Climate change hoax from a Nobel Laureate

[misterkrusty]

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.

 

Packer - I respectfully disagree.  When have the climate scientists been so wrong? 

 

It's a common misconception that they predicted an imminent Ice Age back in the 1970s.  Climate scientists were predicting global warming decades ago.  Then, in the late 1960s a paper came out noting that sulfate aerosols had a cooling effect.  For a while, scientists weren't sure which would be the overriding effect.  Only 10% of papers published between 1965 and 1979 predicted cooling.  62% predicted warming, and the rest were inconclusive.  https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

 

What happened was that when the first papers on cooling came out, the media ran sensational headlines about a coming Ice Age without doing the proper homework.  The public ate it up and here we are today with an unjustified mistrust of climate science.

 

Today, the overwhelming scientific consensus points to warming.  I'll grant you that there is significant uncertainty about how effective various solutions would be.  But that shouldn't stop reasonable people from discussing rational ways to address the problem.  At some point it probably makes sense to take calculated risks, just as we do in investing. 

 

As mentioned, I'm not in favor of AOC's proposal.  I recognize that fossil fuels are going to be part of our energy mix for some time.  And I disagree with the Left on a number of environmental issues, like fracking for oil & gas, the safety of GMOs, and the saftey of many pesticides.  I'm a reasonable guy and not an "alarmist"

 

[Cigarbutt]

Today, the overwhelming scientific consensus points to warming.  I'll grant you that there is significant uncertainty about how effective various solutions would be.  But that shouldn't stop reasonable people from discussing rational ways to address the problem.  At some point it probably makes sense to take calculated risks, just as we do in investing. 

 

As mentioned, I'm not in favor of AOC's proposal.  I recognize that fossil fuels are going to be part of our energy mix for some time.  And I disagree with the Left on a number of environmental issues, like fracking for oil & gas, the safety of GMOs, and the saftey of many pesticides.  I'm a reasonable guy and not an "alarmist"

1+

The eco-anxiety movement tends to lose focus and incontrovertible evidence sometimes implies no room for discussion or appropriate questions. So, I thought the presentation was useful for perspective.

 

Usually, the crowd gets it approximately right but, as individuals and as a "group", we sometimes widely miss the mark on long-term issues that involve sustainability issues (Versailles Treaty, post-2001 real estate bubble in the US, fiscal debt? etc)

 

It's basically an NPV decision and may explain why some want to lower the frequency of financial reporting. The difficulty may also reside in the difficulty to switch from the thinking fast to thinking slow for issues that are not imminent. It is also easier to see what others can do when the burden needs to be shared (from today):

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-debt-unsustainable-path-192804468.html

 

Dogma and ideology can stand in the way.

 

I am reviewing the potential of Vail Resorts (ski stations) and it is obvious that climate change has and will alter the industry dynamics over the longer term and firms like Vail would decrease their likelihood of survival if they don't take financial decisions now in order to adapt their product.

 

I have also spent time on PC&G (utility in BK due to wildfires). This is retrospective work so there are various analytical risks (data mining etc) but a review of government reports and good research done in the 90's and after described well the growing risks and trends about forest fire risks in the wild-urban interface. Despite all this data and analysis in plain sight, the policy makers (through land zoning rules, infrastructure decisions and subsidized insurance) encouraged extensive building and development in exactly the wrong area!?

 

How do we best tie short-term decision-making in democracies in order to mitigate potentially adverse outcomes?

[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.

 

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.

 

I didn’t know what there is an qualification needed to sign up for an investment website.

 

The lack of expertise of this presenter is a fact. He is not an expert in climate science and doesn’t really have peer reviewed publications as far as  I know. He is consdescenting to the scientist working in this field as he claims they are faking data for example.

The global warming theory has been existing since the 1960’s and slowly more and more evidence has been generated . That’s almost 60 years of science. Name me a case where the science consensus with a huge body of work has been wrong for 60 years in recent times. Also, science is not a democracy - the best data and theory wins, not the one with the most votes.

 

I think the real discussion that the public and politicians should be having is what to do with the data. just acknowledging the clime change problem does not necessarily mean that we should abandon all fossil fuel sources. This is a decision that the public needs to make, not the experts, The experts should, provide the input for the decision, but the decision needs to be made by the public. That’s where the politics come into play and where imo some scientists overstep their boundaries. Politicians that state they believe this or that without having a clue about anything are overstepping their circle of competence, imo and are hence not credible.

