What Do We Think About Climate Change

Maybe spearaddict thinks ACORN gathered the petition signatures. No, wait. They would be on the other side.

Climate menopause. That's funny.

 

Not ACORN, but maybe Ronald McDonald did.

 

If they are serious about the list, why do it in such a format that makes it nearly impossible to read correctly? Most lists are not name, name, name endlessly, especially a list that has 31,000 names on it. I would think they would have them in columns or rows, but that would make it too easy to check it.

 

Trying to carry on a reasonable, logical discussion with Spear is about as satisfying as telling a 10 year old to clean his room and having him reply with utter sincerity that he already brushed his teeth.

 

Spear - copy the list into Excel. Pretty easy from there to get your columns. I'm ok with your concern but your energy might be better directed. I'd hate to think that how something looks (eg Middle school etc) is a criteria for determning validity. Form over substance is not desirable. Not saying you believe this either.

it should be clear enough that 'the science is not done' - regulators take note and pause

these days all uni researchers need to get funds from somewhere. Both sides do. And most academics will say what they think regardless of source of funding. Too stubborn and proud to do anything else. The status and reputation amongst peers will guide them and if they are controversial then somone somewhere, perhaps even some taxpayer funded body, will be sympathetic enough to them to fund their next program. Ongoing funding will be determined by quality of work and peer opinion. Yes there are a few (all sides) that fudge data, might selectively use or presnet data for nefarious purposes. But they will have trouble fronting their peers, probably will develop depression, will struggle to get future funding and rightly fade away. I'll take the courageous few from prestigious organisations who are willing to stand up to the herd of grant takers whenever the need arises. We might have seen this once the peril of the 'sky is falling' brigade got so much airplay.

the urgency is to stop governments from taxing the crap out of us via an ETS (that will provide rorts for investment bankers and lawyers much greater than the sub-prime crisis) and then spend on programs that will barely slow down natural change.

Paleoclimate data is good enough to show nothing abnormal for the planet. Been there before. Calls for for better resolution is the old 'Middle School/College student' cop-out (i need to collect more data!) to avoid the hard parts of analysis, considering all possibilities and drawing conclusions.

 

Here is interesting little tidbit about how the eco-nazis are taking care of the environment by making lawyers rich.........

Income Redistribution: You Paid for It
Executive salaries reach $500,000, hourly fees top $600, and millions of your dollars are propping it all up. Welcome to the underworld of the environmental industry. According to Richard Pollock of Pajamas Media, "environmental activist groups have surreptitiously received at least $37 million from the federal government for questionable 'attorney fees'" related to lawsuits that "had nothing to do with environmental protection or improvement."

Since 2000, nine national environmental groups have filed the astounding number of 3,300 lawsuits, most based on "alleged procedural failings of federal agencies" rather than "substance or science." Not only has Uncle Sam doled out the millions, but Washington has "neither tracked nor accounted for" any of the outgo. Wyoming attorney Karen Budd-Falen, who helped uncover the fraud, says the $37 million is just the "tip of the iceberg," estimating the actual number is in the hundreds of millions.

Interestingly, according to the Washington Examiner, compensation for the top 10 paid environmental executives ranges from $308,000 to $496,000. Pajamas Media notes that of the $3.4 million that environmental PACs have given in federal campaign contributions since 2000, approximately 87 percent was to Democrats. Coincidence? We think not.

Eco-activists aren't the only ones greening themselves with your money. It seems Wake Forest University is using a $71,623 federal "we must rescue the economy now" stimu-less grant to study the effects of cocaine on a specific neurotransmitter in addicted monkeys. The economic benefit? Apparently a job "saved." For the record, we believe taxpayer dollars already fund too much monkey business in Washington; there's certainly no need to fund it anywhere else.

 

Do you have the source of that article? Maybe some names of the groups or executives?
Regardless, it is not the activist groups that are doing the research. They are simply acting on it. If you want to split hairs, the Oil industry, coal industry, mining industry, etc. all receive much more federal money than an research organization or group of scientists.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46854
So, Oil and Natural Gas= $435 Billion
Nuclear= $65 Billion
Coal= $94 Billion
Hydroelectric= $80 Billion
Total= $674 Billion
vs.
Renewables= $45 Billion
Climate Change Research since 1997= $24 Billion
Total= $69 Billion

http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/ccsp08p.htm


You have already started with personal attacks, exactly what you said we were doing. It would seem as though, once again, it is not o.k for anyone to do something except you, if it benefits you. But thats o.k. I won't attack you personally because I have ample data and studies that can support my claims without resorting to calling people names on the internet.

