As legally binding as the UN resolutions regarding Iran’s nuclear program? That doesn’t sound promising.

Enforced by who? The UN?

Does the term Oil-For-Food mean anything to you?

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

You? Me? Charles Rangal?

There is NO GLOBAL WARMING.

There is NO GLOBAL WARMING.

There NEVER WAS.

There NEVER WAS.

There NEVER WAS.

This is the mantra the author and other commenters ought to repeat 10X before bed … until you actually GET IT.

This article, and others like it, only make it easier for the media and leftist establishment to whitewash the truth to their liking.

Knock it off!

If their position were entirely rational, then that’s a plausible suggestion. I think, though, that this is a situation in which they’ve just reacted without much thought to people they dislike: they can’t stand Al Gore, so if Gore says “X”, conservatives decide “not X” must be true regardless of the merits. And let’s remember that there’s a lot of money at stake here. It’s funny how that can affect one’s view of the facts.

The problem with AGW is that it has never been proven. Even the GW part has fallen off the tracks for the last decade, and now we are learning about the fraud AGW scientists have committed.

We need something better than a hypothesis before we destroy our nation’s economy. Given what we now know about the fraud, we need a strong review of the data and science before we even consider that AGW has any merit. Any.

Disliking Gore has nothing to do with it. I suspect you are simply projecting from your BDS.

Mark, is the implicit conservative/anti-AGW argument that current carbon fuel based technology is the end of the line, that is, it is the most cost-effective, efficient technology which could ever be achieved, notwithstanding the massive requisite government subsidies necessary to keep it going?

The current conservative argument is that AGW is a load of crap cooked up by crooks, and that the market should be allowed to determine the best energy technology.

2) Warm is better than cold. (Remember back in the 1970′s when we were warned about the impending “ice-age”?) I say warm is better than cold for those of you who have never attempted to grow crops. (see # 3 below)

3) For you city folks, “iceberg lettuce” isn’t REALLY grown on ice bergs. You can’t even grow lettuce in a snow bank. Warm weather is pretty much necessary to grow FOOD.

4) “Global Warming” isn’t science, it’s religion.

Good grief, don’t you remember that the last time we started a world wide trade war the global economy collapsed and we all ended up in WW2?

For just one specific example of what could go wrong: the Chinese, annoyed, cease all purchases of US debt while simultaneously dumping all the US debt they currently hold. (maybe they put their money in gold, or oil, or whatever, doesn’t matter as long as they dump dollars)

Consequence: US interest rates soar, the dollar collapses (I mean COLLAPSES) and the US economy is crushed virtually overnight. That’s the kind of fire you’re playing with here.

I could go on, but you get the idea. All of these assertions are ridiculous to anyone with the smallest amount of common sense. I say, own up to your own irrational beliefs. If you were as open minded as you think, you would cheer any evidence (such as is now pouring in) proving that the world does not, in fact, “have a fever.”

Mark, is the implicit conservative/anti-AGW argument that current carbon fuel based technology is the end of the line, that is, it is the most cost-effective, efficient technology which could ever be achieved, notwithstanding the massive requisite government subsidies necessary to keep it going?

If their position were entirely rational, then that’s a plausible suggestion. I think, though, that this is a situation in which they’ve just reacted without much thought to people they dislike: they can’t stand Al Gore, so if Gore says “X”, conservatives decide “not X” must be true regardless of the merits. And let’s remember that there’s a lot of money at stake here. It’s funny how that can affect one’s view of the facts.

one might say that governments expand not because they necessarily actually act to address climate change, whatever that actually means, but instead because they simply seize the powers that might address those things, but at bottom simply seize powers, whatever they actually do with them.

Reminds me of this joke, remembered from from my childhood:

I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant.

Why do you want an elephant?

I don’t. I just want that much money…

In practice, this is a short term problem. There are gigantic economic benefits to be gained from the move away from carbon fuels. Once those benefits begin to be realized, the process will move as if propelled by an invisible hand.”

Mark, is the implicit conservative/anti-AGW argument that current carbon fuel based technology is the end of the line, that is, it is the most cost-effective, efficient technology which could ever be achieved, notwithstanding the massive requisite government subsidies necessary to keep it going?

