Another long post, but real arguments take more time and effort than devising the next progressive bumper sticker.
Isaac Smith actually decided to respond to my argument about climate change. Mixed in with the cheap shots Isaac actually makes some form of an argument. However, to borrow from a line from a movie franchise we both like, Isaac, “like a poor marksman you keep missing the target.”
I doubt he, Eric Leudtke, or lefty will respond, other than ad hominem screeds, because they refuse to debate issues. Here is Isaac's case:
Clearly, you know more about climatology than the vast majority of climate scientists from around the world. You deserve a medal.
Seriously, shouldn't the burden of proof be on you, and people like you, who have been proven wrong again and again? But I'll indulge your ignorance for a second, and point out that no, CO2 does not lag behind global average temperatures, and the so-called Medieval Warm Period pales in comparison to today's warming. Come up with an original objection, please.
I agree that rent-seeking, even among clean energy companies, is a problem. That says nothing, however, about the necessity of moving to a clean energy regime, only that we as citizens should be vigilant. And pricing carbon does not necessarily mean higher energy prices; in many cases, such as energy efficiency, it saves money. Besides, most plans for a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system not Lieberman-Warner, however) are meant to be revenue-neutral, with the money collected from the tax or auction of carbon credits going to offset other taxes, like the payroll tax. So to the extent that such policies raise energy prices, its effect on the average American will be minimized.
I suspect none of this will get through to you, who have committed to low-rent conspiracy-theorizing instead of honest argument, but at least I've made my case.
Let’s take Isaac’s case one point at a time.
Clearly, you know more about climatology than the vast majority of climate scientists from around the world. You deserve a medal.
Forget for a moment the fact that most of my facts and data come from climate scientists, and researchers who don’t happen to believe in the fallacy of catastrophic man made global warming. This is not an argument so much as proof that lefties don’t go apoplectic over so called dishonest argument, they go nuts because you prove them wrong. Then consequently project on to their opponents their own intellectual dishonesty.
Co2 Does not lag behind global average temperatures.
Let’s deal with the term global average temperatures.
First “global average temperature” is a completely invented concept. “Global average temperature, is an average derived from the readings of temperature monitoring stations around the world, i.e. fancy thermometers. In theory, this is a legitimate way to track global temperature. However, since the late 1980s the world lost thousands of monitoring stations in cold climate regions, specifically in the territories of the old Soviet Union. The Russians had a great deal more to worry about in the 1990s than maintaining their monitoring stations. How can the 1990s be the hottest decade ever, an alarmist claim, if thousands of cold weather monitoring stations were shut down? See the correlation between average temperature and the loss of monitoring stations below
Also, our own monitoring stations here in the United States are suspect as well. This is due to their placement adjacent to heat emitting sources like paved surfaces, air conditioning units, and chimneys. See the picture of the Hopkinsville Kentucky monitoring station below.
For more dubious measurement station sites see surfacestations.org.
Co2 does not lag behind temperature
Isaac points to a blog entry at Real Climate.Org as proof that carbon dioxide does not lag behind temperature. This is like pointing to a David Copperfield performance to prove that skyscrapers can really disappear. First Real Climate.Org is an avowed alarmist site, which possesses that scientific virtue of demonizing any data or person that counters their alarmism. The posting Isaac refers to is nothing more than a sleight of hand trick and sophist construct, which falls flat in light of actual scientific work, that shows carbon dioxide lags behind temperature.
Some background info on Real Climate.org is in order because like the good Stalinists, they emulate, they play fast and loose with the truth, and proves Isaac’s second point to be completely false.
Real Climate.org is famous for perpetuating alarmist lies, like the Hockey Stick graph, created by UVA professor Michael Mann, which Al Gore uses to show that climate was stable, until humans began driving and using electricity, then temperature skyrocketed.
As we now know, and alarmists refuse to concede, the Hockey Stick was pure scientific fraud, used to by the alarmists to toss real data down the memory hole. In 1995, the IPCC published this chart, which shows that climate is always changing
You can see the Medieval Warming Period, you know when Vikings lived and farmed in Greenland, which is now ice, sticks out like a wart, and after that a great deal of cooling leading to the Little Ice Age.
