I think you guys err in two overlapping ways: “Climate Change” is a cult, and cults don’t compromise or change. Any suggestion that involves CO2 is summarily dismissed. Replace coal with NG? No. Carbon sequestration of emissions? No. Hybrid vehicles? No.
And, the funding follows from this. As Munger used to say, “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcomes”.
Is there ever a climate disaster that you think isn't caused by global warming. Can you name one: Outside of earthquakes. Or are all earthquakes now automatically from global warming too.
One more thing: A Disaster Review Board might help if they didn't spend 90% of their time covering up the root causes and if anyone would listen to them. How long would it take to come up with solutions to the Guadalupe floods and the recent Grand Canyon fire spread if people were just honest about having made mistakes? I'm sure most of us could come up with a Top 10 list for Guadalupe right now, for example: 1. Siren system with webcams and sensors upstream. 2. Signage in recreation areas to encourage cell phone alert settings and awareness. 3. Weather service evacuation override of locals if not responsive. 4. Training and drills for local and national officials as a team. 5. Camp and recreation area evacuation plan with life rafts, ropes, life preservers. 6. Don't build sleeping cabins in flood plains. 7. Give camp counselors access to warnings via cell phones. 8. Cabin building codes for foundation robustness, water diversion, and access to roof from inside. 9. Detention dams and flow control up river. 10 Retention dams up river (could even provide another nice lake).
Good point about the big opportunity for Republicans to "co-opt" the Climate Change issue with a big push on adaptation, resiliency, and protection to reduce the death impact of disasters. However, I don't think the leadership is sharp enough to realize this. Maybe they will read your article! The GOP energy push is a big step toward adaptation+ (and energy supply would have an even greater impact in underdeveloped countries), but the GOP is selling energy supply increases based on inflation reduction and AI demand. The Democrats, in the midst of their current popularity issues, would benefit greatly from a positive policy shift toward mitigation and adaptation like this -- but they have become "true believers" in the CO2 and Net Zero debate. I don't think they can pivot -- but they seem to have pulled off a "180" on nuclear without anyone noticing.
The thing I like about adaptation is it is our best hope for a "no regrets" policy. Building resilience into our infrastructure seems a lot more likely to pay off at some unpredictable future date than tearing out reliable energy production and replacing it with unreliable, intermittent substitutes. Just one man's untutored opinion.
Excellent! Hurricane Helene would have hit NC and SC whether or not the nation reduced emissions. The Guadalupe has and will continue to periodically flood at varying locations whether or not the nation reduces emissions. And, Lord help us, the dams and levees on the Sacramento River are going to fail sometime in the next 50 yrs, whether or not the nation reduces emissions. And when that happens, the flooding will cause the deaths of thousands – unless we begin to mitigate and better adapt to the potential for flooding.
This really needs to start at the state level. Oregon has provided a decent model for how to get started with its work on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Other states have bits and pieces of decent starts but none have carried all the way through.
Another case where we have wasted billions on hypothetical futures vs spending on adaptation to/mitigation of events that we know will happen. A dollar spent on mitigation avoids spending ~$7 for response and recovery (and even more in CA!).
An example of good adaptation: Katrina resulted in approximately 1,400 deaths. Congress responded and approved nearly $15 billion to raise levees, increase pumping capacity, add new flood gates, etc. This work effectively protected New Orleans from the ravages of Ida, a similar hurricane to Katrina in terms of path and intensity. Only 4 Ida-related deaths were reported in New Orleans. To me, this was tax payer money well spent.
Dear Mr. Love, in Douglas Brinkley's book about Hurricane Katrina, he mentions that those engineering fixes for New Orleans levees and pumps were first planned for 15 years before Katrina. Those fixes were first delayed because of a lawsuit by the Sierra Club, which demanded remediation of the mangrove swamps south of the city instead. Funding for the levees and improved pumps was lost in subsequent budget cycles as the lawsuit wended its way through the courts, so that the engineering was never undertaken before Katrina hit. This struck me as prime example of the perfect getting in the way of the good.
And a perfect illustration that human society can only deal with very very simple situations.
A big disaster brings attention because it happened and it’s reasonably obvious how to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.
But planning for a theoretical future will rarely reach the point where preventive action occurs.
That’s why global warming has been oversimplified, the actions demanded are crude and ineffective. In the desperate hope that something might be achieved.
Any other approach would have resulted in more debate, more wrangling and even less action.
The human brain has achieved incredible things. If planet earth allows some humans to survive then further evolution might allow that brain to agree preventive measures BEFORE disasters occur.