The psychology of power is well documented;
Add in the assumption that the world is in
for economic hard times, severe enough to
threaten even TPTB, and their move to add
to that power is understandable. See also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6599281/Societe-Generale-tells-clients-how-to-prepare-for-global-collapse.html

Sanctions are useless, esp against China. Euro states undermined the sanctions on Iraq without consequence.

Okay, so we will need European states to agree to sanctions on China. Isn’t it possible that they would agree to such sanctions? This isn’t an issue where we need to drag them to the table, like Iraqi sanctions. They are at the table waiting for us to show up.

Disagree. Kyoto is a good example of nations making promises, then granting each other all kinds of exceptions, and STILL not meeting the target goals they agreed too.

“To the extent there is a need for sanctions, the solution is fairly simple: tax imports from those nations which “defect”. Both China and India are particularly vulnerable to this sanction as well.”

Pls see: Oil for Food scandal. Sanctions are useless, esp against China. Euro states undermined the sanctions on Iraq without consequence.

Then make that move yourself, quickly, and become rich as Croesus by beating us all to the market.

” . . . ”

No, son, sorry, “increased taxation revenues flowing to government spenders” is not an economic benefit, unless you’re a government spender.

Of course it is. Nothing that comes out of Copenhagen – in terms of agreements – will control any country’s actions for more than a month or two. It will be whatever amount of money the richer countries put into some fund, or transfer directly to the less-rich, that will define the entire impact of Copenhagen.

And the moderators are going to push for this transfer with every ounce of their power, while paying little attention to long-term behavioral changes beyond some standard announced agreements needed to give it all plausibility. They have to, because their time is running out.

(Obviously, I do not buy into the AGW fraud.)

Soon, one of two things will happen: either the current scandal is finally going to convince people to look hard at the science (at which point Gore skulks away to count his money), or it fizzles and the worldwide confusion continues until it becomes so obvious that warming has somehow turned into cooling that it cannot be ignored any longer.

In the first situation, well, the Copenhagen scammers will already have their up-front money from us. In the second, if they get some movement and agreement going quickly out of Copenhagen, they can announce that their initial efforts are already starting to make a difference – they can take credit for the disappearance of global warming! – and lord knows what riches they’ll then be able to harvest from the world.

So, they need to move on this quickly. And they will.

larry: Solar-powered street lights. Now I really have heard everything.

My laptop, as well as the reading lamps I use at night on the boat, are in part solar powered. On a good day, 400-500W during daytime. That’s 5KWh or so that doesn’t need to be generated by carbon.

Cheers,

MartyA: The real issue today and always is not global warming but, rather, population growth. World population will go from 6 billion today to 9 billion in 2050.
The growth won’t be in the wealthy countries but those in which dwell blacks and browns.

Oh, the horror. Oh, the enormity. Ohhhh, the humanity….

Cheers,

Randy: Kilo: “I don’t expect China, India, Russia, or any third world country to actually to ANYTHING that will impede their economic development.”Having been to China many times in the past few years, I would disagree. China understands that it has a lot to lose because of environmental degredation. .

Air quality and pollution have nothing to do with greenhouse gasses. Just like the U.S. and Europe cleaned up massively without really lowering greenhouse gasses, China will likely go the same route. As they become wealthier they will want a cleaner country, but that is cheap compared to lowering CO2.

The material emissions of CO2 are from First World countries plus China and India. Agreements among First World countries are generally both honored and enforced without need for sanctions.

To the extent there is a need for sanctions, the solution is fairly simple: tax imports from those nations which “defect”. Both China and India are particularly vulnerable to this sanction as well.

In practice, this is a short term problem. There are gigantic economic benefits to be gained from the move away from carbon fuels. Once those benefits begin to be realized, the process will move as if propelled by an invisible hand. Agreement (and sanctions) are needed now only because the current system is subsidized by governments all over the world (ours not least). Eliminate those subsidies (or counteract them) and the now-repressed market efficienies will have their inevitable effect.

10 INPUT “What is the name of your planet”, WHATEVER$
20 INPUT “How much money do you have”, RANSOM
30 INPUT “What is the name of a UN climate bureaucrat”, MARXIST$
40 FOR T = 1 to 100000 : NEXT T
50 PRINT “The only way to save planet “; WHATEVER$
60 PRINT “is to send “; RANSOM; ” dollars to “; MARXIST$
70 PRINT “and do whatever he says.”
80 END : REM of Western Civ, Scientific Method, etc.

