then there is the scientific consensus on the data and its meaning. Which supports the Left’s spin more than the Right’s, which denies the science altogether. I agree Gore’s movie took liberties, and some of that data was not ready for prime time release, nor adequately peer reviewed. But, the gist of the movie still stands as essentially supported by the consensus on the scientific data and import of that data.

Craig said: “I also have no problem with science proving anything including that global warming is man made and that terrible consequences are upon us.”

Well, that is not what the scientific consensus states. It indicates that both natural and man made contributions are accounting for global climate change and incremental warming, and the percentage of mix is conjecture and educated guesswork and widely debated in the scientific community. Bottom line however, is that it constitutes a threat, and to the extent we can reduce or eliminate our species’ contribution, we should.

That extent, which requires a cost analysis and affordability determination, is a political question which the governments of the world with the power to enforce reduction measures must answer. Ultimately, and quite predictably, the only rational answer will be each nation according to its ability without seriously disrupting the stability of that nation’s economic future and domestic tranquility. In other words, it is foolish in the extreme to make the argument that all nations must incur equal costs and efforts in implementing reductions. Haiti for example, is in no position fund enforcement of greenhouse gas emission reductions at this time. Haiti’s situation cannot be rationally used as an excuse by other nations not to do far more and incur significant costs in the endeavor to reduce their emissions.

The standard by which this argument is made comes from Adam Smith’s definition of enlightened self-interest which he posits must underwrite the invisible hand of markets, and their government’s relations to those markets. Most Republican supporters don’t realize that this is the heart and soul of conservative philosophy, and Adam Smith one of its authors. Which goes a long way to explain why the GOP runs amok with power failing their own rhetorical principles which they do not even understand or grasp. They have little clue as to what Adam Smith was really talking about in his two major companion works, Theory of Moral Sentiment and Wealth of Nations.

Friedman knew, but even Friedman could not impart to fellow political conservatives the complex relationship between moral sentiment and markets to those who had never read one or both of Smith’s works. Universities today largely teach bastardized versions, based more on political agenda from cliff notes of Smith’s works, rather than a compulsory reading of Smith’s works and grading on content grasp.

One has to take a philosophy of economics course to be required to actually read Adam Smith, and that course is not required of any MBA program I know of. Hence, the bastardization and ignorance to the conservative wisdom and genius of Adam Smith by conservatives in America today.

Christine said: “The European experience with cap & trade has not been good.”

I suspect any attempt by the newly founded United States to implement cap and trade back around 1800 would have not produced real positive results, either, given the conflicts between the states forced by ratification of the Constitution into Union with the other states, with significant economic differences. Europe’s United States are only a couple decades old.

Our United States should be able to accomplish easily what the European Union of States must find very difficult do to the tug and pull of individual state differences, which are not so nearly pronounced in America anymore.

I generally agree with your requirements for cap and trade. But see my previous reply above to Craig for a potential point of difference, regarding the rational approach which cannot mandate equal effort and costs among nations.

Christine said: “If you want to address the problem of CO2, you have to make CO2 more expensive.”

Incomplete concept. You also have to provide affordable alternatives. Then your statement is made complete as policy plan. Which is precisely where Obama went with some of the stimulus money going to alternative research, planning, and implementation, with much more needed and coming to seed innovative start ups in this enterprise. It would be a horrendous flaw of judgment to rely on Exxon and BP to develop the alternatives.

They have other interests to protect which could and likely would compromise their innovative research options. It is not in a fossil fuel corporation’s interest to supplant their cash cow in anykind of efficient and quick manner. Obama’s seed money to start-ups addresses that potential waste of public dollars on entrenched energy corporations. Pretty damn saavy if you ask me.

Complex issues like this require leadership which is highly generalized in its education covering areas like psychology, sociology, economics, history, politics, and law. Which makes Obama the far better candidate for this kind of job than McCain ever could have been, even as he learns the realm of economics and micro-economic history, which were not his strong suit on inauguration day. He is a fast learner however, and his dressing down of Summers and Geithner some time back with the sternest facial expression captured in a photo of that session, is evidence of this.

Craig, cover ups of politically deceptive actions date back to the dawn of civilization. Such actions should impede the progress of civilization. There should never have been any doubt as to the potential for some scientists to act as agents of political agendas. But the consensus overwhelms such devious actors, now, by far. The progressive photos of the Arctic Ice Cap and recession of ice in Glacier National Park, which will have to be renamed now, is pretty overwhelming evidence of a significant warming trend now underway when compared to the historical accounts of mariners being frozen into the Arctic decades and centuries ago.

