Climate Change Is Harming U.S. Economy report says

[K1052]

It might be technically possible, but not realistically possible. For example, using solar is great, but if the processes to make all the solar panel are horrible for the environment, are we achieving a net benefit? Nothing happens in a vacuum, there are a lot of factors at play.

Just saying "stop burning fossil fuels!" is not helpful. It's not going to happen, for a variety of reasons. We also have to balance impact to our standard of living with any benefits. If we all go live in huts without electricity, it would certainly decrease CO2 output etc, but it's not a desirable state.

Nukes and solar are entirely within our technological grasp and the negative byproducts can be managed (not released to the environment en mass). Also, solar PV tech is improving all the time: http://time.com/87655/scientists-just-got-the-lead-out-of-solar-cells-with-tin/

Significant PV solar installations (both rooftop and utility scale) have been rolling out and there are a lot more planned. If the feds came up with a more robust incentive framework while protecting the distributors to a realistic extent the US could meet a lot of it's need this way in short order. Coupled it with further energy conservation (move to LED lights, credits for high efficiency HVAC system replacement, stricter energy usage in new construction, etc) and the benefits are compounded.

 

[PokerGuy]

Let me know when China, India and Russia buy into your fool proof plan...

Or even when we (the US) get in a situation where we can realistically get almost all our energy from sources that don't require burning fossil fuels. Last i checked it was still around 70% derived from fossil fuels, there's no conceivable way you're going to reduce that to negligible amount, and even if you did, it would be so incredible expensive that you'd have to cripple the US economy.

 

[blankslate]

Obviously if the Obama administration is citing it... there's a conspiracy and it is in fact false.

We must wait for the Exxon, BP, and Koch Brothers audit of the report to get a clear and unbiased picture.



.....

 

[K1052]

Or even when we (the US) get in a situation where we can realistically get almost all our energy from sources that don't require burning fossil fuels. Last i checked it was still around 70% derived from fossil fuels, there's no conceivable way you're going to reduce that to negligible amount, and even if you did, it would be so incredible expensive that you'd have to cripple the US economy.

When you can externalize the true costs then it is natural that fossil fuel generation is cheaper. We let coal plants with no emissions controls wreak untold economic damage on us via increased environmental/healthcare costs for decades in the name of cheap energy. Everything has a cost, including doing nothing.

 

[PokerGuy]

Nukes and solar are entirely within our technological grasp and the negative byproducts can be managed (not released to the environment en mass). Also, solar PV tech is improving all the time: http://time.com/87655/scientists-just-got-the-lead-out-of-solar-cells-with-tin/

Significant PV solar installations (both rooftop and utility scale) have been rolling out and there are a lot more planned. If the feds came up with a more robust incentive framework while protecting the distributors to a realistic extent the US could meet a lot of it's need this way in short order. Coupled it with further energy conservation (move to LED lights, credits for high efficiency HVAC system replacement, stricter energy usage in new construction, etc) and the benefits are compounded.

That's all dandy, but there are negative impacts to that as well. The solar panel industry is now largely in China because it is dirty. To what extent do we want to be even more dependent on them? We still get 70% of our energy from fossil fuels. Low hanging fruit on efficiency and conservation don't cost nearly as much as some of the bigger changes that would be required to significantly reduce that 70% figure. Nuclear is on the decline, not on the way up, largely because of public sentiment. You might not like it, but that's how the public currently thinks, so moving large scale to nuke power isn't going to happen anytime soon.

 

[K1052]

That's all dandy, but there are negative impacts to that as well. The solar panel industry is now largely in China because it is dirty. To what extent do we want to be even more dependent on them? We still get 70% of our energy from fossil fuels. Low hanging fruit on efficiency and conservation don't cost nearly as much as some of the bigger changes that would be required to significantly reduce that 70% figure. Nuclear is on the decline, not on the way up, largely because of public sentiment. You might not like it, but that's how the public currently thinks, so moving large scale to nuke power isn't going to happen anytime soon.

A lot of production is in China for the same reasons other production is there...low wages and lax environmental law. Also another major factor is that the Chinese government has improperly props up the entire industry there financially to build up that kind of market share. Taiwan, Japan, Germany, and the US all have manufacturing as well.

Exelon wasn't toying with retiring their reactor fleet because of public sentiment, it was because they are loosing money.

 

[IGBT]

as expected from alarmist eco-KOOKs who use cherry picked liberal mythology and computer games as "proof".

