$100s of millions of "dark money" funds climate denial movement

[shira]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean and neither more nor less.'

Except that in this case the definition of the term given by ES is the true definition:

Negative externalities

A negative externality is a cost that is suffered by a third party as a result of an economic transaction. In a transaction, the producer and consumer are the first and second parties, and third parties include any individual, organisation, property owner, or resource that is indirectly affected. Externalities are also referred to as spill over effects, and a negative externality is also referred to as an external cost.

But if insisting that those that know more than you are Humpty Dumpties allows you to ignore their "inconvenient truths," then I guess we understand why you continue to be ignorant.

 

[glenn1]

Except that in this case the definition of the term given by ES is the true definition:

But if insisting that those that know more than you are Humpty Dumpties allows you to ignore their "inconvenient truths," then I guess we understand why you continue to be ignorant.

Eskimospy was arguing that the end use of the power doesn't count as an externality but only its production. Which is a sophistry argument because production of the green product using fossil-fuel generated energy is what caused the consumption of fossil fuel energy to begin with. The only way his argument works would be if the batteries were made using no fossil fuel generated energy, in which case the externalities would have never been created.

To show you the fallacy of his reasoning, if we used his "logic" then since using fossil fuel energy to create batteries doesn't incur carbon externalities, we ought to do nothing but use fossil fuels to produce batteries and then use the batteries for all our energy needs. Doing that means a carbon emission externality is never incurred, and we don't need a carbon tax or cap-and-trade. It's sorta a perpertual motion machine but in "carbon externality" form.

 

[fskimospy]

Eskimospy was arguing that the end use of the power doesn't count as an externality but only its production. Which is a sophistry argument because production of the green product using fossil-fuel generated energy is what caused the consumption of fossil fuel energy to begin with. The only way his argument works would be if the batteries were made using no fossil fuel generated energy, in which case the externalities would have never been created.

To show you the fallacy of his reasoning, if we used his "logic" then since using fossil fuel energy to create batteries doesn't incur carbon externalities, we ought to do nothing but use fossil fuels to produce batteries and then use the batteries for all our energy needs. Doing that means a carbon emission externality is never incurred, and we don't need a carbon tax or cap-and-trade. It's sorta a perpertual motion machine but in "carbon externality" form.

It's weird when someone says they are ignoring you but then continue to argue with you. It's like when your parents were fighting and your dad said "can you please tell your mother to pass the salt because I'm not talking to her."

Batteries can be made with power from any source and there is no inherent carbon based negative externality present. For fossil fuel generation it's a fundamental part of the process. Trying to say that renewable energies share the same carbon production issues as fossil fuels do because there is electricity used in their production is some pretty sweet pretzel logic.

 

[Fern]

Nice refutation of the various facts that the article dealt with. :thumbsup:

I don't see much in the way of "facts" to refute.

In a nutshell the author claims a lot of untraceable money is flowing into the GW debate (some how that on the other side is commendable while this is abominable). He then throws around the usual boogeymen like Koch and Exxon implying that the money is from them. Then at the end he once again bemoans the fact that no one can tell where the money is coming from.

Alarmist hooey. Ooooh "Dark Money". How ominous.

Frankly, I think that the 'no MMGW' is wasting it's money. Listening to the 'yes MMGW' side is enough to foster all the skepticism needed.

Fern

 

[Paratus]

Those are good points. I see them in all the MMGW supporters. As more and more data comes in, we are seeing MMGW influence decrease. Still there of course, but the impact of CO2 release by man activities is less than what we had thought just 10 years ago.

Even the IPCC is recognizing that in its latest AR5 report. The technical piece of it that is.

I am hoping MMGW supporters will come to embrace new information setting aside their biases. It can be hard to give up a long standing belief, but we should if we want to make the best decisions about how to mitigate any man made contribution to warming.

Well a new study that was just released in Nature and summarized by Ars details 12 years of direct measurments measurements of the effect of CO2 on heat retention in the atmosphere.

They found over 12 years that thermal retention increased by .2W/m^2. So the effects of increased CO2 are actually increasing.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/newsflash-the-greenhouse-effect-really-exists/
.....The new work, done by a US-based team, used instruments funded by the Department of Energy. Located in Alaska and the southern Great Plains, the instruments look straight up into the sky and measures the spectrum of infrared light it receives, revealing the presence of various molecules in the atmosphere, such as water vapor, ozone, carbon dioxide, and methane.

The spectrum it sees looks very much like the one we'd calculated it should see, with a few exceptions caused by heating of the instrument itself. But the precise details vary based on the factors noted above, like the weather and seasons. Using a decade-long time series, the authors are able to get all these other factors to effectively cancel out; what emerges shows "the unmistakable spectral fingerprint of CO2."

And not just CO2, but rising CO2. Over the deade the authors examined (2000 to 2010), the average level of the gas in the atmosphere went up by 22 parts-per-million. And the time series shows a steadily rising trend in its impact, layered on top of the seasonal changes. By the end of that period, the gas was retaining an extra 0.2 Watts for every square meter of the Earth's surface compared to the start.

Given longer periods of time, these measurements should allow us to confirm some of the basic features of the greenhouse effect. But they won't provide a complete picture of climate change, as they have to be done under clear-sky conditions; clouds play an important and somewhat uncertain role in both insulating and cooling the planet.

Still, it seems worth noting that the continued increase in greenhouse energy retention measured during this time coincides with a period where the Earth's surface temperatures did not change dramatically. All that energy must have been going somewhere.

Nature, 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nature14240 (About DOIs).

Of course we do know where the energy that isn't in the atmosphere is going. It's going where we measured it, in the ocean.

So as you said, sometimes you have to accept new information even if it contradicts what you want to believe.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I don't see much in the way of "facts" to refute.

In a nutshell the author claims a lot of untraceable money is flowing into the GW debate (some how that on the other side is commendable while this is abominable). He then throws around the usual boogeymen like Koch and Exxon implying that the money is from them. Then at the end he once again bemoans the fact that no one can tell where the money is coming from.

Alarmist hooey. Ooooh "Dark Money". How ominous.

Frankly, I think that the 'no MMGW' is wasting it's money. Listening to the 'yes MMGW' side is enough to foster all the skepticism needed.

Fern

Did you bother to read the actual study linked from the article?

http://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing Delay - Climatic Change.ashx

 

[norseamd]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fcf4...antarcticas-retreating-ice-may-re-shape-earth