Climate change hoax from a Nobel Laureate

[Cardboard]

 

Cardboard

[Liberty]

"Giaever's share of the prize was specifically for his "experimental discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in superconductors""

 

So not a climate scientist. Noted.

 

"Giaever is currently a science advisor with American conservative and libertarian think tank, The Heartland Institute."

 

Ok.

 

"Heartland has long questioned the links between tobacco smoking, secondhand smoke, and lung cancer and the social costs imposed by smokers"

 

Note exactly the most scientifically-minded think tank either...

 

"The Institute no longer discloses its funding sources, stating that it had ended its practice of donor transparency after experiencing the organized harassment of its donors"

 

Translation: Got caught producing propaganda for donors.

 

"Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Institute... ExxonMobil..."

 

"The Institute has also received funding and support from tobacco companies Philip Morris,[4]:234 Altria and Reynolds American"

[rogermunibond]

I think the best argument pro-climate warming is probably Fred Singer's that the off chance of an Ice Age in say the next 100 years make running the climate a bit hotter prophylactic.

 

The argument against that is, of course, we have no idea when the next Ice Age will start.  Could be off by 2-3K years.

[Guest MarkS]

Climate lawsuits may be the next wave.  I really hate the idea of turning over.our collective futures to unelected political ....

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/2/22/17140166/climate-change-lawsuit-exxon-juliana-liability-kids

[Spekulatius]

"Giaever's share of the prize was specifically for his "experimental discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in superconductors""

 

So not a climate scientist. Noted.

 

"Giaever is currently a science advisor with American conservative and libertarian think tank, The Heartland Institute."

 

Ok.

 

"Heartland has long questioned the links between tobacco smoking, secondhand smoke, and lung cancer and the social costs imposed by smokers"

 

Note exactly the most scientifically-minded think tank either...

 

"The Institute no longer discloses its funding sources, stating that it had ended its practice of donor transparency after experiencing the organized harassment of its donors"

 

Translation: Got caught producing propaganda for donors.

 

"Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Institute... ExxonMobil..."

 

"The Institute has also received funding and support from tobacco companies Philip Morris,[4]:234 Altria and Reynolds American"

 

Heartland Institute rings a bell. They unsolicited sent “study material” to my sons  middle school science teacher study material that was refuting climate change. The teacher forwarded some of the material to the students to discuss. My son ask me about this and I told him to follow the $ trail and find out who funds and pays these guys. Yeah, the same Heartland institute refuted health issues with second hand smoking, funded by Phillip Morris...

[Cardboard]

Obviously you told your son to completely avoid reading the material. Just in case that some facts could have shaken some belief or be worth more study. Sacrilege to your religion.

 

Cardboard

[RichardGibbons]

Obviously you told your son to completely avoid reading the material. Just in case that some facts could have shaken some belief or be worth more study. Sacrilege to your religion.

 

LOL, this comment cracks me up, because it's completely clear that climate change is science and that only CoBaF message board member who is fervently religious on this topic is Cardboard.

 

Such delightful irony.

[Spekulatius]

Obviously you told your son to completely avoid reading the material. Just in case that some facts could have shaken some belief or be worth more study. Sacrilege to your religion.

 

Cardboard

 

I never saw the material, it remained at school. I have no clue what they actually wrote, although I can suspect. My lesson to my son was simply to understand the motivation of the author and who pays for the material, which is easy nowadays with a simple search using Google. Incentives matter, as we all know. What surprises me is that this institution  actually have the funds to sent unsolicited material to schools free of charge. MAGA $ at work.

[clutch]

So, did anyone actually watch the video till the end? Why not rather discuss the arguments made in the video?

[Spekulatius]

So, did anyone actually watch the video till the end? Why not rather discuss the arguments made in the video?

 

Is anyone here qualified to do so? The presenter certainly isn’t. He has Nobel price in physics based on work done in the 60’s and knows very little about Meteorology, nor is he expert in statistics.

To debunk climate change , he would need to go into much more detail than he did in this talk, publish some peer review work in this field etc. To my knowledge, he hasn’t done this.

 

FWIW, i have a PhD in physics but that doesn’t make me an expert in other fields.

[Guest MarkS]

Spekulatius

 

I would respectfully submit that your follow the money advice cuts both ways.  https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/02/global-warming-follow-money-henry-payne/

I'm an agnostic on the subject.  But the academics advocating for climate change do appear to have a financial interest in the matter.

