"Grim" forecast for inaction on global warming

[Clancy]

Economic View - Fighting Global Warming - A Small Price for a Large Benefit - NYTimes.com

FORECASTS involving climate change are highly uncertain, denialists assert — a point that climate researchers themselves readily concede. The denialists view the uncertainty as strengthening their case for inaction, yet a careful weighing of the relevant costs and benefits supports taking exactly the opposite course.

Organizers of the recent climate conference in Copenhagen sought, unsuccessfully, to forge agreements to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. But even an increase that small would cause deadly harm. And far greater damage is likely if we do nothing.

The numbers — and there are many to choose from — paint a grim picture. According to recent estimates from the Integrated Global Systems Model at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the median forecast is for a climb of 9 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end, in the absence of effective countermeasures.

That forecast, however, may underestimate the increase. According to the same M.I.T. model, there is a 10 percent chance that the average global temperature will rise more than 12.4 degrees by 2100, and a 3 percent chance it will climb more than 14.4 degrees. Warming on that scale would be truly catastrophic.

Scientists say that even the 3.6-degree increase would spell widespread loss of life, so it’s hardly alarmist to view the risk of inaction as frightening.

In contrast, the risk of taking action should frighten no one. Essentially, the risk is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, the money spent to curb greenhouse gases wouldn’t have been needed to save the planet. And yet that money would still have prevented substantial damage. (The M.I.T. model estimates a zero probability of the temperature rising by less than 3.6 degrees by 2100.)

Moreover, taking action won’t cost much. According to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a tax of $80 a metric ton on carbon dioxide — or a cap-and-trade system with similar charges — would stabilize temperatures by midcentury.

This figure was determined, however, before the arrival of more pessimistic estimates on the pace of global warming. So let’s assume a tax of $300 a ton, just to be safe.

Under such a tax, the prices of goods would rise in proportion to their carbon footprints — in the case of gasoline, for example, by roughly $2.60 a gallon.

A sudden price increase of that magnitude could indeed be painful. But if phased in, it would cause much less harm. Facing steadily increasing fuel prices, for example, manufacturers would scramble to develop more efficient vehicles.

Even from the existing menu of vehicles, a family could trade in its Ford Explorer, getting 15 miles per gallon, for a 32-m.p.g. Ford Focus wagon, thereby escaping the effect of higher gasoline prices. Europeans, many of whom already pay $4 a gallon more than Americans do for gasoline, have adapted to their higher prices with little difficulty.

In short, the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small, and it involves just a few simple changes in behavior.

The real problem with the estimates is that the outcome may be worse than expected. And that’s the strongest possible argument for taking action. In a rational world, that should be an easy choice, but in this case we appear to be headed in the wrong direction.

This strange state of affairs may be rooted in human psychology. As the Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it in a 2006 op-ed article in The Los Angeles Times, “Global warming is bad, but it doesn’t make us feel nauseated or angry or disgraced, and thus we don’t feel compelled to rail against it as we do against other momentous threats to our species, such as flag burning.”

People tend to have strong emotions about topics like food and sex, and to create their own moral rules around these emotions, he says. “Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action,” he wrote. “If climate change were caused by gay sex, or by the practice of eating kittens, millions of protesters would be massing in the streets.”

But the human brain is remarkably flexible. Emotions matter, but so does logic. Even though we did not evolve under conditions that predisposed us to become indignant about climate change, we can learn to take such risks more seriously. But that won’t happen without better political leadership.

Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, has said that “the claim that global warming is caused by man-made emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science.” On compelling evidence, he’s wrong. . Yet he and his colleagues have the power to block legislation on greenhouse gases.

WE don’t know how much hotter the planet will become by 2100. But the fact that we face “only” a 10 percent chance of a catastrophic 12-degree climb surely does not argue for inaction. It calls for immediate, decisive steps.

Most people would pay a substantial share of their wealth — much more, certainly, than the modest cost of a carbon tax — to avoid having someone pull the trigger on a gun pointed at their head with one bullet and nine empty chambers. Yet that’s the kind of risk that some people think we should take.

Robert H. Frank is an economist at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Economic View - Fighting Global Warming - A Small Price for a Large Benefit - NYTimes.com

[someguy]

Under such a tax, the prices of goods would rise in proportion to their carbon footprints — in the case of gasoline, for example, by roughly $2.60 a gallon.

Hey Barry,

Where's that Un-gratitude button when you need it?!

[Clancy]

Hey Barry,

Where's that Un-gratitude button when you need it?!

Don't worry, we're not going to do anything because most people, like you, are far too short sighted to see that inaction now will cost us far more in the future.