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

what I don't understand is why people are so vehemently against protecting the earth from future damage by limiting the impact we make as a species. What the fuck do you have to lose by polluting less? Yes, China, India and other countries pollute, but focus on your backyard and make that clean, don't be a fucking juvenile "Well look, Billy's polluting, so why can't I??"

 

[nehalem256]

Hey! Stop it right now. We are only to use government approved facts or what is known as the current truth. Don't make me have to turn you in! (Although the extra beet ration would come in handy.)

NASA isn't government approved?

And the meme seems irresistible as a political shortcut to action. President Obama has explicitly linked a warming climate to “more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes.” The White House warned this summer of “increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events that come with climate change.”

Yet this is not supported by science. “General statements about extremes are almost nowhere to be found in the literature but seem to abound in the popular media,” climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies said last month. “It’s this popular perception that global warming means all extremes have to increase all the time, even though if anyone thinks about that for 10 seconds they realize that’s nonsense.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...770d48-117e-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html

 

[realibrad]

what I don't understand is why people are so vehemently against protecting the earth from future damage by limiting the impact we make as a species. What the fuck do you have to lose by polluting less? Yes, China, India and other countries pollute, but focus on your backyard and make that clean, don't be a fucking juvenile "Well look, Billy's polluting, so why can't I??"

The worlds population is only sustained because of its advancements. A lot of our advancements pollute. If you take away pollution, you may very well limit the ability for society to produce what it needs to sustain its population.

I'm all for making sure the costs of pollution are paid, but the goal should not be to pollute less for the sake of less pollution. The reason we should be polluting less is because we don't want the trade off that may come.

I'm sure to some it seems like an argument of semantics but its truly not.

 

[PokerGuy]

what I don't understand is why people are so vehemently against protecting the earth from future damage by limiting the impact we make as a species.

Can you provide examples of people that are vehemently against protecting the earth from damage and polluting less?

What the f*ck do you have to lose by polluting less? Yes, China, India and other countries pollute, but focus on your backyard and make that clean, don't be a f*cking juvenile "Well look, Billy's polluting, so why can't I??"

Yeah, there are infinite resources, there are no tradoffs at all. Everyone can just make a choice to pollute less, and voila, it's all free and cleaner!

Or perhaps -- more accurately -- people are against policies that pretend to do those things and in fact do nothing but send money / power to government and certain groups? I'm all for less pollution, but there are costs to that as well. Thus we have to balance things like economy, environment, wellbeing and so forth, given that there are limited resources.

 

[Thebobo]

Can you provide examples of people that are vehemently against protecting the earth from damage and polluting less?

Yeah, there are infinite resources, there are no tradoffs at all. Everyone can just make a choice to pollute less, and voila, it's all free and cleaner!

Or perhaps -- more accurately -- people are against policies that pretend to do those things and in fact do nothing but send money / power to government and certain groups? I'm all for less pollution, but there are costs to that as well. Thus we have to balance things like economy, environment, wellbeing and so forth, given that there are limited resources.

Ops I mean

 

[spacejamz]

what I don't understand is why people are so vehemently against protecting the earth from future damage by limiting the impact we make as a species. What the fuck do you have to lose by polluting less? Yes, China, India and other countries pollute, but focus on your backyard and make that clean, don't be a fucking juvenile "Well look, Billy's polluting, so why can't I??"

It's not a matter of "if they can do it, why can't I?"

The citizens of India and China (not sure how many billions of people this is up to now) are moving up from their 3rd world status which requires a substantial amount of energy (electricity, fossil fuels, etc)...do you really think they are going to give this up, especially since we have been doing it for decades?? Along with Russia, these 3 countries are a major factor in the world's pollution problems...what happens in the US is insignificant until those 3 decide to clean up their act...

 

[bshole]

what I don't understand is why people are so vehemently against protecting the earth from future damage by limiting the impact we make as a species. What the fuck do you have to lose by polluting less? Yes, China, India and other countries pollute, but focus on your backyard and make that clean, don't be a fucking juvenile "Well look, Billy's polluting, so why can't I??"

Not everybody believes that CO2 is a "pollutant. I certainly don't. Life on earth would be impossible without atmospheric CO2.

 

[boomerang]

Dissenting Scientists Label White House Climate Report As ‘Pseudoscience’

The Missing Science From The Draft National Assessment On Climate Change

Sounds like the science isn't settled. Which doesn't surprise me at all because the very nature of science means that it is never settled.

 

[K1052]

Dissenting Scientists Label White House Climate Report As ‘Pseudoscience’

The Missing Science From The Draft National Assessment On Climate Change

Sounds like the science isn't settled. Which doesn't surprise me at all because the very nature of science means that it is never settled.

