For all the shock, horror, and aghast of global warm-ongers, comes a startling revelation: It’s Irrelevant if US Pulls Out of Paris Accord.
Donald Trump has sent his clearest message yet about his plans for reshaping US policy on global warming by choosing a chief environmental regulator who has questioned the science of climate change
But leading experts say the nomination of Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney-general as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the policy he pursues, may have less effect than many imagine on global greenhouse gas emissions.
Analysis by PwC, the financial services firm, shows G20 countries need to reduce their carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide they emit for every dollar of GDP they produce — by an annual average of 3 per cent to meet their Paris agreement targets.
Even if the US abandoned the deal it would have a limited direct impact on the overall G20 effort. If all other countries stayed on track to meet their carbon targets, but the US returned to business as usual, the average annual cut for the G20 as a whole would only fall slightly, from 3 per cent to 2.8 per cent.
That is chiefly because of market developments such as the US shale gas boom that has squeezed out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, a situation some think unlikely to change no matter what Mr Trump does.
“The impact on the global emissions projection is pretty small even if the US shelves its Paris target,” said Jonathan Grant, a director of climate and sustainability at PwC.
He emphasised the contribution of market and technological shifts to tackling emissions growth adding “it’s doubtful that can be thrown into reverse by one country”.
Warm-Ongering
- On November 10 the New York Times posted Donald Trump Could Put Climate Change on Course for ‘Danger Zone’
- On October 7, Paul Krugman asked What About the Planet?
Ridiculousness From Trump
As ridiculous as those positions are, this one by Trump is far more ridiculous.
My Four-Pronged Position
1. The earth has gone through many periods of warming and cooling that have lasted 10s of millions of years or longer. The reasons are complex, far beyond greenhouse gas emissions. Background radiation from space, the sun’s position in the galaxy, and solar cycles that no one has any record of, all play a part. There are likely complex reasons we are not even aware of today.
CO2, in isolation, all other things equal (which they aren’t and never will be), will tend to warm the atmosphere. However, it’s questionable, at best, to presume greenhouses gasses account for the bulk of what’s happening.
Scientists have changed their model numerous times, and the data to match, to prove global warming. Models that said were were in a period of no warming for 15 years now suddenly state this is the warmest period ever recorded.
The amazing thing about all of this is how irrelevant it is. Breaking this down into 100-year periods when changes take place over tens of millions of years, for numerous, complex reasons is ridiculous.
2. Nonetheless, let’s presume the scientists are correct, and I am wrong. The idea that government will do anything sensible about it is silly.
If Florida goes underwater, there is not a single change we could have made today, or 20 years ago, to save it. If global warming is happening, as described by the warm-ongers, it will still be happening 50 years from now, just at reduced rates of increases.
Al Gore floated an amazing plan to save the world at a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: Spend $90 Trillion Redesigning All The Cities So They Don’t Need Cars.
You cannot make this kind of stuff up, but it is typical bureaucratic madness in action. Lest you think this was only former US vice president Al Gore, the former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon, also backed this preposterous idea.
“We recommend those cities should have more density and more mass transportation. Together with a program for reforming land use, and bringing deforestation to zero, the total cost of this plan would most likely be $90 trillion in future investment”, Calderon said.
The amusing part of Al Gore’s inane proposal is the sheer amount of fossil fuels it would take to implement. It never occurred to him.
3. Let’s stop pollution, for pollution’s sake, not for misguided global warming reasons. China is poisoning the air and water to maintain growth, and killing killing or injuring millions of its citizens in the process.
I am strongly in favor of cutting emissions, especially in places like China which accounts for nearly twice as much greenhouse gas pollution as the US. Chinese cities have smog alerts nearly every day of the year.
Start worrying about people dying now, not 400 years from now, on a fool’s mission belief that man can control climate changes that happen over tens of millions of years.
4. Technology will do far more than bureaucrats ever will in the battle against emissions.
Companies like Uber, Google, Apple, GM, Ford, etc are all working on technologies that will dramatically reduce the need for cars. The cars themselves will be electric. Autonomous trucks will drive the speed limit, in small caravans, not only reducing accidents, but reducing fuel consumption as well.
