What Global Warming!

[Aberhound]

The passion people have on this debate is revealing. Somewhere behind the scenes is some behavioural psychologist who wants the use the debate to draw attention away from those who are looting the system through monetary policy and corruption regarding the use of public resources.

 

If they eased up on the looting we would be in a situation like BAC where there is a massive cash flow available to fix any problem.

 

I predict the next debate is going to be whether GMO makes you healthy and saves the planet. Meanwhile the looting will continue.

 

I am still trying to buy a Pogue vapour carburator invented about 1925 to cut my fuel expense in half or more. Patton drove his Shermans a long way across France thanks to that carburator. There would be a lot less carbon dioxide now if it were removed from the Secrecy act after 1945. What else is being hidden?

[Liberty]

I am still trying to buy a Pogue vapour carburator invented about 1925 to cut my fuel expense in half or more. Patton drove his Shermans a long way across France thanks to that carburator. There would be a lot less carbon dioxide now if it were removed from the Secrecy act after 1945. What else is being hidden?

 

Good luck with that:

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

 

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/712/has-a-200-mpg-carburetor-been-suppressed-by-the-oil-industry

[beerbaron]

I am still trying to buy a Pogue vapour carburator invented about 1925 to cut my fuel expense in half or more. Patton drove his Shermans a long way across France thanks to that carburator. There would be a lot less carbon dioxide now if it were removed from the Secrecy act after 1945. What else is being hidden?

 

Good luck with that:

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/712/has-a-200-mpg-carburetor-been-suppressed-by-the-oil-industry

 

Guys, being in the manufacturing business I can tell you all those stories about "invention X" that was killed by a big company do not fly with what I see. It also does not fit with the game theory aspect of it.

 

A market disruptive idea can go two way:

If it's invented by a dominant player in the industry that do not want to lose it's current business. This dominant player will go the path of least resistance: work on the idea a little bit, place a few patents and try to orchestrate a rollover over time. Think of Kodak that invented the digital camera.

 

If it's invented by a wanna be player in the industry then the company will go full speed with the idea making it their strategic advantage. Think of... well any newcomer with a superior technology that moves all the other ones. Tesla being the most recent one I can think of.

 

All in all, there are no magical solutions. All there is is a lot of brilliant minds competing to get the best ideas and make money from it. Capitalism works quite well for doing that.

 

BeerBaron

[Aberhound]

I am still trying to buy a Pogue vapour carburator invented about 1925 to cut my fuel expense in half or more. Patton drove his Shermans a long way across France thanks to that carburator. There would be a lot less carbon dioxide now if it were removed from the Secrecy act after 1945. What else is being hidden?

 

Good luck with that:

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/712/has-a-200-mpg-carburetor-been-suppressed-by-the-oil-industry

 

Guys, being in the manufacturing business I can tell you all those stories about "invention X" that was killed by a big company do not fly with what I see. It also does not fit with the game theory aspect of it.

 

A market disruptive idea can go two way:

If it's invented by a dominant player in the industry that do not want to lose it's current business. This dominant player will go the path of least resistance: work on the idea a little bit, place a few patents and try to orchestrate a rollover over time. Think of Kodak that invented the digital camera.

 

If it's invented by a wanna be player in the industry then the company will go full speed with the idea making it their strategic advantage. Think of... well any newcomer with a superior technology that moves all the other ones. Tesla being the most recent one I can think of.

 

All in all, there are no magical solutions. All there is is a lot of brilliant minds competing to get the best ideas and make money from it. Capitalism works quite well for doing that.

 

BeerBaron

 

This attitude that it can't be done is what slows progress. Instead ones attitude should be that it probably is possible and there may be societal reasons why it not done yet. Anyone with an old truck without computer control can hire others to install a vapour carburetor. People just have to think. One of the purposes of the catalytic converter is to convert the unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide. Instead why don't you burn the hydrocarbons more thoroughly? That is what the vapour carburetor does. It is logic not magic.

 

What I don't like is that inventors and tinkerers waste time re-inventing things invented decades ago. Now that many of these old suppressed inventions are appearing in Asia we might as well release them from the formal or informal "National Security" bans. The best example is the Meyer fuel cell. Since you can buy them in Asia and now here why not use it in industry? They are not economic for most vehicles here but other uses can be found. For instance, instead of up to 40% of electricity being dumped because of massive base load generators kept running at night when demand is low why not use it? You could split water. There are other uses for dumped electricity. You could heat water. You could heat salt. You could create a vortex and put water up into the clouds to drift east. You could pump water. Good scientists and technicians should be able to do far better than what Meyer and others achieved decades ago. We have wasted a lot of time and resources so now we are falling behind. Part of the problem is the lack of inquiring minds.