A Koch founded libertarian think tank that's tried to undermine every environmental report the government has put out on the subject doesn't agree? I am shocked....shocked I tell you.

 

[boomerang]

A Koch founded libertarian think tank that's tried to undermine every environmental report the government has put out on the subject doesn't agree? I am shocked....shocked I tell you.

So scientists, whose research is supported by the government, agree in support of a government that is broke and needs more money which they feel they can glean from taxing the populace to "fix" the problem of global climate disruption. There surely could not be any bias there! Use your brain.

Last time I had softener salt delivered the guys that carried it all down the basement changed the settings on my softener. Changed the settings so that I would use more salt! Why in the world would they do that?

 

[Jaskalas]

What the fuck do you have to lose by polluting less?

What you call a pollutant is CO2. Carbon runs our industry, it fuels our economy. What you lose is economic prosperity. You lose your standard of living.

Another thing, fuel economy for vehicles. Our government mandates improvements by law. Car makers have to strip weight from vehicles, they strip hard steel and replace it with lighter components. Now you are risking your family.

 

[K1052]

So scientists, whose research is supported by the government, agree in support of a government that is broke and needs more money which they feel they can glean from taxing the populace to "fix" the problem of global climate disruption. There surely could not be any bias there! Use your brain.

Last time I had softener salt delivered the guys that carried it all down the basement changed the settings on my softener. Changed the settings so that I would use more salt! Why in the world would they do that?

Just so I understand this....you're claiming (without any proof mind you) that scientists have deliberately falsified data, interpretations, and conclusions in order to get money from the government? Further that the vast majority of climatologists and other environmental scientists (even foreign ones) have independently conspired to that aim?

 

[mikeymikec]

Just so I understand this....you're claiming (without any proof mind you) that scientists have deliberately falsified data, interpretations, and conclusions in order to get money from the government? Further that the vast majority of climatologists and other environmental scientists (even foreign ones) have independently conspired to that aim?

Stuart Mackenzie: Well, it's a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Tony Giardino: So who's in this Pentavirate?
Stuart Mackenzie: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!"
Charlie Mackenzie: Dad, how can you hate "The Colonel"?
Stuart Mackenzie: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!

 

[Thebobo]

Just so I understand this....you're claiming (without any proof mind you) that scientists have deliberately falsified data, interpretations, and conclusions in order to get money from the government? Further that the vast majority of climatologists and other environmental scientists (even foreign ones) have independently conspired to that aim?

Yea I never understood that claim its incredibly short sighted given real world facts.

I mean big business has a lot more interest in the outcome of any GW regulation and of course they have TONS more money and resources. How do you think that only in the USA are the doubts of man made GW so high compared to the rest of the world. It ain't because we are smarter lol. The decade plus media war especially when they tied GW to a political ideology is the major culprit. If you are conservative you are supposed to ignore the rest of the world and facts and object to MMGW.

Its shame really back in 2007 even Bush finally accepted the science on MMGW. Bush accepts science on warming - Washington Times

The White House yesterday embraced a new international report faulting humans for global warming, marking the furthest President Bush has gone in placing blame.

 

[Paratus]

Sea Ice, Arctic is losing ice but Antarctic is gaining ice. Except you've linked to Antarctic ice area. When you look at mass or volume it's dropped too. It's an easy mistake to make.

"Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past" was patently false.

Of course your link is to Northern Hemisphere. We are talking global snow fall which shows a drop.

Surface temperatures are paused no matter which data set you look at.

Lower troposphere is just as dull as the surface temp.

Except of course it actually shows a temperature increase. Hardly dull.

Glaciers have been retreating for quite some time.
So equivocating aside you agree glaciers are retreating.

Ocean Heat content is a very young and incomplete data set. They measure depth once every 10 days.
So equivocating aside you agree ocean temperatures are rising

Which leaves you with Sea level, Sea Surface Temp, and Water Vapor. All three favorable to the argument that we warmed in the 20 year period of the 80s and 90s. 20 years does not make a convincing CO2 correlation.

So you've cherry picked your date range to conform to your biases.

What I'm willing to accept is that Climate Change is real, and that Climate Sensitivity is a mere 0.3C per doubling of CO2. This would place me among the 97% consensus, as it's plainly obvious man-made CO2 would have some effect. However, at 0.3C per doubling, this effect would be fairly insignificant.