 

[rukawa]

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. 

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry. Since we can't forecast accurately we should assume bad cases on both sides. For example if global warming is in fact preventing an incipient ice age than the cost of preventing it could be 100 trillion or more. So I say the surprise of an ice age vastly outweighs the pain of warming.

 

There is also another problem. The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources. My argument is that you would be far better off focusing on adaptation to an unknowable future than pretending you can predict it and avoid all its various worst cases. 

[LC]

We need more stuff like this (sarcasm):

https://www.france24.com/en/20190226-black-snow-falls-siberia-blamed-killer-coal-industry

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry.

So I agree there is a chance that we NEED to cause global warming because there is an impending and unpredictable ice age on the way.

 

But I don't buy the "symmetry" argument. The man on the street asks for my wallet. Maybe he wants to mug me, or maybe he wants to add $500 in cash and hand it back to me.  :-X

 

Even if I did buy this argument about symmetry - since we don't know which way the temperature pendulum will swing, and if you believe we are bad at predicting probabilities, shouldn't we opt for the most "nature-neutral" version of harvesting energy?

 

The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources

The point on conservatism is that traditional fossil fuels should cost more than renewables if you actually account for the externalities like the one I linked above. Therefore, if you have a reasonable choice between the two, then you should go with the one which is more neutral. That said, I understand that some areas simply do not have a reasonable opportunity to choose renewables - therefore it is even more important to encourage it where applicable.

 

 

 

[SharperDingaan]

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. 

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry. Since we can't forecast accurately we should assume bad cases on both sides. For example if global warming is in fact preventing an incipient ice age than the cost of preventing it could be 100 trillion or more. So I say the surprise of an ice age vastly outweighs the pain of warming.

 

There is also another problem. The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources. My argument is that you would be far better off focusing on adaptation to an unknowable future than pretending you can predict it and avoid all its various worst cases.

 

Nobody 'knows' the future, all we can do is guess.

Then 'bitch' that my guess is more 'precise' than your guess ;)

it's just a guess folks!

 

The standard approach is to simply share the risk ..,,

Pay for the event if/when it occurrs, and spread the cost over the entire population.

Our neighbouring volcano blows up, we're all dead - the same as its always been.

 

But at any point .......

We can simply move to someplace else, away from the volcano. Renewables versus fossil fuels.

But it's not a guarantee; move to the ocean, and maybe we just drown when the volcano goes off.

However, like cockroaches, some of us will remain living.

 

Problem is ...

Do you want to be the long-lived cockroach dressed in skins, with lower quality of life.

OR - do you want to live like a king, with high quality of life, next to the volcano - until it blows?

If you're old/sick you want the volcano - as time is limited, if you're young - you'd rather live forever!

Who's doing the bitching? the rich countries, that are the equivalent of the old/sick!

 

Sure, TODAY, the renewables are not as good or cost-effective as they could be.

But it's fixable through repeat rounds of innovation, and economies of scale. Lots of runway.

Fossil fuels are the same; but they've been around for a while, & the cheapest deposits have been used up. Less runway.

Harvest the fossil fuels, reinvest in renewables, and you improve BOTH economics AND the environment. No brainer.

Carbon taxes are just a way of doing it.

 

Not what the spin doctors want you to hear.

Screws up the message!

 

SD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rogermunibond]

We may have already stalled out the glaciation cycle.

 

http://theconversation.com/ice-ages-have-been-linked-to-the-earths-wobbly-orbit-but-when-is-the-next-one-70069

[SharperDingaan]

More inclined to think humans think too much of themselves ...

 

Repeatedly don't wash and you're prone to boils. Filth caused the boil. Cause and effect.

Pop the boil, but not remove the pus, and you just get a bigger mess. Intervention caused it to worsen. Also cause and effect.

But did intervention CAUSE the boil? No. It was already there.

 

Do planetary cycle changes trigger climate events? seems reasonable.

Has human intervention (emmissions, pollution, etc) made the effects worse? quite probably.

But did humans TRIGGER those climate events? pretty damn arrogant to think we're that powerful!

