By Terry Hansen, Hales Corners, WI
(April 10, 2019)
Dear Editor:
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
I have an idea for sorting through the many competing voices on climate change.
The seriousness of the threat
Fifty-eight former U.S. national security leaders, including 35 admirals and generals, sent a letter on climate change to President Donald Trump. The letter states: “Climate change is real, it is happening now, it is driven by humans, and it is accelerating.” These senior military and national security leaders also assert that “climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States,” and that addressing it should be seen “as a threat reduction issue, not a political one.”
Climate policy
Over 3500 economists, including 27 Nobel Prize-winners and top economic advisers to presidents of both parties, have endorsed a plan to fight climate change. Their “Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends” advocates putting a consistently rising price on carbon dioxide emissions and returning the money to the American people.
This statement concludes that the price signal will encourage technological innovation and steer our economy toward a low-carbon future. Returning the revenue to households will shield consumers from rising energy prices, and “the majority of families, including the most vulnerable, will benefit financially.” A border carbon adjustment would protect U.S. competitiveness and encourage other nations to adopt their own carbon pricing systems.
A bipartisan bill embracing these principles has been introduced in the House of Representatives – the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
A path forward
Let’s go with the admirals and generals and the Nobel Prize-winning economists.
References
Letter from former national security leaders
https://climateandsecurity.
Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends
https://www.clcouncil.org/
Council of Economic Advisers (CEA chairs for recent presidents)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act
https://energyinnovationact.
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20 Comments
If what the Australians say about global warming is fact then this submission by Terry Hansen must be ignored as not worthy of our consideration. See separate letter to editor from me.
This portion of what the Australians say about global warming applies to the Hansen letter above. Here’s some of it.
The Galaleo Movement organization in Australia reported some facts worth our attention. These are in terms of molecules in the air which are :one molecule of man made CO2, 32 of CO2 coming from nature and all in a total of 85,500 molecules of air. A rise in earth temperature comes first before a rise in the presence of CO2 in the air.
So a 0.04% of our air is man made CO2 in comparison to 32 times more of it from natural sources why are the environmentalists so excited about the man sourced CO2 ? Nor is the contribution from the sun even mentioned as an obvious cause for global warming.
Do we believe the environmentalists who report data which often is contested by other sources and who offer us their misleading false hockey stick graphs? Or do we believe the Australians ?
John Roberts:
“Believe the Australians?”
You mean the Galileo Movement lobbying group specifically set up to deny climate change and confuse people?
From Wikipedia:
“The Galileo Movement is a a climate denier lobby group set up to oppose carbon pricing, based in Australia. On its website the group states that “our objective is to expose misrepresentations pushing a ‘price on carbon dioxide’.”[1] In August 2011, the Scientific American magazine openly derided the group, describing it as “drawing from a deep history of denial and distortion” and relying on irrelevant facts while omitting pertinent ones.”
I appreciate valid arguments but this cherry picking of facts to support a forgone conclusion is not science.
Here’s what “the Australians” say about climate change:
The federal government and all state governments (New South Wales,[16] Victoria,[17] Queensland,[18] South Australia,[19] Western Australia,[20] Tasmania,[21] Northern Territory[22] and the Australian Capital Territory[23]) have explicitly recognised that climate change is being caused by greenhouse gas emissions, in conformity with the scientific opinion on climate change. Sectors of the population have campaigned against new coal mines and coal-fired power stations, reflecting concerns about the effects of global warming on Australia.[24][25][26] The Garnaut Climate Change Review predicted that a net benefit to Australia may be derived by stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450ppm CO2 eq.[27]
Again from Wikipedia.
Or is that fake news cause it doesn’t correspond to your belief system?
Tonya
Ever notice that most climate change deniers are always in thier late 80s.. what do they care. There not gonna be around to see the real significant effects of the change. Selfish people.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The new replacement buzzword for “Global Warming”. It’s hard to promote a buzzword when none of the computer models are working, seas aren’t rising as Al Gore predicted and the Generals are mandated to make statements under the suggestions of their previous Commander in Chief who hated the fossil fuel industry. Remember that previous president who mandated the use of biodeisel for the Navy at $13.46 per gallon vs $2.25 for diesel?
Fossil fuels, is the source of energy by the way that is solely responsible for the improvement in mankind’s living conditions, health and well being across the planet. The primary energy source that is responsible for keeping the planet as clean as it is with over 7 billion humans running around.