[SharperDingaan]

This is no different to TV advertising  by a drug company; that puts an actor in a white coat, to sell the virtues of drug X, Y, Z.

An infomercial, made to appear legitimate.

But questionable infomation.

 

All scientist are trained in scientific methodology.

But a scientist trained in climate science, approaches it differently than a scientist trained in geology or biology.

The geologic record evidences repeated climate events, the biologic record evidences mass extinctions at about the same periods; climate science relates all these things, and more, holistically together.

 

Weight/legitimacy is relative. Climate scientist highest, then supporting sciences (geology, biology, etc), you and I next.

But media 'presence' is weight/legitimacy x 'marketing'. A well marketed supporting character will often 'rank' higher than a poorly marketed expert; as the legal profession demonstrates every day.

 

'Heart' also often overides 'head'.

'Heart' says deny, 'cause we don't want to change or pay the costs of change; whereas 'head' says at least take precautions, just in case you're wrong. But .. as long as the 'effects' happen elsewhere, and slowly - 'heart' will prevail.

Doesn't mean it's 'right'.

 

SD 

 

 

 

[Guest]

What's the worse than can happen if we have higher environmental standards? A slightly slower economy and a healthier life? Sounds good to me.

 

What's the worse than can happen if we don't have higher environmental standards? Destruction of the human race? Doesn't sound very good.

 

There are two things I do like about climate change though. First, it forces people to be more creative. Nothing spurns creativity like an imminent demise. Second (I just read about this maybe on here?) if we are coming up on another ice age, warming the planet may actually save us all.

 

With that being said, I'm all for a cleaner world (even if that means my stocks don't go up as much).

 

 

 

[Guest MarkS]

What's the worse than can happen if we have higher environmental standards? A slightly slower economy and a healthier life? Sounds good to me.

 

What's the worse than can happen if we don't have higher environmental standards? Destruction of the human race? Doesn't sound very good.

 

There are two things I do like about climate change though. First, it forces people to be more creative. Nothing spurns creativity like an imminent demise. Second (I just read about this maybe on here?) if we are coming up on another ice age, warming the planet may actually save us all.

 

With that being said, I'm all for a cleaner world (even if that means my stocks don't go up as much).

 

 

 

 

As stated.earlier, I'm agnostic on climate change.  You state that reducing greenhouses gases dramatically would only impact the economy and market slightly.  What do you have that on?  The Green New Deal looks like a massive government takeover of a large percentage of our economy including but not.limited to healthcare, energy, utilities, infrastructure, transportation ... .  At a minimum this would lead to great uncertainty going forward. And  I've seen what happens to markets during periods of great uncertainty.

[misterkrusty]

MarkS-  I agree that the Green New Deal is flawed.  It's not based on scientific evidence, and frankly I don't trust the far-Left to design policy in a way that minimizes negative impacts on the economy.

 

But that National Review article is unconvincing.  The lead with an apparent injustice done to Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon - but if you read carefully, the Smithsonian actually agreed with the claim that he hid $1.2m of funding from "fossil fuel companies"  They give no evidence that Soon didn't violate disclosure guidlines.  Nor does Myron Ebell. 

 

Worst of all, they're repeating a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory about Michael Mann, who according to the article is "the controversial director of Pennsylvania State’s Earth System Science Center. He was at the center of the 2009 Climategate scandal, in which e-mails were uncovered from climatologists discussing how to skew scientific evidence and blackball experts who don’t agree with them."

 

There was no scandal and Mann is not controversial in the scientific community.  See below:

 

Hiding the Decline: Climategate Demystified

This infamous scandal was said to have proven global warming was all just a hoax. Umm, no. 

 

Brian Dunning

Skeptoid Podcast #601 December 12, 2017

 

 

Nearly everyone's heard about Climategate, a scandal said to prove that climate scientists deceptively changed temperature data as part of a scheme to hoax the world into thinking global warming is real. If you have heard of Climategate, you've probably heard that the scientists involved were all investigated but cleared of any wrongdoing, thus suggesting that the investigating agencies were complicit in the hoax. You may have even heard the key phrase from one of the emails: "Hide the decline," an apparent revelation that the scientists knew temperatures were actually declining and had to do something to hide the fact. But how many of us know the actual details of what happened? Fortunately, the Climategate scandal is not all that complicated, and an insider's view is the subject of today's show.