But at present we don’t have that capability as a species.
One knows you and your compatriot as well as the likes of Bjorn Borg, are trying the circuitous route of pointing out that "adaption" is better than just the Climate Alarmism that is now all embracing, for the legacy press aka MSM. This is included in the "gridlock" to which you refer. History tells us where there is a human problem there is money to be made. The bigger the problem, the larger the amount of money to be made. Climate Alarmism pushed all these buttons as your article suggests. "Global Climate Change and Anthropogenic Global Warming AGW, again made what is most likely a normal shift in the changing cycles of climate on planet Earth, a perceived, global problem, so big that it required billions and billions of taxpayer dollars to solve. So started the subsidy of academic climatologists, academic climate scientists, industries such as solar panel, wind turbine and electric vehicles companies all of whom quickly realised that here was a cash cow of an enormous magnitude. In these human scenarios there always must be a "devil" to produce FEAR, to blame and point the finger at, to scare the populace into submission. This was of course the fossil fuel industry. This rogue ogre regardless of the wealth, health, well being and advancement that this industry has bought to the Planet for the past 200 yrs. was fingered as the bogey man that had to be expunged from the planet. However, as any one with half a brain knew, the ruling classes, the doyens of industry, the elite in academia and the politicians knew that the emmisions from fossil fuels could never be reduced, let alone be eradicated from the planet as this energy was just too necessary to humankind to even exist on this planet. There are those that say history will show that the scams surrounding Climate Alarmism will turn out to be the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on humankind...eva. It is not difficult to agree with that point of view.
Not global warming anyway. See data page on cctruth.org. Warming in the north where 90% of people live. Not much warming in the south. Climate change is about fear mongering and removing people from the earth. Anything donated on cctruth.org is tax deducible.
In the interest of hearing more of the case for climate alarmism, I listened to a recent Ted Talk by none other than Al Gore. Ugh. What a disappointment! He cited zero facts and mostly just berated anyone who didn’t agree with him that human civilization is on the precipice of disaster. It was especially disappointing after the thoughtful and nuanced conversations I’ve become accustomed to on Roger’s THB Substack.
Al Gore, according to Wikipedia, a sometimes somewhat reliable source, says that he did poorly an science and avoided taking math while at Harvard. He then followed Roger Revelle, who sparked his interest in global warming and environmental issues. I know it is just the way Tennessee people talk, but he has always struck me as kind of dumb. If he came across with zero facts in a Ted Talk, I would assume it was because his strengths lie in pedantics, and not in hard science.
Former one-term Senator Tim Wirth ... I know but one thing about him, by his own admission. He bragged that in 1989, as James Hansen was scheduled to testify at a landmark senate hearing on the topic of global warming, he and others ...
"We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
... What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot."
OK, that's not a terribly big deal, just show biz, but tells me that from the beginning, the global warming threat has been about perception management. The planet is OK.
I agree, Mark. I didn’t mention this earlier, but I had a good friend, a lawyer, who interacted considerably with Al Gore. He said he was dumber than a rock. I never met him, though he did bed a local widow in our area. The relationship didn’t last.
You and Dan nailed critical weaknesses in climate change policy prescriptions a quarter century ago. Bravo. In a rational world, this should be sent to every journalist on the beat and to every elected progressive (and they should read it and those who've blocked you should realize what a mistake that's been. Here's my Note on the piece including Al Gore's little-seen mea culpa on his messaging: https://substack.com/profile/3668868-andy-revkin/note/c-135591743
Happer published a study a few years back showing that the Greenhouse effect of CO2 saturates very quickly. Conclusion is that even if CO2 concentration doubled from 415 to 830 ppm (it will take 150 years at current rates) the Earth bulk temperature would only increase by .7F. Is this really a problem?
Was it not warmer during the Roman Pax and the Medieval Warming? Then consider that fossil fuels are limited. We may not know how limited, but eventually we would stop putting carbon in the atmosphere. From the macro-perspective, it would seem the climate issue is totally overblown. Nonsensical.
This saturation fact (which I have to take on the advice of others), is just totally ignored in Climate Change discussions. Thank you for reminding us. Also, people choose to live where it is warmer. Look at where the population is. Also, CO2 is needed by the plants that we use for food -- and this is key to our ability to feed 6 Billion of the 8 Billion people on the Earth (more if the politics and violence were minimized). Finally, I see your nuclear comment below, but I also remember predictions that we were going to be out of "oil" by now (Google "1970's predictions that we are running out of fossil fuels") -- so I suggest that we can also use extensive LNG resources as a nice CO2-reducing transition.
