The National Journal‘s Neil Munro has an interview with climatologist Judith Curry (featured in this, this, and this prior post). The interview is a must read for those interested in the ClimateGate story and the broader questions about the intersection of science and politics. There’s lots of good stuff in the interview — so you should read it — but I thought I’d just highlight one unrepresentative snippet:
NJ: What’s the role for the IPCC?
Curry: I staunchly support the IPCC, but when [chairman] Rajendra Pachauri comes out making all these really strong policy statements, such as the developed world has to cut back its energy use… and stop putting ice cubes in their water, and other crazy stuff… I don’t like that. These guys should pick people who don’t want to be advocates and will shut their mouths about advocating for policies. Otherwise, we don’t look credible.
Curry is referring to a recent interview in which Pachauri challenged the “unsustainable” lifestyles of people in the developed world and even suggested limiting ice water. He didn’t say anything about the need of public officials to set an example — and with his air travel habits, it’s no wonder.
Blue Neponset says:
I think the bigger question is why it it a problem for Pachauri to say such things? His larger point is: (from one of your links)
His point is correct, yet he can’t give a practical example of what he is talking about because the deniers and their allies will ignore his larger point and attack him personally. (Thank you, Prof. Adler, for posting a link to these kind of irrelevant attacks.)
This, IMO, is what the problem is. We are trying to have a rational discussion in the middle of a PR war. That just isn’t going to work. Until we can dismiss these baseless personal attacks for what they are we will never actually discuss what to do about AGW.
December 3, 2009, 10:21 amMark N. says:
But the point is that it isn’t Pachauri’s job to discuss whether or not “desire to consume has grown out of proportion”. He’s the chairman of a body tasked with summarizing the scientific consensus. Whether a “desire to consume has grown out of proportion” is not a scientific question, but a policy one. But when deciding the policy questions, we’d all be better off if we did have a good handle on the science, which is why it would be nice if, as Curry suggests, the IPCC were more careful to make sure it comes across as a credible clearinghouse of the scientific consensus, rather than as a Sierra-Club-style advocacy NGO.
December 3, 2009, 10:27 amJBC says:
The man flew from New York to Delhi to attend a practice cricket match for one day. Yes, I’m going to attack him personally, because he doesn’t want me to have ice in my fridge, while he claims the luxury of being able to fly 16000 miles in a day to see a sporting event.
December 3, 2009, 10:29 amkdackson says:
When Pachauri begins to act as if AGW were really a crisis, then perhaps I might actually listen to what he has to say.
It’s like the Dali Lama advocating nuclear war.
December 3, 2009, 10:30 amgeokstr says:
No, we have had a PR war for a decade now, only until about 2 weeks ago, only one side, yours, was engaged in it. Now there’s two sides, and the old saw about the day the second lawyer moved into town fits quite nicely.
Now we’re having a PR war where you actually have some opposition. Don’t like it much either, I reckon do you?
December 3, 2009, 10:33 amdearieme says:
I suppose it’s possible for a Railway Engineer to be as bent as a Climate Scientist.
December 3, 2009, 10:33 amAssistant Village Idiot says:
Blue Neponset – unless, of course, his view is not correct, and some approximation of Western lifestyles are indeed sustainable indefinitely with only gradual adjustments. For those of you who didn’t get the reference, welcome to the attitudes of Massachusetts.
Jonathan, the point is that we should be a certain kind of person, not for the environment’s sake, but so that status is doled out according to rules environmentalists like. They are a subset of the Arts & Humanities Tribe, which knows that it is just wrong for other tribes to have the status conferred by income. Conspicuous consumption is so conspicuous, you know? Not our sort of people at all. When Pachauri says “our lifestyles” he means “your lifestyles,” or even more popularly “their lifestyles.” Plus, it’s more European not to use ice cubes. Those of us who have been to Europe know this.
December 3, 2009, 10:34 amCrust says:
He didn’t advocate the approach of convincing individuals to be do-gooders. He advocated taxing air travel to discourage its use. And you know what, that’s the classic economics approach to pricing and thereby reducing negative externalities: tax them.