 

All we can do is take our best guess, and decide as to whether its worth spending some of todays treasure in precaution.

You also have to be alive to benefit, so if you're 90+ ... it's not so great a deal :)

 

SD

 

[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. 

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry. Since we can't forecast accurately we should assume bad cases on both sides. For example if global warming is in fact preventing an incipient ice age than the cost of preventing it could be 100 trillion or more. So I say the surprise of an ice age vastly outweighs the pain of warming.

 

There is also another problem. The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources. My argument is that you would be far better off focusing on adaptation to an unknowable future than pretending you can predict it and avoid all its various worst cases.

 

You buy health insurance right?  Does it matter if you have a staph infection and have a massive fever or if you suffer from hypothermia?  If the risk of both these things is bankruptcy if they happen, makes sense to pay something to insure from getting the worst-case scenario, even if most of the time you will be paying the insurance company for nothing.  If ice age was a huge risk worse compared to global warming I would say we should take preventative measures to insure against catastrophe too and if that included artificially warming the planet, so be it.  But lucky for us, there is no evidence of catastrophic ice age.  I concede no one buys insurance for being struck by lightning because of the odds are so small.  But the odds of catastrophic global warming odds wise is more in the same ballpark of getting seriously ill than being struck by lightning.  So I feel it makes sense to "take an insurance policy out" in this situation. 

[rukawa]

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. 

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry. Since we can't forecast accurately we should assume bad cases on both sides. For example if global warming is in fact preventing an incipient ice age than the cost of preventing it could be 100 trillion or more. So I say the surprise of an ice age vastly outweighs the pain of warming.

 

There is also another problem. The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources. My argument is that you would be far better off focusing on adaptation to an unknowable future than pretending you can predict it and avoid all its various worst cases.

 

You buy health insurance right?  Does it matter if you have a staph infection and have a massive fever or if you suffer from hypothermia?  If the risk of both these things is bankruptcy if they happen, makes sense to pay something to insure from getting the worst-case scenario, even if most of the time you will be paying the insurance company for nothing.  If ice age was a huge risk worse compared to global warming I would say we should take preventative measures to insure against catastrophe too and if that included artificially warming the planet, so be it.  But lucky for us, there is no evidence of catastrophic ice age.  I concede no one buys insurance for being struck by lightning because of the odds are so small.  But the odds of catastrophic global warming odds wise is more in the same ballpark of getting seriously ill than being struck by lightning.  So I feel it makes sense to "take an insurance policy out" in this situation.

 

We are in an interglacial right now. A catastrophic ice age WILL happen. On the other hand there is zero evidence of catastrophic warming both now and over almost all of Earth's recorded history including the times where C02 was highest. In the last 20k years Earth's temperature has risen 4-7 degrees which exceeds what we expect from global warming and sea levels have risen 120m which is essentially cannot happen again even in the case of an ice free earth. During that time Earth's civilization rose up. So I only see benefits to global warming both based on our own history and based on the history of life on the planet which has always reacted positively to warming.

 

The predictions of global warming are not desserts. To get high sensitivities for C02 you must have an assumption that relative humidity remains constant which implies greater amounts of water vapour. This basically means the Earth will be wetter and hotter. When combine with the effect of C02 whose biggest direct impact is to fertilize plants you basically have the recipe for hot, wet and green. I don't see how that is bad for the environment or us. The greening effect has already been observed.

 

So I see it as beneficial warming which perhaps slightly delays a horrible ice age...win/win.

[rukawa]

shouldn't we opt for the most "nature-neutral" version of harvesting energy?

 

And now we get to the beating heart of the environmental movement. My answer to your question is NO NO NO FUCK NO. I also think its massively questionable that the massive land requirements of wind/solar are more nature neutral than the vastly lower land requirements of fossil fuels.

 

The environmental movement is based fundamentally on the concept that nature left to its own devices is best. That is essentially what your argument amounts to. This is a ridiculous and incoherent concept. I'll give multiple arguments against it:

 

1) Humans come from nature. So humans interfering in nature = nature interfering with itself. If humans interfering with nature is bad it implies that undisturbed nature is capable of self-disturbing. This alone demonstrates the argument is ridiculous. Occams razor dictates that humans are not unusual...this implies nature is constantly disturbing itself with highly disturbing species like humans.

