In a recent interview with National Public Radio host Diane Rehm, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said his company “has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on facts. And the facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. We should not be aligned with such people. They’re just literally lying.”
While he didn’t vilify us by name, Mr. Schmidt was certainly targeting us, the climate scientists who collect and summarize thousands of articles for the NIPCC’s Climate Change Reconsidered reports, the hundreds who participate in Heartland Institute climate conferences, and the 31,487 US scientists who have signed the Oregon Petition, attesting that there is no convincing scientific evidence that humans are causing catastrophic warming or climate disruption.
All of us are firm skeptics of claims that humans are causing catastrophic global warming and climate change. We are not climate change “deniers.” We know Earth’s climate and weather are constantly in flux, undergoing recurrent fluctuations that range from flood and drought cycles to periods of low or intense hurricane and tornado activity, to the Medieval Warm Period (950-1250 AD) and Little Ice Age (1350-1850) – and even to Pleistocene glaciers that repeatedly buried continents under a mile of ice.
What we deny is the notion that humans can prevent these fluctuations, by ending fossil fuel use and emissions of plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide, which plays only an insignificant role in climate change.
The real deniers are people who think our climate was and should remain static and unchanging, such as 1900-1970, supposedly – during which time Earth actually warmed and then cooled, endured the Dust Bowl, and experienced periods of devastating hurricanes and tornadoes.
The real deniers refuse to recognize that natural forces dictate weather and climate events. They deny that computer model predictions are completely at odds with real world events, that there has been no warming since 1995, and that several recent winters have been among the coldest in centuries in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. They refuse to acknowledge that, as of December 25, it’s been 3,347 days since a Category 3-5 hurricane hit the US mainland; this is by far the longest such stretch since record-keeping began in 1900, if not since the American Civil War.
Worst of all, they deny that their “solutions” hurt our children and grandchildren, by driving up energy prices, threatening electricity reliability, thwarting job creation, and limiting economic growth in poor nations to what can be sustained via expensive wind, solar, biofuel and geothermal energy. Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t be evil.” From our perspective, perpetuating poverty, misery, disease and premature death in poor African and Asian countries – in the name or preventing climate change – is evil.
It is truly disturbing that Mr. Schmidt could make a statement so thoroughly flawed in its basic premise. He runs a multi-billion dollar company that uses vast quantities of electricity to disseminate information throughout the world. Perhaps he should speak out on issues he actually understands. Perhaps he would be willing to debate us or Roy Spencer, David Legates, Pat Michaels and other climate experts.
Setting aside the irrational loyalty of alarmists like Schmidt to a failed “dangerous manmade climate change” hypothesis, equally disturbing is the money wasted because of it. Consider an article written for the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers’ summit website by Google engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork, who worked on Google’s “RE<C” renewable energy initiative.
Beginning in 2007, they say, “Google committed significant resources to tackle the world’s climate and energy problems. A few of these efforts proved very successful: Google deployed some of the most energy efficient data centers in the world, purchased large amounts of renewable energy, and offset what remained of its carbon footprint.”
It’s wonderful that the company improved the energy efficiency of its power-hungry data centers. But the project spent untold millions of dollars and countless man hours. To what actual benefits? To address precisely what climate and energy problems? And how exactly did Google offset its carbon footprint? By buying “carbon credits” from outfits like the New Forests Company, which drove impoverished Ugandan villagers out of their homes, set fire to their houses and burned a young boy to death?
What if, as skeptics like us posit and actual evidence reflects, man-made climate change is not in fact occurring? That would mean there is no threat to humans or our planet, and lowering Google’s CO2 footprint would bring no benefits. In fact, it would keep poor nations poverty stricken and deprived of modern technologies – and thus unable to adapt to climate change. Imagine what Google could have accomplished if its resources had been channeled to solving actual problems with actual solutions!