Uber should be embraced, but it’s banned or restricted in much of the World. The EU nannycrats want to reduce emissions but fight Uber and put huge tariffs on solar panels from China, limiting their use.
China Emissions
That chart is from 2011. I strongly expect China’s percentage rose in the last five years.
If we were to actually spend $90 trillion as Al Gore and former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon want to do, I am 100% certain it would actually increase emissions in the process.
People expecting government bureaucrats or economists like Krugman to do anything but make matters worse have a Bizarro World thought process.
Here’s a question that just occurred to me: How much greenhouse emissions would be released via Paul Krugman’s inane proposal to stimulate the global economy by pretending there was a space alien threat.
For further discussion, please consider Paul Krugman, Who Proposed Fight with Fake Outer Space Aliens to Stimulate the Economy, Now Worried About Quality of Trump’s Spending.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Why is this “ridiculous?”
China AND India have both exempted themselves from all restrictions of “greenhouse” gases.
Oh, and they are the #1 and #2 polluters in the world.
America is one of the fool western nations to fall for restricting their economies and throwing their citizens out of work so socialists can gather more power and feel good about themselves.
And PS – the Paris “agreement” is basically an obama EO on the international scale. It is NOT a treaty approved by the senate.
Trump is correct is ripping it up and using it as TP.
—-
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
It was not China that created this theory or threat.
The assertion is patently absurd.
Mish
Mish – just what so you think the millions donated by the Chinese to the Clinton Foundation was buying?
Just one thing
Influence
Mish,
When you find yourself in the midst of the deniers, and see there real thought processes, that ought to give you a moment of quiet reflection on your position.
EU likely to hit US with tariffs.
Well. then we can hit them with less buying.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
That does not seem to be true. I have not seen any evidence that China created the Great Global Warming Scam, most of the credit goes to Al Gore. It is true that China totally outnegotiated the US on pollution reduction agreements and it does give China an advantage. I expect the Great Negotiator will fix that.
Precisely
Al Gore was the leading proponent, and if you check will make millions of dollars off it
Mish
Lots of Chinese money went Al Gore’s way too.
The term “useful idiot” comes to mind.
“Al Gore was the leading proponent, and if you check will make millions of dollars off it”
I bet he won’t be starting a business in Portland Oregon any time soon.
With respect, a slight correction. He already has made millions of dollars off it.
Maurice Strong, Gore’s Carbon Credit Father lived in China and was a consultant to China.
Global warming was actually the result of US military studies performed from the 1950’s to the 1970’s in an effort to better predict weather patterns. An anamoly was found which was that the atmosphere was warming world-wide. Based on that anamoly, Nixon approved the study for another 20 years. They found a continuation of warming.
Exxon has admitted that global warming is real, and man-made. There really is no questioning the facts. What is in question is the effects.
I think you need to have a look at the 60s and 70s and research going on….it was about a coming Ice Age….not Global Warming.
The world will end because the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 3.51 to 3.95 parts per thousand.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/68/ef/0b/68ef0b53e70a8b7a84f303be6ab65c07.jpg
Ok, I’m gonna need to borrow that!………
Gore’s Climate 101 “experiment” on YouTube has been debunked: https://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/
“Ivanka Trump, the daughter of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, met with former Vice President Al Gore on Monday to discuss climate change”…
I wouldn’t have been that nice to him. i would have let him meet with one of my janitors for an hour, then billed him for his hourly rate.
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.” The Donald knows what he’s doing, even if he is confusing everyone.
Hopefully Trump pulls the US out…. followed by Putin never ratifying it.
That would be more than a micro aggression, That would be like coitus interruptus Lol.
The global land temperature just dropped 1 degree C in record time this year, as El Nino came to an end. Some claim it would have been the hottest year, even without El Nino. Actual data proves them wrong.
Global warming alarmism is a propaganda campaign.
It is amazing the number of fake news stories about climate doom. Yet it has been warmer than now, in past human history such as the Roman and Medieval Warming eras. I have yet to read of particular stories from those eras, which indicated that a climate catastrophe was occurring.