[rkbabang]

The Meyer fuel cell?  The 200mpg carburetor?  Really?

I know a a guy who used to be a sewing machine repair man in Boston in the 1960-70's.  He told me that he repaired a machine at this guy's house who had a working perpetual motion machine in the basement (why couldn't he fix his own sewing machine? I don't know).  But he was threatened by the government and couldn't produce it or market it or they would kill him.  100% true!

 

[Guest deepValue]

I am still trying to buy a Pogue vapour carburator invented about 1925 to cut my fuel expense in half or more. Patton drove his Shermans a long way across France thanks to that carburator. There would be a lot less carbon dioxide now if it were removed from the Secrecy act after 1945. What else is being hidden?

 

Good luck with that:

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/712/has-a-200-mpg-carburetor-been-suppressed-by-the-oil-industry

 

Guys, being in the manufacturing business I can tell you all those stories about "invention X" that was killed by a big company do not fly with what I see. It also does not fit with the game theory aspect of it.

 

A market disruptive idea can go two way:

If it's invented by a dominant player in the industry that do not want to lose it's current business. This dominant player will go the path of least resistance: work on the idea a little bit, place a few patents and try to orchestrate a rollover over time. Think of Kodak that invented the digital camera.

 

If it's invented by a wanna be player in the industry then the company will go full speed with the idea making it their strategic advantage. Think of... well any newcomer with a superior technology that moves all the other ones. Tesla being the most recent one I can think of.

 

All in all, there are no magical solutions. All there is is a lot of brilliant minds competing to get the best ideas and make money from it. Capitalism works quite well for doing that.

 

BeerBaron

 

This attitude that it can't be done is what slows progress. Instead ones attitude should be that it probably is possible and there may be societal reasons why it not done yet. Anyone with an old truck without computer control can hire others to install a vapour carburetor. People just have to think. One of the purposes of the catalytic converter is to convert the unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide. Instead why don't you burn the hydrocarbons more thoroughly? That is what the vapour carburetor does. It is logic not magic.

 

What I don't like is that inventors and tinkerers waste time re-inventing things invented decades ago. Now that many of these old suppressed inventions are appearing in Asia we might as well release them from the formal or informal "National Security" bans. The best example is the Meyer fuel cell. Since you can buy them in Asia and now here why not use it in industry? They are not economic for most vehicles here but other uses can be found. For instance, instead of up to 40% of electricity being dumped because of massive base load generators kept running at night when demand is low why not use it? You could split water. There are other uses for dumped electricity. You could heat water. You could heat salt. You could create a vortex and put water up into the clouds to drift east. You could pump water. Good scientists and technicians should be able to do far better than what Meyer and others achieved decades ago. We have wasted a lot of time and resources so now we are falling behind. Part of the problem is the lack of inquiring minds.

 

Sounds like something Alex Jones would dream up.

[beerbaron]

For a refresher on thermodinamics I would recommend the Carnot cycle. A simple carburettor cannot increase the mileage 10 fold. I recommend reading this simple citations from Wikipedia.

 

Again I think I'm wasting my breath because it's impossible to argue against people that believe in conspiracies.

 

In general terms, the larger the difference in temperature between the hot source and the cold sink, the larger is the potential thermal efficiency of the cycle. On Earth, the cold side of any heat engine is limited to being close to the ambient temperature of the environment, or not much lower than 300 Kelvin, so most efforts to improve the thermodynamic efficiencies of various heat engines focus on increasing the temperature of the source, within material limits. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine (which no engine ever attains) is equal to the temperature difference between the hot and cold ends divided by the temperature at the hot end, all expressed in absolute temperature or kelvins.

 

The efficiency of various heat engines proposed or used today ranges from 3 percent[4] (97 percent waste heat using low quality heat) for the OTEC ocean power proposal through 25 percent for most automotive engines[citation needed], to 45 percent for a supercritical coal-fired power station, to about 60 percent for a steam-cooled combined cycle gas turbine.[5]

 

All of these processes gain their efficiency (or lack thereof) due to the temperature drop across them.

[Guest deepValue]

Wow I'm truly surprised by the number of Climatologists and whatnot we have on this forum! I'm really surprised at the number of value investors that have an understanding of climate within their circle of competence. Really surprising, now I might get the NOAA forums and the Corner of berkshire forums mixed up!