I have copied it onto excel, but each name needs to be separated. I would hope that something of this magnitude and regarding this controversial topic would be better organized. They claim the volunteers who run the website checked every single name, if that is so then why leave the names in such disarray? If a list of climate supporters came out like that, I would ridicule that list as well. If the went through the time to check every single name, they could have just added each person's credentials next to their name, like where they work, or what field they are in. Just like deniers, I won't take anyones "word" that they did it 100%.

 

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The names were verified as part of being added to the list. They are in alphabetical order by state. If you took the time to read how it was compiled you would know that. To imply that because you find the way the list was put together is difficult means it is phoney is ludicrous. The list is real. That is makes you uncomfortable that that many scientists disagree with the AGW hypotheisis is tough. Keep in mind the Petition Project was only started because of the ridiculous claims of near perfect and unanimous consensus being put forward by the likes of Al Gore and other radiacal environmentalists in an attempt to stifle dissent.

Stop whining because you lost a point and move on.

 

Again you demonstrate your inability to compare apples with apples.


Tax policy has been, by far, the most widely used form of incentive mechanism, accounting for $325 billion (45 percent) of all federal expenditures since 1950. The oil and gas industries, for example, receive percentage depletion and intangible drilling provisions as an incentive for exploration and development. Federal tax credits and deductions have also been utilized to encourage the use of renewable energy.”

You will recognize that paragraph above from the report of the radical environmental group that is the basis for your post.

I was talking about paying lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits with taxpayer dollars and you reply with an article based on50 years of tax and energy policy.

 

A good article from the National Post on the mindset of the alarmists.....

The National Post, February 19, 2010

Those who once called skeptics about catastrophic man-made climate change “deniers” are themselves now in a state of denial as both the science and public opinion shifts against them. Last week, The Globe and Mail carried a combative piece by Gerald Butts, president and CEO of WWF Canada, an organization whose professional alarmism has found its way into the official reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with nary a trace of “peer review.”

Mr. Butts continues, like Davy Crockett at the Alamo , to defend his lost cause, pointing to media authorities and scientific “consensus.” Intriguingly, and with admirable chutzpah, he cites a recent article in the magazine Nature that points out — which should come as a surprise to nobody — that we are biased in our perceptions: “We see the world as we want to see it, not as it is.” Naturally, this proviso doesn’t apply either to Mr. Butts or to the WWF, but only to their “self-centred” opponents.

Unfortunately for Mr. Butts, Nature experienced a little embarrassment last week when its editor-in-chief, Philip Campbell, was forced to resign from the U.K.’s “independent” inquiry into the Climategate scandal over his own blatant warmist bias. Nature, after all, is the magazine that suggested that requests for climate science data by skeptics amounted to “denialist harassment.” As for the article quoted by Mr. Butts, it claimed that “Like fans at a sporting contest, people deal with evidence selectively to promote their emotional interest in their group. On issues ranging from climate change to gun control, from synthetic biology to counter-terrorism, they take their cue about what they should feel, and hence believe, from the cheers and boos of the home crowd.”

True enough, but man-made climate change is not like terrorism or gun ownership or stem cell research. The latter are all established issues. The former is not, and whether you are a conservative or a Zoroastrian, what ultimately counts is that hypotheses are clearly stated and rigourously tested. There is mounting evidence that, when it comes to climate science, this process has been subverted. But doesn’t that mean that there has been a highly-improbable “conspiracy” among those “2,500 scientists” that have always been claimed to be the bedrock of the IPCC’s conclusions? Aren’t scientists the ultimate in objectivity?

No. Take Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time. He wrote about the “economic anarchy of capitalist society” and strongly advocated a “planned economy.” Einstein was typical of what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of reflexively believing that the economy needed to be guided from the top by wise men.

He was by no means unusual. Most people would not be surprised if told there was a leftist bias in political science or English faculties, but a 2005 study by academics Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte found that “three out of four biologists and computer scientists now place themselves to the left of center, as do about two thirds of mathematicians, chemists, and physicists.” Indeed, among physicists, the study found that self-described Democrats outnumbered Republicans in American universities by more than ten to one!

