Solar Power Is Great, But Take It Easy on the Specious Logic
Here’s an upbeat article on the city of San Francisco and its commitment to renewable energy. It includes: The San Francisco ordinance says that solar energy is needed because the city is vulnerable to sea level rise due to carbon dioxide emissions. Solar energy can replace power generated by fossil fuels, reducing those emissions.
The city’s replacing fossil fuels with solar energy is a good thing, but not for the reason stated. The actual reduction of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions associated with San Francisco’s decision is minuscule. No one with a fifth grade education could think that San Francisco holds its fate in its hand vis-à-vis sea level rise.
I’m sorry to have to be so horribly blunt, but faulty reasoning and good environmental policies usually do not walk hand in hand. Effective environmentalists are good thinkers.
Hi Craig,
Very well said !
I’m not sure if this is really on topic, but I came across an article by Doug Domenech I thought you might find interesting, as it sums up fairly succinctly how a great many moderates view the various factions in the Climate Dynamic;
Green Pork Cronyism Invades Science
Noted MIT atmospheric physicist, Richard Lindzen, in order to minimize what he calls the “ever more shrill” voices of climate alarmists, has clearly described the parameters of the debate.
In an excellent online video produced by Prager University, Lindzen defines three groups in the climate debate – two of which are scientists and the third group made up of politicians, environmentalists and the media.
The first group of scientists agree with the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who mostly believe that recent releases of C02 (carbon dioxide) due to man’s burning of fossil fuels, might dangerously heat the planet.
The second group of scientists, he says, doesn’t see this as an “especially serious problem” and that the climate is a complex natural system impacted by many forces. He would note that these scientists do not see evidence that CO2 emissions are a dominant or controlling factor.
It might be surprising to many people but Dr. Lindzen notes that there are many things these two groups of scientists agree on.
• The climate is always changing. • CO2 is a greenhouse gas without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming.
• Atmospheric levels of CO2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century.
• Over the past two centuries, the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit or one degree Celsius.
• Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made.
This last point might also be a surprise to many people but the IPCC itself, in spite of the much lauded climate model predictions, acknowledged in its own 2007 report that “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Lindzen wonders why so many people are “worried, indeed, panic stricken” about rising CO2 levels leading to catastrophic changes in the climate since neither group of scientists suggest that the burning of fossil fuels will do so.
This leads us to Lindzen’s third group —the politicians, environmentalists, and media who each have their own reasons – money, power, and religious devotion – to promote a catastrophic scenario.
There is actually a fourth group that Lindzen describes as scientists outside of climate physics who have jumped on the bandwagon, publishing papers blaming global warming for everything from acne to the Syrian civil war. And crony capitalists who have eagerly grabbed for the subsidies mostly for “green” energy technologies, that governments continue to lavishly provide.
The latest skirmish in the war against crony capitalists was waged this past week when a group of renewable-energy advocates attempted to have “green” tax breaks attached to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization bill (H.R. 636) working its way through the Senate. Claiming the provisions were inadvertently left off last year’s Omnibus spending bill, the tax subsidies were for geothermal heat pumps, clean-energy manufacturing facilities and fuel cells.* These were a perfect illustration of what Lindzen was talking about.
Some thirty groups, including the Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) asking that expiring renewable energy subsidies not be attached to a must-pass reauthorization of the FAA. Our letter argued that “green pork” provisions were not germane to the authorization bill, and favorable tax treatment had already been extended to renewable energy producers in the past. In the end, the provisions were dropped from the bill.
Energy production in America should be based on the free market, not artificially propped up in ways that mask the real cost to the consumer and the taxpayer. With the country’s national debt topping $19.2 trillion, it is unconscionable that the President will soon sign the UN Framework on Climate Change negotiated in Paris last December. A key provision of this agreement is providing $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to increase funding in the future. Spending money we have to borrow is another form of international cronyism. In this case, it is money down the drain.
Yes, I saw that video. So, you’ve found a climate denier, whose ideas lie on a distant fringe of the scientific community. They are rare, but they DO exist. I happen to know this guy very well because he’s the one most commonly dug up by the deniers.