Humans, one of the primary ingredients that seems to be missing from most of the discussions on climate change by a group of alarmists whose sole intention is the redistribution of wealth under the guise of “saving the planet”. I think most of the planet savers would be perfectly happy to see humans go away so the planet could be on its merry way, unchanged. They could lead by example…
But the planet does change, all by itself and has done so for 4.2 billion years without our help. Humans do effect this blue marble flying through space. We are part of the planet and ALWAYS must be in the equation. Prematurely reducing or eliminating the cheap energy sources that sustain human life only leads to the life of man returning to a poor, nasty, brutish, and short state. And that wasn’t that long ago and in fact can be observed today in Sub-Saharan Africa where 600 million people have no access to electricity. Just look at a night satellite photo of Africa. The World Bank cut off funding for coal fired plants which will condem millions to live in poverty and die at an early age. But organizations like the Sierra Club that have declared war on natural gas might just as well have declared war on humanity. But then look at their selfish and condescending “leadership “.
Fossil Fuels? Without them, no air travel, no railroads, no steel so no bridges or Sky scrapers, no gas turbines, no asphalt, cobblestones anyone? Oil, natural gas and coal, critical to the manufacturing of glass, chemicals, PVC, nylon, solvents, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, refrigerators etc. Some of these items you can substitute wood. Been there, done that. Mountainsides are being stripped in Africa by people using wood to cook their food and heat their homes. Plenty of coal in Africa, and natural gas.
Oil, natural gas or coal at some point is used in the manufacturing of cans, canned food, copper wire, autos, trucks earthmoving equipment and even toilets.
These examples can go on for days.
When you look at the data from earth or ice core samples, and go back 100s of millions of years in the planet’s history, there is little correlation between CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures, in fact it is exactly opposite in many cases. During the Cretaceous period the average global temperature was 15c warmer and the CO2 was about 1300ppm. today it’s around 450ppm and the sky is falling if you actually listen to the alarmists. The earth was greener than ever. During the Jurassic period the temp remained constant at 25c and CO2 ran from 1100 ppm to 2400 ppm and has been declining ever since to its present level. Planet temp has been as low as 10c, never higher than 25c but CO2 550 million years ago was estimated at 7000ppm.
It’s better to look at the sun and it’s effet, especially sun spots in relation to crop outputs and draw some conclusions from that. Or the independent core drillings in the Amazon and Antarctica that although totally independent show a rise and fall of the sea level approximately 360 feet in repeatable 35,000 to 36,000 year cycles. We are in the middle of the increase now, so in 18,000 years you get beach front property if you are at 180 feet above sea level.
Another piece of data? The glaciers that used to supply water to the high altitude cities in Bolivia are gone or about to be. When were they at their peak? 18,000 years ago. Concidence? Too much real data out there. If you don’t start using your head, doing your own research and solely rely on Google links (other people’s opinions) for knowledge, then you just get manipulated. That’s bad. Start doing your own research.
Two Google scientists, Ross Konigstein and and David Fork were put to work by Google in 2007 to establish that wind and solar energy could replace fossil fuels. They were enthusiastic supporters of Google’s project, know as RE<C, which was to develop renewable energy that would generate electricity more cheaply than coal fired power plants.
But after only a few years they admitted in a November 2014 IEEE Spectrum article, what thousands of scientists and engineers had said all along, that it's impossible to cut CO2 emissions using wind and solar to prevent a climate catastrophe, assuming CO2 is the culprit.
Bill Gates, FORMER huge financial backer of wind and solar projects, has changed his mind and admitted that wind and solar can't stop climate change.
In a 2015 Financial Times interview, Gates said "Today's renewable-energy technologies aren't a viable solution for reducing CO2 levels, and governments should divert their green subsidies into R&D aimed at better answers".
He went on to say quoting from the same article "The cost of using current renewables such as solar panels and wind farms to produce all or most of our power would be beyond astronomical."
While Gates intends to invest in R&D, he lambasted the prospects of battery technology, as it stands today. He said "There's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all our energy from renewables".
Subsidies to wind and solar should be STOPPED. But fossil fuels, which makes humans tolerant to a hostile planet environment, are being banned and economically blackballed.
The use of fossil fuels is beneficial to mankind, and the war on fossil fuels is immoral. Mankind Isn't addicted to fossil fuels, mankind needs fossil fuels to emerge from poverty and then sustain a healthy lifestyle and to cleanup after himself.
The war of fossil fuels is literally killing people. But if you can kick back, drive your car where you want and pour a glass of wine and talk ridiculously about saving the planet while exluding the human part of the equation, then you're good.
It's NOT EASY learning climate and energy and the complex relationships. But if you do take the time, AND it takes a lot of time then you won't fall for propaganda and political hysteria.
Wow Mike knows how to cut and paste.
How cleaver..
Come on Peggy, Wikipedia ???
Where are your facts? Start if you can with how much global warming traces to the sun which is the furnace for our solar system. Or would you rather ignore this and reside in the happy blissful ignorant state of the wild eyed Al Gore environmental gang who clam up about this omnipresent matter.