The laboratory experiments with methane and CO2 emissions as greenhouse gases is undeniable anymore. We don’t relent on law enforcement just because we continue to experience criminal activity. Likewise, we must not be deterred from the overwhelming mandate of the evidence because of a small number of charlatans and scientific agents of politically motivated employers.

Let’s move on and address the challenges in a rational way, individually as nations, and globally as a species whose numbers are severely threatened by the changes now apparent and proven.

Tom Humes, our earth’s environment is a composite of infinite variables. Therefore, our models must continue to include ever more variable inclusions to refine the results and establish what are the most highly correlated variables resulting in climate change and warming. This process in NO WAY negates the empirical observations of global warming.

Your comment draws false conclusions from the fact that the models continue to become more and more sophisticated in trying to predict more accurately the outcomes of possible variable inputs, and the correlative relationship between input variables. Example, we know and have proven CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases, and have established scientifically that methane is by far the more potent of the two. But, what is the combined effect when the two gases are introduced together and in various percentages? This is an example of the kind of questions that continue to generate ever more sophisticated modeling.

The models aren’t changing because the established research in the past was wrong. They are changing because new research and data and questions are having to be plugged into the models to provide more comprehensive and predictable results as well as answers to new question like the example posed above.

KAP, it is irrational by empirical methodology to extrapolate from the anecdote of one year or several to the longer term trend. The data, by historical accounts of ships frozen into the arctic in the 18th and 19th and most of the 20th centuries, stands in stark contrast to the ability of mariners to cross the arctic in Winter today without ever getting locked in.

Decades of photos of the size of the Arctic ice show a clear and unmistakable recession. Ergo, the answer to your question is about increased ice bergs is that they are resulting from increased break up of the arctic and subarctic glaciers. Greenland’s glaciers are receding at an increasing rate annually and satellite photos are the evidence. Same pictures with the Antarctic ice mass, and Glacier National Park.

Inconvenient evidence only for wishful political agendas to deny the evidence.

DRR
There was NO polital agenda in my comment. You made it into a polital agenda. I never said anything about increased ice flow. I asked does this happen every year? Where are the photos from 1921 to present? Is our climate changing? Yes. Has it happened before? Yes. The real question is this man made or is it a natural occurance? Is earth just fixing itself? I can say that some of it is caused by man, but not all that the liberal agenda suggests.

DRR
As weary said is this the liberal version of FEAR MONGERING?

David

The European cap & trade doesn’t work because it sets the price of carbon too low and it allows too much international trading with nations that are not really subject to the caps. It is a pretty sweet deal for somebody in China or Brazil to get paid to “reduce” carbon that he never would have emitted anyway.

If you want to have cap & trade in the U.S., it has to be strictly domestic and the price needs to be high enough to make a difference. Neither of these things is acceptable to powerful interest groups.

Many on the left want to use cap & trade as a form of international income redistribution. Eliminating the international option crashes their dreams. Of course, they will think of more clever ways to spin that. Nobody wants to pay more for energy.

Re price – we have alternatives. They just cost more. There is no magic formula for this. We use oil because it is cheap and convenient. Other forms of energy are currently more expensive or less convenient.

When the price of oil was high back in 2006, billions flowed into research on alternatives. The higher prices of carbon would provide massive stimulus to innovation. The government already sponsors a lot of research, BTW.

I think that you have a paradigm problem. You are viewing energy as a single issue that would be susceptible to an Apollo program or Manhattan project. There will be no “solution” to our energy problem. Our energy issue is a matter of the choices we make as a society. We can do lower carbon if we make different choices, but why would most people choose a more expensive or less convenient alternative? That is the equation you have to change.

You know that we have recently discovered new way to extract natural gas from shale. Our proven recoverable gas reserves have risen by 39% in the last couple of years. Gas is a lot cleaner than coal, in terms of ordinary pollution and CO2. As we shift to gas, we will emit less CO2. The U.S. became the world’s bigger producer of wind power last year. Your own state of Texas is the leader, BTW.

You also know that CO2 emission DROPPED during the Bush Administration. They went up in Europe and the rose a lot during the Clinton times.

The solution to our energy problem is simple, but not easy.

Re FEAR mongering
There is a lot of fear mongering. Climate change is a serious issue, but it is manageable. The Gore’s hysteria encourages us to do silly things w/o thinking them through. The idea that we would redistribute income through government to governments of developing countries is plain stupid. It will do nothing to reign in CO2 emissions and would probably actually increase them.