 

Seriously though, as others have stated earlier it's quite unusual to see how people seem to step outside their circle of competence when it comes to divisive issues. I mean is there anyone on this board thats actually qualified to speak on this topic, otherwise this thread  reminds me of youtube arguments, neither side knows the facts or how to analyze the data, yet makes unsubstantiated claims one way or the other regarding climate change. Unless there is some hard evidence that the scientific community isn't neutral, or is inherently biased I'd generally follow what they say unless a scientific consensus forms contrary to what was previously established as fact. I mean I'm fairly knowledgable about history, but I don't presume to know the intricacies of how taxation worked in the Mali Empire under Mansa Musa, I'll leave that to Historians. Sure it's inadvertent that we may step outside of our circle of competence at times (I myself am guilty of this), but it is best to try not to become entrenched in one viewpoint or another when one is not  qualified to speak on such topics.

 

I mean Engineers don't argue with your doctor over whether they should use gamma knife surgery or use chemotherapy. Plumbers don't make bills in Congress, politicians do, because generally plumbers are not qualified for that. In my entirely unprofessional opinion, bad things tend to happen when people step out of their circle of confidence, Alexander the Great was one of the greatest generals of all time, but was pretty bad at governing IMO, and his empire quickly fell into Civil War after his death. Ulysses S. Grant was a great general in the civil war, but he was one of the most useless Presidents we've had. Hitler was a fairly good politician, but he was a horrible military strategist among other things. The whole circle of confidence thing applies to more than just investing, it applies to everything, especially the more arcane and erudite a topic is, such as Climate Change.

 

I didn't play too close attention to the other posts, but the argument between Liberty and me was more epistemological than anything else. It was about whether or not scientists can really understand what is going on in the atmosphere, and whether or not there is scientific consensus, rather than a debate over the intricacies of climate science. I'm not good enough at math to understand a lot of economics research papers, but I'm good enough at logic and observation to know that nobody can account for all of the variables in the economy to really know the effects of policy given all the other variables. Therefore, I'd be skeptical if an economist ever touted a projection as 'fact' (or any other expert that states any projection as fact). This is the sort of thing that our politicians must have an opinion on, and therefore a topic on which voters should give some thought.

 

(Just to make things clear, I'm with Krauthammer on climate change: It's silly to call future global devastation as a result of man-made climate change a 'fact,' but it's also silly to radically change the environment by pumping endless amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere because we cannot possibly predict the consequences. At the risk of re-opening an ended debate, I fail to see how this is controversial other than that it references a Fox News contributor.)

[ERICOPOLY]

Therefore, I'd be skeptical if an economist ever touted a projection as 'fact'

 

I would get worried if an economist argued that debt can be expanded without limits and we shouldn't worry that it would have any disastrous consequence.

 

Similarly, I get worried when people argue that we don't need to worry about limitless release of greenhouse gas without consequence.

 

In both cases, like you said, there are multiple variables.  But even in the presence of a complex system, I believe there are things that we are doing that are bound to make things worse if nothing else.

 

 

[Packer16]

In situations like this I like think about science on spectrum of reliability . First, facts (an event that can be repeated over and over again via observable experimentation today) then truisms (these will occur over time but there timing is irregular) then projections (projections about past trends that in general can predicted pretty predicable results and finally extrapolations (projections a using past either over long periods of time (which cannot be verified due to long extrapolation period and over that period it is unknown where the extrapolation will occur because the effect is a function of complex yet to be understood effects).  I think one question you can ask if it is one of the first four categories is if an accurate forecast cannot be developed then it is extrapolation.  Given the "hockey stick" projection failure I think it is extrapolative not projective science. 

 

I believe putting CO2 changes the climate but alot of things also do that.  That is not the relevant question but the question is given limited resources how many resources should be expended versus other problems that are in the first three categories of science.  The Copenhagen Consensus has developed a list of problems in the first three categories where dollars can be better spent.  We  should also study the problem and when it transition to a prediction then we can do something about it.  I just think the proponents are just to early in saying it is predictive as someday it may be projective.  I think it unfortunate that it has become political but I think given its nature (no provable hypothesis and not very accurate predictions) I guess it can fit into political situations with two sides and support for both sides.

 

Packer

[james22]

Apple CEO tells ‘deniers’ to get out of Apple stock

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/02/mind-blowing-apple-ceo-tells-deniers-to-get-out-of-apple-stock/

 

(No popcorn emoticon?)

[rkbabang]

Apple CEO tells ‘deniers’ to get out of Apple stock

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/02/mind-blowing-apple-ceo-tells-deniers-to-get-out-of-apple-stock/

 

(No popcorn emoticon?)

 

What exactly does management telling shareholder to sell the stock (for any reason) actually mean?  My translation:

 

"You are no longer welcome to own the company which you've hired me to run for you."