Now, of course AGW skeptics would say that there isn’t a negative externality to air travel or that externality is modest. But that’s not your (Adler’s) point. You’re criticizing Pachauri for advocating the canonical economics approach for pricing externalities and letting the market sort it out, rather than the kumbaya approach of directly convincing people to change their behavior. Strange.
December 3, 2009, 10:37 amBlue Neponset says:
We can argue about whether or not his view is correct after we argue about whether or not he should fly to India for a cricket match. This is the basic problem with “Politicizing Science” we never discuss science we discuss the personal attacks instead.
December 3, 2009, 10:38 amuh_clem says:
blink blink. Are you serious?
Anyway, Curry says some pretty reasonable things here. Thanks for posting the link. It should be required reading.
December 3, 2009, 10:46 amkdackson says:
And maybe he should work to convince his own countrymen first:
http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSDEB00309720091203
December 3, 2009, 10:48 amgeokstr says:
Absolutely.
I didn’t see the old networks having “anti-green” weeks, or did I just miss them? I haven’t seen much mention of any skepticism about Al Gore’s pronouncements or soon to be billionaire status from AGW. I didn’t see any stories revolving around conferences of skeptics. I didn’t see them publicizing the positions of the skeptics, either, except to occasionally ridicule them. Were there lots of TV shows and movies about how man-made global warming was not about to end the world that I missed? The PR war in the popular media was totally one-sided, and that is where it is fought, not on the internet.
Sure, the blogs have some active skeptics. But out in the real world, in the media, in entertainment, are you trying to tell me that there was much sympathy at all expressed for the skeptics, or even objective reporting of their views?
Puh-lease.
December 3, 2009, 11:07 ampireader says:
OK, I read the Guardian article. It has only snippet qoutes from Pauchari, not a transcript, so there’s no way to tell if he’s being quoted fairly. Even so, Pauchari seems to make fairly sensible points, which the Guardian tarts up as ‘radical changes’.
Basically, he argues that there’s lots of casual energy waste today which should stop.
And he cites examples. The guardian truncated his comments, so leyt me explicate:
*** Today, hotel bills break out charges for phone calls. Pauchari thinks they should also break-out charges for air conditioning, etc.
*** Today, restaurants bringing ice water to patrons who didn’t ask for it and don’t want it. Paucari thinks they should stop [not that 'he doesn’t want me to have ice in my fridge'.]
*** Short-haul airplane flights are no faster than rail, and more expensive; and put a lot more greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Pauchari thinks these flights should be taxed to encourage people to use rail instead.
***He similarly favors taxes on individual auto use, citing the central London congestion charge.
Frankly, none of this seems very odd or radical. All of these policies are in effect in sizable areas today.
Oh, and he’s a vegetarian who thinks it would be nice if people ate less meat … no proposed government policies.
December 3, 2009, 11:13 amluci says:
The fact that a policy is in place in “sizable areas” does not mean that it is not “odd” or “radical”, when applied elsewhere. And really, how many people take short-haul flights that are both (1) more expensive and (2) slower than rail.
December 3, 2009, 11:20 amMalvolio says:
My favorite quote from the article:
Yeah, that’s it, Rush Limbaugh made CRU discard data, manipulate the peer-review process, break FOI law, just by not seeing how wonderful CRU really is.
Why should anyone care about the view of a man who patently doesn’t believe it himself?
OK, maybe that is putting it too strongly. Maybe the guy just sees it as a Prisoner’s dilemma, and if he were to be the only one conserving, while everyone else was polluting, then he would just be the sucker. He’s doing the math wrong, of course; the damage done by pollution is more-or-less linear with amount of pollution, so from a game-theoretic perspective, it doesn’t matter whether you are the first person to switch to conserving or the last. He’s doing the math wrong, but he may be sincere.
His position, about the unsustainability of current consumption, is wrong too. At least, everyone else in the last 2000-odd years who made the prediction “Things can’t keep going on like this” has been proven wrong. Parson Malthus was wrong; the peak-oil prophesies, made every 20 years or so since the 1870s were wrong; the concerns about the horse-manure crisis at the turn of the century; ditto the deforestation necessary to make rail-road ties; Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb fizzled.
At some point, you would think every intelligent person would notice that, in Ron Bailey’s words, “The Stone Age didn’t end because humanity ran out of stones.” I guess the urge to cast oneself as Cassandra can overcome even the most basic common sense.