Anyone interested in understanding the truth here should look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU. Warning: it’s presented in a very hip way that may it appear “unacademic,” but the data points forming the argument for climate disruption are sound and laid out very clearly. This, fwiw, is what the vast majority of climate scientists believe.
Craig,
I think the point of the article you missed, is that when climate advocates label everyone who disagrees, or even questions, claims made climate advocates, “deniers” and subject any doubters to vitriolic opprobrium, those fanatical advocates alienate moderate majority.
That’s a problem with passionate advocacy. Advocates often find themselves so caught up in the crusade, they lose objectivity and become deluded that the idea’s held by their small group represents the majority. The process that began with an interesting theory, becomes turned by propaganda into a manifesto eventually converting to dogma.
As the crusade gathers momentum and campaign success, the most ardent advocates create a new, and fanatical religion for followers.
This is a well observed phenomenon in the human psyche.
As every crusade discovers, counter-movements appear to challenge the dogma. The momentum for these counter-movements gathers strength from the fanaticism of it’s opponents.
Climate skeptics gain little publicly or credibility challenging moderate, objective scientists and environmentalists. The oxygen they seek is the fanatic, the ill-informed passionate climate change advocate, the extremist “true believer”.
The “green” movement has always had “crony capitalists” exploiting environmental concerns to stick their noses in the public trough. The “green” movement also attracts people with failed political agenda’s that can be reinvented as “environmental”.
This is fertile ground climate skeptics. Seeking out and exposing the hypocrisy, incompetence and inaccuracies of climate extremists is the best method of undermining public perception. of climate science.
The seeds of doubt can be sown among young ‘green” supporters, safe in the knowledge that as young green supporters grow older,become more economically aware, and politically conservative, they start to become more critical of early idealism.
Which is why I advocate a more moderate, practical approach.
IMO, advanced technology is the key to environmental progress. Technology is an area which all citizens can understand and witness the benefits.
However, the technology must be responsible, practical ( actually work), and not prove impossibly disruptive.
Gaining the trust of the centre majority is the essential key to achieving real change. Change must come by evolution, not a disruptive “revolution” that destroys more that it accomplishes.
I’m aware that climate deniers are subjected to “verbal opprobrium.” In fact, I’ve been known to throw a little their way myself.
I’m not sure that’s a bad thing though; their position weakens our civilization’s capacity to defend itself. Hardly something to be praised.
Craig,
I’m not sure any sincere person deserves “opprobrium” for daring to raise a voice of dissent.
However, that wasn’t my point. my point was that such vicious opprobrium only alienates the very people upon whose support alternate energy depends.
Therefore advocates employing such tactics are counter-productive.
Clearly it depends on what one is dissenting about.
Reporter Kate Abbey-Lambertz has penned a ridiculous and dangerous article here – which is an unfortunate waste of her talents, because in my estimation, the world is a better place for having Kate amongst us along with the many like her who demonstrate high passion and interest in the modern and rapidly evolving technological era we are in.
However those admirable qualities are often not put to practical use – and can often be totally negated and wasted with drivel like this article of Kate’s being put into the global public domain.
Sorry Kate, you are totally off mark with your article. The most unfortunate thing about the whole process for Kate though, is that she has demonstrated that she wants to genuinely be an active player in this historic period of global energy technology development around her, but because of her lack of expertise in fact, she has through her ill-considered writings become a part of the problem rather than the solution.
Sorry Kate, my experience and professional detachment tells me that your article is dangerous and irrelevant. On a personal note though I admire and respect your interest and passion.
Kate you will look back in time on the global energy technology era of 2005 – 2025 and proudly remind your grandchildren that you had a voice and made positive contributions that counted during this era, but you will require some very creative “photo-shopping” of your contributions in order to convince them that you were in fact on the right side of the debate.
Keep up your hard work though, but apply more meaningful and professional rigour to your thinking please Kate.
Lawrence Coomber