In 2001, the IPCC published the infamous Hockey Stick below, purporting to show stable climate until the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
Instead of the old airbrush, the alarmists used Mann’s Hockey Stick. If any study is based on sound science, it must be able to be replicated. Mathematician Steve McIntyre and economist Ross McKitirck tried to replicate the Hockey Stick using Mann’s data, models and methods. They found that:
Nature, considered by some the world’s “leading” scientific journal. Nature never verified that data were correctly listed: as it happens they weren’t. Nature never verified that data archiving rules were followed: they weren’t. Nature never verified that methods were accurately stated: they weren’t. Nature never verified that stated methods yield the stated results: they don’t. Nature undertook only minimal corrections to its publication record after notification of these things, and even allowed authors to falsely claim that their omissions on these things didn’t affect
their published results.
The IPCC used the Hockey Stick prominently throughout its 2001 report.
The so-called Medieval Warm Period pales in comparison to today's warming.
Right on cue, Isaac proves my point. What is his source that the Medieval Warming Period pales to today’s warming….THE HOCKEY STICK, which is complete junk science. Nice one Isaac, you claim that warming is greater today than the Medieval Warming period by using a discredited source that attempted to toss it down the Orwellian memory hole.
I agree that rent-seeking, even among clean energy companies, is a problem. That says nothing, however, about the necessity of moving to a clean energy regime.
Even the most ardent of alarmists admit that clean energy technologies are decades away at best. Wind, solar, and biofuels (ethanol) are extremely expensive and cost prohibitive to generate. That is why you see GE, BP and ethanol proponents lobbying for government mandates and subsidies to fund their renewable energy efforts. All the green policy prescriptions would severely dampen economic growth and innovation. That is companies would not have the major capital to sink into R&D to test, develop and bring those new technologies to the market. On one hand, Isaac is arguing for clean energy, and on the other advocating schemes that clearly destroy the ability for companies to make those cleaner energy sources affordable.
Energy efficiency saves money… a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system… are meant to be revenue-neutral, with the money collected from the tax or auction of carbon credits going to offset other taxes, like the payroll tax.
Energy efficiency may save money, but that neglects the fact that the more efficiently you create energy, the more carbon dioxide you emit. The very “pollutant” the alarmists seek to mitigate. Sorry but that is circle you just can’t square.
Cap and trade schemes represent, for the alarmists, a tactical and rhetorical shift away from carbon taxes because experience shows that economically and politically carbon taxes are not feasible. Bill Clinton tried a BTU tax back in 1993. The BTU tax was a tax on fuel based on the heat content as measured in BTUs. Clinton’s own party shot that down knowing the costs it would put on American consumers. The cap and trade scheme is a tax all the same, only this time it allows rent seekers in on the scam, so the can buy and trade carbon credits for profit. Alarmist like to label cap and trade schemes a “market-based solution.” It’s a market only in the sense that it is a government mandated market that did not previously exist. This is the very definition of rent seeking. Call it "low rent conspiracy theorizing" all you want, it has the virtue of being true.
In Isaac’s own words: I agree that rent-seeking, even among clean energy companies, is a problem.… we as citizens should be vigilant.
You can’t have it both ways, you can’t call for vigilance against rent-seeking then demand a cap and trade scheme which creates an environment for…rent-seeking.
Isaac’s point about the revenue neutral appearance of carbon taxes, and cap and trade schemes is flat. Local consumers, here in Maryland will be greatly affected because the General Assembly is going to take up the legislative proposals of the Maryland Climate Commission (MCC). I’ve already shown that the MCCC does not want to reveal its secret dealings with the ardent alarmist group Climate Change Strategies, which ran the commission meetings and wrote the report to the Governor, and has financial ties to one of his campaign contributors.
The report includes recommendations for: carbon taxes, increased gas taxes, cap and trade schemes, renewable portfolio standards (government mandates and subsidies for wind and solar energy), vehicle taxes based on gas mileage, higher insurance rates based on the amount you drive, mandatory green principles in K-12 education (indoctrination), and electricity user fees to subsidize energy efficiency programs.
If you thought the tax grab in the special session was bad, just wait until the governor seeks “consensus” on these proposals.
The larger point in all of this, is that the alarmist policy prescriptions of the MCCC are but a fraction of those in the grand design of the Kyoto Protocol. Even the most ardent of alarmists will admit that if fully implemented Kyoto would only produce an undetectable slowing of warming by 0.7 degrees, hence their cry for 30 Kyotos.
Isaac, you made your case, but its clearly one based on scientific fraud and half truths. So is it any big shock that you hide behind accusations of dishonest argument instead of debating the issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment