I suppose Roger can speak for himself but I think that it is out of place here to argue as Mr. Cornell has done, whether "GHG play a minor role" or whether "industrial GHG are a trivial factor". The Climate Etc. Blog is filled with GHG doubters and Mr. Cornell could resonate in that forum. For purposes of discussions with Roger, we can accept that it is well established that increasing concentrations of GHG produce significant (although still uncertain) warming., and that further increases in GHG will produce additional warming. The issues that Roger brought up include: (1) What are the observable impacts (e.g. hurricane frequency) of the limited warming that has occurred so far when compared to historical baselines? (2) How rapidly can the world decarbonize while maintaining an adequate energy supply during the multi-decade period of transition? (3) A state of hysterical urgency has evolved in various agencies that feel compelled to constantly assure us that they fear climate change. This ties into #1 above because those of the alarmist persuasion fear the end of the world, and in their zeal to save the world, seem to repeatedly resort to exaggeration and even misrepresentation to proselytize the unconvinced. So, at the bottom line, is it possible to endure in a middle ground between the alarmists and the deniers, knowing that greenhouse gases produce warming, but rejecting false claims as to their present impact, and doubting the veracity of some extreme future projections? In this polarized world of black and white, Roger sees a gray scale.
The original Federal Reserve mandate was price stability. Then an employment growth mandate was added, a potential conflict with the original mandate. Now we have inflation in which the Fed is emphasizing price stability by depressing employment growth. Some Democrats, such as Senator Warren, want the Fed to add climate change to its remit. While we are at it, lets make national defense the Fed’s responsibility as well. What could possibly go wrong?
One must wonder what the National Security document would look like when awakened from the nightmare that demonizes industrial greenhouse gases as the control knob of climate and returns to the real world of natural variation that controls climate shifts. Javier Vinos offers a cogent hypothesis in Climate of the Past, Present, and Future. This is a graduate-level read that ties together the many factors acting on climate, including GHG which play a minor, but important role. Industrial GHG are a trivial factor in this reality.
Roger, an excellent piece! Words have consequence both from the right and the left. The unrelenting chorus of disaster from climate activists can change positions and investment in defense, energy and agriculture. I know you saw Tom Friedman's interview on CNN where he said the climate activists in the Biden administration have basically said oil companies are dinosaurs and should go off quietly and die. This has undercut both their willingness and their investor's appetite to make long term investments in new oil production. As Friedman says this has contributed to our inability to deal with the current Ukraine / Russia energy crisis and current inflation. The current water problems in the Colorado River basin which have been loudly tied to climate change are not linked since snowpack in the upper basin shows no long-term trend and climate change models themselves show increasing precipitation in most of the basin. But this may set into place expensive fixes as the price of climate change such as desalination and paying farmers not to use water. Since 80% of the water in the basin (and also much of the rest of the West) is used for agriculture the real solution to western water problems is to move some crops (cotton, rice, hay, corn) back to the east where they were in the last century. This would preserve agricultural output and national food/fiber security as opposed to paying farmers ten times the amount they pay the BurRec for water now for doing nothing.
Sadly, stump speech rhetoric substitutes for critical thinking in many USG documents. How does resilience/independence on energy, minerals, etc. fit in the document?
The climate hazard risk of rising CO2 is typically framed by academia as a problem to be solved. This is understandable from the empirical sciences and engineering framework. But from a policy perspective it is quite likely that anthropogenic climate change is a predicament for which there is no solution, only tradeoffs. This is true if for no other reason than that we cannot stop poorer nations from building a better standard of living using fossil energy.
Historically, humans have confronted the risk of weather and other natural cataclysm by improving their resilience. And, resilience to weather events has improved dramatically in recent decades. But now, we have this odd situation where policy guided by the academic class is incoherently focused on preventing a dystopic future caused by CO2 hazard, while impeding poorer nations from improving their resilience and decreasing the resilience of developed nations.
This document reads like an old-time sermon where the minister interjects “Praise the Lord” here and there throughout the sermon. And indeed, the whole enterprise dealing with CO2 emissions and climate change is much like a religion, where there are true believers and scoffers. Sometimes it is necessary for politicos to reaffirm their devotion to the cause by repeated praising of their Lord.
And that is sad because there really is a CO2/climate problem facing us, but showing our devotion via platitudes does not provide realistic paths toward amelioration. In the short-to midterm, the world will certainly depend predominantly on fossil fuels. Building bridges from extensive dependence on fossil fuels to a hypothetical future remains a great challenge. Politicians have lost sight of the near term in their vision of the distant future?
When Putin massed troops on the borders of Ukraine, he began a poker game where he held pocket aces. The Ukraine had been part of the former USSR and was a nation far removed from the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, Biden repeatedly tried to drag the Ukraine into NATO while thumbing his nose at Putin. As recently as a couple of months prior to the invasion, Biden was still arguing that Ukraine should become part of NATO. Was Putin bluffing or was he seriously intent? At that point, Biden, holding an unmatched pair, had a very tough decision to make from unattractive alternatives. It seems that he could either try to negotiate a peaceful transition to a Ukraine within the Russian sphere, hopefully with some UN guarantees (fold), or he could oppose Putin by calling him with his weak hand, in which case he could sacrifice the Ukraine as a battering ram to weaken Russia. Obviously, he chose the latter. And indeed ,it is weakening Russia. But apparently, what he did not fully appreciate was:
(1) Russia played a major role in world fossil energy supplies, especially to Europe, and he thereby threw Europe under the proverbial bus as a consequence.
