Jim, it may not be new to you, but the IPCC, the USA government and other parties behave as if resources were endless. Regarding the price when “we” won’t be able to afford it, it will be around the time when oil production has declined for a few years, and refuses to bounce back no matter what price is offered.
This effect is seen in individual countries. For example, the UK, Norway, Azerbaijan, Gabon….their production didn’t react to the high price environment we saw in the last 10 years.
Michael ” We just understand the radiative forcing properties of GHGs, IN A GLASS JAR, which has come about through a century of scientific discovery”
#fify
The earth is not a glass jar. It’s not a glass shed either. There is no CO2 blanket. The established science you have identified does not support your alarmism. We’re pumping out CO2 like mad and the temps, they just aren’t rising the way the climate science consensus swore black and blue that they would.
I did show up for the debate, but those whose minds were already fixed had no intentions of listening. I truly don’t believe that you understand the question.
Fernando. I think pretty much everyone with an internet connection knows that oil is a finite resource. People have been calling the end of the oil era for decades now, but yet the industry is still viable and very necessary to our survival and for us to thrive. It enables our great standard of living!
So, the question is, again, when will oil be to expensive to use? The fact that the government is allowing, to a limited extent, the free market to handle oil production isn’t the bad thing you seem to believe it is.
Mosher believes his wit affords him a cloaking device. But his efforts are transparent.
Going out on a limb from the other commentators, I am going to have to respectfully disagree.
In general, I can’t see much to disagree with in any point of fact, but unfortunately I think that ‘facts’ with something like climate change are somewhat negotiable (sadly), in the eye of the beholder, and largely don’t matter. It really grates to write that, but I think it’s probably true.
Those who have looked at the issue deeply enough to be convinced that there is no good evidence for impending catastrophe also need to bear in mind that there are a lot of people who do. Sincerely, and vehemently. There are those who look at the same evidence as skeptics and rationalise a completely different narrative. Given that they would accuse skeptics of ignoring the same evidence in the same way skeptics say they are ignoring it, we have a situation where each side thinks it is right.
In the same way over confidence has created the situation we find ourselves in, being guilty of the same confidence in the other direction will not likely change anyone’s mind. So I propose that it is sensible to channel that energy toward achieving realistic and worthwhile ‘no-regrets’ goals. That’s why this interview reads as a refreshingly realistic way to approach the problem.
Meanwhile, in the background, climate science should continue to be challenged to do a better job, to be audited, examined and scrutinised. If we are lucky, and more people look at the problem in the manner of Gutting and Jamieson, we will be left with outcomes that are more useful regardless of how the science sorts itself out.
> In what way is mitigating against 4C different from mitigating against 2C during the first 20 years?
There only answer the rhetorical question allows shows yet again the vacuousness of the lukewarm brand.
Tepid branding.
I’m glad you highlighted your interaction with Don Beyer, demonstrating how over-symplified politicians have churned the issue, or how they understand it. The way politicians and the media play us locally is insulting. Keep pressing politicians, JC.
In what way is mitigating against 4C different from mitigating against 2C during the first 20 years?
Assuming that you mean that we assume low climate sensitivity (i.e., that we think 2 degree C is more likely than 4 degree C along a given emission pathway), then the issue is irreversibility or, at least, the possibility that it is essentially irreversible. Total emissions matter. Hence, if you assume that we’re simply heading for a 2degree C warmer world in 2100 and mitigate accordingly and you’re wrong, you can’t easily do anything about the emissions that have already taken place. Furthermore, since total emissions are what really matters, constraining our total emissions becomes increasingly difficult and would require ever more drastic actions.
Therefore, I don’t think that what we would need to do to mitigate against 4C would be the same, initially, as mitigating against 2C. Well, not if we want to reduce the possibility of drastic – and potentially risky – action in future.
“Just shut down the power plants using coal and see what the social cost of that would be.”
We will have to live through this gigantic experiment. The coal plants (at leas in the West) are doomed, and so is, probably, our civilization, that goes down with them.
Living in la-la land has consequences.
Dumb it is then.
” coal can be the difference between a vibrant economy with healthy populace on the one hand, and a dystopian nightmare on the other hand.” – Willis
Magical pixie dust works too.
“It started in the 1800’s, lasted over 100 years”
So it ended in the 1900’s?
Andrew
Thomas Fuller:
Your enumerated wish list of “no regrets” actions includes “all of the above”, and then some from “below”. There is absolutely nothing that can ever cause you regrets, not even spending horrendous amounts of money on useless things.
For example: letting EPA regulate carbon emissions means bye, bye to coal power plants, and with it – bye, bye to steady, reliable electricity supply.
Destroying our electricity supply mechanism is considered by you a “no regrets” option.
You lived some time in China. Did you experience the joy of having an intermittent electricity supply? I experienced this in several place, like India.
Rapid technology advancement will overtake the diminishing natural resource curve long before diminishing resources are, um, diminished.
Of course willard will avoid any substantive response, but ATTP, my question is not rhetorical. What would we do to mitigate 2C that we would not do if it were 4C. Given that we’re talking expenditures of many billions of dollars, we have to start somewhere.
https://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/climate-questions-that-never-get-answered/