I’d love to see your references to it being warmer than now in the last 10,000 years.
“I’d love to see your references to it being warmer than now in the last 10,000 years.”
It was warmer during the Roman and Medieval warming than it is now, not to mention the Minoan era, which was warmer still.
In the pre recorded past, California has had a couple of 100 year droughts. The current drought is nothing, compared to those. It has also been suggested that the 20th century was unusually wet for California. If true, 15 inches of rain is not the true average rainfall for L.A.
Here you go John: http://preview.tinyurl.com/zoydb3y
Even 10K year is a drop in the bucket on a planet that’s billions of years old.
It’s been colder in the past, and warmer.
“Global Climate Change” is a religion masked as a scientifically-proven fact.
reasonable positions. I would add to number 3 above that one of my most important reasons for figuring out how to curb emissions is simply so we and everyone else stop sending so much money to wahhabists and salafists who want to use that money to kill us
[Analysis by PwC, the financial services firm, shows G20 countries need to reduce their carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide they emit for every dollar of GDP they produce —]
Debasing currency will cause the same effect..
Ain nuthin like cold hard cash, melts like snow so dem kenitician printers gotta good thing coz they know if your not spendin it gonna get so hot itl burn a hole in yur pocket, yes sir ee. They needin to run the pressess till they flame an then sum more coz when ya ad it all printin is cool an lotsa folk around turnin red like wen they add ther bills nowadaze. Thatsaway it is, printin is green cept for the trees but they gonna save us ther too by takin away ther paper an printin stait to our cards, now aint that proges.
I understand that it’s not too hard (or expensive) to cool the earth. It is hard and expensive to reduce carbon emissions. The fight against global warning isn’t about problem solving, it’s about belonging and identity. In other words it’s a sociological phenomena.
It’s all too little, too late. If we’d begun in the 1970’s we might have made a difference today and given us more time, but Reagan made sure it was business as usual and to hell with any consequences. If Reagan had any concerns they would have been for the economy powering ahead. He succeeded because the credit boom began and paid for and hid the effects of our dynasty peaking at around 1970-1. It’s been downhill ever since and credit expansion has just about run its course.
So It’s the economy we will be concentrating on into the future just as in the past, but for different reasons. The PTB will be looking for ways to cover up the cracks, and carbon trading is not one of them.
You do realize that Ronald Reagan was not President during the 1970’s? The 70’s featured Nixon, Ford, and Carter, none of whom had any hope of changing Global climate. One beneficial thing, which anyone can do, is help re-forestation. Adding trees gives these advantages: 1) Trees absorb CO2 and release oxygen. 2) Trees absorb sunlight, provide shade, cool the area, and leave helpful by-products like the fruits and nuts that grow on them. 3) Trees shelter and feed animals, and become marketable timber eventually. 4) You can re-forest an area for free, simply by leaving it alone and letting nature take its course.
I mentioned the 1970’s because that’s when our “Civilization” peaked -about the same time as we got to the moon. followed closely by the first sign of its failure, the 1971 repudiation of real value for the currency by Nixon. We had to go fiat because the way forward could only be through credit.
Gore is to gloBull warming, as the Clinton’s are to pay-for-play. Neither invented anything. They are simply opportunist. It’s always been about taxes and power, and career politicians are the creators. We should be happy, as it makes it easy to identify the useful idiots and collaborators.
I’ve been watching the show that has exposes the truth about Scientology. I would guarantee that 99% of Scientologist are Democrats/Collectivists/Global Warmist. Both are cults, and their is no reasoning with a cultist.
Obviously, Trump’s NY sense of humor, to make a point. Quite successful at that.
While everyone knows it is preposterous and not likely literal history, collective ignorance on the subject is so great that no has a clue to who might have invented global warming theory. So, Trump’s humorous assertion has yet to be refuted by facts. Interesting, is it not, that no one can convincingly refute Trump by naming the real creator.
Anthropomorphic climate change is without question. The rapidity of change is unlike anything in known climate science. This said, the economy is a giant heat machine, and the only way to stop our continuing abuse of our own environment is to make the economy more efficient AND shrinking it in size. The second point is why it will never voluntarily happen. But not to worry, nature will take care of it, it will just be really unpleasant for us humans.