(2) International trade is a delicately poised system that works well when it works well, but the Covid pandemic threw it off, and supply/demand has been out of balance for a couple of years. As this system was recovering, the initiation of a war and isolation of Russia with its friends China and India, created large scale imbalances in world energy and this seems likely to spill over into other commodities as well, while adding significantly to the already emerging inflation.
Did Biden do the “right” thing? That is arguable. What is not arguable is that regardless of any visionary low-emission future, we have to get through the multi-decade transition from fossil fuels, and we seem to have lost that focus.
Re Biden's "responses" to inflation, Bastiat's quote is most apt:
"An act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect but a series of effects. Of these, the first alone is immediate … it is seen. The others emerge only later; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we can foresee them.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that is seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. It follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."
Re "existential:"
I'm sorry, but climate change is not the greatest existential threat. Nuclear war, pandemics (as we are learning), and especially the rise of authoritarianism and the concomitant loss of freedom are much greater threats. This word has been as badly misused as "sustainability."
Our resources are not infinite – we elect our political leaders to make the tough choices, to prioritize. For me, lifting people out of poverty is much more important than climate. Those who are not living in poverty have discretionary resources they can use to mitigate or recover from weather events. They have connections that allow them access to additional resources. However much we may look back on the Trump years with distaste, the policies Congress put in place did help those at the bottom begin to make real economic gains. Redistribution of the same pie is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; making the pie bigger can help everybody; virtue signaling helps no one.
recency effect helps governing by claiming continuous emergencies (a true garden of eden for politicians) . you rightly said that long term is not well defined in the document and a reader would expect a strategy document to be based on long term criteria to inform decision making. it looks more a document for daily consumption and power grabbing.
I suppose Roger can speak for himself but I think that it is out of place here to argue as Mr. Cornell has done, whether "GHG play a minor role" or whether "industrial GHG are a trivial factor". The Climate Etc. Blog is filled with GHG doubters and Mr. Cornell could resonate in that forum. For purposes of discussions with Roger, we can accept that it is well established that increasing concentrations of GHG produce significant (although still uncertain) warming., and that further increases in GHG will produce additional warming. The issues that Roger brought up include: (1) What are the observable impacts (e.g. hurricane frequency) of the limited warming that has occurred so far when compared to historical baselines? (2) How rapidly can the world decarbonize while maintaining an adequate energy supply during the multi-decade period of transition? (3) A state of hysterical urgency has evolved in various agencies that feel compelled to constantly assure us that they fear climate change. This ties into #1 above because those of the alarmist persuasion fear the end of the world, and in their zeal to save the world, seem to repeatedly resort to exaggeration and even misrepresentation to proselytize the unconvinced. So, at the bottom line, is it possible to endure in a middle ground between the alarmists and the deniers, knowing that greenhouse gases produce warming, but rejecting false claims as to their present impact, and doubting the veracity of some extreme future projections? In this polarized world of black and white, Roger sees a gray scale.
Reminds me of the Obama Administration reforming NASA to make teaching out to the Islamic world the agency’s number one priority.
The original Federal Reserve mandate was price stability. Then an employment growth mandate was added, a potential conflict with the original mandate. Now we have inflation in which the Fed is emphasizing price stability by depressing employment growth. Some Democrats, such as Senator Warren, want the Fed to add climate change to its remit. While we are at it, lets make national defense the Fed’s responsibility as well. What could possibly go wrong?
One must wonder what the National Security document would look like when awakened from the nightmare that demonizes industrial greenhouse gases as the control knob of climate and returns to the real world of natural variation that controls climate shifts. Javier Vinos offers a cogent hypothesis in Climate of the Past, Present, and Future. This is a graduate-level read that ties together the many factors acting on climate, including GHG which play a minor, but important role. Industrial GHG are a trivial factor in this reality.
This editorial from today's WSJ suns up the absurdity of Net Zero and deep decarbonization pretty well:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-doomsday-is-nigh-again-united-nations-environment-climate-change-fossil-fuels-11666989086?st=ppk5miiyvdqwb4i&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Roger, an excellent piece! Words have consequence both from the right and the left. The unrelenting chorus of disaster from climate activists can change positions and investment in defense, energy and agriculture. I know you saw Tom Friedman's interview on CNN where he said the climate activists in the Biden administration have basically said oil companies are dinosaurs and should go off quietly and die. This has undercut both their willingness and their investor's appetite to make long term investments in new oil production. As Friedman says this has contributed to our inability to deal with the current Ukraine / Russia energy crisis and current inflation. The current water problems in the Colorado River basin which have been loudly tied to climate change are not linked since snowpack in the upper basin shows no long-term trend and climate change models themselves show increasing precipitation in most of the basin. But this may set into place expensive fixes as the price of climate change such as desalination and paying farmers not to use water. Since 80% of the water in the basin (and also much of the rest of the West) is used for agriculture the real solution to western water problems is to move some crops (cotton, rice, hay, corn) back to the east where they were in the last century. This would preserve agricultural output and national food/fiber security as opposed to paying farmers ten times the amount they pay the BurRec for water now for doing nothing.