That said, yes, internalizing external costs is a Good Thing, but it’s very hard to do: how do you assess the carbon cost of, say, a 10,000-mile flight, especially in this politicized and often dishonest scientific environment?
December 3, 2009, 11:23 amlucklucky says:
“His point is correct”
His point is unknown like most things about the Future.
“Whether a “desire to consume has grown out of proportion” is not a scientific question”
Yes it is.
“Frankly, none of this seems very odd or radical. All of these policies are in effect in sizable areas today.”
Everyone of them is radical.
“no proposed government policies.” Sure that is why he said what he said.
Actually the lady text is weak and confused. She doesn’t understand that scientifically uncertainty makes all call for action necessarily political.
December 3, 2009, 11:27 amLayman says:
It’s nice that he thinks it would be nice if we ate less meat in this first phase of radical change. I have to wonder if he will be so nice about that in a few years.
December 3, 2009, 11:32 amrarango says:
Clearly his being a vegetarian explains it all…we KNOW how they are.
December 3, 2009, 11:34 amMark N. says:
There aren’t actually that many city pairs in Europe where that’s true; the trains that are fast enough to be competitive with planes tend to be quite expensive, and the low-cost carriers are quite cheap. On a few routes it is consistently true (e.g. Paris-Brussels), but on others you can consistently get plane tickets for 1/2 the price of the train (e.g. London-Paris), and for plenty of common city pairs the train is both slower and more expensive (e.g. Paris-Berlin).
December 3, 2009, 11:39 amwws says:
Those supporting the AGW agenda have desperately sought the status and supposedly unquestionable authority that a purely scientific finding would have. The IPCC was set up in order to coordinate and provide that level of status. If it was clear that the IPCC was a purely political organization with political goals, it’s ability to influence public policy would vanish overnight and it would become just another advocacy group. And yet that is what Pachouri’s statements are turning it into.
When Blue Neponset writes: “I think the bigger question is why it it a problem for Pachauri to say such things?” he fails to understand that by making these statements, Pachauri is undercutting the entire rational for trusting anything done by the IPCC. Are they a scientific organization, dedicated to finding physical truth, or are they a political organization dedicated to policy and implementation? (because policy and implementation in practical terms always comes down to choosing winners and losers) If they are political, then they are of course going to be subject to all of the heat and scrutiny that any political organization recieves.
Blue Neponset recognizes this is a problem when he writes “This is the basic problem with “Politicizing Science” we never discuss science we discuss the personal attacks instead.” and yet he does not understand that Pachauri himself is the prime mover behind the politicization of science. Science is numbers, data, and methodology – it is NOT policy. When the policy comes first and the numbers second, then we are literally playing out the scene between Alice and the Red Queen, where the Red Queen shrieked “Sentence First! Verdict Afterwards!!!”
If Pachouri wants the respect accorded true scientists, he needs to act like one and stay far away from his pre-judged policy statements. And if he can’t, then he should not be the one holding that job.
December 3, 2009, 11:52 amkdackson says:
Let’s see:
1 hour flight – say 400 miles.
8 hours each way by car, so 16 hours at my travel billing rate of $60/hour. 16 hours at $60/hour = $960
25 mi/gal means it will take 16 gallons of fuel at $2.50/gal = $40
Total to drive = $1,000 plus probably overnight hotel @ $100 = $1100
Flight takes 1 hour, costs $500.
Arrive at airport 2 hours early to clear TSA BS plus 1 hour flight (no delays) each way = 6 hours at $60/hour = $360
Oops! forgot the rental car @ $75 including fuel
Total cost $935
Forget trains, they are unreliable in the US and cannot get me to where I need to be.
So cost of flying is less than cost of driving. Of course I did not figure mileage charges for operating of my car, but that makes it WORSE.
December 3, 2009, 11:53 amRichard Aubrey says:
wrt short-haul flying in the US:
December 3, 2009, 12:01 pmYou get there an hour early. You may have to check baggage. You fly six hundred miles. (is that short-haul? it is in the US) You go for your checked baggage. You rent a car when you get there, or somebody picks you up, adding to the time expended by people on this exercise. It may take twenty minutes or an hour to get where you really want to go.