In 2011, the company decided its RE<C project would not meet its goals. Google shut it down. In their article, Koningstein and Fork admit that the real result of all of their costly research was to reach the following conclusion: “green energy is simply not economically, viable and resources that we as a society waste in trying to make it so would be better used to improve the efficiencies in established energy technologies like coal.”
Skeptics like us reached that conclusion long ago. It is the primary reason for our impassioned pleas that that the United States and other developed nations stop making energy policy decisions based on the flawed climate change hypothesis. However, the article’s most breathtaking statement was this:
“Climate scientists have definitively shown that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere poses a looming danger…. A 2008 paper by James Hansen, former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies… showed the true gravity of the situation. In it, Hansen set out to determine what level of atmospheric CO2 society should aim for ‘if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.’ His climate models showed that exceeding 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere would likely have catastrophic effects. We’ve already blown past that limit. Right now, environmental monitoring shows concentrations around 400 ppm.…”
We would never presume to question the sincerity, intellect, dedication or talent of these two authors. However, this statement presents a stunning failure in applying Aristotelian logic. Even a quick reading would make the following logical conclusions instantly obvious:
1. Hansen theorized that 350 ppm of atmospheric CO2 would have catastrophic results.
2. CO2 did indeed reach, and then exceed, this level by a significant amount.
3. There were no consequences, much less catastrophic results, as our earlier points make clear.
4. Therefore, real-world evidence clearly demonstrates that Hansen’s hypothesis is wrong.
This kind of reasoning (the scientific method) has served progress and civilization well since the Seventeenth Century. But the Google team has failed to apply it. Instead, they resorted to repeating the “slash fossil fuel use or Earth and humanity are doomed” tautology, without regard for logic or facts – while Mr. Schmidt impugned our intelligence, character and ethics as CAGW skeptics.
We enthusiastically support Eric Schmidt’s admonition that our nation base its policy decisions on facts, even when those facts do not support an apocalyptic environmental worldview. We also support President Obama’s advice that people should not “engage in self-censorship,” because of bullying or “because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of someone whose sensibilities probably need to be offended.”
In fact, we will keep speaking out, regardless of what Messsrs. Schmidt, Hansen and Obama might say.
Maybe he should discuss the solar facility Google is a prime operator of? The one that is producing a fraction of the electricity promised. And wants a gubermint bailout.
Absolutely spot on. Google’s investment in the Ivanpah concentrated solar project is not only in the tank but the subject of much ridicule in the technical press. Chastened they have withdrawn the $138 million investment from the Cape Wind offshore wind boondoggle.
Excellent, that Google has done what CFACT won’t and cannot do: side with the science.
Comment :”Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that renewables will never permit the human race to cut CO2 emissions to the levels demanded by climate activists. Whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company. The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal".
Before I destroy your appeal to (non)authorities, I’ll give you the opportunity to engage in, you know, actual scientific debate: Please provide me the peer-reviewed work of these two (non)climate experts, showing definitively they know a single thing about climate science.
I’ll wait…..
Show me a peer-reviewed, scientifically based study that attributes climate change to the hand of man, which can rule out natural phenomena. Further, show a study of the earth’s temperature that suggests what the temperature should be, and any historical references to back it up. There is no such thing as settled science, and the data & models that back up the AGW argument are laughably bad. Show me the goods, I’ll wait too.
Sure…and if these aren’t enough, I can easily point you to thousands more.