I also believe that not everything on this planet is man made, that natural factors play a very significant role in Climate. The PDO and AMO have apparent 50-60 year cycles which greatly redistribute ocean heat content. No shorter trend can take those cycles into account. There are likely even longer cycles of natural changes we are not even aware of. Hence why the IPCC models continue to overestimate and continue to fail.

My alternative theory? That political activists took a short term (20 year) warming trend and blew it dramatically out of proportion. Climate change is real, but it's also not going to do much.

See above.

I also suggest, since you've admitted it's real and humanity has a component, that you consider the following.

How much reserves of fossils fuels do corps have on the books currently. What do they plan to do with those reserves. Food for thought.

 

[MongGrel]

Ppppfffttt!!

Climate Change!!

What the fuck do these people know ANYTHING about nature and the Earth?! We all know that nature and the Earth act the way they do, because humans are wicked.

Haiti for example; http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/

All of this (your chnage, your 'warming') can be stopped, once people stop being bad.

Your version of science more or less I take it.

http://www.cracked.com/video_18446_if-nature-documentaries-didnt-let-science-get-in-way.html

 

[werepossum]

Sea Ice, Arctic is losing ice but Antarctic is gaining ice.

"Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past" was patently false.

Surface temperatures are paused no matter which data set you look at.

Lower troposphere is just as dull as the surface temp.

Glaciers have been retreating for quite some time.

Ocean Heat content is a very young and incomplete data set. They measure depth once every 10 days.

Which leaves you with Sea level, Sea Surface Temp, and Water Vapor. All three favorable to the argument that we warmed in the 20 year period of the 80s and 90s. 20 years does not make a convincing CO2 correlation.

What I'm willing to accept is that Climate Change is real, and that Climate Sensitivity is a mere 0.3C per doubling of CO2. This would place me among the 97% consensus, as it's plainly obvious man-made CO2 would have some effect. However, at 0.3C per doubling, this effect would be fairly insignificant.

I also believe that not everything on this planet is man made, that natural factors play a very significant role in Climate. The PDO and AMO have apparent 50-60 year cycles which greatly redistribute ocean heat content. No shorter trend can take those cycles into account. There are likely even longer cycles of natural changes we are not even aware of. Hence why the IPCC models continue to overestimate and continue to fail.

My alternative theory? That political activists took a short term (20 year) warming trend and blew it dramatically out of proportion. Climate change is real, but it's also not going to do much.

Climate-wise I'd agree that doubling CO2 is fairly benign. However, to the marine and low buffering capacity softwater aquatic ecosystems doubling CO2 is anything but benign. I've been somewhat reassured in the marine ecosystems, but I still consider it to be a major potential problem if we continue increasing atmospheric CO2. And for many softwater streams and lakes it's already a problem. Take a stream that normally runs maybe 6.0 PH but has almost no buffering capacity and introduce a lot of CO2 and pretty soon your stream is essentially sterilized as it drops to a level where almost nothing can survive. We've seen that primarily as a result of acid rain and localized acidification such as mine tailings run-off, but the principle is the same: introduce a lot of CO2 into an aquatic system with little buffering capacity and you get a pretty little aquatic desert.

See above.

I also suggest, since you've admitted it's real and humanity has a component, that you consider the following.

How much reserves of fossils fuels do corps have on the books currently. What do they plan to do with those reserves. Food for thought.

The world has been warming for thousands of years and will continue to warm (as a trend) even if all people disappeared. The very reason so many communities are considered at risk from global warming eliminating their glaciers is that they have historically depended on runoff from melting glaciers for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years.

 

[Jaskalas]

See above.

You did not reply with sea ice, instead you linked what is apparently gravitational measurements of the continental ice sheet. I'm not familiar with this work and I'll make a point to raise it with skeptics, when possible.

June snow extent? You may have claimed it's global, but picking a specific month such as June would call out the southern hemisphere. This does not change the northern hemisphere's increase in winter snow.

I say no warming for 17 years, pointing to RSS only demonstrates that. The isolated warming of the 80s and 90s is clearly visible. Following the established pattern of the 20th century, natural warming will not continue until 2030. Any significant deviations from that would lead to a CO2 signal.

I also suggest, since you've admitted it's real and humanity has a component, that you consider the following.

How much reserves of fossils fuels do corps have on the books currently. What do they plan to do with those reserves. Food for thought.

Hopefully they'll utilize those fuels as we spend the next few hundred years learning to transition our society towards something sustainable. If Climate Sensitivity is a mere 0.3C, we have plenty of time before we reach 3,200ppm and a 1C man-made increase in temperature.

I want us to use available energy to maximize human prosperity and energy security.