http://www.unionleader.com/article/2...ON02/140129638

Yes.

Does it have John Stossel in it?

Stossel is an idiot and complete nutjob but even a broken clock is right once in a while. I agree that there's nothing we can do and need the govt to focus on problems that they can actually do something about.

Several. It's like his brain is dehydrated.

If only economics had come up with a term to explain when two or more actors' transactions affected others who aren't part of that transaction. And then if only economists and academics had worked on developing ways to deal with those situations. Oh well better wait let the science get there.

Sophomoric strawman is sophomoric strawman.


Merely CO2. I mean you can appeal to the models being incorrect but you can't say just because plants breath CO2 the jury is out. Bacteria "eat" and "breath" sewage, will we ever know if it's harmful?

That reminds me of something some ignoramus i work with said once, verbatim:

"Trees eat smoke, idiot. Read a book."

If we develop better lightbulbs (as we pretty much have) then the whole world uses them. The benefit of better technology increases because of the rest of the world, its not negated or made irrelevant as claimed.

Commonly (light bulbs, car engines etc) there's a period where the newer technology is more expensive and not as good as the old technology. (If regulation forces the pace in getting past that stage then that's a huge benefit.

nothing factually wrong with the article, although I'd change #2 from decent to compelling. there's more than GHG emissions; we have deforested large swaths of the planet.

he is dead-on accurate about changes that we make, though. what the US and Europe does is a drop in the bucket. china, india, brazil are all rapidly industrializing and in the next generation we'll see the same thing in Africa. china already emits more than all of europe combined multiplied by two. india will pass all of europe combined in short order. these countries will use the most short-term inexpensive forms of energy available to them, regardless of long-term externalities.

I think the main flaw is his idea that we there would not be a net reduction of CO2 output if all americans use some form of renewable transportation. Regardless of what the Chinese do, anything Americans could do to reduce their emissions over the status quo would lessen the potential green house gas emissions. Maybe the total amount of green house gas emissions would be constant or even still rise, but of course not by as much.

I guess it depends on what you mean by the implications of factually accurate. Will China, India, etc continue to pollute the world environment regardless of what the US does? Yea that's the definition of an externality. Stossel's solution to this externality is deregulation and pray. If the sh*t hits the fan we'll adapt. Oddly convenient for business interests. Of course there are pretty non controversial methods for reducing the tragedy of the commons but because they conflict with business interests they are derided as "bureaucracy"

in answer to your question as to whether china, india, etc. will continue to emit CO2 if the US were to use less, the answer is a definite yes. in fact i think you have the opposite idea of what would occur. if the US uses less oil, the oil doesn't go unused. it will become cheaper for the developing world. ditto that for natural gas; we're already exporting it. i mean with something like keystone...the shale -> crude is either going to american refineries or it's going to the west coast of canada and shipped off to china. it's not going to sit there.

as to the general idea of your post, there are far more pressing local, national, and world problems to address. i realize tragedy of the commons is a known term, but i would reject that we are necessarily heading for a tragedy or even a near tragedy.

i think providing incentives for innovation (whether in the form of useful subsidies or funding large X prizes) is the best way forward towards better energy. we're already seeing solar energy becoming rapidly more efficient, and we have an electric car company that is determined to revolutionize how we drive. i think the US will decarbonize without intervention, but if there is intervention i think it should be to propel improvements rather than smother existing industries.

The most asked question on the Fox News studio tour?

Al Gore owns 5 homes and one large boat. Gore went green on one of his large homes. Still uses 15 times as much energy as the average American home.

I'm pretty sure I remember this being negated years ago. Its amazing how long bad RW propaganda keeps circulating even after its been dispelled.

His argument basically seems to boil down to: "it's hard and there's only so much americans can do, so we shouldn't worry about it".

Global warming could theoretically cause the extinction of humanity. Not saying it's likely or anything, but it's one of the few threats that we know of that could do it.

It seems like the type of issue where it's ok to possibly "waste" some resources in trying to solve the problem. To make a terrible poker analogy, I wouldn't mind throwing some chips at the problem to avoid going broke, even if it only reduces the go-broke % by a small amount.

This is a pretty big assumption, IMO. Lots of scientists have said that the problem will be far harder to deal with the worse it gets.

i cringe every time he puts quotes around "climate change" and "green" as if he is handling them with kid gloves.

So how do any of you explain the 18 year hiatus in warming. Nature magazine just published an article in which NOAA scientists admit to the hiatus, stating that years ago you could say it was due to variability, but now it has gone on long enough that it has to somehow be explained. The models are failing, it should be much warmer with the blossoming CO2.

Link to Nature article?

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-c...g-heat-1.14525

Thanks. I'll have to take a look at it later. I've known Nature to publish some really ****ty work from time to time as long as it's on a sexy topic.

The first sentence is terribly constructed. Not looking for further flaws.

Maybe there is global warming, If there is we can't do anything about therefore the free market will work a miracle, and if it doesn't we'll adapt. I tend to find this viewpoint, despite Stossel's protests, extremely anti environmental and anti nature loving. Remember it's not just us that has to adapt it's the whole planet. Might as well set a forest on fire or pour pollutants down the river and tell the trees and fish to adapt.

So even if it is anti-environment, there still isn't anything we can do about it.

The argument is that if US reduces demand, prices will be cheaper for other places to increase theirs.