We simply can't keep pumping hydrocarbons into the air at the rate we're going without devastating consequences, as M.I.T. and the rest of the scientific community keep telling us, but for the psychological and political reasons outlined in the article above, most of us simply don't care.

From the article -- “Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action,” .... “If climate change were caused by gay sex, or by the practice of eating kittens, millions of protesters would be massing in the streets.”

[someguy]

Don't worry, we're not going to do anything because most people, like you, are far too short sighted to see that inaction now will cost us far more in the future.

We simply can't keep pumping hydrocarbons into the air at the rate we're going without devastating consequences, as M.I.T. and the rest of the scientific community keep telling us, but for the psychological and political reasons outlined in the article above, most of us simply don't care.

From the article -- “Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action,” .... “If climate change were caused by gay sex, or by the practice of eating kittens, millions of protesters would be massing in the streets.”

There are plenty of other things that the "scientific community" claims to be fact, that I know to be false. The findings of the scientific community are highly influenced by the people paying them, namely, the government (which you already realize is corrupt). For instance, look at the USDA's food guide pyramid. There is absolutely nothing scientific about the dietary recommendations it contains, yet you'd be hard pressed to find a Nutrition Department at any major university that would contradict it.

“Moral emotions are the brain’s call to action,” ....What you fail to mention Clancy is that emotions are easily manipulated, most of the time to further peoples political agendas. This is the same thing religions have been doing to blind the masses for centuries. Stir up the emotions of the people and you can direct them to do practically anything, just as the MMGW environmentalist movement has obviously done. Look at yourself, you are driven by your emotions to save the world, and in doing so, you ignore the lives that would be eliminated through the draconian taxation mentioned in your article. Its not as though all the people who have lost their homes or jobs in this recession will be able to go out and buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle! What will those people do? What about the people who already can't afford enough food? Would you really want to raise the price of food even more, ensuring that millions of people starve to death all over the world????

You call me short-sighted....yet the article you posted doesn't even consider the effects of the carbon tax on the rest of the world! Hello, Europe and North America are not the only populations in the world! The examples given are laughable. Do you really think that a Ford Explorer that gets 15 mpg will have any trade-in value at all if gas is $6 a gallon? What about people who don't even have a car to trade in and can't afford a new car? What about people in Argentina who practically all drive jalopies from the '50's and '60s??? What should they do?

I do feel "nauseated" and "angry" and "disgraced" that anyone would claim that "the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small" without even the consideration of what effects these measures would have upon most of the world's inhabitants!!! How much more disgraceful and dishonest could this guy be? This writer is an economist for gods sake! If he considers the massive casualties and extreme global poverty that will be inevitable due to carbon taxes to be an astonishingly small cost, then he is a terrible person.

MMGW serves exactly the same purpose as religion. It makes people feel guilty for their "original sins" (carbon output), and fearful of "hell" (an uninhabitable world). The fear of "hell" stirs up emotions and causes people to do irrational things to keep that "hell" from becoming a reality. It gives believers the moral high ground, further dividing the world into 'Us vs. Them'. It encourages believers to demonize anyone who questions their view. It makes believers feel justified in forcing their views on the whole population (like Christians wanting to legislate their own morality). It offers ways to "repent" (carbon offsets and buying green products). Like religion, those at the top of the pyramid, who hold the power, feel exempt from obeying their own dogma (like Al Gore using massive amounts of energy and buying carbon offsets from himself), and are often corrupt and essentially scamming people out of their money and time.

You know, I can totally relate to the way you feel about this issue. I'm a young person, and ever since I was a small child the dogma of man-made global warming has been stamped into my brain. For many years, I felt so much panic and frustration that my home was going to be destroyed and there was nothing that I could do on my own to prevent it. I felt small and helpless against the incredible pollution of the big corporations, and I desperately wanted to do something, anything, to save my planet. I felt a moral obligation to "proselytize" and "repent", and I felt anger against those who couldn't see what seemed so obvious to me.

However, I now realize that no one ever showed me any proof of global warming, then or now. I simply took it for granted, because I had been told my whole life by my parents, teachers, etc. As I grew older, I started to realize that I can't just take someone's word for something, even if that someone has a long list of credentials after their name. Many credentialed people are extremely corrupt and not to be trusted. Peter Joseph (Zeitgeist dude) calls the trusting of credentials 'credentialism'. Here's part of an interview with him where he discusses this concept (about 4 minutes into the video) YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Since then, I have adopted a skeptical viewpoint towards everything, and I don't think that's a bad thing. And because I am skeptical of experts (especially those affiliated with governments and special interests, or those who have a conflict of interest, like Pachauri, who was essentially appointed by Exxon Mobil and George W Bush), I look at all sides of the argument and make my own decision. I refuse to blindly follow anything just because there is a "consensus".