What does it mean to "take climate and energy seriously"?
How about taking National Security seriously?
How about taking the surge in crime seriously?
How about taking border security seriously?
How about using identity politics to divide us?
I don't know how anyone can take the Biden Administration (more broadly the progressive Democrat Party) seriously.
Sadly, stump speech rhetoric substitutes for critical thinking in many USG documents. How does resilience/independence on energy, minerals, etc. fit in the document?
The climate hazard risk of rising CO2 is typically framed by academia as a problem to be solved. This is understandable from the empirical sciences and engineering framework. But from a policy perspective it is quite likely that anthropogenic climate change is a predicament for which there is no solution, only tradeoffs. This is true if for no other reason than that we cannot stop poorer nations from building a better standard of living using fossil energy.
Historically, humans have confronted the risk of weather and other natural cataclysm by improving their resilience. And, resilience to weather events has improved dramatically in recent decades. But now, we have this odd situation where policy guided by the academic class is incoherently focused on preventing a dystopic future caused by CO2 hazard, while impeding poorer nations from improving their resilience and decreasing the resilience of developed nations.
This document reads like an old-time sermon where the minister interjects “Praise the Lord” here and there throughout the sermon. And indeed, the whole enterprise dealing with CO2 emissions and climate change is much like a religion, where there are true believers and scoffers. Sometimes it is necessary for politicos to reaffirm their devotion to the cause by repeated praising of their Lord.
And that is sad because there really is a CO2/climate problem facing us, but showing our devotion via platitudes does not provide realistic paths toward amelioration. In the short-to midterm, the world will certainly depend predominantly on fossil fuels. Building bridges from extensive dependence on fossil fuels to a hypothetical future remains a great challenge. Politicians have lost sight of the near term in their vision of the distant future?
When Putin massed troops on the borders of Ukraine, he began a poker game where he held pocket aces. The Ukraine had been part of the former USSR and was a nation far removed from the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, Biden repeatedly tried to drag the Ukraine into NATO while thumbing his nose at Putin. As recently as a couple of months prior to the invasion, Biden was still arguing that Ukraine should become part of NATO. Was Putin bluffing or was he seriously intent? At that point, Biden, holding an unmatched pair, had a very tough decision to make from unattractive alternatives. It seems that he could either try to negotiate a peaceful transition to a Ukraine within the Russian sphere, hopefully with some UN guarantees (fold), or he could oppose Putin by calling him with his weak hand, in which case he could sacrifice the Ukraine as a battering ram to weaken Russia. Obviously, he chose the latter. And indeed ,it is weakening Russia. But apparently, what he did not fully appreciate was:
(1) Russia played a major role in world fossil energy supplies, especially to Europe, and he thereby threw Europe under the proverbial bus as a consequence.
(2) International trade is a delicately poised system that works well when it works well, but the Covid pandemic threw it off, and supply/demand has been out of balance for a couple of years. As this system was recovering, the initiation of a war and isolation of Russia with its friends China and India, created large scale imbalances in world energy and this seems likely to spill over into other commodities as well, while adding significantly to the already emerging inflation.
Did Biden do the “right” thing? That is arguable. What is not arguable is that regardless of any visionary low-emission future, we have to get through the multi-decade transition from fossil fuels, and we seem to have lost that focus.
A couple of comments...
Re Biden's "responses" to inflation, Bastiat's quote is most apt:
"An act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect but a series of effects. Of these, the first alone is immediate … it is seen. The others emerge only later; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we can foresee them.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that is seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. It follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."
Re "existential:"
I'm sorry, but climate change is not the greatest existential threat. Nuclear war, pandemics (as we are learning), and especially the rise of authoritarianism and the concomitant loss of freedom are much greater threats. This word has been as badly misused as "sustainability."
Our resources are not infinite – we elect our political leaders to make the tough choices, to prioritize. For me, lifting people out of poverty is much more important than climate. Those who are not living in poverty have discretionary resources they can use to mitigate or recover from weather events. They have connections that allow them access to additional resources. However much we may look back on the Trump years with distaste, the policies Congress put in place did help those at the bottom begin to make real economic gains. Redistribution of the same pie is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; making the pie bigger can help everybody; virtue signaling helps no one.
I would like to know how often the word 'pandemic' appears in de report. And of course, if it is treated more seriously than climate change.
recency effect helps governing by claiming continuous emergencies (a true garden of eden for politicians) . you rightly said that long term is not well defined in the document and a reader would expect a strategy document to be based on long term criteria to inform decision making. it looks more a document for daily consumption and power grabbing.