 

[tyska]

Apple CEO tells ‘deniers’ to get out of Apple stock

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/02/mind-blowing-apple-ceo-tells-deniers-to-get-out-of-apple-stock/

 

(No popcorn emoticon?)

 

What exactly does management telling shareholder to sell the stock (for any reason) actually mean?  My translation:

 

"You are no longer welcome to own the company which you've hired me to run for you."

 

Sadly, he is just bluntly saying what most CEO's think of shareholders. They may have different motives than Apples' CEO, but still they don't view themselves as caretakers of someones investment, and certainly not their employee.

 

[Liberty]

Sadly, he is just bluntly saying what most CEO's think of shareholders. They may have different motives than Apples' CEO, but still they don't view themselves as caretakers of someones investment, and certainly not their employee.

 

Wasn't it a microscopic shareholder who wanted to pass a resolution that would prevent Apple from doing anything that isn't directly profit-oriented (ie. don't work on discrimination, worker conditions, the environment, etc)? No wonder it made Cook angry, as I'm sure it would make Buffett or Munger the same. How many other companies would tie their hands that way? Now of course everybody tried to spin it into a big thing that it wasn't...

[tyska]

Sadly, he is just bluntly saying what most CEO's think of shareholders. They may have different motives than Apples' CEO, but still they don't view themselves as caretakers of someones investment, and certainly not their employee.

 

Wasn't it a tiny shareholder who wanted to pass a resolution that would prevent Apple from doing anything that isn't directly profit-oriented (ie. don't work on discrimination, worker conditions, the environment, etc)? No wonder it made Cook angry, as I'm sure it would make Buffett or Munger the same. Now of course everybody tried to spin it into a big thing that it wasn't...

 

I've never known Buffett or Munger to temper their response by the size of anyone's holdings in the company. And they have the class that one should have by the time one is running a multi billion dollar company to be able to respond to questions about how their decisions will be in the best interest of a shareholder. And things like discrimination, worker conditions, etc. should be able to be explained how they are positives to the company, whether through good P.R. better productivity etc.

[Liberty]

I've never known Buffett or Munger to temper their response by the size of anyone's holdings in the company. And they have the class that one should have by the time one is running a multi billion dollar company to be able to respond to questions about how their decisions will be in the best interest of a shareholder. And things like discrimination, worker conditions, etc. should be able to be explained how they are positives to the company, whether through good P.R. better productivity etc.

 

The part about the size of the shareholder was mine, not Cook's. As for the rest, some things are so obvious.. I don't think Cook should have to explain how being a good place that cares for its employees and having an admired brand for doing good things is an advantage for the company anymore than he should have to explain why his bathrooms aren't segregated by skin color or whatever.

 

Sure, he could have handled it more smoothly, but we're all humans and some people get under our skin. It's not like Munger never criticizes..

 

Here's more detail on what happened:

 

the NCPPR representative asked Mr. Cook to commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable.

 

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

 

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

 

As evidenced by the use of "bloody" in his response—the closest thing to public profanity I've ever seen from Mr. Cook–it was clear that he was quite angry. His body language changed, his face contracted, and he spoke in rapid fire sentences compared to the usual metered and controlled way he speaks.

 

He didn't stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

 

So he explained his view, he didn't just reject the question. There are certain things the company does first because they are right, and then because they can help profitability (ie. making devices accessible for the blind -- might not pass a straight ROI test compared to using same engineers on another project, but still the right thing to do).

 

Telling him to sell the stock might not have been diplomatic, but it was straight-talking; if we're not going to change to be the way you want us to be, your best option is probably not to own the stock. If I buy Philip Morris shares and go ask them to stop making cigarettes because I think they're a bad thing, I expect the reply I get to basically mean "if you don't like the way we do things in an area where we're obviously not going to change, you probably shouldn't own the stock".

[rkbabang]

I've never known Buffett or Munger to temper their response by the size of anyone's holdings in the company. And they have the class that one should have by the time one is running a multi billion dollar company to be able to respond to questions about how their decisions will be in the best interest of a shareholder. And things like discrimination, worker conditions, etc. should be able to be explained how they are positives to the company, whether through good P.R. better productivity etc.

 

Exactly.  Nobody thinks that you should be able to buy one share in a company and be able to force it to do your bidding. But when a shareholder asks a question of management, regardless of how small the shareholder or how stupid the question, answering anything like "Because that's how I run the company. If you don't like it sell your shares" is never appropriate.

 

[Carvel46]

Packer,

 

You mention that climate change is "not provable hypothesis and not very accurate predictions."

Am i right to say you would put climate change in the "too hard" and too costly pile?