 

1b) In desserts when there is a strong rain you will get a very very rapid greening. During this time locust species will tend to form swarms. The resulting swarm will basically completely wipe out all the greening that occurred in a short period of time. AND HERE IS THE KICKER...than the locusts completely die out because they have zero food. WHY would it work this way. Does it make any freaking sense. The locusts don't benefit, the other life doesn't benefit...the plants don't benefit. This is undisturbed nature.

 

2) WTF does "best" mean. Nature has no concept of best...because nature has no concepts or values to speak of. A lifeless Earth is as "good" and natural as one teaming with life. The idea of nature being good or best or maximizing something is ridiculous and teleological.

 

3) When humans disturb nature we always see the same thing...some species do really well (e.g. Racoons) and some do really badly (carrier pigeon). There are winners and losers. This alone argues against the concept of best...changing nature is good for some and bad for others. Typical argument is that human involved in environment X and therefore environment X is best for humans. Ridiculous. If this were the case than when there was an environmental change there would not be winners and losers...all would lose since they did not evolve in that environment. The fact that humans are found in all environmental conditions further argues against there being one "best" set of conditions or environment.

 

4) There are tonnes of instances where an undisturbed nature produces outcomes which are arguably bad ones. For example elephants convert forest into grassslands. Forests support a lot more bird, plant and animal life than grasslands. There are strong arguments that can be made that what elephants do makes things worse. Red wood trees are another example. If you cut down red wood trees completely it would result in an increase in biodiversity (a good thing??!) since redwoods basically grow tall enough to prevent sunlight from reaching other species of trees. Redwood forests have very low plant biodiversity.

 

5) If we truly believed undisturbed nature is best than why do we bother with things like sewers, anti-biotics, storm drainage, vaccines, cities, farms. And if nature truly is best...than why do we die from natural causes...viruses, bacteria, cancers.

 

6) Disturbed nature is scientifically indistinguishable from undisturbed nature. There are functioning, sophisticated, beautiful ecosystems that look fully natural but consist almost purely of invasive species that were gathered from all over the world and placed in an environment by accidents of history. Some examples: San Francisco Bay, Mount Sutro Forest, Big Island in Hawaii, unmanaged Pine plantations in Puerto Rico.

 

[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. 

 

Your argument has an unjustifiable lack of symmetry. Since we can't forecast accurately we should assume bad cases on both sides. For example if global warming is in fact preventing an incipient ice age than the cost of preventing it could be 100 trillion or more. So I say the surprise of an ice age vastly outweighs the pain of warming.

 

There is also another problem. The future is filled with tail events like this...all of which have huge potential costs. You cannot avoid and plan for all of them simultaneously both because plans may be mutually exclusive and because you won't have the resources. My argument is that you would be far better off focusing on adaptation to an unknowable future than pretending you can predict it and avoid all its various worst cases.

 

You buy health insurance right?  Does it matter if you have a staph infection and have a massive fever or if you suffer from hypothermia?  If the risk of both these things is bankruptcy if they happen, makes sense to pay something to insure from getting the worst-case scenario, even if most of the time you will be paying the insurance company for nothing.  If ice age was a huge risk worse compared to global warming I would say we should take preventative measures to insure against catastrophe too and if that included artificially warming the planet, so be it.  But lucky for us, there is no evidence of catastrophic ice age.  I concede no one buys insurance for being struck by lightning because of the odds are so small.  But the odds of catastrophic global warming odds wise is more in the same ballpark of getting seriously ill than being struck by lightning.  So I feel it makes sense to "take an insurance policy out" in this situation.

 

We are in an interglacial right now. A catastrophic ice age WILL happen. On the other hand there is zero evidence of catastrophic warming both now and over almost all of Earth's recorded history including the times where C02 was highest. In the last 20k years Earth's temperature has risen 4-7 degrees which exceeds what we expect from global warming and sea levels have risen 120m which is essentially cannot happen again even in the case of an ice free earth. During that time Earth's civilization rose up. So I only see benefits to global warming both based on our own history and based on the history of life on the planet which has always reacted positively to warming.