A science so not settled, that the climate itself is in on it. Well, other people can do actual research. And look at what they’ve found: The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the warming since 1950 is very likely due to human emissions of greenhouse gases and has been endorsed by this great cloud of witnesses:
the National Academy of Sciences,
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10139&page=1
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
the American Geophysical Union,
http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/climate_change2008.shtml
the American Institute of Physics,
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/042.html
http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
the American Physical Society,
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
the American Meteorological Society,
http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.html
the American Statistical Association,
http://www.amstat.org/news/climatechange.cfm
the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
the Federation of American Scientists,
http://www.fas.org/press/statements/_docs/08grand_challenges.html
the American Quaternary Association,
http://www.inqua.org/documents/QP%2016-2.pdf
http://www.agu.org/fora/eos/pdfs/2006EO360008.pdf
the American Society of Agronomy,
https://www.soils.org/files/science-policy/asa-cssa-sssa-climate-change-policy-statement.pdf
the Crop Science Society of America,
https://www.soils.org/files/science-policy/asa-cssa-sssa-climate-change-policy-statement.pdf
the Soil Science Society of America,
https://www.soils.org/files/science-policy/asa-cssa-sssa-climate-change-policy-statement.pdf
the American Astronomical Society,
http://aas.org/governance/resolutions.php%23climate#climate
the American Chemical Society,
http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/WPCP_011538/pdf/WPCP_011538.pdf
the Geological Society of America,
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
the American Institute of Biological Sciences,
http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf
the American Society for Microbiology,
http://www.asm.org/images/docfilename/0000006005/globalwarming%5B1%5D.pdf
the Society of American Foresters,
http://www.safnet.org/fp/documents/climate_change_expires12-8-2013.pdf
http://www.safnet.org/publications/jof/jof_cctf.pdf
the Australian Institute of Physics,
http://www.aip.org.au/scipolicy/Science%20Policy.pdf
the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society,
http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/26
the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO,
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pvfo.pdf
the Geological Society of Australia,
http://scentofpine.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/gsa-position-statement-and-recommendations-e28093-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-change-july-2009.pdf
the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies,
http://www.fasts.org/images/policy-discussion/statement-climate-change.pdf
the Australian Coral Reef Society,
http://www.australiancoralreefsociety.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=5d093a51-a77e-4ae0-bd9f-67e459d57ac1&groupId=10136
the Royal Society of the UK,
http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2010/4294972962.pdf
the Royal Meteorological Society,
http://www.rmets.org/news/detail.php?ID=332
the British Antarctic Survey,
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science/climate/position-statement.php
the Geological Society of London,
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/policy_statements/page7426.html
the Society of Biology (UK),
http://www.societyofbiology.org/policy/policy-issues/climate-change
the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences,
http://www.cfcas.org/media/news-releases-media-advisories/climate-change-in-canada-eminent-canadian-scientists-issue-a-call-for-action-to-prime-minister-martin/
the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society,
http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html
the Royal Society of New Zealand,
http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/organisation/panels/climate/climate-change-statement/
the Polish Academy of Sciences,
http://www.aktualnosci.pan.pl/images/stories/pliki/stanowiska_opinie/2008/stanowisko_pan_131207.pdf
the European Science Foundation,
http://www.esf.org/index.php?eID=tx_ccdamdl_file&p%5Bfile%5D=9227&p%5Bdl%5D=1&p%5Bpid%5D=4051&p%5Bsite%5D=European%20Science%20Foundation&p%5Bt%5D=1320257130&hash=021516f447f3a4b0e2ebab85f133729c&l=en
the European Geosciences Union,
http://www.egu.eu/statements/position-statement-of-the-divisions-of-atmospheric-and-climate-sciences-7-july-2005.html
http://www.egu.eu/statements/egu-position-statement-on-ocean-acidification.html
the European Physical Society,
http://nuclear.epsdivisions.org/Reports/eps-position-paper-energy-for-the-future
the European Federation of Geologists,
http://www.eurogeologists.de/images/content/panels_of_experts/co2_geological_storage/CCS_position_paper.pdf
the Network of African Science Academies,
http://www.interacademies.net/File.aspx?id=4825
the International Union for Quaternary Research,
http://www.inqua.org/documents/iscc.pdf
the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics,
http://www.iugg.org/resolutions/perugia07.pdf
the Wildlife Society (International),
http://joomla.wildlife.org/documents/positionstatements/35-Global%20Climate%20Change%20and%20Wildlife.pdf
and the World Meteorological Organization.
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/statann/documents/SG21_2006_E.pdf
There aren’t any national or international scientific societies disputing the conclusion that most of the warming since 1950 is very likely to be due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, though a few are non-committal.