 

My view on climate change is similar to the Munger quote: "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." I'd rather be generally right, than precisely wrong. People make climate change way too complicated.

 

Carvel

 

 

[rukawa]

97% of recent peer reviewed papers conclude it is man made, according to the last major survey. There is little to no real debate amongst scientists as to whether it is man made, just the extent of our problems.

 

97% of peer-reviewed papers are complete garbage. Actually make that 431/432 = 99.76%.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all

"They quickly discovered that the vast majority had serious flaws. But the most troubling fact emerged when he looked at the test of replication: out of four hundred and thirty-two claims, only a single one was consistently replicable. “This doesn’t mean that none of these claims will turn out to be true,” he says. “But, given that most of them were done badly, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

[rukawa]

Seriously though, as others have stated earlier it's quite unusual to see how people seem to step outside their circle of competence when it comes to divisive issues. I mean is there anyone on this board thats actually qualified to speak on this topic, otherwise this thread  reminds me of youtube arguments, neither side knows the facts or how to analyze the data, yet makes unsubstantiated claims one way or the other regarding climate change.

 

Investing always involves stepping outside your circle of competence. Most equity analysts are infinitely better at understanding their industries than anyone on this board and yet we disregard their advice every single day.

 

And CEOs are far more informed about their industries than any of us are and yet we don't listen to them.

 

Value investing isn't about knowing more than others. We don't know more than others. Its about not following the herd/crowd. Having better judgement. Experts DO NOT have better judgement. They never have and they never ever will. This is as true in investing as in everything else.

 

Scientists are exactly like equity analysts. If you don't listen to equity analysts when they provide price targets then you should about apply the same skepticism to climate projections and everything else scientists tell you.

[sys]

Scientists are exactly like equity analysts. If you don't listen to equity analysts when they provide price targets then you should about apply the same skepticism to climate projections and everything else scientists tell you.

 

the behavior of equity prices is influenced by human psychology, the impact of co2 on the mean temperature of the planet, like most phenomena investigated by scientists, is not.

[rukawa]

And almost all species on earth have evolved within a certain range and can't just run the A/C or wear different clothes like us (and for those who think "they'll just adapt", realize that most climate changes happen over millennia if not millions of years, we're doing it in the range of 100s of years)...

 

When a car speeds up its tires sometimes appear to go backwards due to aliasing. Your eyes/brain are unable to register rapid changes so they "sample" the car tire at one moment and the next time the sample it the car tire has made nearly a whole revolution but not quite and thus appears to have moved backwards.

 

This "aliasing effect" explains several scientific findings that in my opinion are completely wrong. The problem is that if you observed something using a measurement that is low frequency you will often not see a lot of things that are happening. This is particularly problematic in historical measurements because they are almost always low frequency. Two great examples are given above by you. The first is evolution where all that you have is the fossil record. An interesting finding is that the higher frequency the measurement the fast evolution appears to occur.

 

I think a similar thing is true for temperature measurements. Consider for instance the divergence problem for tree rings. There are a number of temperature proxies that are not registering the present warming. If they aren't doing it now than it makes sense that they didn't do it in the past.

 

This is why historical temperature measurements are extremely misleading especially when you compare them with modern temperature records using thermometers. But then this is basic elementary scientific common sense. You should always be careful when comparing the variability of measurements obtained using different methods. This is obvious. But it isn't obvious to climate scientists. And that is because climate scientists are hacks. The hockey stick isn't bad science...its complete utter garbage. And the fact that a lot of scientists still defend this, is very very scary.

 

You cannot have a graph where the first part of the graph is temperatures from tree rings and the second part is temperature from thermometers in a Stevenson screen. Its wrong. Its a lie. Its pure evil. And this is why I don't trust climate scientists.

[Liberty]

Scientists are exactly like equity analysts. If you don't listen to equity analysts when they provide price targets then you should about apply the same skepticism to climate projections and everything else scientists tell you.

 

the behavior of equity prices is influenced by human psychology, the impact of co2 on the mean temperature of the planet, like most phenomena investigated by scientists, is not.

 

Don't waste your time, it appears we have an armchair climatologist here.

[rukawa]

the behavior of equity prices is influenced by human psychology

 

Climate is not influenced by human psychology. But science is because it is a human endevour. And scientists are actually human.

 

Don't waste your time, it appears we have an armchair climatologist here.

 

All of us are armchair analysts of the industries we invest in. And very few of us are experts.

[Liberty]

All of us are armchair analysts of the industries we invest in. And very few of us are experts.

 

Do you also have personal theories about epidemiology and quantum physics? I'd love to hear those.