Global warming does exist. Just as it has for those so many times in the past history of this earth. Do you reject this fact ? So, just because Galaleo is a lobby it has to be spewing falsehoods. But please explain how the Gore thing isn’t also a false spewer lobby. Bit confused in the stupor of your enthusiasm aren’t you.
So instead you and the others in the gang now want to terminate the economy and the many jobs we have gained so far. But you are at zero with nothing to offer other than baseless opinions of bureaucrats which you so happily always cite. Is that your best if so better go back to the first grade .
Can the garbage speak, girl, until you can make real sense.
Mike says:
It’s NOT EASY learning climate and energy and the complex relationships. But if you do take the time, AND it takes a lot of time then you won’t fall for propaganda and political hysteria.
Thanks Mike, it is great that we have someone in Sedona smarter then all the scientist in the world …..and Your speak GODS truth….. not propaganda.
The world is for man to exploit and lets do it, dig, burn and use then re bury the earth resources. Remember it’s all about you and $$$$ using less is just dumb.
Just data Segner, and hard research done outside
the greed of government and government funded NGOs. You should try it sometime. Would make you at least LOOK a lot smarter.
Germany just announced a new Baltic Wind farm. But because of Merkel’s knee jerk reaction from Fukushima Berlin has to fall back on intensely polluting brown coal and other fossil fuels. They’re not even building new super critical coal plants.
What’s really interesting are the global warming…now climate change alarmists that used to be doomsday predictors who changed their tune back to reality when funding dried up or they retire.
Here’s an interesting list of folks who didn’t think the Kyoto Treaty was’t so good. 9, 029 of them are PHDs. I’m sure you can have an intellenget conversation with any one of them considing your background.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
There’s volumes more, but I cut it way short.
A Tonya opens by asking , ” Ever notice….. “.
Yes, I do and it’s said in only a few words in the next series of them.
The Tonyas, Steves, Peggys, Terrys, Sammys, all of them, have only one way to rebuke the facts which Mike and I present about global warming . They have no facts to offer. So maybe they don’t because they are ignorant people or maybe they are too stupid to understand them.
But they have learned the bar room tactic used in arguments in those tanks which is to attack the messenger ( of facts ). Or they claim the politicians, experts or whomever they can find to act as their attacking substitute agent.That is the only thing I do notice because there isn’t anything else to notice.
For the benefit of you 5 these words are not attacking the messenger but simply are reciting the actual facts.
So, unless you guys have some facts to say Mike and I are wrong why not stop trying to prove how ignorant you really are. So far you have accomplished proving this status to us all.
OK ?
@John Roberts
Really John!?
For every 1 climate change denier there are at least 20 REAL scientific publications proving you wrong with REAL data(not the fake information you hand pick by zelouts like yourself and Micheal S.
So go on thinking your an authority on the subject when your one of the late 80s plus who aren’t gonna be around to see the sign of significant changes that global warming is causing already.
Sleep well John and keeping hand picking the information that you parrot to suit you false conclusions
Some might find this commentary interesting fron Alex Epstein:
The Green New Deal, not climate change, is an existential threat
The core idea of the Green New Deal, endorsed by virtually every Democratic Presidential candidate, is that the government should rapidly outlaw fossil fuel power and rapidly replace it with renewable power, mostly from solar and wind.
This would be the most radical change in the history of the American economy—and, as many commentators have pointed out, would have disastrous consequences given a) the unreliability of solar and wind and b) the destructiveness of the government taking over any segment of the economy.
So why does the Green New Deal have so much appeal? Because it is a bold plan to address what is widely conceded to be an “existential threat”—the CO2 emissions of fossil fuels, aka “climate change.”
Calling climate change an “existential threat” has become a ubiquitous election talking point:
Bernie Sanders: “Let’s be abundantly clear: climate change is an existential threat to our country and to the entire planet.”
Joe Biden: “Climate change is an existential threat to our future—staying in #ParisAgreement is the best way to protect our children & global leadership.”
Kamala Harris: “First of all, climate change is presenting an existential threat to our nation … and the world.”
Cory Booker: “So climate change is an existential threat.”
Jay Inslee: “Climate change is truly an existential threat for everything we hold dear here. And I mean everything.”
An “existential threat” means a threat to existence as we know it (and love it).
It is a crazy exaggeration to call the increase of atmospheric CO2 from .03% to .04%, which correlates with a temperature increase of 1 degree in the last 150 years, an “existential threat.” If it was an existential threat, it would have already led to a massive increase in climate-related deaths, as many of today’s environmental thought-leaders predicted would already happen.
In 1986, leading ecologist John Holdren predicted that “carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.” In 1989, the UN predicted “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”
In fact, climate-related deaths have been plummeting as CO2 emissions have been rising—from millions per year in the 1930s to thousands per year today.