Humans have not been around long enough to know.
What was the sun doing 1 million years ago, 5 million, 25 million?
Does anyone know?
http://www.space.com/14565-earth-climate-young-sun-paradox.html
Since now one know how much radiation was pouring out precisely when, isn’t more than a bit ridiculous to presume haphazard CO2 models continually revised on the spot to fit the data, are accurate?
That is just one of many complex variables.
Radiation levels striking the earth as it moves through the galaxy have had radical changes over millions of years.
Mish
It’s ludicrous to state that since this isn’t the first time the earth has been warming, It’s not a problem. 4 BYA, the earth was a molten ball, so does that mean we have nothing to worry about unless the earth’s surface starts melting?
“Anthropomorphic climate change is without question. The rapidity of change is unlike anything in known climate science.”
That is false. The rate of change is not unprecedented.
Number one, the global land temperature just fell 1 degree C at a record pace. The temperature dropped faster than it rose to the recent El Nino peak. Of coarse, that isn’t being mentioned in the news media, as it flies in the face of global warming alarmism.
Anthropomorphic climate change? Didn’t realize the climate was starting to use tools yet… call me when it can make me a hamburger.
As has become the norm by now, the only people who display some basic common sense wrt dealing with global warming, are the Muzzies: They’re migrating north.
Chris Martenson took a look at climate change in a recent podcast too. Interesting discussion.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/103860/mark-cochrane-climate-change-revisited
The $90trillion number is a wild one. At that point (in fact at a quarter or less of that cost) it would be better spent on setting a cloud city colony on Venus or getting some sort of human colony off this planet. This would dramatically increase the likelihood that humans will survive.
if we stopped using coal and oil, what would we make steel out of, and what would we pave our streets with?
Those don’t add to the CO2 level in any meaningful way. It’s not using carbon that’s the issue, It’s burning carbon and creating CO2 that’s the issue.
The carbon tax does not help global warming if you believe humans are the cause of the problem anyway. Corporations pay the tax and continue business as usual. They pass the increase in cost along to the end user. This is another money grab scheme for governments to screw people.
Personally nuclear is the way to go if we do not construct them on fault lines and can dispose of the waste safely. We are still not there yet.
Pollution is what needs to stop. The technology is there to stop most of it especially chemical and farming pollution, coal fired plants can use scrubbers. I do believe we humans have an impact on the environment and we could put a stop to a lot of it. The problem is how do you support 7.5 billion humans on the planet.
Wind and solar cannot provide the world energy needs. I wanted to put solar on the top of my home and know how to assemble panels and the electrical grid required to do this. I took a course on their construction and wiring the home at the local college. The problem is the life span of 15 years was not cost effective for me. An average home uses about 10kw and your looking at over 30 grand for the panels and electrical grid for them. This does not include installation.
Many homes need structural roof reinforcements just to install the panels. The best panels cost even more and are only 20% efficient. Most panels run about 17%. My neighbor a professor at the local college is/was all about global warming and had his home done. He now regrets it as the cost was not worth the return. He saves 100 bucks a month.
If you really want to save on electricity buy a home that faces north and south. Design or remodel the home eliminating most windows facing east and west. There is a reason for porches. They usually cover the windows so you do not get direct sunlight in the home. My electrical bill in summer is 169 bucks with the AC running and the thermostat sitting on 72. We had over 30 straight days of 100+ degrees.
Some of my neighbors pay over 300 bucks a month to cool their homes. Of course they have those huge circle top windows with no porches.
Buy the most efficient HVAC system you can afford and you will indeed save a lot of money. I installed a 16 SEER unit with a 94% efficient heater, dropped my bill 60 bucks a month. I am remodeling my master bath and will reinsulate the attic this year.
“Background radiation from space, the sun’s position in the galaxy, and solar cycles that no one has any record of, all play a part. ” Wow, just wow..
And just what are your qualifications here other than “Internet blogger.” Have you run the numbers? Have you reviewed papers that have specifically looked at solar activity as it relates to global warming and debunked them? Of course you haven’t.