 

The predictions of global warming are not desserts. To get high sensitivities for C02 you must have an assumption that relative humidity remains constant which implies greater amounts of water vapour. This basically means the Earth will be wetter and hotter. When combine with the effect of C02 whose biggest direct impact is to fertilize plants you basically have the recipe for hot, wet and green. I don't see how that is bad for the environment or us. The greening effect has already been observed.

 

So I see it as beneficial warming which perhaps slightly delays a horrible ice age...win/win.

 

95% of climate scientist believe we will have global warming.  95% of other scientist including other nobel prize winners whose field is something other than climate agree.  No scientist (although I'm sure you can find someone some where), believes we will have an ice age in the foreseeable future (we are due for an ice age in the next 100,000 years that's true, but that's not a pressing concern). I dont know what I'm talking about with regards to climate science, I made an economic argument which is my expertise.  The fact that you are claiming this, suggests you dont know what you are talking about either. 

[doc75]

shouldn't we opt for the most "nature-neutral" version of harvesting energy?

 

And now we get to the beating heart of the environmental movement. My answer to your question is NO NO NO FUCK NO. I also think its massively questionable that the massive land requirements of wind/solar are more nature neutral than the vastly lower land requirements of fossil fuels.

 

The environmental movement is based fundamentally on the concept that nature left to its own devices is best. That is essentially what your argument amounts to. This is a ridiculous and incoherent concept. I'll give multiple arguments against it:

 

1) Humans come from nature. So humans interfering in nature = nature interfering with itself. If humans interfering with nature is bad it implies that undisturbed nature is capable of self-disturbing. This alone demonstrates the argument is ridiculous. Occams razor dictates that humans are not unusual...this implies nature is constantly disturbing itself with highly disturbing species like humans.

 

1b) In desserts when there is a strong rain you will get a very very rapid greening. During this time locust species will tend to form swarms. The resulting swarm will basically completely wipe out all the greening that occurred in a short period of time. AND HERE IS THE KICKER...than the locusts completely die out because they have zero food. WHY would it work this way. Does it make any freaking sense. The locusts don't benefit, the other life doesn't benefit...the plants don't benefit. This is undisturbed nature.

 

2) WTF does "best" mean. Nature has no concept of best...because nature has no concepts or values to speak of. A lifeless Earth is as "good" and natural as one teaming with life. The idea of nature being good or best or maximizing something is ridiculous and teleological.

 

3) When humans disturb nature we always see the same thing...some species do really well (e.g. Racoons) and some do really badly (carrier pigeon). There are winners and losers. This alone argues against the concept of best...changing nature is good for some and bad for others. Typical argument is that human involved in environment X and therefore environment X is best for humans. Ridiculous. If this were the case than when there was an environmental change there would not be winners and losers...all would lose since they did not evolve in that environment. The fact that humans are found in all environmental conditions further argues against there being one "best" set of conditions or environment.

 

4) There are tonnes of instances where an undisturbed nature produces outcomes which are arguably bad ones. For example elephants convert forest into grassslands. Forests support a lot more bird, plant and animal life than grasslands. There are strong arguments that can be made that what elephants do makes things worse. Red wood trees are another example. If you cut down red wood trees completely it would result in an increase in biodiversity (a good thing??!) since redwoods basically grow tall enough to prevent sunlight from reaching other species of trees. Redwood forests have very low plant biodiversity.

 

5) If we truly believed undisturbed nature is best than why do we bother with things like sewers, anti-biotics, storm drainage, vaccines, cities, farms. And if nature truly is best...than why do we die from natural causes...viruses, bacteria, cancers.

 

6) Disturbed nature is scientifically indistinguishable from undisturbed nature. There are functioning, sophisticated, beautiful ecosystems that look fully natural but consist almost purely of invasive species that were gathered from all over the world and placed in an environment by accidents of history. Some examples: San Francisco Bay, Mount Sutro Forest, Big Island in Hawaii, unmanaged Pine plantations in Puerto Rico.

 

This is the mother of all straw man arguments.  Since when does environmentalism equate to an unqualified assertion that "nature knows best"? 

 

And what do you mean in point (6)?    I'm pretty sure that the world's best scientists could distinguish between a Superfund site and an old growth forest, or suburbia from grasslands...

[RichardGibbons]

The argument is simple:

 

1. Today we have a world with the living creatures and plants to sustain humanity without massive wars, famine, or displacement of humanity.