So, the real problem is NOT global warming. The real problem is how humanity will survive when the fossil fuels run out. We are wasting our time solving a non-problem, when we should be focusing on a realistic replacement for fossil fuels (can we make concrete or smelt iron electrically? LOL).
We should be putting 100% of our resources into developing NUCLEAR ASAP, and stop wasting resources on Wind and Solar. Wind and Solar are just junk heaps waiting to happen.
RP - "I don’t think we did a very good job at all of anticipating how readily many climate scientists would embrace and even promote the partisan framing of the issue..." My view is that starting with Michael Mann, people such as he and others who have followed the lead discovered that scaring the Hell out of people was a fast route to income from Federal grants. Just use money from taxes and deficit spending. The snowflakes from the Social Sciences all jump on board. Majorities in democracy can pursue new directions for a long time while ignorant of physics and thermodynamics.
DS – “...the idea that the two parties had any incentive to come together around a climate/weather hazard reduction agenda, an agenda that might seem like a political slam-dunk from a common good perspective, was naïve…” Yes, naïve. Congress is in perpetual gridlock. The two parties treat legislation like the Superbowl. The only thing that matters is who wins the game, with big money betting on the outcome. After the final tabulation let the celebration begin. Who gets the trophy, the rings or the gavel? The term "common good" is a joke. And it isn’t just the two political parties. Corporate media plays a large role here. I used to liken journalists to fight promoter Don King. Or put another way, “Let me hold your coats. Now you and him go fight.” (It's good for business.) One reason for Congressional gridlock is us, the US citizen. We don't want either party to gain too much power and become dictators Republican or Democrat, operating from the Legislative, Executive/Bureaucracy, or Judicial branches. Decentralization of power and money back to sovereign states and Federalism seems desirable. Let's continue to compare results from California to Texas, New York to Florida. Let's emulate the best in Kansas and elsewhere.
An enjoyable look-back and appraisal. Thank you.
I think you guys err in two overlapping ways: “Climate Change” is a cult, and cults don’t compromise or change. Any suggestion that involves CO2 is summarily dismissed. Replace coal with NG? No. Carbon sequestration of emissions? No. Hybrid vehicles? No.
And, the funding follows from this. As Munger used to say, “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcomes”.
Is there ever a climate disaster that you think isn't caused by global warming. Can you name one: Outside of earthquakes. Or are all earthquakes now automatically from global warming too.
One more thing: A Disaster Review Board might help if they didn't spend 90% of their time covering up the root causes and if anyone would listen to them. How long would it take to come up with solutions to the Guadalupe floods and the recent Grand Canyon fire spread if people were just honest about having made mistakes? I'm sure most of us could come up with a Top 10 list for Guadalupe right now, for example: 1. Siren system with webcams and sensors upstream. 2. Signage in recreation areas to encourage cell phone alert settings and awareness. 3. Weather service evacuation override of locals if not responsive. 4. Training and drills for local and national officials as a team. 5. Camp and recreation area evacuation plan with life rafts, ropes, life preservers. 6. Don't build sleeping cabins in flood plains. 7. Give camp counselors access to warnings via cell phones. 8. Cabin building codes for foundation robustness, water diversion, and access to roof from inside. 9. Detention dams and flow control up river. 10 Retention dams up river (could even provide another nice lake).
Good point about the big opportunity for Republicans to "co-opt" the Climate Change issue with a big push on adaptation, resiliency, and protection to reduce the death impact of disasters. However, I don't think the leadership is sharp enough to realize this. Maybe they will read your article! The GOP energy push is a big step toward adaptation+ (and energy supply would have an even greater impact in underdeveloped countries), but the GOP is selling energy supply increases based on inflation reduction and AI demand. The Democrats, in the midst of their current popularity issues, would benefit greatly from a positive policy shift toward mitigation and adaptation like this -- but they have become "true believers" in the CO2 and Net Zero debate. I don't think they can pivot -- but they seem to have pulled off a "180" on nuclear without anyone noticing.
The thing I like about adaptation is it is our best hope for a "no regrets" policy. Building resilience into our infrastructure seems a lot more likely to pay off at some unpredictable future date than tearing out reliable energy production and replacing it with unreliable, intermittent substitutes. Just one man's untutored opinion.