The last organization to oppose this conclusion was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). They changed their position statement in 2007 to a non-committal position because they recognized that AAPG doesn’t have experience or credibility in the field of climate change and wisely said “… as a group we have no particular claim to knowledge of global atmospheric geophysics through either our education or our daily professional work.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Non-committal_statements
http://dpa.aapg.org/gac/statements/climatechange.pdf
http://64.207.34.58/StaticContent/3/TPGs/2010_TPGMarApr.pdf
Are you being intentionally obtuse or do you have the brain of a small rodent? The climate doesn’t change unless the factors affecting it change (TSI from the Sun, albedo, aerosols, volcanoes, atmospheric GHG composition, etc). The radiative effects of those factors are fairly precisely known, as is the global warming or cooling potential of each.
The factors driving the world out of the last glacial phase and into this one are also fairly well-understood. See Shakun et al 2012:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
Over the last 40+ years, the dominant forcing driving climate change/the current ongoing warming of the world is the radiative forcing from our fossil fuel usages (Skeie et al 2011):
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/11827/2011/acp-11-11827-2011.pdf
You can choose how to react to this:
1. Actually try to learn the science for a change (really, it’s not that hard)
or
2. Continue on in the manner of other small-brained rodentiae and keep up your mantra of Gore-isms and conspiracy-mongering tinfoilhattery. And affirm yourself as the ideological tool you come across as.
Your call. (h/t to Da Yooper)
You didn’t provide a single thing I asked for, but you burned a lot of calories avoiding doing so. The East German judge gives you a 3.4 for effort.
Actually, I did, and your response just shows what is obvious to the ones in this thread who actually want to learn: You do not. You’re just like all garden-variety deniers; too intellectually dishonest to do real research, or acknowledge your own misspoken and erroneous “facts.” So, on that note, I bid you adieu, denier.
No, Harry, you did not. I’m not going to play retard-tennis with you anymore, but you did not answer those questions with your link-assault. You resort to name calling, because you’re emotional and juvenile. It’s not even a fair denigration (I’m a skeptic, not a denier…like all good scientists, I don’t proclaim anything settled or beyond reproach, even theories I find palatable). You did not deliver any proof to satisfy what I challenged you with, only some evidence that suggests, but does not prove, and worse in all that chaff you miss that just as much evidence exists to break that science down as grossly incomplete given the incredibly short window of climate data we have available for the entire planet, given it’s vast age. Maybe do some of that work you prescribe me, but study the scientific method and the perils of arriving at a predetermined outcome with limited data. I will not call you any names, because I’m not histrionic and zealous.
BTW, Newtonian physics had an equal consensus for centuries, literally the model of our universe and all the available data confirmed it. We’re at the very beginning of climate science, studying the head of very large needle and proclaiming expertise of a vast & hyper complex climate system…just imagine what we’ll know in 500 years if we keep studying. I guarantee the conclusions you’re spouting will not be as bedrock as you believe them to be…nor will the science I study. Good day, sir.
Havel Wolf member of the Seattle Audubon Society says: “The Communist Party USA’s environmental program “presents a viable plan to carry out on the long march to socialism.
Opening remarks offered by Maurice Strong, who organized the first U.N. Earth Climate Summit (1992) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, revealed the real goal: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”
Also speaking at the Rio conference, Deputy Assistant of State Richard Benedick, who then headed the policy divisions of the U.S. State Department said: “A global warming treaty [Kyoto] must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”
Most of these organizations are zombies of the IPCC gravy train agenda:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/caruba/100220
The Multi-Billion Dollar Global Warming Fraud
“The IPCC data, released periodically in reports purporting to be the work of some 2,500 scientists from around the world, were actually based the handiwork of a few academic centers such as the Climate Research Center (CRU) at East Anglia University in England, Penn State University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and climate modeling from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Other participants in the fraud were NASA’s Goddard Institute and NOAA, both of whom produced claims, predictions, and questionable data to support “global warming.”