One potent but insufficiently noted factor in the climate change issue is that those on the left are inclined to believe in climate change’s “solutions” — greater central control of the economy and redistribution to underdeveloped countries — regardless of climate science. That the policy ends are more important than the scientific facts is obvious from statements by prominent members of the IPCC. For example, Murari Lal, the lead author of the chapter in the 2007 IPCC report in which wildly inaccurate claims about melting Himalayan glaciers appeared, admitted that he knew the information was inaccurate, but “We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

How could taking concrete action on the basis of wild exaggeration be considered a good thing unless you regarded such policy action as desirable in its own right? The other factor that might incline leftist True Believers to irrationally harden their support for “settled” science is the oft-repeated conviction that their opponents represent big, selfish corporate interests, (a belief that is utterly at odds with reality). Meanwhile if the deniers are not mere shills, then they must be “libertarians,” whose ideas are obviously too ridiculous even to examine.

As noted, however, climate change is not like health care, or racism, or giving women the vote. It is not a policy issue or a moral issue until the science is established; and even if it had been, that certainly wouldn’t imply grand, dangerous and unworkable schemes such as Kyoto (yesterday, the UN’s chief climate change official, Yvo de Boer, resigned, taking the fall for the disaster of Copenhagen, where a successor to Kyoto was to have been crafted).

The leftist “moral” stance of many supporters may always have been that the science was merely a facilitator for a Better World. Suspicion of that orientation — and rejection of its premises — has led many skeptics to conclude that climate science has been cooked. It increasingly appears they were right.




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The Frontier Centre for Public Policy

is an independent public policy think tank whose mission is "to broaden the debate on our future through public policy research and education and to explore positive changes within our public institutions that support economic growth and opportunity."

 

More on the mindset of those who would rule our "Brave New World" ...........









February 17, 2010 (EM546)

In Brief:

•Jean Jacques Rousseau argued over two hundred years ago that liberal civilization is fundamentally flawed and necessarily brings about a host of evils.
•Rousseau has been revived by some in the environmental movement, deep greens, who see an opportunity in the “climate change” panic to overturn centuries of progress towards liberalism and markets.
•Many climate change activists hope to use public concern over global warming to convince others that liberal civilization is fundamentally flawed and needs to be changed completely.
•Defenders of liberal civilization should recognize the objectives of green activists and base their policy preferences on objective science and honest cost-benefit analysis.


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Back to Nature—and Rousseau
The Environmental Attack on Market Liberalism


The argument that liberal civilization is fundamentally flawed and necessarily brings about multiple evils is almost as old as liberalism itself. The first prominent advocate of this position was Jean-Jacques Rousseau but as of late, Rousseau has been revived by some in the environmental movement, deep greens, who see an opportunity in the “climate change” panic to overturn centuries of progress towards liberalism and markets.
This can hardly be exaggerated. It’s obvious with a review of the statements over the years from the green movement’s most influential thinkers and leaders. And it’s doubtful that the publication of the infamous “Climategate” emails from the Climactic Research Unit (CRU) or the United Nation’s Himalayan glacier scandal will change this; the desire to attack markets and liberalism runs too deep.
The response of the alarmist community to these stunning revelations that undermine the case for catastrophic climate change is to simply carry on as though nothing has happened. But why have alarmists ignored the new evidence? Why aren’t they at least a little bit relieved by news that the climate crisis they warn of may not materialize?
The answer to this question is suggested by a remark made by Al Gore the day his Nobel peace prize win was announced. “It [climate change] is the most dangerous challenge we’ve ever faced, but it is also the greatest opportunity we have had to make changes.”
Van Jones, a prominent American environmentalist and a former advisor to Barack Obama hints at the nature of this “opportunity” during a speech in 2009, in which he stated “This movement is deeper than a solar panel. No, we’re going to change the whole system. We want a new system.” Jones makes clear the “system” in question is liberal capitalism. Jones goes on to suggest that unless the underlying disease of our “system” – the overconsumption and greed of liberal civilization- is addressed, solving climate change will do little good, as new symptoms will arise to take its place.
The purpose of the liberal project, as stated by Francis Bacon, was to “relieve man’s estate” through scientific progress and economic growth. But many modern greens find their inspiration in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in contrast to Bacon, argued classical liberalism made human life miserable by releasing an unnatural and destructive desire for power and wealth. Rousseau argued that far from relieving man’s estate, classical liberalism created violent competition between men leading to war, overconsumption and environmental problems.
Descendents of Rousseau such as Van Jones hope that public concern over environmentalism will provide a “teaching moment” in which others will see the damage wrought by our supposedly evil “system” of market liberalism and join them in demanding comprehensive change. This is the “opportunity” that climate change presents in the minds of these activists.
Examples of green activists who seek to use the green movement to achieve broader objectives abound. Bill McKibben, a prominent activist, wrote in 2007 that we shouldn’t fear the economic consequences of rapidly reducing carbon emissions because such reductions will “Change [life] for the better, as we learn once more to rely on those around us.” To paraphrase, McKibben thinks emission reductions will be beneficial to us whether or not climate change exists at all because such reductions will restore a lost sense of community to our lives.
Al Gore may have the most ambitious goals of all. In a speech given immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Gore complained that our society is lacking in “moral health” because so many people waste their time following the trivial “sound-and-light show” of popular culture. But, by taking aggressive, drastic and self-sacrificial actions to fight climate change, Gore suggests we can “unleash” a “spiritual energy” that will restore a sense of meaning and purpose to modern life. Gore believes we have much to gain spiritually from taking extreme, self-sacrificing measures to combat climate change. It is therefore unsurprising that he is hostile to any suggestion that such sacrifices may be unnecessary.
However, for those of us who are interested in more prosaic concerns such as the improvement of human life in physical and material terms, the recent wave of scandals in the climate science community should be taken seriously. Carbon reduction plans are expensive, and take away resources that could be used to directly benefit people in need. We should insist that such policies be enacted only when they are backed by disinterested scientific research, and supported by sound, honest cost-benefit analysis.