The solution is higher carbon prices, more nuclear power and allowing innovation.

Keep it up, conservatives and Republicans. See the latest article by Lee. We all know you represent the interests of corporations over and above the interest of American citizens. You have made it quite clear. McConnell, Boehner, virtually every Repulican and conservative politician, your pundits and talking heads, and so on, they all luv them those first amendment free speech rights for corporations- and this attempt to sow confusion into the issue of Global Warming, just enough confusion to prevent action, has been brought to all of us through the astroturfted organizations funded by the most profitable corporation in history, Exxon. Hey, it’s just free speech at work, funded by Exxon, who possesses those inalienable rights.

Thanks, Republicans and conservatives. You’re a swell bunch. Keep it up.

Are not the unions, which are in the pockets of Democrats and Liberals, not part of that ruleing? No not confusion on Global Warming phx8, no body wants to prevent action. People want facts not theory and evidence that has not been altered to suit an agenda. I ask you is this part of Liberal Fear Mongering.

Phx8

We want action the is appropriate to the situation, not just wasteful activity based on hysteria.

Let’s go with the science and not the emotion. Our experience is proving different than the Gore hysteria of a couple years ago.

Craig Holmes-
This is one example of where politics obscures truth. The CRU people did destroy some of the raw data.

That is, their copy of some of that raw data. The original data is still quite avaiable at the various weather stations they got it from.

There are two explanations for why this story was gotten wrong. The first is negligence. The second is that someone along the line lied. Either the source to the reporter, or the reporter to all of us.

But in particular? You. They lie to you. Specifically to you, because you are the folks who this is aimed at.

You are the folks willing to believe these things, who need reinforcement against the natural rhetorical strength of the scientific consensus on climate change.

There has to be a conspiracy, or at the very least, a cynical, hypercompetitive movement looking to score big bucks. There has to be a political angle, so that even if true, you have to deny things so socialists don’t take over.

What you are watching here is the Modus Operandi of the so-called “sound science” movement. They are in the business of selling doubt and sowing mistrust on the key scientific questions of our day that do not advantage certain industries.

This happened with the Cigarette Companies. In fact, they were some of the first people to push this. And what happened with the so-called sound science of that particular industry?

It was exposed as lies. The reality was as the other scientists had said, the ones not on a company payroll.

More or less, you have some of the same groups involved here, some of the same foundations and think-tanks. The truth of the matter is, you are being taken for a ride, being used as a means of spreading bad information, misinformation by word of mouth, to make the industry’s false case look better.

But you wouldn’t want to be told that, now would you? It would be a humiliating thing, to be so used. But they are willing to do it because it keeps the law off their backs, and their profits higher.

In truth, that’s probably the universe they dwell in. They are the people who do not understand what harm they are doing because their paychecks depend on their not understanding.

Global warming is real, it is present, and it is serious.

Stephen

Global warming is real, present and serious, but the problem is the details and what to do about it.

If we agree that the globe is getting warmer and that people are contributing, we need to make carbon more expensive and encourage nuclear power. Redistributing income to poor nations is a neutral or perhaps a counter productive measure.

This is the transition we all need to make. We have to come up with viable solutions, some of which will be painful and all painful solutions hit “the poor” harder.

Christine-
Here’s what I believe: first, we don’t have a bunch of time, and the longer we take to do this, the more drastic the cuts, or alternatively, the worse and more economically destructive the alternative here.

What we have in Washington, and where unfortunately you’re getting some of your talking points and news items as a party, is a cottage industry specifically designed to allow corporations that are doing otherwise socially unacceptable behavior that people would feel compelled to put limitations and regulations on to keep on doing what they’re doing. When the problems are just coming up, they say it doesn’t exist. When it can’t be said not to exist anymore, they say it isn’t that bad, or it will be beneficial. When it becomes clear that there are real problems, they come up with political and card-stacked economic reasons why inaction is preferable.

We see this in Washington even in the banking industry, where most Americans would agree something drastic needs to be done to curb misbehavior. Already, folks are out there scaring people about socialism and this and that, advocating inaction.

I think Nuclear power may be one part of things, but it’s ultimately going to minor, in my view, at least on the fission side of things. There is not an infinite supply of fissionables, for one thing. For another, any way you slice it, both fuel and waste are inherently hazardous, and only by addressing those hazards in the reactor design can we reassure people.

But that, of course, must be weighed against the fact that Nuclear power can replace much more than its weight in carbon fuels.