A British newspaper, the Daily Mail in a recent interview with CRU Prof. Phil Jones, revealed he knew there had been no “statistically significant” warming for the past 15 years. Little wonder Prof. Jones and the CRU refused to honor UK Freedom of Information requests for the data on which the IPCC claims were based. He and others who provided IPCC data are under investigation. In essence, the IPCC reports were all fraudulent and all were used to advance the global warming fraud.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf
Climate Money
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/sh2/the_skeptics_handbook_IIj-sml.pdf
Climate Bullies
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8355&linkbox=true&position=1
Fifty IPCC Experts Expose Washington Post Global Warming Lies
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming Alarm
http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/climate-warming-moore/2014/03/17/id/559929/
More Scientists Debunking Climate Change Myths
Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a prominent Socialist and a father of Germany’s environmental movement, has become another strong critic of the IPCC’s alarmist global warming doctrine.
James Lovelock, a highly respected scientist, predicted in 2006 that: “Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Antarctic where climate remains tolerable.”
Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace
Nobel Laureate physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever has referred to global warming ideology as a “pseudoscience” that begins with an emotionally-appealing hypothesis, and “then only looks for items which appear to support it,” while ignoring ample contrary evidence.
As time goes on more scientists will come out of the consensus woodwork exposing the lies and distortion of the gravy train pseudo science.
Your side made the claim. The burden of proof is on you. It is not our responsibility to prove you wrong. And I’ll wait right here while you bring me evidence that co2 is the causative factor of recent climate change. Since the climate was changing long before your sides’ hypothesis, I eagerly await your proof. We don’t have to prove innocence, you have to prove guilt. By the way, Phil Jones saying that he doesn’t know how to explain it without co2 is proof of his ignorance, not of a cause/effect. Al Gore falsely accusing us of being flat earthers or moon landing deniers proves what lengths these morons will go to in order to avoid facing the facts, it demonstrates nothing relevant. Michael Mann asking if I’d prefer a surgeon to a dentist may seem clever to imbeciles, what it has to do with climate change has never been explained and I doubt it ever will.
The truth is you have no empirical evidence to support your hypothesis, only cliches, degradation of people who dare to question your misguided belief of omniscience and inane claims of the high moral ground.
If ignorance is bliss, AGW conventions have replaced Disneyland as the happiest place on earth.
Ok, let’s see those thousands of links. The ones you provided prove nothing about the underlying cause. I’ll wait here.
Craig, when swapping factoids with a True Believer like Harry remember that there is no peer reviewed literature only Pal Reviewed climate change junk science nonsense. This became very apparent with the release of the Climategate emails.
Christine Stewart Canadian Environment Minister said, “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits . . . Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Louis Proyect of Columbia University, “The answer to global warming is in the abolition of private property and production for human need. A socialist world would place an enormous priority on alternative energy sources. This is what ecologically-minded socialists have been exploring for quite some time now.”
There where not referring to climate change but the viability of renewables moron! Search for the complete IEEE article.
Progress indeed to see the civilized world leaving climate deniers lonely on a melting iceberg of ignorance.
really witty and cute Ed. You even sounded a little smart there for a second.
It is a misconception that the Modern Environmental mindset is benign, well intentioned, and monolithic — it is not. In reality the movement is extremely factionalized and schizophrenic. Unfortunately the legitimate players are the Rent Seekers (sucking income from the worker bees), Grant Chasers (Second and Third rate players who can’t play so they coach), and Low rent Politicans pandering to a constituency, the Green Lobby which is extremely well funded.
The True Believers are the Transnational Progressives, Luddites, Malthusians, Narcissistic Xenophobes, Gaia cultists, Margaret Sanger Eugenics disciples, Eco Socialists, and Pathological Altruists to name but a few. Review your “Silent Spring” and the attending banning and restrictions on the use of DDT. The carnage visited on the inhabitants of the Sub Sahara, South America, and Asia by developed countries is unconscionable. Read Erlich’s “Population Bomb” and the Club of Rome literature “carrying capacity” is code for disdain of inhabitants of Third World countries.. Science is intended to drive policy not the other way around. Policy/Agenda driven Science misallocates capital but more importantly takes lives.