[Clancy]

There are plenty of other things that the "scientific community" claims to be fact, that I know to be false.... I refuse to blindly follow anything just because there is a "consensus".

Nobody is paying the top climatologists from over 100 countries to join together in some paranoid's conspiracy theory. It would simply be impossible to pull off. Your response is a perfect example of the subject of the last thread I started.

Here it is;
America's devastating disconnect from logic and reason - WaccoBB

[someguy]

Nobody is paying the top climatologists from over 100 countries to join together in some paranoid's conspiracy theory. It would simply be impossible to pull off. Your response is a perfect example of the subject of the last thread I started.

Here it is;
America's devastating disconnect from logic and reason - WaccoBB

So who is paying these climatologists and for this research then????? We all know government is the main sponsor of scientific research right? And I'd like a response to the rest of the things Ive said.

[Clancy]

So who is paying these climatologists and for this research then????? We all know government is the main sponsor of scientific research right? And I'd like a response to rest of the things Ive said.

Presumably thousands of universities, governmental agencies, weather related grant sources, think tanks, aeronautical and space agencies, forestry and land management agencies etc etc etc, from ONE HUNDRED FIFTY nations.

You seem to think they all just signed some statement or something, the IPCC is a body of 150 countries, and their consensus on man made global warming is based on thousands of scientific studies, from over 100 countries, compiled into a 1,600 page report.

If you want to see the actual IPCC reports and sources, you can find them here
https://www.ipcc.ch/

And I only have a few minutes, so I can only address your first question.

[someguy]

Presumably thousands of universities, governmental agencies, weather related grant sources, think tanks, aeronautical and space agencies, forestry and land management agencies etc etc etc, from ONE HUNDRED FIFTY nations.

You seem to think they all just signed some statement or something, the IPCC is a body of 150 countries, and their consensus on man made global warming is based on thousands of scientific studies, from over 100 countries, compiled into a 1,600 page report.

And I only have a few minutes, so I can only address your first question.

Most of the organizations you listed are government-related. Think tanks generally support one political agenda or another. University research is often HIGHLY influenced by the sources of the university's funding.......a lot of funding comes from major corporations, and this definitely has an impact on what comes out of the universities. The IPCC is a governmental panel of "experts", and I don't trust them anymore than I trust the FDA, USDA, or the WHO. It does not matter how many pages their report has. Their conclusions are based on models and assumptions, for instance that CO2 drives warming. That particular assumption was found by a judge to be false after a review of the science.

[Clancy]

This is my last post regarding this absurd premise. We're not talking about our own government, we're talking about ALL the world's governments, including the many whose principle source of income is oil, natural gas or coal.

Think about it, your position implies an unprecedented and extraordinarily elaborate conspiracy the likes of which the world has never seen. All the countries in the world simply could not pull it off, even if they wanted to.

Never mind the paranoid delusion that the top climatologists from all these countries would agree to such a ridiculous scheme.

You also overlook the fact that if science were on the side of climate change deniers, the oil industry, with it's army of paid scientists, would be flooding the peer reviewed science journals with their own proofs, and you'd be cutting and pasting it here.

And finally, you apparently don't have to worry, RW ignorance and paranoia seems to have won, the oil industry has won, ergo the "grim" forecast in the original post of this thread.

Most of the organizations you listed are government-related. Think tanks generally support one political agenda or another. University research is often HIGHLY influenced by the sources of the university's funding.......a lot of funding comes from major corporations, and this definitely has an impact on what comes out of the universities. The IPCC is a governmental panel of "experts", and I don't trust them anymore than I trust the FDA, USDA, or the WHO. It does not matter how many pages their report has. Their conclusions are based on models and assumptions, for instance that CO2 drives warming. That particular assumption was found by a judge to be false after a review of the science.

["Mad" Miles]

Media Distortions And “Real” Climate Scandals

From DissidentVoice 2/22/10

I post it here because I think it addresses some of the issues that have been argued about in this and other waccobb.net threads about Global Warming. I have no interest in debating the issue with those who do not think Global Warming / Climate Change is anthrogenic. But as a source of information about the debate, I think the article has value.

This quote caught my eye:

"Media bias on this issue is so extreme that many members of the public perceive climate science, rather than climate scepticism, as the cynical product of greed for funding. Thanks to corporate media silence on these corporate machinations, the truth has been exactly reversed!"

"Mad" Miles

[Clancy]

..."Media bias on this issue is so extreme that many members of the public perceive climate science, rather than climate scepticism, as the cynical product of greed for funding. Thanks to corporate media silence on these corporate machinations, the truth has been exactly reversed."