And as the article points out
Environmentalists have often addressed this challenge by pointing out that a transition to clean energy would create far more jobs than it would eliminate. While that may be true, it entirely misses the point. The fact that some people get new jobs provides little solace for the people and communities who have lost theirs
The article proposes some solutions, one ironically proposed by John McCain regarding tobacco workers displaced by efforts to reduce smoking
McCain’s 1997 Universal Tobacco Settlement Act passed out of committee nineteen-to-one but was defeated on the Senate floor. Workers and farmers would have received transition assistance from the fund if “the implementation of the national tobacco settlement contributed importantly to such workers’ separation” from their jobs. Looking ahead to the next generation, the bill also provided education benefits to members of a “tobacco farm family.”
A similar program should be developed for workers who lose their jobs because of climate protection policies.
The article points out that the original ACES bill
is 648 pages long. But Section 424 on “Worker Transition” has only three words: “to be supplied.”
Does anyone know if anything interesting “was supplied?”
or oil drilled, etc etc there are direct renewable energy opportunities (solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal). In every single place there are opportunities to improve energy efficiency in buildings. In every single place there are opportunities for local agriculture.
<
p>It’s true that not every coal miner can become a solar panel installer. But the economy has never guaranteed for every job, and the fact is that the status quo is causing all kinds of harm. How many people can’t work at 100% because of respiratory problems caused or exacerbated by emissions from coal fired power plants or autos? How many tourism jobs don’t exist because West Virginia hilltops are hideous due to the open mining? These examples are certainly more distributed and more tenuous and more difficult to measure, but no less real.
transitional assistance for workers displaced by the changes you’re advocating for. I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here, but the implication that the market will somehow take care of this is naive at best.
<
p>If you want to get the United Mine Workers on the side of renewable energy, your plan better do more than kill off a union with an enormous cultural legacy and replace the jobs with solar panel installers or hotel clerks making half as much.
<
p>I’ve been to union rallies where “latte drinking, arm chair liberals” are derided with the same venom as anti worker politicians and whether it’s some banker in a suit, some boss behind a desk or some academic getting out of their Prius, the person who’s calling for YOUR job to be eliminated is hard to support.
<
p>
and in fact I pointed out that unlike jobs which extract or manipulate a site-specific natural resource, there are green job opportunities everywhere — which means that anywhere “brown” jobs are lost, there is an opportunity to transition to green jobs.
<
p>Just as I care about the coal miner losing his job, I care about the kid with asthma who’s health is worsened by the coal. Let’s do what needs to be done to improve the health of the kid and ensure the coal miner has real job opportunities.
and in fact I pointed out that unlike jobs which extract or manipulate a site-specific natural resource, there are green job opportunities everywhere — which means that anywhere “brown” jobs are lost, there is an opportunity to transition to green jobs.
<
p>Just as I care about the coal miner losing his job, I care about the kid with asthma who’s health is worsened by the coal. Let’s do what needs to be done to improve the health of the kid and ensure the coal miner has real job opportunities.
Which was my only real point. Move every coal miner to a tourism related job or solar panel installer (which is in reality a entry level construction job that probably pays 10-12 bucks and hour in Boston and probably less in WV) and their standard of living drops.
<
p>I’m in total agreement with you regarding the need to address both issues, but your line about green job opportunities assumes that the market will fix this. It won’t.
<
p>My comment was mostly to urge us to be conscientious in framing our arguments. If you start an argument with the notion that
then what you’re really saying to coal miners is some of you will have no job, but some of you will get a job that pays much worse than what you do now. Framing the debate this way puts folks like UMW members on the same side as business interests, that isn’t how we move to a renewable energy economy or cement a Green/Red alliance.
… is to offer choices for transitions (within reason… not all transitional training would cost the same).
you’ll never find one. I certainly won’t claim it’s possible, nor will I claim we should have such a thing. The Fed has done all kinds of things that have put the squeeze on some jobs while creating others. We’ve created public fire departments, putting private ones out of business. Paving roads was great for car manufacturers, at the cost of business for saddle makers. Electrification is good for GE refrigerator makers, not so good for those who sell big blocks of ice for cooling. In all of those cases some people working for a shrinking industry got jobs that were better, some people got jobs that were worse, some just went on the dole.
<
p>Make no mistake, the transition from coal will be no different.
<
p>We can (and should) try to help those with the old-school jobs find new good jobs. But, they won’t all be qualified, and they won’t all live in the right place. Like all transitions, some will do better, some about the same, some worse. There are about 81,000 people employed by the coal mining industry (EIA), out of about 135,000,000 non-farm jobs in the US (0.06%, or one out of every seventeen hundred people). Of those 81,000, only two states had more than 8,000 employees: Kentucky (17k of 4.3 million citizens) and West Virginia (20k of 1.8 million citizens). In Congress, KY and WV have a combined 9 House seats are (5 GOP), and 4 US Senate seats (2 GOP). So arguing that we can’t push forward on reducing our use of coal to get the GOP votes is nonsense — no way in hell those GOPers will vote for any greenie legislation. Pushing to get Byrd, Rockefeller, Yarmuth, Chandler, Mollohan, and Rahall? All four House members voted for Waxman-Markey. Byrd and Rockefeller are still unanswered questions. The numbers show that arguing against this bill because of the coal miners, because only two states have more than 8,000 jobs in mining. Will those two states suffer disproportionately if there isn’t significant government assistance? Perhaps. Have they benefited disproportionately because the pollution caused by coal mining and coal burning is suffered by the rest of the country? Certainly. Of course there’s been tremendous harm put on other people in WV, KY, and elsewhere due to the mining itself, but somehow that never makes it into the equation either.