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Ben Eisen is a Policy Analyst with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Toronto where he specialized in history and political science. He also holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance. Ben completed a public policy internship with the federal government, and he worked as a researcher for the CBC. Ben’s policy columns have been published in the National Post, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Calgary Herald, The Gazette and the Toronto Sun.

 

I decided to post the entire article Spear took his graph from. The facts behind the article completely destroy the point he was trying to make and illustrates just how much money has been spent on alternative energy development and subsidy.

While I disagree with taxpayer funding to support private enterprise at least this history of subsidy and tax incentives was voted on by the peoples representatives in Congress rather than dictated by an government Czar elected by no one.

Published Oct 13 2008 by ASPO-USA Peak Oil Review , Archived Oct 13 2008
Federal energy incentives have chiefly benefited oil, natural gas industries; nuclear, renewables lag
by Roger Bezdek
(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA's positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.)
The main beneficiaries of more than $700 billion of federal energy incentives over the past five decades have been the oil and natural gas industries. The oil and natural gas industries together garnered 60 percent of federal incentives between 1950 and 2006, with 46 percent of the roughly $725 billion in federal support going to the oil sector. Our new report shows that the oil industry has benefited from $335 billion in combined incentives, with natural gas receiving $100 billion.
Contrary to some claims, federal energy incentives have not gone to nuclear energy technologies at the expense of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. Of the total incentives provided since 1950, nuclear energy has received nine percent ($65 billion), while renewable energy has received six percent ($45 billion). Coal and hydroelectric energy sources, meanwhile, have received 13 percent ($94 billion) and 11 percent ($80 billion) of the total respectively.
We identified six categories of incentives: tax policy, regulation, research and development funding, market activity, government services and disbursements.
Tax policy has been, by far, the most widely used form of incentive mechanism, accounting for $325 billion (45 percent) of all federal expenditures since 1950. The oil and gas industries, for example, receive percentage depletion and intangible drilling provisions as an incentive for exploration and development. Federal tax credits and deductions have also been utilized to encourage the use of renewable energy.”
Federally funded regulation and R&D funding, at about 20 percent each, are the second- and third-largest incentives.
We conducted the study summarized here for the Nuclear Energy Institute to provide insight into the history of federal energy incentives. Information presented in the MISI report was compiled from publicly available budget documents prepared by federal agencies with a role in energy development.
Each energy type benefits from a mix of federal incentives. Federal tax concessions for oil and gas are the largest of all incentives, amounting to about 80 percent of all tax-related allowances for energy. Regulation of prices on oil from stripper wells or new wells comprises the second largest amount of incentives aimed at a particular energy type.
The federal government’s primary incentive to nuclear energy has been in the form of R&D programs. Of the incentives benefiting nuclear energy, 85 percent ($67 billion) has come in the form of R&D funding. Total incentives for nuclear energy are $2 billion less than that because the industry pays more than it receives in disbursements as the result of contributions industry has made to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund. According to our analysis, expenditures on nuclear waste disbursements were approximately $14 billion less than receipts to the Nuclear Waste Fund.
Only eight percent ($5.3 billion) of the nuclear energy R&D funding has been for the light water reactor technology used in the 104 reactors that supply nearly 20 percent of U.S. electricity. Thirty-five percent ($23.7 billion) of nuclear energy R&D funding was for the breeder reactor program terminated in 1988. Other funding went toward development of other reactor types, including heavy water reactors, organic moderated reactors and gas cooled reactors.