Personally, I think the future is in solar, renewables, wind, and nuclear fusion. The advantage. Solar in particular has the charm of being very distributeable. You can concentrate them in a plant, or put them on every rooftop. The real problem in using Wind and Solar for regular power is their irregularity, but with new battery, ultracapacitor, and smart grid technology, that problem has a resolution within near time.

Economically, what you have to realize is that a lot of the rhetoric on your side was pushed in there for solely emotional effect. The reality is, whatever we’re thinking of requiring of the smaller, less developed countries, the US and China are by far the long term main contributors to carbon emissions.

Also, if you think about it, we can always export and license that clean technology to these countries. They might get economic benefit, but that’s not mutually exclusive of our own benefit. Too many think of economics in zero-sum elitists terms, that somebody has to lose for us to win.

Overall, my thoughts are these:
1) When it comes to problems like this, it’s cheaper to make the transition while fuel is still inherently cheap than later, when your back is against the wall on energy prices.

2) Any economic benefits of maintaining the status quo have to balanced against the increased price of necessities like food and water, and the economic effects of climate change on important infrastructure, especially ports.

3) It’s not a matter of not having the technology to do things differently. It’s a matter of market built on the use of a certain kind of chemical energy, whose purveyors are very much more influential than any buggy-whip manufacturers.

It’s less alarming if you think it’s all just a big conspiracy, and it’ll eventually all just go away.

Stephen

Much of the rhetoric on both sides is emotional.

You make a good point about acting quickly. How can we act quickly? Higher prices for carbon and quick deployment of nuclear power. You are right that in the long run we will need to go with renewable, but if - as you say and I agree - the situation is urgent we need to start with what we have.

What bothers me about the debate is how much of it is NOT about the environment. Kyoto, for example, was a world redistribution scheme that - even if it worked - would do little to reduce CO2 emissions. The talk in Copenhagen was even worse and President Obama wisely rejected most of it.

The other problem is that almost all future growth in emissions will come from places like China, India and Brazil. Within the next generation, China will emit more CO2 than the U.S. has in its entire history. The magnitude of that number is almost impossible to comprehend.

Those Americas who say that we can change China by our good example are childish. Let’s be clear. If the U.S. emitted NO-NADA-Nothing in terms of CO2 in 2025, the emissions will still be much higher since China will be emitting enough for three Americas.

IMO - we will be unable to get the Chinese to reform and will have to get used to higher temperatures.

Christine-
I think the Obama Administration’s support of energy research is doing good along those lines.

Our goal should be to support the quick development of successor technologies. When those become common, the Chinese will, by economic necessity, seek out the greater efficiencies. They have no incentive to continue using dirty energy, if we can outcompete them without it.

It will also put pressure on them, economically speaking.

It doesn’t have to be Kyoto. But one thing is true: if Republicans in the Senate do nothing more than stall to keep the status quo, we’re going nowhere fast, as any country that looks at us will recognize we’re not doing anything (why should they), and no agreement we do make will likely have the force of law, due to their contrarianism.

Your party is out of step with this, among many other challenges facing our country. How long does the Republican Party want to be the anchor that ties America down to losing policies? How long can it do that, and not damage it’s appeal moving forward?

Stephen

There will be no technological breakthrough. The energy equation is a matter of choices and options. Even when we make advances, it takes many years for them to spread through the system. In the immediate future, deploy more nuclear power and raise the price of carbon.

You keep on saying “your party” and it is a bit misleading. I will tell you that I disagree with the Republican mainstream, which is more concerned with jobs and economic growth that the urgency of addressing the environment. BUT I believe that they (Republicans) are much more in step with the majority of Americans than I am or than the Democrat leadership is.

The anchor is the American people, who don’t want to pay more for energy or change their habits (no surprise, BTW). To the extent that we hold out false hopes of a cheap and easy breakthrough, we mislead them and slow progress. They already distrust the government. False promises make it worse.

Christine-
Apparently, you don’t keep up with technology news. There are hundreds of breakthroughs taking place right now. I’m not misleading you.

Here’s one where Dow Chemical has created durable solar shingles, which could eventually see their way onto the roofs of homes.

Another company may have created an environmentally friendly way of creating jetfuel from coal and biomass.

Then there’s the development of Sodium-Ion batteries, which could stand to be much cheaper than batteries we now use, which depend on the much rarer element of Lithium.

I know better than most that not every discovery will result in a productive advance, but I think your statement of pessimism in the ability of technological advances to solve these problems is wrong.