Modern Environmentalists, and I’m including the Anthropogenic Climate Change Cultists, are immoral and inhuman and have racked up a body count that surpasses 80 million and counting, 80% children under five and pregnant women. The 40% US corn production diverted to the Ethanol boondoggle price increase effect on the global market has moved 20 to 30 million inhabitants of developing countries from food insecurity to starvation.
It is not Google that is standing lonely on a melting glacier, isolated from the rest of civilized society, but CFACT and those unable to come to terms with the realities of global warming, deflationary renewables, and inflationary unconventional oil and gas.
According to the IPPC the Anthropogenic CO2 contribution to the atmosphere annually between 1990-1999 was 11.7 billion metric tons, or 1.048% of the total CO2 both naturally occurring and anthropogenic. The atmosphere weighs in at between 5.3 to 5.5 Quadrillion Metric Tons. The Troposphere, where most of the “global warming” is allegedly occurring, consists of 80% of the atmosphere’s total weight. Therefore it follows that 11.7 billion/4.32 quadrillion 2.70833333 x 10 -6 or .00027%. Now this is staggering certainly worth the almost $1 Billion a day invested in rent seeking, grant chasing, and pandering politician funded boondoggle CO2 abatement projects. Of course the Anthropogenic Climate Change parasites have found this $359 Billion (2012) figure to be deficient and following the IPCC guidelines feel that $700 Billion is more appropriate.
Your pretty good at math dude.
Ah, Ed, you know that when you wrestle with pigs–or, in this case, climate science deniers–they only like getting dirty, and don’t give a fig for stuff like “facts,” and “reason.” DNFTT. After this post, It’s all I’m going to do.
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” – Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace.
Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S Undersecretary of State for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” (Wirth now heads the UN Foundation which lobbies for hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to help underdeveloped countries fight climate change.)
It said co-founder of Greenpeace!
Drink!
Best,
D
Here’s a synopsis of a typical Anthropogenic Climate Change abatement project, Cape Wind Nantucket. This will be the first offshore wind turbine installation in the United States if it gets built. Spoiler, it takes $24.6 BILLION Cape Wind projects to equal the power generation of a single $370 MILLION Combined Cycle Natural Gas Turbine plant.
This 120 wind turbine project, cost $2.6 BILLION, is rated at 468 mw and will produce 143 mw after applying a capacity factor of 30.4 % (as computed the the University of Delaware) the time the wind actually blows, life cycle is 20 years therefore this project will produce 24.6 Terawatts life cycle. Insofar as this project located in an area which is enshrouded in fog 200, on average, days of the year a low wind velocity environment, a more realistic life cycle output would be 15 Terawatts. The turbines are of German manufacture built in Denmark, the concrete bases construction is contracted to a foreign firm as is the offshore ten story substation and the project will produce 50 full time jobs. The Green Economy in action.
A combined cycle natural gas turbine plant studied by the DOE for three years completed in 2010 is rated at 570 mw and produces 470 mw, capacity factor 85%. cost $311 MILLION. life cycle 35 years therefore this plant will produce 133 Terawatts life cycle.
The contracted cost of the Cape Wind energy will be 23 cents a kilowatt hour (excluding tax credits, which are unlikely to last the length of the project), which is more than 50% higher than current average electricity prices in Massachusetts. the bay state is already the 4th most expensive state for electricity in the nation. Even if the tax credits are preserved, $940 million of the $1.6 billion contract represents costs above projections for the likely market price of conventional power. moreover, these costs are just the initial costs they are scheduled to rise by 3.5 percent annually for 15 years. by year 15 the rate will be $.38 per Kilowatt. Classic, Federal and State tax dollars from Mass taxpayers for the privilege of having their electricity rates more than treble. The 200 days of fog is problematic for the high speed ferry boats which transit 3 million passengers annually. The three local airports which handle 400,000 flights a year are concerned about radar interference (flutter) caused by the turbines.