I hope this helps clear things up.

By “benefits” I mean expansion of national governments and their revenues – benefits to governments themselves, not to real people. Businesses hoping for immense profits pandering to “green” mania would also be beneficiaries.

So if, say, the EPA can declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant and so extend its regulatory and bureaucratic hand over everything in the US that breathes, it will be unimportant if the EPA can’t extend this hand internationally. Domestic control will be established, which will be “mission accomplished.” When critics note that EPA hegemony doesn’t extend past the US borders, that will just be an excuse for another conference. Whether or not that conference accomplishes anything won’t matter. Consider the actual failure of international control a feature, not a bug.

Those countries too primitive to have an equivalent to something like the EPA can still get in on the fun. Such countries will naturally vote for anything increasing control by government – any government – so long as it’s accompanied by money. Lots and lots of money. There is no need to assume that these countries are overly concerned about the problems of controlling an international climate. So long as the money flows in, they will doubtless be very cooperative.

What about the island nation of Tuvalu, regardless of its source, and regardless of humanities ability to influence it, global climate change is effecting them.

No it is not. The key here is Tuvalu is sinking.
Human Induced Erosion

Studies on land loss in Tuvalu reveal the following findings. Although both sea level rise and coastal erosion can cause land loss in the tropic Pacific oceanic islands, their mechanisms are different. When sea level rises, the low elevation coastal zone submerges and the erosion datum plane rises, the beach process progresses normally as always, resulting in no beach sediment coarsening. When the sea level is stable, coastal erosion removes finer sediment from reef flat, beach and land, resulting in beach sediment coarsening. The human-induced coastal erosion in the tropic Pacific oceanic islands has the following features. 1) Erosion occurs or intensifies immediately after inappropriate human activities. 2) It occurs near the places having human activities and places related to the above places in sediment supply. 3) It often occurs on original prograding or stable coasts (on lagoon coasts for atolls) because there are more coastal engineering projects and other human activities on such coasts. 4) It is chronic, covering a long period of time. The coastal geological events in Tuvalu islands do not accord with the features resulted from sea level rise but do accord with the features resulted from coastal erosion, particularly from human-induced erosion. The land loss in Tuvalu is mainly caused by inappropriate human activities including coastal engineering and aggregate mining, and partly caused by cyclones. Moreover, all recent measurements (satellite altimetry,thermosteric sea level data and tide observations) so far have not been able to verify any sea level rise around Tuvalu islands.

[They aren't refuges yet, but it looks to be inevitable they will be sometime this century, and as far as I know, no nation will commit to allowing a relocation]

Ain’t gonna happen. There may be deals cut, and changes in relative position based on relative advantage gained from those deals, but no significant reduction in CO2 emissions.

On the other hand, if Copenhagen is not about reaching the levels of CO2 emissions that the warmists say are necessary, then it is simply a power game. In that case, it isn’t an issue of collection action, but of zero sum gamesmanship.

—-

A previous commenter mentions China. Two problems with the comments:
1) the conflation of air pollution (which China suffers from) and CO2 emissions, which China gains a lot from

and

2) China’s moves are not part of some collective action; they are self interested and motiviated by:

…PR

…reduction in dependence on *foreign* hydrocarbon supplies

…preparing to sell “green” technology to the fools customers in other countries.

The current monomaniacal focus on carbon to the exclusion of directly harmful pollutants strikes me as incredibly wrongheaded.

Having been to China many times in the past few years, I would disagree. China understands that it has a lot to lose because of environmental degredation. Of course, they are polluting a lot, and pumping out CO2 emissions like no tomorrow. But they have also invested several hundred billion dollars into green tech and clean tech, so much so that they are now considered No.2 in the world for this type of R&D. (Germany is No. 1 in the world. The US is down around 12 or so).

Additionally, they are increasingly seeing that green tech actually advances their economic development, and so the two are not mutually exclusive. For instance, on most new major highways, the street lights are powered by solar panels. A small step, of course, but much more of a step than we are willing to take. And I don’t see how doing this harms their economic development in any way, but actually advances it.

Steve