To say there is nothing we could have done even 20 years is ago is the ultimate defeatist thinking. Scientists have been ringing the alarm bell for decades and have been buried by special interests such as the powerful fossil fuel industry.
For God’s sake, people, florida is already having “nuisance flooding” becoming a regular thing. Because the sea level is rising! And sea level melt is a lagging indicator of AGW so get ready for several feet of SLR in our life times. http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
But, as Mish says, there was nothing we could have done.
Keep posting your goofy memes, folks. Your grandchildren are going to damn your name.
I’m with bostonblorp!!
Global warming is happening. How else can you explain all the shrinking glaciers? Maybe a few token ones are growing because of increased precip, but in general, they’re shrinking. CO2 may not be the only reason for the warming, but it certainly contributes to it.
Having said that, I don’t see a long term solution outside of us running out of carbon to burn. The difference between the pubs and dems is the dems pretend to be doing something about it.
Global warming is bad, depending on whose ox is being Gored, no pun intended. I think a NASA administrator was put under political pressure many years ago for suggesting (I paraphrase) that global warming was a fact and the human race’s ability to impact it one way or the other was probably overstated. He also said (again paraphrased) whether it is good or bad depends on if you speak from the perspective of a South Pacific Islander or a desert dweller in North Africa. One may suffer, but the other may benefit from climate change.
My [NASA scientist] brother sent me the info below via email. He is a member of a climate study group which used to be all NASA [but not anymore.] Ironically, he initially wanted to be an oil geologist but the oil boom in Texas was on the wane and space exploration was on the rise when he entered college so he became a NASA planetary scientist.
” The truth lies between those who say there is no global warming caused by humans and those who say the Earth and mankind face rapid and certain catastrophe. My view is that we cannot ignore future warming, but response should be measured, phased, and carefully thought out.
Some points:
1) CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning does cause warming, as does land use practices, cement making, and other ways humans alter the surface.
2) The oceans have been absorbing half of CO2 emitted. Via limestone deposition, they are the ultimate end of dissolved CO2. They also absorb heat. These effects are poorly quantified.
3) By itself, CO2 produces modest warming, about one deg centigrade (1.8 Fahrenheit) for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
4) The greater effects are produced by feedbacks of the warming. There are many; some warm, some cool. For example, warming evaporates more water into the atmosphere, and that water is a greater greenhouse gas than CO2. But more atmos. water produces more clouds, which reflect sunlight back to space and cool Earth.
5) Many of these feedbacks are poorly understood and some probably not known.
6) Long-term variations in the Sun are generally ignored, as are other natural factors (e.g. changes in ocean currents or cloud cover).
7) The “doom predictors” use computer models of future warming. These model predictions are all over the map, but in past have predicted more warming than occurred. Models range from about 2 to about 8 deg-C total warming for each CO2 doubling. The truth is likely between 2 and 3. But politicians and Greens adopt numbers of 5 to 8, which are unlikely.
8) Renewable energy (solar and wind) are intermittent, and often not predictable (Sun behind cloud; wind stops blowing). Storing renewable energy is very difficult and that is not likely to change soon. (Today’s options are pumped hydro or huge battery groups.) That means fossil fuel plants have to be kept operating in reserve. So more power plants are needed than before.
9) Coal plants cannot be started up quickly, as needed for backups. That leaves natural gas. From fracking the US has a growing NG supply, but not the rest of the world. It requires enormous funding to retire all coal plants, build new NG plants, and new renewable facilities.
10) Further new transmission lines and grid lines to distribute are needed. And when the fraction of renewable into a grid exceeds about 20%, new problems and costs arise. We are talking $$trillions here. It must be a slow phased process.
11) Nuclear energy, which is NOT intermittent and produces no CO2 is being ignored or phased out around the world.
I could go on and on. But you get the picture. Replacing fossil fuel energy is a very difficult, expensive, and disrupting process. It will probably require many decades. And electrical power is only part of fossil fuel CO2 production. There is transportation (oil) and business and home heating (coal, oil and gas). Together these are even bigger than electrical power. ”
Atossa,
I think we are in violent agreement here. It is very difficult to identify much less quantify all the variables in a climate problem, which does not mean you should not try to minimize environmental damage if you can.