If you drive, it takes, say, ten hours of wheels rolling since you will probably be on the expressway. You bring what you want in the trunk, including stuff the airlines would never allow, and you don’t pay for it. You get better food, your choice of companions, cleaner and bigger restrooms, your choice of entertainment, and when you get where you’re going, you already have a car. In which you can leave at a time of your choosing.
It might be a wash at six hundred miles.
Driving wins at about five hundred miles, according to some people I’ve talked to who travel frequently. Certainly at three hundred.
And, in fact, these people say that in the last ten years they have added about a hundred miles to the distance they will drive instead of fly. More hassle, more time.
Making rail travel more accessible will cost a huge amount of money, since the hassles will be about the same, as will the extra time on each end. Driving will still seem like the more attractive alternative.
Or, as the greens wish, we can be taxed and harassed into absorbing the difficulties personally.
A. Criminal says:
Yes it is.
No its not.
December 3, 2009, 12:17 pmHarryEagar says:
Blue Neponset (or Neposnet or however he’s spelling it today, he’s been inconsistent) sez: ‘we never discuss science’
You mean you never discuss science. At least, you never have since you began posting here.
December 3, 2009, 12:40 pmThe Unbeliever says:
Unsustainable lifestyles? It’s now the holiday season. Do we ban Christmas lights as wasteful uses of electricity? Do we forbid the lighting of menorahs as unnecessary sources of carbon dioxide? Do we ban celebrants of Kwanzaa from… doing whatever it is they do?
I would love to hear how a scientist intends to have a rational discussion about which “luxuries” we pampered Westerners are allowed to keep, which ones must fall by the wayside, and the “rational” basis for limiting ice water vs limiting religious displays or observances.
December 3, 2009, 12:54 pmSoronel Haetir says:
People who fly regularly have turned to not checking bags. I made that move about 5 years ago, over which period I have made a round trip flight about every 3 weeks. Driving is simply not an option due to there being no road off the island I live on.
You could take a fery which would be about $700 less each way but that trip takes 2.5 days and the departure and arrival times are not convenient. I suspect that for anyone not on the east coast trains are about the same.
Also in the west, even if you could take a train to a major city, you are still going to need a car to get where you are needed.
The thing to keep in mind about short haul flights, at least in the US, is not that you are going to take such a flight from where you are to where you are going, but instead from where you are to a hub airport, or a hub airport to your destination. With that in mind you are already beyond security for at least one of your flights.
December 3, 2009, 1:12 pmRuss says:
When the AGW crowd talks about cutting back, they are referring to the unwashed and ignorant masses of humanity. As the intelligent, smart people who know best for us, of course they shouldn’t have to abide by those rules – that’d be madness!
December 3, 2009, 1:12 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Read more about what these sleeze balls were up in their own words to at:
http://camirror.wordpress.com/
December 3, 2009, 1:22 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
Blue Neponset, the criticism of Pachauri’s hypocrisy was a single line. Had it been left out of the post, my response would have been the same. There is nothing illegal about being an energy-saving evangelist. Yet Pachauri goes beyond evangelism in two important ways: along with his cheerleading, he advocates legal changes (read coercion in disguise) to make people behave the way he’d like; and he frames their necessity in moral terms without making a moral case.
That is not a personal attack on him, that is an attack on his ideas, pointing out that they are founded on social, aesthetic, and religious attitudes. And me resenting that.
To those who have passed beyond being mere catechumens in his church, the obvious rightness of his plans is manifest, and objection to them is seen as the natural reluctance of stupid and greedy people to admit the truth. They don’t seem like radical plans at all.
People who stick with the evangelism only are fine. If they want to try and talk hotels and restaurants into doing things differently for the sake of the planet, that’s fine with me. Knock yourself out. The sermon is a bit stale at this point, but I only object when people in authority start leaning on the rest of us, and when they use my money to do it. (Which they do, BTW, as any of you who have schoolchildren know.)
December 3, 2009, 1:25 pmJoe T. Guest says:
That said, yes, internalizing external costs is a Good Thing, but it’s very hard to do: how do you assess the carbon cost of, say, a 10,000-mile flight, especially in this politicized and often dishonest scientific environment?
Nothing to it. Just make people buy fraudulent carbon offset credits. See? Easy.