 

It all happened in November 2009. The backup email server at the Climatic Research Unit of England's University of East Anglia was hacked, through methods which have not been made public for security reasons. A 160MB file of about 1,000 emails and their attachments appeared on a server in Russia. The first known parties to download the archive were all editors at climate change denial websites such as WattsUpWithThat. Headlines quickly followed. From Fox News:

 

Why You Should Be Hot and Bothered About 'Climate-gate'

 

From The Telegraph:

 

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation and Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

 

From the Houston Chronicle:

 

Climategate: You should be steamed

 

And so on, and so on. And yet, when it seemed so clear from these headlines that global warming had been completely obliterated and revealed to be a hoax, the editors of the world's most prestigious science journal Nature quickly wrote their own response. It said in part:

 

The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall... proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe. This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill.

 

And that is, of course, exactly what happened — exactly according to the hopes of the hacker and the bloggers the files were sent to.

 

Here's what happened. Cutting straight to the chase, 99% of Climategate focused on one single email. It had been sent 10 years earlier, in November 1999, by Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit, to five colleagues. It is six sentences long, but this one sentence is the culprit:

 

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.

 

This has been interpreted as "I used a trick to hide declining temperatures." If true, it would indeed be damning, not just to Phil Jones, but to climate science as a whole, given the who's-who of climatology who were the email's recipients. But is that a truthful analysis of the email? Does it really prove that climatologists knew that the Earth is cooling, and so invented tricks to deceptively portray the data to advance their warming agenda?

 

To find out, let's parse out this sentence that rocked the world. The email was discussing the author's progress creating a temperature graph intended for the cover of a report made for the World Meteorological Organization. The graph covered the past 1000 years, overlaying three data sets showing the fluctuating global temperature anomaly within a range of about 1 degree. And, of course, it jumps up sharply in the latest 50 years, about 3/10 of a degree.

 

Although we have many lines of evidence for historical temperatures which all track well with one another, most aren't complete. Most are available over a given time range. For example, an ice core tells us about the time period for which that ice has existed. Cave formation data covers the time period for which that cave was wet. Tree rings go back as far as the trees were alive. Instrumental data goes back as far as thermometers have been reliable. There is plenty of overlap, which allows us to say that these lines track one another, but in order to build a complete timeline, we rely on multiple data sets.

 

"Mike's Nature trick" refers to what climatologist Michael Mann did for a 1998 article in the journal Nature. In the article, Mann and his co-authors displayed a reconstructed historical data set, known as MBH98. This temperature data extended only up until 1980. Before the article was published, Nature's peer reviewers suggested also displaying the modern instrumental temperature record, which extended all the way until the present, for context. This was done. The two curves were shown on the same graph, each clearly labeled, and the data for both curves was already public domain. This, and this alone, constituted the entirety of "Mike's Nature trick."

 

So by employing Mike's Nature trick in his graph for the World Meteorological Organization, Phil Jones was simply adding the instrumental data. That's all.

 

This brings us to "hide the decline". What was Phil talking about here? Turns out there was indeed a problem with one of the data sets he wanted to include, and it's called the divergence problem.

 

To understand the divergence problem, we first have to make a few basic points about dendroclimatology — the science of using tree rings to indicate historical temperatures. Dendroclimatology is one of the many lines of evidence for determining the planet's climate history prior to the age of thermometers; others being glacial ice, corals, cave formations, sea levels, glacial extent, and others. Generally a tree ring represents one year, and when we look at the tree rings of a given year from all over the planet, we can see how climate varied across different regions. Each tree ring gives us two primary pieces of data: its width and its density. Generally, a wider ring usually means a wetter growing season. A longer, warmer summer results in a denser late seasonal growth period, manifested as the dark part of the ring. So the density of the ring tells us about temperature and cloud cover. Historically, all of these lines of evidence have tracked one another very well. Since the dawn of reliable direct measurements with thermometers in the 1800s, both tree ring density and tree ring width have tracked extremely well with temperatures all over the world.