 

2. Climate change is causing the extinction of a bunch of creatures and plants, resulting in effects that will be both good and bad for humanity.

 

3. It's hard to know exactly what the bad effects are--aside from some obvious things like seas rising and obliterating entire countries. But there's a reasonable chance that those effects will result in a world that cannot sustain humanity the same way it does today and in the same geographical areas, leading to massive wars, famine, and displacement.

 

4. There's also no easy way to leave this planet for an equally nice planet elsewhere.

 

5. So why the heck would you want to take the nice situation we have for humanity now, and gamble that randomly making massive changes to the globe won't result in a terrible situation for humanity later when it's pretty easy to mitigate those effects now?

 

(6. The answer to the rhetorical question is: because it's a tragedy of the commons situation--everyone is saying "my contribution to global warming isn't as big as yours, so you should do stuff, but  I'm going to not do anything.")

[rogermunibond]

This is the kind of game-changing technology that could rapidly remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  Paired with low cost solar for example.

 

[Guest MarkS]

Sometimes I wonder if we're reaching the limits of capitalism as the system is consumption based.  In 2018, we reached the Earth's carrying capacity on August 1, 2018 the earliest date on record. Here is an article written by a Michigan State professor.  In it he writes:

 

"To estimate when Earth Overshoot Day will arrive, the Global Footprint Network calculates the number of days in a given year for which Earth has enough biocapacity to provide for humans’ total ecological footprint. The rest of the year represents “global overshoot.”

 

When the footprint of consumption worldwide exceeds biocapacity, the authors assert that humans are exceeding the regenerative capacity of Earth’s ecosystems. This year, they estimate that humans are using natural resources 1.7 times faster than ecosystems can regenerate – or, put another way, consuming 1.7 Earths.

 

As an example, the ecological footprint for France is 4.7 global hectares per person, and global biocapacity is 1.7 hectares per person. Therefore, it would take (4.7/ 1.7 =) 2.8 Earths if everyone lived like the French.

 

France’s Overshoot Day would be estimated as (365 x (1.7/ 4.7)) = 130, or the 130th day of the year, which is May 5 based on 2014 data. The United States reached overshoot even earlier, on March 15."

 

 

https://theconversation.com/yes-humans-are-depleting-earths-resources-but-footprint-estimates-dont-tell-the-full-story-100705

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

The earth has reached the carrying capacity 20,000 years ago. Then the humans invented agriculture. I think the concept of a fixed carrying capacity is incorrect as it has static variables as an input, but humans are highly adaptable.

[boilermaker75]

In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence.

 

But that didn't happen. As Spekulatius has pointed out things keep changing. New technologies for producing fertilizers, genetically engineered crops, etc.

[rogermunibond]

20,000 years ago the earth's carrying capacity was enormous.  The human condition was not nearly advanced enough with technology to come close to harvesting the resource.

 

Malthus has been mainly right for the bulk of 600,000 years of modern human existence.

 

Only wrong for the last 300 years.

[Cigarbutt]

20,000 years ago the earth's carrying capacity was enormous.  The human condition was not nearly advanced enough with technology to come close to harvesting the resource.

 

Malthus has been mainly right for the bulk of 600,000 years of modern human existence.

 

Only wrong for the last 300 years.

I agree with the potential for human ingenuity but

-"progress" is not linear

-"today's" progress is based on a depletion mode

-transitions are basically unknown territories of the same kind that led Columbus to leave the European Continent (many failed)

 

I don't agree with everything Mr. Sachs proposes but like the invitation for tough discussions in the following article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-malthus-predicted-1798-food-shortages/

 

 

[rogermunibond]

The FT and some other media sources have been covering innovation in agritech.  Lots of possibilities.  It's similar to the revolutions made in the 1960-70s.  Most people didn't know the name Norman Borlaug back then.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/199cae4c-cbc6-11e8-b276-b9069bde0956

 

 

[cameronfen]

I think the point with ecological footprint and earth carrying years is that with current technology and amount we consume, the earth only replenishes half the resources we use every year. 

 

Long term we can either consume less, or more optimistically innovate our way out.  The problem is the pace of innovation is slowing down, so the probability we figure out something that is akin to the invention of agriculture is low.