December 3, 2009, 1:29 pmsureyoubet says:
No need to discuss these things really. That’s what our oh-so-wise elected “deciders” are for. Fear not. They will decide what’s best for all of us.
December 3, 2009, 1:43 pmMark Buehner says:
And once again we see that quoting a person’s own words is equivalent to attacking them personally.
December 3, 2009, 1:59 pmRichard Aubrey says:
soronel.
December 3, 2009, 2:02 pmI imagine your island existence provides some costs and benefits the rest of us don’t need to consider.
To address a couple of your points: I didn’t consider security. That’s not the only hassle.
Carry on can be done well. My daughter packs with a hydraulic press and if she’s over the limit, switches a couple of items to her purse. Satisfies the airlines, I guess. But short-haul doesn’t always mean short stay and if you have more baggage, you must check it. In addition, if you’re going to be in winter climes, you’ll need warm clothes which take up space.
Baggage is not the only issue. It’s one more.
To make my individual case, I could be twenty miles on my way in my car in the time it takes me to reach the airport. I could be a hundred miles on my way by the time my flight took off, measuring from the time I left my home.
I’m a big guy. My car fits me.
Last time I flew, standing in line for the facilities, a guy in front of me asked if I thought American Airlines had taken out two of the latrines. Had to, I responded, nobody would have built an airplane this size with only two heads for coach.
Eating? Don’t even get me started. If I want to eat while I drive, I can get something from the fast fooders’ dollar menu which doesn’t drip. Or I can find a nice place and have a leisurely meal.
As opposed to….NOTHING.
Stop and stretch my legs in a park…? No problem.
Yeah, I’d have to have a pretty good distance to go before I’d fly.
Richard Aubrey says:
sureyoubet.
December 3, 2009, 2:04 pmYeah. The Kennedys didn’t want wind turbines in view. I may have them in my yard, almost.
Gore lives a carbon-liberal lifestyle, and the congressworms aren’t going to cover themselves with the new and improved health care scheme.
bob says:
There’s no contradiction between advocating for steep airline taxes and taking lots of flights. None at all.
December 3, 2009, 2:46 pmBlue Neponset says:
You are missing my point. What one person says is not relevant to the bigger AGW discussion. Mr. Pachauri could choose to never fly in a plane again and it wouldn’t matter one bit in regard to global warming. The main reason to bring up Mr. Pachauri flying habits is to avoid discussing the topic at hand, global warming.
I think that is why Prof. Adler brought it up. He wanted to show us how such unrelated topics are politicizing the science of climate change.
December 3, 2009, 3:40 pmkdackson says:
No, and I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong, he did not bring it up for that reason.
He most likely mentioned it as Mr. Pachauri does not do as he preaches. Ergo, it is a case of “Do as I say, not as I do”.
December 3, 2009, 3:49 pmRPT says:
Absolutely.I didn’t see the old networks having “anti-green” weeks, or did I just miss them? I haven’t seen much mention of any skepticism about Al Gore’s pronouncements or soon to be billionaire status from AGW. I didn’t see any stories revolving around conferences of skeptics. I didn’t see them publicizing the positions of the skeptics, either, except to occasionally ridicule them. Were there lots of TV shows and movies about how man-made global warming was not about to end the world that I missed? The PR war in the popular media was totally one-sided, and that is where it is fought, not on the internet.Sure, the blogs have some active skeptics. But out in the real world, in the media, in entertainment, are you trying to tell me that there was much sympathy at all expressed for the skeptics, or even objective reporting of their views? Puh-lease.
Are you aware of Fox News Channel? CNBC? Fox Business Channel? The Republican Party?
December 3, 2009, 3:53 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Particularly when the taxpayer picks up the tab for the tix.
December 3, 2009, 3:53 pmBlue Neponset says:
I thought his point was that we are unnecessarily politicizing science. Wouldn’t he be guilty of doing just that by pointing out a petty, irrelevant article about a single person’s flying habits? What does that have to do with the science of climate change?
I hope he has time to stop by and clear this up.
December 3, 2009, 3:57 pmD.R.M. says:
Is it?
World energy consumption, 2008: 474 exajoules
World energy reserves, uranium: 2,500,000 exajoules
Nope, he’s talking out of his ass.