The most significant cause of our radically reduced climate danger is industrial development, which takes a naturally dangerous climate and makes it unnaturally safe. And industrial development is driven by cheap, plentiful, reliable energy—which, today, overwhelmingly means fossil fuels.
If there’s any added climate danger caused by fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions, it is clearly more than offset by all the extra energy fossil fuels give us to improve climate safety—and to improve every other area of life.
If we look at the full impact of fossil fuel use, instead of just looking for negatives and exaggerating them, we find that it is not an existential threat, it’s an existential resource.
The root cause of existence as we know it and love it is not a naturally friendly climate, which has never existed, but the unnatural level of human empowerment that we get from fossil fuels.
The Green New Deal, an attempt to ban fossil fuel power and, on top of that, nuclear power, is not fighting an existential threat—it is an existential threat.
I will make this as simple as I can because for some reason, people just want to believe what oil companies already know, and have been using its smoke screen well.
If you were found to have cancer, you went to 100 Dr.s, and all but 3 said you had nothing to worry about…..You would ignore the other 97?…..Yep, dont matter, oil companies have known for decades and made huge profits….And the United States
military also know that …..
We have done nothing since Reagan(oil man) took off Carters solar panels off the White House, had we just tried, we wouldnt be in this mess….sigh
Well there David if you know oil firms already know, how about letting us all into this secret of yours and their’s. Dont tell us opinions because they are mostly copied from another useless or inaccurate source. What we would find worthwhile are real facts and from what source so we can assess reliability.
If you had read Mike Shroeder’s remarks above about our civilization and what part these oil guys played in it you would also be able to tell us the rate of return which far out paces profits for importance in any accountant or investing office and any of us regular folks who know something about running a successful business.
Or do you prefer to just attack the messengers who oppose the Al Gore line of baloney.
Well where do you stand ?
@john Roberts
There you go again John R.
Besmirching someone cause they have Real Facts and get there information from legitimate sources. David is right on the money..
John you watch to much Fox News. As I said befor the 80 plus crowd don’t care cause they ain’t gonna be around much longer.
Tonya, is that your real name ? I think not because your composition and spelling are identical to Stevie boy’s – – atrocious. Did you graduate from grade/high school ?
Nor have you the facts about anything which is just like the other 5 el stupidos. I guess you, David, Stevie or whoever it is are unable to answer my questions posed to David.
However, it is so very interesting to exchange commentary with you. Most of my other communicating is with intelligent folks. So this is an amusement for me by contrast. Not that it’s wrong to be like you with only air in your skull space.
Now I am attacking you, the messenger, but in this case it is supported only by facts.
‘
Yea Johnny, lets do NOTHING!
We have done nothing for 40 years!
—————————————————————————————–
Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago
A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
—————————————————————————————
U.S. Military Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Key Bases
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18012019/military-bases-climate-change-risks-wildfires-flooding-defense-department-report-congress
Climate Change Threatens National Security Says Pentagon
https://unfccc.int/news/climate-change-threatens-national-security-says-pentagon
——————————————————————————-
Please use your google machine, its helpful…
@John R
There you go old man. You can’t handle a difference of opinion with retorting to negative accusations. You must be very thinned skinned or your ego must be easily bruised just because one sees you ongoing commentary wrong and slanted. You may not believe thisbut your NOT an expert on the subject(all your references are from closed minded people like yourself) nor are you the smartest guy in the room.
Davie Boy congratulations. At 9:31 this morning you solidified your standing with the other air heads, Tonya, Stevie, etc, in town.
Like them you never learned to read. If you had you would know that I have written global warming is taking place. I also know that Exxon was eons late about it because global warming occurred at least a million years ago. Maybe a billion. Did you know this ?
As to your quotations, if you are even a bit savvy about military and bureaucrat talk you also know they have a language of their own which doesn’t translate to us normal folks. It often also isn’t of real content.
And do you understand there is a difference between facts and opinion (or fiction ) ?
I seriously doubt I can help you to make a legitimate claim for having a brain unless you will drill a right sized hole in your thick skull for me to help a worm crawl inside. That would be the only way you can claim you really have a brain up there.
Also, thank you for your idiotic commentary it gave me a good laugh . It is reassuring there are so few dim wits around here.
Sedona Biz Readers
Pay no attention to John Roberts childlike attacks and nonsensical response to David.. His fragile ego is not use to an opposing viewpoints and facts that don’t lineup with his babbling.
It’s difficult for him when he thinks hes the smartest one in the room because he parrots handpicked articles and is proven wrong. It’s okay Jonny boy.
Let your ego shirk abit….. it’s okay to be wrong .