I see advances like this every week. The tempo of discovery is increasing. We have the technology to separate ourselves part way now, and if we push hard enough, we’ll be able to change the way we do things.

Fact is, we’re heading for a change in the game anyways: nanotechnology. We’re becoming better and better at exploiting the behavior of material at a very small level.

Biotech and other industries have advanced as well. If we don’t think quick change is possible, just look at what’s happened in the last twenty years.

Look at your cell phone. Have you seen commercials for these things lately? Being able to render 3-D video for games, sense motion for them as well, screens that double as multitouch input devices…

Not to mention solid-state memory that rivals what hard drive space even some computers from a decade had, powerful antennas, the ability to recieve GPS satellite signals once reserved for military use, and so on and so forth.

Advances like these have a way of coming up on us subtly, without our realizing how much has actually changed. I think you’re underestimating the degree to which we could change this country in the next ten to twenty years. You shouldn’t. Being conservative does not have to mean being behind the curve.

David:

Craig it is healthy to be skeptical of information one has not empirically validated or invalidated for oneself. But, in our society of specialization of labor, you wouldn’t hire a doctor to erect your masonry wall, nor a mason to treat your hemmorhroids.

I agree, however using your great analogy, if someone came selling a miracle cure for hemoriods and I asked for their original data to confirm their conclusions and they told me they had destroyed such evidence, I would be speptical and might even consider their product snake oil.

I think we are living in a day when the mighty are falling from all sides.

1. Our intelligence community. Missed the fall of USSR, 9/11 and concluded their were WMD in Iraq when there were none.

2. Republicans in Congress.

3. Bush presidency’s mishandling of the war in Iraq among other things. (Katrina)

4. Our top economists missed the great recession. (Top economists and PIMCO as in Bill Gross actually called their wives when Shearson Lehman fell and told them to pull as much money out of their banks as possible).

5. The Catholic church. A priest doing unspeakable things to a child is sin. Protecting such a priest is corruption. (Not claiming other churches are better by the way).

In the process:

6. Democrats in power. Pelosi, Reid and Obama.

7. Global warming scientists.

These pillars of society are dropping one at a time. I see no reason why the scientific community shouldn’t join the party. Looks like there is plenty of room for corruption in their community as well!! We have politics, money and people involved after all!!

How could I possibly forget Wall Street!!

Craig,

You are missing the scientific community consensus and all of its data which was NOT destroyed. You are pursuing skepticism on the behavior of one actor in sea of research and data for which the data is intact, and the consensus of scientists validates that data extant.

In politics, that is called cherry picking for political agenda expedience.

Though, I agree with you, that when that one actor revealed their data was destroyed, the audience should have cause to inquire, what’s up with that? The question begs going further and validating the claims by other research and data which have not been destroyed. To just conclude without further consideration that the claim is bogus, is politically expedient for the audience that wants to believe the Emperor is fully clothed in a new thread.

Stephen

I am talking about the big breakthrough that will change the game. We have been making small progress all along. That is how our energy intensity has improved so much since the 1970s. But we still make energy choices. Those make the difference.

A question for you. Why do you use gasoline? Is it because it is more expensive than other alternatives? Are you forced to use it? I drive a car that gets 44 miles to the gallon. I got it five years ago. Do you have a car like that? If not, why not? Maybe because you made a different choice. It is all about choices.

David:

I am not claiming that the premise is bogus. What I am claiming is that systematically institutions are dropping one at a time. Whether or not the premise is true, the institutions of scientific pursuit are loosing their position of trust like many other institutions.

These problems of mistrust are huge. For instance, what happens when a country does have WMD that threatens our country? We may not act because of a lack of trust.

With the case of global warming, when concusions are altered for political reasons and with the glacier issue, it undermines trust in those who are legitimately offering solutions to our climate problems.

There seems to be fundamental character flaw that appears to be spreading across many of our major institutions of all political stripes as well as many faiths and specializations that is resulting in some enormous failings, that are undermining our society like a house of cards.

Craig said: “There seems to be fundamental character flaw that appears to be spreading across many of our major institutions of all political stripes as well as many faiths and specializations that is resulting in some enormous failings, that are undermining our society like a house of cards.”

I have to agree with entirely on this point, Craig.

