by Andrew Dessler

Posted 1 year, 4 months ago From Deltoid, Tim Lambert provides this exchange between Tim Flannery (climate realist) and Adam Shand (climate skeptic) from an Australian TV show:

Tim Flannery: No one can predict the weather three months ahead, that's absolutely true. But if I asked you if January next year was likely to be warmer than June this year, what would you say?

Adam Shand: I'd have no idea!

TF: You'd say yes because that's what we always see. Summers are warmer than winter. And in terms of predicting general global trends, that exactly the sort of science that we're doing. It's not… Read More

Posted 1 year, 4 months ago The Washington Post embarrasses itself today by publishing the usual delayer drivel in an op-ed by Bjorn Lomborg.

The fundamental problem with Lomborg's argument (which he also makes in his recent book Cool It!) is that it is based on the assumption that the worst-case, climate-change scenario cannot happen.

The IPCC's predictions for climate change over the next hundred years range from about 2°C to 5°C. If you assume that the warming will be closer to 2° than 5°, which Lomborg does, then it certainly does reduce the pressure to act immediately on climate change. No doubt… Read More

Posted 1 year, 4 months ago Here is what I would like the next president to tell the American people:

1. The era of cheap energy is over. We will never again see cheap gas, and we can expect the price of electricity to rise inexorably.
2. In order for the United States to survive, we need to rebuild our energy infrastructure.
3. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we need to implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. This is a national security issue.
4. We need a Manhattan-style government-funded project to develop new forms of renewable energy. We should be spending several… Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago Op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman. Reads like a Grist post. Go figure. Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago I have been reading Sean Casten's post on the economics of carbon pricing with interest. After some thought, here's my take. A carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system will, without question, raise the price of energy, at least in the short term. In the long-term, it may well be that technological developments lead us to new energy sources that turn out to be cheaper than anything we have today. But that's pure speculation.

But in the short term, the costs of a carbon tax or the costs of permits in a cap-and-trade system will follow the energy through the… Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago For those interested in temperature reconstructions of past climates, in particular the kerfuffle over the hockey stick, I recently found a pretty good website. It contains a load of useful information, some of which I did not know. For example, consider this famous plot from the IPCC's First Assessment Report:

Skeptics have used this plot to argue that today's warmth cannot be caused by humans because it was warmer one thousand years ago. The website does a good job of laying out the history behind the plot. For example, I… Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago Robert F. Kennedy, 1968:

We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and… Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago George Will is at it again. His latest bit of inane demagoguery can be found here, in which he excoriates everyone who has ever opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

Also disqualified from complaining [about oil prices] are all voters who sent to Washington senators and representatives who have voted to keep ANWR's oil in the ground and who voted to put 85 percent of America's offshore territory off-limits to drilling.

Naturally, Will ignores the flip side of the coin. What about people who have opposed investing in renewable energy, increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars, or… Read More

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago I recently found a pretty good NYT Magazine article on oil production. It's definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than as a reminder of how much things have changed since the article was written in 2005. For example, on page 1 comes the quaint statement:

If consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels.

Yes ... yes it could. Here's another one: Read More

Posted 1 year, 6 months ago One of the consistent claims made by those opposed to policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is that the cost will be prohibitive. I have always been somewhat suspicious of this claim, however. When I started graduate school in 1988, the Montreal Protocol had just been signed. It required industrialized countries to significantly reduce the production of chlorofluorocarbons within a decade or so (the exact schedule of production reduction depended on the particular molecule).

At the time, there were all sorts of apocalyptic claims being made about the costs and impacts of the Montreal Protocol: It will bankrupt us, it will… Read More