 

And this leads us to the divergence problem. In the 1990s, it was noticed that after 1960, the relationship between temperature and tree rings started separating. While temperatures rose, tree rings continued to indicate cooler temperatures, in defiance of all other measurements. We don't see this divergence in any other lines of evidence; tree rings are the only climate indicator that has done this, and only in the northern hemisphere. Why is it happening? Well, that's why we call it the divergence problem. We don't know. Likely candidates include fractionally diminished sunlight caused by sulfate aerosol pollutants, warming-induced drought, increased ultraviolet radiation caused by ozone depletion, even loss of permafrost. But the bottom line is that in the past few decades — and only in the past few decades — tree rings in the northern hemisphere have indicated cooler temperatures than what the thermometers have shown, so we know them to be wrong. If you want to combine all the lines of evidence to build the best possible picture of climate history, you have to stop using dendroclimatology right around 1960 for temperature, or else your graph will be wrong and misleading.

 

This is what Phil Jones was referring to when he wrote "from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." He was talking about Keith Briffa's tree ring data, known to be inaccurate since 1961. Jones elected to display the correct instrumental temperature data instead. And if you look at some global warming temperature graphs that overlay multiple lines of evidence, you'll see that the tree ring temp series stops around 1960, just as the modern instrumental series stops before 1860 or so. To make a useful graph, we show the data that we have.

 

Deniers often claim that we only display tree ring data until 1960 because we know it proves temperatures are actually declining since then. That's because they're unaware of the divergence problem, or they think it's something we made up as an excuse for the Climategate revelations. This claim can be easily disproven by picking up the literature. The first two major papers about the divergence problem were both published in 1995, four years before Phil Jones wrote the infamous email, and fourteen years before the alleged scandal. Proof that dendroclimatology data became unreliable after 1960 was fully public and well known to everyone in the field, and had been for years.

 

Claims that "hide the decline" meant "hide the fact that global temperatures have been declining" are also unraveled by the timeline. Phil's email was 1999, and 1998 had been the hottest year on record, peaking a global rise throughout the 1990s that nobody disputed, as it was all instrumental data. There had been no decline of global temperatures to hide.

 

If you do any search for this online, you're quickly going to see that most of the climate change denialist writing contracts Jones' email into the following: "Mike's trick to hide the decline." As is obvious by now, Michael Mann's multiple data sets on one graph has nothing at all to do with the tree ring divergence problem. That's why neither Phil Jones nor anyone else who knew what they were talking about ever used the phrase "Mike's trick to hide the decline"; there was no such thing. The phrase had to be manufactured by deniers by cherrypicking words out of unrelated parts of Phil's email.

 

So what was the fallout of Climategate? Well, as a propaganda stunt to discredit climate science, it was all too effective, with many people still believing even today that it did indeed reveal global warming to be a hoax. Eight different committees investigated the scientists involved and none found any evidence of bad science, misconduct, or anything else that touched upon the science of global warming. However, the emails selected by the hackers were often those that caught the scientists in embarrassing moments. Years of battling harassment by climate deniers had led the scientists to sometimes become defensive, and the hacked emails revealed moments when the scientists stonewalled requests for data from certain groups; and in one case, recommended deletion of certain emails should future requests be made for them. In the words of one committee, they showed a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness". Understandable given the constant harassment, but not excusable. Also, not relevant to the science, which despite some public distrust, survived Climategate unscathed.

 

So the next time you hear a friend explain that global warming was proven to be a hoax by the Climategate emails, you now have the tools to break down why they think that's the case. You're probably not going to change their mind — most of us cling to our politics like religion — but you may be able to get them to reexamine their sources.

[Guest MarkS]

Nice post misterkrusty.    My point wasn't nearly as sophisticated as you think.  From the GAO report in 2014:  "Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009".  https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary  i looked for a newer report but didn't see one. Yet this kind of money gives the political class a pervasive.and corrosive influence over what should be unbiased research. It also tempts researchers to give politicians what they want to ensure that the spigot remains open.  I'm not implying there is some sort of vast conspiracy.  I just have a cynical view of human nature.  Moreover if someone is going to "follow the money" it's only fair to follow all of the money not just selected payments.

 

 

 

 

 

[DTEJD1997]

What's the worse than can happen if we have higher environmental standards? A slightly slower economy and a healthier life? Sounds good to me.

 

What's the worse than can happen if we don't have higher environmental standards? Destruction of the human race? Doesn't sound very good.