While I think it is great to mitigate environmental impacts as much as possible when using hydrocarbon based fuels, lots of folks are drinking the “more environmentally friendly” kool aid without really considering all the costs, some quantitative and some qualitative. e.g. I wonder if anyone has done a cost benefit analysis of battery operated vehicles, including the cost to safely dispose of the manufacturing by-products and the expended batteries, not to mention the break even point between the cost of a battery car versus the same vehicle with an internal combustion engine. The cost side used to be WAY out there without subsidies from the government.
Also, recently Obama wanted to stop using coal in power plants out in AZ which simultaneously would destroy the economies of some Native American communities that primarily mine coal, and drive up the cost of electricity for many rural communities, AND at the same time make virtually no difference in air quality, especially on days when the wind blows and puts particulates into the air in substantially more quantities than the electric plants do.
Steve
One possible energy alternative is space-based solar.
Back in the 1990s a congressional committee requested and funded a NASA study of space-based solar. When I asked my brother about it, he said that initially it would be quite expensive, but the money spent on the war in Iraq would be a start.
Yup, e.g., It may be possible to convert solar to microwave energy and then beam the microwave energy to a receiver on the ground. Of course, a very slight attitude and articulation control problem on the satellite could fry a lot of stuff on the ground! I am sure a lot of folks a lot smarter than I am could come up with multiple ideas much more likely to work with fewer drawbacks. The folks at NASA are very bright, and usually underfunded, and many cannot take the uncertainty of being unemployed in mid-career, so take less challenging but more reliable work elsewhere.
By the way, most of the unmanned planetary exploration projects NASA sends up cost less than any war, or even a big tunnel in Boston!
” Yup, e.g., It may be possible to convert solar to microwave energy and then beam the microwave energy to a receiver on the ground. Of course, a very slight attitude and articulation control problem on the satellite could fry a lot of stuff on the ground! ”
________________
Just think, space-based solar could be used for peaceful energy or a weapon of mass destruction. Maybe the Pentagon would be interested in helping to fund it!
A Southwestern US desert area might be a good place to receive such a microwave energy beam. Or maybe the Saudi desert.
If the Chinese do it first, they could use the Gobi desert.
Antarctica is the largest desert on the planet. Ironically, John Kerry made an historic visit to Antarctica last month.
Speaking of Antarctica, my brother was on the NASA team that discovered the Mars origin of some Antarctica meteorites.
Nice post Mish.
Here are a few points for thought with respect to most CAGW thinkers.
– Most of them think the relationship between CO2 and temperature is linear. It’s not.
– Most of them think SLR (sea level rise) is a new occurrance due to our emmisions of CO2. It’s not. SLR has been happening since we came out of the last ice age. Just take a look at the Great Lakes, which were formed by the ice retreating. From NOAA
https://www.glerl.noaa.gov//education/pr_images/glacier.jpg
-Most of them don’t know that our Global Temperature record which is used by most reporting agencies datasets, GISS, NASA, HADCRUIT etc, starts at the end of the LIA (little ice age) around 1850.
– Most of them are driven by agenda, not science. If one tourtures data long enough, you can make it show anything. Just look at the emails from the climategate crew from 2009 exposure of corruption and collusion. Search ” Mike’s Nature trick “. Search that one where Michael Mann spliced current temperature readings onto extrapolated tree ring proxy estimates to build a fictitious hockey stick graph.
– There is much more on how things are altered, modified, misleading on climate understanding. I don’t know of any climate related folks who don’t believe in climate change. It is billions of years old and is not stopping any time soon. The term Denier is bantered about regularly. Even our POTUS is a bias and oppressive person when it comes to climate. Just look at his hands off website or his tweets?
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/576104761679708160
– I could go on, but I think you all get the point. Climate is not a well understood science and as Dr. Judith Curry so aptly puts it with respect to our understanding. It is an uncertainty monster.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3139.1
Good Day >