But the renewable sheeple will tell you after the renewables pay for themselves it’s all free from then on. Their math skills don’t exceed their reasoning either.
Robert Proctor coined the term ‘agnotology’ the study of how ignorance, particularly in scientific, military and technical matters, can be manufactured, manipulated by strategies and campaigns dominated by vested interests. Another, less sophisticated definition is “induced ignorance”. This perfectly describes the current state of the Anthropogenic Climate Change junk science debate.
So I decided to coin a synonym ‘agendaist’, but someone beat me to the punch, Onyxhawke.com defines agendaist as individuals who unlike most of the rest of us can only focus on one thing and their agenda is the prism through which all things are viewed, it is the one true yardstick, and the alpha and omega of their existence. They do come in all flavors, although thanks the prodigious effort they put into focusing on their totem there is no room for any other neurological function. All their efforts are twisted to viewing the entire world into classifying everyone as either with us or against us. Example is “Denier”, a not so subtle pejorative referring to Holocaust Denial. Therefore I will posit that it is perfectly appropriate to refer to Anthropogenic Climate Change agendaists as climate change Nazis, as Dr Roy Spenser has suggested.
This sort of obsessive, or more accurately, pathological behavior will cause an Agendaists to take a statement by a person they’ve probably never met or interacted with in anyway, and twist it to fit their agenda.
Quote by Club of Rome: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….All these dangers are caused by human intervention….and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself….believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or….one invented for the purpose.”
Typical John Holdren.
John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, predicted that 1 billion people would die from a global cooling “eco-disaster” in Ehrlich’s 1986 book “The Machinery of Nature.” Holdren based his prediction on a theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide would produce a climate catastrophe in which global warming would cause global cooling with a consequent reduction in agricultural production resulting in widespread disaster.
“ A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely necessary. “
A2A
Don’t waste your time on fools. A “True Believer in AGW” CANNOT be converted. Read Lyle Rossiters devastating opus, “The Liberal Mind” in which he states that Liberalism must of necessity force unwilling people into “indentured servitude” in order to produce a Utopian existence.
Noble goals no doubt but ultimately impossible to achieve.
I can’t resist tormenting True Believers. Actually they are denizens of the Eco Socialist mindset. Their vision is a Post Capitalist Utopian conformist society. Their most pressing challenge, how to redistribute wealth from the producers to the parasites.The liberal billionaire who clamors about sustainability likes progress. What he dislikes is the middle class with its mass produced cars and homes, cheap restaurants full of fatty foods and television sets and daily deliveries of cardboard boxes full of stuff and shopping malls. He thinks, in all sincerity, that they would be happier and more spiritually fulfilled as peasants. Beneath all the empty chatter about social riches and sustainability is that need to impose progressive misery. Beneath the glossy surface of environmentalism is a vision of the American middle class learning to dig through bags of garbage, the detritus of their consumerism for which they must be punished, to become better people.
AGW has been so thoroughly debunked as quackery, fraud and nothing more than a political ploy that I can’t believe any serious person would attempt to defend it. The ONLY people who attempt to defend the fraud are the ever willing syncophants of the press and the beguiled leftists.
Talk about intentional stupidity. Hansen’s comments about exceeding 350 ppm were made after we exceeded that level, and he knew it. He was clearly saying that remaining above 350 ppm would eventually lead to serious problems.
The claim that there have been no consequences is unjustified, and shows an unscientific and frankly dishonest attitude. It is basic physics that exceeding 400 ppm will trap more heat than keeping concentrations below 350 ppm would have done, so the atmosphere and oceans are obviously warmer than they would otherwise be.
If the author wishes to be taken seriously, he should stop obfuscating and distorting the statements of others.