Excellent! Hurricane Helene would have hit NC and SC whether or not the nation reduced emissions. The Guadalupe has and will continue to periodically flood at varying locations whether or not the nation reduces emissions. And, Lord help us, the dams and levees on the Sacramento River are going to fail sometime in the next 50 yrs, whether or not the nation reduces emissions. And when that happens, the flooding will cause the deaths of thousands – unless we begin to mitigate and better adapt to the potential for flooding.
This really needs to start at the state level. Oregon has provided a decent model for how to get started with its work on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Other states have bits and pieces of decent starts but none have carried all the way through.
Another case where we have wasted billions on hypothetical futures vs spending on adaptation to/mitigation of events that we know will happen. A dollar spent on mitigation avoids spending ~$7 for response and recovery (and even more in CA!).
Russell Vought with the Dracula look might be today’s replacement for Al Gore 😱
An example of good adaptation: Katrina resulted in approximately 1,400 deaths. Congress responded and approved nearly $15 billion to raise levees, increase pumping capacity, add new flood gates, etc. This work effectively protected New Orleans from the ravages of Ida, a similar hurricane to Katrina in terms of path and intensity. Only 4 Ida-related deaths were reported in New Orleans. To me, this was tax payer money well spent.
Dear Mr. Love, in Douglas Brinkley's book about Hurricane Katrina, he mentions that those engineering fixes for New Orleans levees and pumps were first planned for 15 years before Katrina. Those fixes were first delayed because of a lawsuit by the Sierra Club, which demanded remediation of the mangrove swamps south of the city instead. Funding for the levees and improved pumps was lost in subsequent budget cycles as the lawsuit wended its way through the courts, so that the engineering was never undertaken before Katrina hit. This struck me as prime example of the perfect getting in the way of the good.
And a perfect illustration that human society can only deal with very very simple situations.
A big disaster brings attention because it happened and it’s reasonably obvious how to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.
But planning for a theoretical future will rarely reach the point where preventive action occurs.
That’s why global warming has been oversimplified, the actions demanded are crude and ineffective. In the desperate hope that something might be achieved.
Any other approach would have resulted in more debate, more wrangling and even less action.
The human brain has achieved incredible things. If planet earth allows some humans to survive then further evolution might allow that brain to agree preventive measures BEFORE disasters occur.
But at present we don’t have that capability as a species.
One knows you and your compatriot as well as the likes of Bjorn Borg, are trying the circuitous route of pointing out that "adaption" is better than just the Climate Alarmism that is now all embracing, for the legacy press aka MSM. This is included in the "gridlock" to which you refer. History tells us where there is a human problem there is money to be made. The bigger the problem, the larger the amount of money to be made. Climate Alarmism pushed all these buttons as your article suggests. "Global Climate Change and Anthropogenic Global Warming AGW, again made what is most likely a normal shift in the changing cycles of climate on planet Earth, a perceived, global problem, so big that it required billions and billions of taxpayer dollars to solve. So started the subsidy of academic climatologists, academic climate scientists, industries such as solar panel, wind turbine and electric vehicles companies all of whom quickly realised that here was a cash cow of an enormous magnitude. In these human scenarios there always must be a "devil" to produce FEAR, to blame and point the finger at, to scare the populace into submission. This was of course the fossil fuel industry. This rogue ogre regardless of the wealth, health, well being and advancement that this industry has bought to the Planet for the past 200 yrs. was fingered as the bogey man that had to be expunged from the planet. However, as any one with half a brain knew, the ruling classes, the doyens of industry, the elite in academia and the politicians knew that the emmisions from fossil fuels could never be reduced, let alone be eradicated from the planet as this energy was just too necessary to humankind to even exist on this planet. There are those that say history will show that the scams surrounding Climate Alarmism will turn out to be the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on humankind...eva. It is not difficult to agree with that point of view.
I forgot that Bjorn Borg became an economist after his great tennis career. Ah well Danes, Swedes, they were all Vikings weren’t they 😱
Ae you thinking about Bjorn Lomborg, perhaps?
I think you are right: https://www.amazon.com/False-Alarm-Climate-Change-Trillions/dp/1541647467
Or that Swedish Star Trek character.
Not global warming anyway. See data page on cctruth.org. Warming in the north where 90% of people live. Not much warming in the south. Climate change is about fear mongering and removing people from the earth. Anything donated on cctruth.org is tax deducible.
In the interest of hearing more of the case for climate alarmism, I listened to a recent Ted Talk by none other than Al Gore. Ugh. What a disappointment! He cited zero facts and mostly just berated anyone who didn’t agree with him that human civilization is on the precipice of disaster. It was especially disappointing after the thoughtful and nuanced conversations I’ve become accustomed to on Roger’s THB Substack.