December 3, 2009, 4:01 pmkdackson says:
I do not think it is either petty OR irrelevant.
The man has a vested interest in reducing CO2 emissions. He wants to have policies promoted that restrict people’s freedoms (and make no mistake, a tax is a restriction on freedom).
Who elected him anyway?
So while he advocates for policies that restrict YOUR freedom, he goes ahead and does whatever the hell he pleases on the UN’s dime.
This is hypocritical in the least – telling people to change their ways while he continues his priviliged lifestyle.
That has absolutely nothing to do with science. That is politics, and it’s not surprising you refuse to acknowledge it as such.
I also see that Mr. Pachauri has not decided to scold his own country for not signing on. I wonder why that is? Certainly not “science”.
December 3, 2009, 4:05 pmA. Zarkov says:
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research provides a good resource for the global alarmists assertions. In particular see this list of climate tipping points. I have to admit it’s pretty scary. If I really believed that all this was going to happen, I would advance the following program:
1. Crash program to build a network of light-water reactors. France and Japan have shown us that nuclear power a good alternative to fossil fuels for generating electric energy.
2. Crash program for battery research so we can run our transportation fleet off the electric energy generated by nuclear power.
3. A ban on corporate and other private jets. Using an entire jet to ferry around a few people is extremely wasteful. This would also apply to government officials. I would even shut down Air Force One. I see no need for the US president to fly around like a pasha. A move like this would motivate the public to cooperate. How can anyone take these people seriously when they exempt themselves from what they preach?
4. Shut down immigration from the Third World into the EU and the US. They don’t migrate to consume less. Every new immigrant means more fossil energy consumed.
5. Wind turbines in the really windy places, but no government subsidies.
6. The US should stop all foreign wars, and withdraw its troops from Germany and possibly Korea. Stop being the world’s policeman and save lots of energy.
7. The US should impose a system of tariffs so it can restore its industrial base. We make things much more efficiently than they do in China. Chinese manufacturing looks cheaper because they don’t have to conform to all the laws and codes US manufacturers do. This also means less shipping and less energy consumed in transportation.
8. Some government investment in pie-in-the-sky energy sources such as heavy-ion driven fusion. Magnetic and inertial confinement fusion will never make power, but visible-laser driven ICF can provide a proof of principle. But only the Russians are doing heavy-ion fusion research in a serious way.
9. Close down the US Department of Energy, which impedes energy progress.
10. As some icing on the cake, the US should withdraw from the UN.
December 3, 2009, 4:14 pmgeokstr says:
Are you talking about the last two weeks? Because I sure didn’t hear a hell of a lot of skeptic PR on those channels before that. Yes, they might actually might have reported on it occasionally, unlike the onslaught they were up against.
On the other hand, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NYT, WaPo, LAT, NewSpeak, Time, et al, ad nauseum, for decades refused to even mention skepticism except to ridicule it, and were constantly in the tank for AGW, and actively promoted it through “green week” BS, etc, etc, also ad nauseum.
And, please, I ask again, point me to all those movies and TV shows whose theme was that the world was going to be all right in the face of global warming without monstrous government intervention.
If you think the right has put up much of a fight in this “PR war” against that onslaught until now, you really have to be being highly disingenuous, because if you’re not, then I would have no problem using an ad hominem.
December 3, 2009, 5:21 pmtherut says:
This Southern woman will not give up her iced tea for some damn idiot environmentalist fundamentalist. He can take it from my cold dead hands as the saying goes. Do people like HIM realize how nutty they sound? Reminds me of the elite craze of hanging out laundry and using “real” diapers. Been ther and done that when I had no other choice. There is is word he really hates FREE choice.
December 3, 2009, 6:53 pmSwede says:
Always remember:
1)It’s for your own damn good
2)Some animals are more equal than others
December 3, 2009, 7:08 pmThe Awful Truth says:
I think this list should be a good cautionary tale for AGW liberals. An AGW scare can easily be used to justify almost any agenda you want.
Imagine if the IPCC/CRU/GISS were run by people pushing Zarkov’s agenda. Even though you believe in AGW, wouldn’t political comments like this repulse you from supporting anti-AGW efforts? Pachauri’s comments are doing the same thing but in a different direction. He’s narrowing the possible coalition of supporters of IPCC’s efforts by alienating anyone who isn’t in love with intrusive statist solutions.