Renewable R&D Funding Outpaces Nuclear Energy Since 1994
Since 1988, federal spending on nuclear energy R&D has been less than spending on coal research and, since 1994, has been less than spending on renewable energy research. Coal produces about half of U.S. electricity, and wind and solar together less than 2 percent.
Research and development expenditures for nuclear, coal and renewables expanded greatly after 1975, but this increase was especially marked for coal and renewables. Between 1976 and 2006, the federal government spent more than five times as much on coal R&D ($26.1 billion) as it had in the previous quarter century, and more than 10 times as much on wind and solar R&D ($17.3 billion.)
The common perception that federal energy incentives have favored nuclear energy at the expense of renewable energy such as wind and solar is not supported by our findings. Since 1988, federal spending on nuclear energy research has been less than spending on coal research, and since 1994, has been less than spending on renewable energy research.
Annual R&D expenditures for all three technologies peaked between 1979 and 1981, and then declined dramatically. This decline continued through the late 1990s. In the final 10 years of the study period (1997-2006), the cumulative expenditure for nuclear R&D was less than half that for both coal and renewables (wind and solar).
With concern about the price and availability of energy increasing, public interest in the role of federal incentives in shaping today’s energy marketplace and future energy options has risen sharply. That interest has met with frustration in some quarters and half-truths in others because of the difficulty in developing a complete picture of the incentives that influence today’s energy options.
The difficulty arises from the many forms of incentives, the variety of ways in which they are funded, managed, and monitored, and changes in the agencies responsible for administering them. It is no simple matter to identify incentives and track them through year-to-year changes in legislation and budgets over the 50-plus years that federal incentives have been a significant part of the modern energy marketplace.”
Roger Bezdek, Ph.D., is president of the consulting firm Management Information Services Inc. MISI specializes in economic research and management consulting, has a long history of research and publications in energy and economics for the National Academy of Sciences, large companies and federal agencies. The full report can be found at www.misi-net.com, under "Publications."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The original article appears as the last part of the Oct 13 Peak Oil Review from ASPO-USA (PDF).

The original has one charts and two graphs at the end of the article:

•Summary of Federal Energy Incentives 1950-2006 (table)

•Cumulative Federal R&D Expenditures 1997-2006 (graph)
•Federal Nuclear R&D: 1976-2006 (graph)

 

Please enlighten me on how this destroys my point. Do you even know what the point was?
-That report shows the amounts of money going to each energy technology. It was done to show that Nuclear isn't being favored over renewables. I used it to show how much money is being given to Coal, Oil, Hydroelectric, and Nuclear, all unsustainable forms of energy, and how much is going towards renewable energy. Yes, the amount of money spent on renewable R&D has increased 10 fold. But that increase is still only 6.6% of the total money spent on non-renewable energy sources.


Notice how I actually posted the link to the entire article, so you can see it. You still have not provided a link for your article about environmental activism groups. So, as far as I'm concerned, you wrote it yourself.

 

O ya, and you took the article from which i quoted, not the graph, that was done by AAAS. But the link is also there for your enjoyment.

 

Ok, I posted how taxpayer dollars were being paid to lawyers file frivolous lawsuits on behalf of radical environmental groups and you responded with a post about government energy policy and tax incentives in rebuttal.

My cat just nodded that she sees the difference, and the canary is tellling me that you are mixing apples and tomatoes. (actually I don't have pets, I made that up to illustrate a point about cranial density)