But, the reasons for it, are many and complex. To list just a few, we are in the information age, and the internet gives everyone license to proffer ‘information’ regardless of its veracity and motive. Education in America is insufficient to permit the majority of Americans the skill to objectively research and evaluate information, even if they had the time to do so. We have become a nation of specialists depending on myriad other specialists, and dependency upon others we do not know intimately, always breeds a measure of distrust. We are a nation driven by accumulation of wealth, power, collections, and status symbols, at the same time that we have become a nation of anonymous persons, save for a very small percentage chosen for the limelight and media coverage. And lastly, we are a nation struggling at the upper tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which has never occurred in modern history in democratic societies, and thus constitutes uncharted sociological events and relationships, in which there is a premium for some to break the bonds of their anonymity by any means necessary (terrorists being one example).

Years ago on WB, I wrote an article positing that America has reached the stage of all great civilizations just before their demise. In most such civilizations, the rise of homosexuality as a tolerated and even promoted lifestyle preceded that civilization’s fall.

Homosexuality however, is not the cause, it is the symbol of a time when individuality becomes a commodity valued far more than community and national security by increasing numbers of its citizens. It brings out the crazies, including the intelligent, educated, and creative crazies, who can acquire enormous power over the anonymous through identification, elevating such crazies to positions of power.

This distinguishes great civilizations from tribal communities, in which leadership is determined by the leadership candidate’s display of skills to protect and defend the tribe, and their commitment and fidelity to the tribe for its own sake.

This is missing from great civilizations where individuality for its own sake, and individual purpose, and individual wealth and personal drive and accomplishment become the selectors for leadership.

Many didn’t like that thesis then, and most won’t like it now. But, its relevance could not be greater or more applicable than today in America.

The one thing Great Britian and many other modern democracies have going for them that America doesn’t, is their parliamentarian form of government, which maintains a civilized commitment of multiple parties representing many clans and classes within the society. Such governments promote both give and take among the clans to govern and act as a check upon individuals who would become leaders for the individual’s own purposes, demanding instead, that leaders are elevated to power for the benefit of the clan or class they represent in society.

America has only two parties in power, and both elect to power based on individual accomplishment and fame of the individual, rather than best representatives of the values of the party they come from. That is, for example, how GW Bush was elected, despite his enormous lack of abilities to comprehend the needs and best interests of the nation. He was selected for power based on name recognition and familiy, primarily, not education, intelligence, and insight regarding the nation’s needs of its leadership.

In Great Britian, the many competing parties hold dearer their group views and values and helps insure the parties do not resort to star power or fame as the primary characteristic for elevating their leaders. Aware of the need for consensus of the many parties in a parliamentarian government, the people and the parties are acutely aware of the impossibility of one party government, and therefore, ability to work with and compromise with other parties to effect solutions is nearly always one of the dominant requirements for candidate selection.

David:

I agree with almost every word that you said. The loosers seem to be those that need to hold secrets in order to stay in power. (Roman Catholic church sex scandal, Tiger Woods, Corruption in political parties etc). And again, I’m not picking on Catholics as personally I believer there is enough corruption to go around in all groups, including my own.

This looks like a thesis for a great book. Friedman would do well as it must be a cousin to his book on the flat earth.

Groups that are comfortable with transparency seem to do fine. That might be a take away. Get your dirty laundry out there early. (Jonathan Edwards as an example of how not to do this).

This premise being correct, that institutions are going to fall like dominos because of exposing of corruption, there are some vast good and bad implications, (mostly good).

We just can’t keep as many secrets any more!!

Craig said: “We just can’t keep as many secrets any more!!”

But, we must. We elect individuals for their individual aspirations and qualities. Those individuals, in their attempts to keep power and enhance it, must, I repeat, must, hide a great deal. They must hide their personal aspirations for power, they must hide their greed which power will bring them, they must hide their differences with political groups they depend upon for support, and they must hide as much as possible, their mistakes. We prize perfection in America, despite the fact that it is only found in a cosmetic case backed by lighting and complimentary backgrounds, artificially created.

Every decision carries an opportunity cost, and hence, there is no perfect decision, policy, ideology, or value system. Every political decision carries with it hidden costs, because in America today, cost is a four letter word no one wants to hear, especially if they have to bear it. Hence, politicians are loathe to discuss the opportunity costs of their decisions and policies and hire marketing firms to pull a perfect image out of a cosmetic case to dress up their decisions and policies for voter consumption.

Voters, often don’t have a clue what they are consuming from their politicians. If they knew it was crap, they wouldn’t be eating it like there was no tomorrow. They think, and polls bear this out, that their own representative is not the problem, but, everyone else’s is. Voters in a democracy could not be more gullible nor easily duped, as Americans are.