Comments greenthinker has made

  • Read the story

    If you read the text, one sees that Bush agreed to no such thing; that is the point of the story. And I quote,

    "Group of Eight leaders on Thursday agreed on a plan calling for "substantial cuts" to greenhouse gas emissions, but the compromise with President Bush left France's leader wishing a stronger stand had been taken.

    The leaders failed to overcome U.S. resistance to committing to specific numerical targets to curb global warming, but did refer to the European Union goal of cutting emissions by 50 percent by 2050."

    Bush agreed to substantial cuts (whatever that means) but would not agree to a numerical target. Hence, he did not agree to a 50% reduction by 2050, the EU did.On Will the media give McCain a free ride on climate? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 7 Responses

  • Bailo's BS

    Dear Bailo,

    You are a very prolific contrarian here on Grist. Being charitable, I assume that you are well read with respect to the global climate change literature. Surely internalized the most elementary difference between predictions of weather and climate. Predicting the weather on a given day and predicting a seasonal average are clearly different in their accuracy. Skepticism about the former is completely different from skepticism about the latter. But I am sure you know all of this...right? On Global warming will spawn severe storms and tornados, reports NASA posted 2 years, 3 months ago 12 Responses

  • Btw

    It should be noted that this site does not include all the relevant information about candidates. For example, it does not include recent information on Bill Richardson's climate plan.

    -Jay OdenbaughOn A guide to their positions posted 2 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

  • Be serious...

    ...and really think about what you are saying. First, presumably you know how GCMs work. First, given that they make predictions about summary statistics like average surface temperature (as you note), they cannot say anything about a specific zipcode. Second,  simulations of those models make predictions at best over large scale areas or regions.

    To have the information you request would be nice, but that just isn't the resolution at which those models work. To ask you question of them is like asking a screwdiver to hammer in a nail.

    Jay OdenbaughOn More debunkery of everyone's favorite fiction writer posted 2 years, 6 months ago 11 Responses

  • In my experience...

    people rarely understand the relevant climate science that they talk about. Ask your typical environmentalist or skeptic what are the basic components of a GCM and you will get a blank stare. Ask them whether we have good evidence that Hurricane Katrina is a result of GW and you will get  incorrect answers. Thus, talking about the basic science is an important thing for people to do here and elsewhere - it serves a pedagogical purpose.

    Likewise, if Gristmill prevents skeptics from responding they are insulating the discussions and preventing an important function from being served. John Stuart Mill argued one of the virtues of free speech is that it brings intellectual honesty - your views have to be defended and this is important.

    One practical suggestion is to label the subjects of the discussions to highlight whether they are about the basic science or what we should do about AGW. Those who doubt the former by definition should be disinterested in the latter.

    Finally, for those that accept that AGW is occurring does not entail that everyone agrees about how serious the effects with be nor what we should do about it. Consensus does not mean homogeneity.  On Churchill, not Chamberlain posted 2 years, 6 months ago 58 Responses

  • incoherence

    David,

    I find the poll problematic as well. However, strictly speaking the NC Republicans need not be inconsistent. You write,

    "But that position is logically incoherent. If human-emitted CO2 isn't causing the problem, why would reducing human CO2 emissions solve the problem? Why support a massive retrofitting of the American economy if the present economy isn't a problem?"

    They believe that global warming is a serious problem for presumably all the obvious reasons. However, the poll results say "54 percent of Republicans think shifting to cleaner energy will help the economy." They could accept this as true but also accept that reducing CO2 emissions would be ineffectual since they believe the warming is due to "natural cycles". It seems that if one really believed that global warming is a problem and it is not due to GHG emissions, then the course of action would be adaptation and not mitigation. Switching to cleaner energy would just be in our national economic interest independent of GW.

    It is bizarre position for lots of reasons but it is internally coherent.On If we aren't causing it, why would reducing emissions fix it? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 9 Responses

  • morality of adaptation versus mitigation

    I agree that adaptation is more beneficial to the US than mitigation provided that the local benefits of the former are greater than the latter. However, this is to ignore the costs. The US has about 5% of the world's population and we emit approximately 20% of the worlds CO2 - this is insanely inequitable. Moreover, if as some project the effects of anthropogenic climate change create serious resource scarcities which can enrage the developing world, then we will find anti-US sentiment growing intensely. Hence, we should expect greater levels of terrorism and counterinsurgence. All this being said, the benefits of adaptation versus mitigation could be be great but the costs of adaptation versus mitigation could count in the favor of mitigation. On Come gaze at your navel for a while posted 2 years, 8 months ago 17 Responses