Since I’m a skeptic, I hope he keeps it up.
December 3, 2009, 7:30 pmA. Zarkov says:
If one accepts the end-of-civilization scenario being put out by outfits like the Potsdam Institute, then don’t you think extreme measures would be called for? I know the “shut down immigration” sounds extreme, but it would save energy. Let’s recall we did this in from 1925-1965, and the country didn’t collapse.
Incidentally, the head of the Potsdam Institute is the climate adviser to the German government. He has the ear of Chancellor Merkel (herself a physicist), and he takes extreme positions. Far more extreme than anything in my list.
December 3, 2009, 7:49 pmThe Awful Truth says:
My post wasn’t intended as a slam on your proposals. I support some of them and oppose others. But I hope you will acknowledge that some of your proposals are controversial and that some people would adamantly object to them.
My point is that to the extent that AGW becomes identified as a trojan horse for controversial political prescriptions, it loses potential supporters.
December 3, 2009, 8:02 pmA. Zarkov says:
Absolutely. The major item in the list is a shift to nuclear power. I can’t take the climate alarmists seriously until I see them advocate that.
If any of those “tipping point” items on the Potsdam Institute list are really true, then we do have an AGW problem assuming CO2 is the cause.
So far we have a lot of noise, but no smoking gun either way in this debate. We need to set up a transparent review process, where the reviewers have no stake in the outcome. Right now the worst thing the government can do is ignore the whole thing and pass cap and trade. That would be a display of arrogance the public would not accept.
December 3, 2009, 8:34 pmRicardo says:
and with his air travel habits, it’s no wonder.
This is a well-deserved dig. I work for an international organization and one of my colleagues flew out to Asia from the U.S. to visit a project site. While here, he talked about how he feels guilty buying food or bottled drinks that are not locally produced because of the “carbon footprint.” I had just met him so I resisted the urge to tell him how guilty he should feel about the carbon footprint left by his trans-Pacific flight. People have a natural tendency to compartmentalize like this. Nassim Taleb uses the funny example of a health club in Manhattan where people take the escalator rather than the stairs to use the Stairmaster on the second floor.
December 3, 2009, 11:20 pmDavid Schwartz says:
Three points:
1) If the experts on AGW act as if AGW is not real, then either they are hypocrites or they don’t really believe AGW is real. We can treat experts or influential people two ways — we can ignore them or we can try to figure out what they really believe. Which should we do with Gore and Pachauri?
2) Internalizing externalities is not always a good thing. For many actions, there are both positive and negative externalities. If you internalize more of the negative ones, you will make things worse overall if the positive externalities already outweighed the negative ones.
3) Pachauri, and many others, seem to have fundamental misunderstandings about what it means for something to be sustainable. You can define sustainable one of two ways, if you define it the way in which it is good, the consumption is sustainable. If you define it in the way that it is not sustainable, it is not clear that this is a bad thing.
The only sense in which the consumption is not sustainable is “capable of being continued without change”. But why is that a problem? Change is always happening. Nobody is proposing some kind of crazy law or regime that would stop consumption patterns from changing. The lack of sustainability will likely result in rising prices at will result in changing methods of production and consumption. Likely, the level of consumption will go up, but its nature will change, to a new unsustainable growth pattern.
December 4, 2009, 8:46 amHarry Eagar says:
’3) Pachauri, and many others, seem to have fundamental misunderstandings about what it means for something to be sustainable.’
Yes, as Peter Huber put it in ‘Hard Green,’ the peasant squatting and prodding his dung fire is not green, he’s just poor.
December 4, 2009, 1:37 pmGaryC says:
Certainly not when some third party is paying for both the plane tickets and the tax.
December 4, 2009, 8:11 pmCopenhagen — Mis-Leading By Example | Political News | Annuit Coeptis says:
[...] e.g., Carbon must be sucked from air, says IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri; Let The Peasants Walk; IPCC’s Pachauri should shut his mouth. Although he has been described as a “climate expert,” a “leading [...]
December 12, 2009, 12:25 pmwork from home scams says:
Good Luck!
July 8, 2010, 12:51 ammake cash says:
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