Al Gore, according to Wikipedia, a sometimes somewhat reliable source, says that he did poorly an science and avoided taking math while at Harvard. He then followed Roger Revelle, who sparked his interest in global warming and environmental issues. I know it is just the way Tennessee people talk, but he has always struck me as kind of dumb. If he came across with zero facts in a Ted Talk, I would assume it was because his strengths lie in pedantics, and not in hard science.
Former one-term Senator Tim Wirth ... I know but one thing about him, by his own admission. He bragged that in 1989, as James Hansen was scheduled to testify at a landmark senate hearing on the topic of global warming, he and others ...
"We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
... What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot."
OK, that's not a terribly big deal, just show biz, but tells me that from the beginning, the global warming threat has been about perception management. The planet is OK.
I agree, Mark. I didn’t mention this earlier, but I had a good friend, a lawyer, who interacted considerably with Al Gore. He said he was dumber than a rock. I never met him, though he did bed a local widow in our area. The relationship didn’t last.
You and Dan nailed critical weaknesses in climate change policy prescriptions a quarter century ago. Bravo. In a rational world, this should be sent to every journalist on the beat and to every elected progressive (and they should read it and those who've blocked you should realize what a mistake that's been. Here's my Note on the piece including Al Gore's little-seen mea culpa on his messaging: https://substack.com/profile/3668868-andy-revkin/note/c-135591743
Happer published a study a few years back showing that the Greenhouse effect of CO2 saturates very quickly. Conclusion is that even if CO2 concentration doubled from 415 to 830 ppm (it will take 150 years at current rates) the Earth bulk temperature would only increase by .7F. Is this really a problem?
Was it not warmer during the Roman Pax and the Medieval Warming? Then consider that fossil fuels are limited. We may not know how limited, but eventually we would stop putting carbon in the atmosphere. From the macro-perspective, it would seem the climate issue is totally overblown. Nonsensical.
This saturation fact (which I have to take on the advice of others), is just totally ignored in Climate Change discussions. Thank you for reminding us. Also, people choose to live where it is warmer. Look at where the population is. Also, CO2 is needed by the plants that we use for food -- and this is key to our ability to feed 6 Billion of the 8 Billion people on the Earth (more if the politics and violence were minimized). Finally, I see your nuclear comment below, but I also remember predictions that we were going to be out of "oil" by now (Google "1970's predictions that we are running out of fossil fuels") -- so I suggest that we can also use extensive LNG resources as a nice CO2-reducing transition.
So, the real problem is NOT global warming. The real problem is how humanity will survive when the fossil fuels run out. We are wasting our time solving a non-problem, when we should be focusing on a realistic replacement for fossil fuels (can we make concrete or smelt iron electrically? LOL).
Nuclear is waiting in the wings for its chance!
We should be putting 100% of our resources into developing NUCLEAR ASAP, and stop wasting resources on Wind and Solar. Wind and Solar are just junk heaps waiting to happen.
RP - "I don’t think we did a very good job at all of anticipating how readily many climate scientists would embrace and even promote the partisan framing of the issue..." My view is that starting with Michael Mann, people such as he and others who have followed the lead discovered that scaring the Hell out of people was a fast route to income from Federal grants. Just use money from taxes and deficit spending. The snowflakes from the Social Sciences all jump on board. Majorities in democracy can pursue new directions for a long time while ignorant of physics and thermodynamics.
DS – “...the idea that the two parties had any incentive to come together around a climate/weather hazard reduction agenda, an agenda that might seem like a political slam-dunk from a common good perspective, was naïve…” Yes, naïve. Congress is in perpetual gridlock. The two parties treat legislation like the Superbowl. The only thing that matters is who wins the game, with big money betting on the outcome. After the final tabulation let the celebration begin. Who gets the trophy, the rings or the gavel? The term "common good" is a joke. And it isn’t just the two political parties. Corporate media plays a large role here. I used to liken journalists to fight promoter Don King. Or put another way, “Let me hold your coats. Now you and him go fight.” (It's good for business.) One reason for Congressional gridlock is us, the US citizen. We don't want either party to gain too much power and become dictators Republican or Democrat, operating from the Legislative, Executive/Bureaucracy, or Judicial branches. Decentralization of power and money back to sovereign states and Federalism seems desirable. Let's continue to compare results from California to Texas, New York to Florida. Let's emulate the best in Kansas and elsewhere.