 

There are two things I do like about climate change though. First, it forces people to be more creative. Nothing spurns creativity like an imminent demise. Second (I just read about this maybe on here?) if we are coming up on another ice age, warming the planet may actually save us all.

 

With that being said, I'm all for a cleaner world (even if that means my stocks don't go up as much).

 

If the "Green New Deal" is implemented, I think that we will have unemployment in the hundreds of millions...

 

OR

 

Virtually full employment but most new jobs will simply be scrounging for your daily food.

 

Of course, the financial markets will collapse.

 

Our way of life will be gone forever.

 

 

 

 

[clutch]

So, did anyone actually watch the video till the end? Why not rather discuss the arguments made in the video?

 

Is anyone here qualified to do so? The presenter certainly isn’t. He has Nobel price in physics based on work done in the 60’s and knows very little about Meteorology, nor is he expert in statistics.

To debunk climate change , he would need to go into much more detail than he did in this talk, publish some peer review work in this field etc. To my knowledge, he hasn’t done this.

 

FWIW, i have a PhD in physics but that doesn’t make me an expert in other fields.

 

So, what are you doing here in an investment forum discussing investments when you do not have the appropriate educational qualifications?

 

If only the people who can discuss climate change are climate scientists, why are politicians discussing climate change?

 

Dismissing someone's argument because of their lack of expertise is one hell of a condescending manner that would turn off anyone who might genuinely want to participate in a healthy discussion otherwise -- wasn't that the point of democracy? Of course, maybe the goal is to simply shut down all types of discussion around climate change.

[Guest]

What's the worse than can happen if we have higher environmental standards? A slightly slower economy and a healthier life? Sounds good to me.

 

What's the worse than can happen if we don't have higher environmental standards? Destruction of the human race? Doesn't sound very good.

 

There are two things I do like about climate change though. First, it forces people to be more creative. Nothing spurns creativity like an imminent demise. Second (I just read about this maybe on here?) if we are coming up on another ice age, warming the planet may actually save us all.

 

With that being said, I'm all for a cleaner world (even if that means my stocks don't go up as much).

 

 

 

 

As stated.earlier, I'm agnostic on climate change.  You state that reducing greenhouses gases dramatically would only impact the economy and market slightly.  What do you have that on?  The Green New Deal looks like a massive government takeover of a large percentage of our economy including but not.limited to healthcare, energy, utilities, infrastructure, transportation ... .  At a minimum this would lead to great uncertainty going forward. And  I've seen what happens to markets during periods of great uncertainty.

 

I never said to reduce green house gas dramatically. ;)

 

With that said, even if the economy slowed down, I don't necessarily think that's the worst thing in the world.

 

I will say that the unknown benefits of reducing climate change may actually be a net benefit to the world economies long term (lower cancer rates, other health issues, etc). The investment in reducing pollution may also be beneficial to the economy.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we don't know how reducing green house gases would do the economy long term. Short term, I'd imagine it would be a little painful - at least for some.

[Cardboard]

It is really the problem with this climate change discussion or lack thereof and Clutch's response to Spekulatius was bang on.

 

The guy in that video is a Nobel Laureate or a heck of a lot smarter than I am along with most if not all posters on this board. He does bring interesting facts that do require further research IMO.

 

Ask yourself this question: why would one trust every word from Al Gore but, ignore every word from a recognized scientist? Money trail you said???

 

The concept of global warming is rather simple to understand and I am not denying it. However, I am severely questioning speed of occurence and this sense of immediate doom and gloom about it.

 

New innovations are coming along fast and I think will make this race for wind, solar and storage look pretty stupid shortly. Humans have always searched for new ways to harvest energy and it won't change. We also always knew that we would eventually run out of cheap fossil fuels and that something needed to be done. At the rate we are consuming and still ramping up, in 50 years it is more or less over.

 

You don't need to slow down the economy or reduce births to get to a better place. Alarmists such as AOC will cause much more harm than good in this transition that will take place no matter what.

 

Cardboard 

[Packer16]

My concern is focus.  Why spend money on something we do not know will result in the desired change?  The climate scientists have been wrong many times before so I think to call the science is a misnomer.  Science is when you can repeat an result so many times you know what will happen.  It may be educated guessing but lets call it what it is.  We can spend dollars on real changes that will improve folks lives like providing clean water & mosquito nets or opiod treatments versus spending money on speculative guesses on climate.  Once the predictions become more accurate then it may be time to spend resources.  The politics & money on both sides of this issue have led to hyperbole all over the place.  IMO we should focus our politicians on problems that we know what the results will be versus this climate speculation.

 

A real question is how many folks died in the opiod crisis because we gave some rich dude a subsidy to buy a Tesla because we wanted to be friendly to the environment?  These IMO are the real questions we should be dealing with versus trying to scare folks about a climate extrapolation.

 

Packer

[Guest MarkS]

What's the worse than can happen if we have higher environmental standards? A slightly slower economy and a healthier life? Sounds good to me.

 

What's the worse than can happen if we don't have higher environmental standards? Destruction of the human race? Doesn't sound very good.

 

There are two things I do like about climate change though. First, it forces people to be more creative. Nothing spurns creativity like an imminent demise. Second (I just read about this maybe on here?) if we are coming up on another ice age, warming the planet may actually save us all.

 

With that being said, I'm all for a cleaner world (even if that means my stocks don't go up as much).

 

 

 

 

As stated.earlier, I'm agnostic on climate change.  You state that reducing greenhouses gases dramatically would only impact the economy and market slightly.  What do you have that on?  The Green New Deal looks like a massive government takeover of a large percentage of our economy including but not.limited to healthcare, energy, utilities, infrastructure, transportation ... .  At a minimum this would lead to great uncertainty going forward. And  I've seen what happens to markets during periods of great uncertainty.

 

I never said to reduce green house gas dramatically. ;)

 

With that said, even if the economy slowed down, I don't necessarily think that's the worst thing in the world.

 

I will say that the unknown benefits of reducing climate change may actually be a net benefit to the world economies long term (lower cancer rates, other health issues, etc). The investment in reducing pollution may also be beneficial to the economy.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we don't know how reducing green house gases would do the economy long term. Short term, I'd imagine it would be a little painful - at least for some.

 

You're absolutely right.  I added "dramatically."  I didn't think we were discussing little changes because I thought we were within a decade of catastrophic results.  https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html. My bad!

[LC]

When wind and solar are price competitive with fossil fuel, but have the added benefit of (1) being less pollutive, and (2) have a longer future runway of efficiency improvements, why are we continuing to push for fossil fuel investment?

[Cardboard]

"When wind and solar are price competitive with fossil fuel, but have the added benefit of (1) being less pollutive, and (2) have a longer future runway of efficiency improvements, why are we continuing to push for fossil fuel investment? "

 

They are not price competitive. Not until the storage issue is fixed or see the Bill Gross presentation on this website.

 

And who is pushing for fossil fuel investment may I ask?

 

What I see is a self-sustaining industry capable to attract capital without pushing anyone. When it is no longer capable to generate proper returns, and it is coming, it will shrink on its own.

 

Instead what we have are ideologists pushing to halt fossil fuel investment.

 

Cardboard

[cameronfen]

My concern is focus.  Why spend money on something we do not know will result in the desired change?  The climate scientists have been wrong many times before so I think to call the science is a misnomer.  Science is when you can repeat an result so many times you know what will happen.  It may be educated guessing but lets call it what it is.  We can spend dollars on real changes that will improve folks lives like providing clean water & mosquito nets or opiod treatments versus spending money on speculative guesses on climate.  Once the predictions become more accurate then it may be time to spend resources.  The politics & money on both sides of this issue have led to hyperbole all over the place.  IMO we should focus our politicians on problems that we know what the results will be versus this climate speculation.

 

A real question is how many folks died in the opiod crisis because we gave some rich dude a subsidy to buy a Tesla because we wanted to be friendly to the environment?  These IMO are the real questions we should be dealing with versus trying to scare folks about a climate extrapolation.

 

Packer

 

I think the fact that climate scientists can't forecast accurately is more of a reason to play it safe and protect against climate change.  If scientists were sure climate change would cost between 5 to 10 trillion to the global economy we could prepare for that.  However if the range was 1 trillion to 25 trillion you have to be more proactive as the potential pain of 25 trillion significantly outweighs the upside suprise of only 1 trillion in costs. 

 

Additionally most climate scientists have usually been wrong by being too optimistic.