<
p>Finally, keep in mind that W-M won’t instantly put 100% of the industry out of work. Heck, if the industry shrunk by 10% of it’s current size each year for 10 years that would be an amazing, Apollo-like effort, and would require the state with the highest percent of coal miners, West Virginia (920,000 jobs) to absorb 2,000 more each year. Again, that’s in insanely fast reduction of coal in the most coal-job-dependent state, and it’s a 0.2% increase in unemployment each year, not considering the impact that adding green jobs will have on the economy.
<
p>To recap
1. There aren’t that many people employed as coal miners
2. There are only significant numbers in two states.
3. All (D) House members from those two states voted for W-M.
4. Even at an extremely aggressive coal reduction pace, the most coal-dependent-economy (WV) would have to absorb an additional 0.2% unemployment increase per year, because only 2% of West Virginians are coal miners.
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>My “line” states nor assumes any such thing. The market doesn’t behave well on it’s own w.r.t. detrimental externalities, which is what this discussion is all about. Kentucky already gets $1.51 for every dollar it pays in Federal taxes, West Virginia $1.76 (2005 numbers here). I have no fear that their cries for help will fall on a deaf government ear.
<
p>
<
p>and some will get jobs which pay more. That’s all true. Know who else will lose jobs? Environmental cleanup firms. Smokestack scrubber manufacturing firms. Coal industry Washington lobbyists. What’s also true is that employment will also be created for non-miners, be they in construction trades, manufacturing trades, engineering trades, legal/real estate trades, and so forth. What’s also true is that mountaintops will remain mountaintops instead of becoming plateaus, and hollars and rivers will remain such instead of becoming places to dump rock. We’ll all breathe easier, our views will be less hazy, our water have less mercury and arsenic in it, and our atmosphere less susceptible to climate change.
<
p>To try to tailor W-M or spin it to be a Pareto improvement is lunacy or lying. Some people will suffer a significant net loss, some a significant net improvement. Most of us will fall into neither category; instead, the vast majority will gain a slight improvement in the near term (cleaner air) and an improvement in the longer term that’s harder to scale (less chance of runaway climate change) at a slight increase in our costs due to energy price increases in the near-term because of the higher capital cost of wind or solar, though lower operating costs may result in a cheaper long-term price for energy than we’d have seen otherwise.
<
p>
<
p>P.S. No union electrical job only pays $10-$12 an hour. IBEW employees installing panels make more than that. Union pipefitters, welders, pile drivers, machinists, carpenters, teamsters, and the like associated with solar and wind all make more than $10-$12/hr. The (non-union) engineers do too, as do the bankers, and lawyers.
Agreed that the important thing is to stop climate change, and not to insist that no one suffer any negative effects in the process.
<
p>But,as dhammer says, how arguments are framed matters. Not just in Kentucky and W. Va, but throughout the country it matters how workers perceive the issue.
<
p>To make progress on climate change and other important environmental issues we’re going to need labor to be part of the coalition.
<
p>And,beyond organized labor, we need to project positively to people who identify as “average working people” and maybe not as environmentalists. People who expect that somehow in the end they end up paying for decisions that other people make.
<
p>And that means doing something meaningful to minimize the negative impact on workers.
I’m not looking for a person by person transition of equal value, I’m looking for a bill that is going to do a great deal of good for everyone, but also a great deal of harm for a small group, to have more than “to be supplied.” in it. As I said in my post, I’m mostly concerned about how we frame our conversations so as to build an environmental movement that doesn’t alienate organized labor or non-union workers in extractive industries. The missing text of this bill cuts to the heart of the problem – it’s hard to transition an economy without harming people, but we’ve got to try, when we put it off, we’re not trying hard enough.
<
p>If you read Joe Uehlein’s article, you’ll find that he supports the bill, but is concerned about the policy implications of not providing adequate transitional support. He puts forward specific recommendations to support an adequate transition. I took your original post to imply (possibly incorrectly) that you felt this was unnecessary. Your subsequent posts have put forward that you do support the idea, but when you get into details, it all sounds very market driven
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>
Okay, the last one is not strictly market driven, but I take your meaning to be that the missing transitional assistance will get worked out – except for all the additional money going to Kentucky and WV, poverty rates, lack of education, health insurance are huge problems. People get more money in WV and Kentucky than they pay out because they’re poor, some of them really, really poor. This reasoning, however true, isn’t going to win you any friends among union members in the mid-west.
<
p>Finally, your point about many of these jobs being well paid union positions isn’t likely to be true.
It’s a misconception that jobs associated with solar panel installation are union. Construction unions, with rare exception, have no density in residential construction, the folks working on houses, don’t have union cards.
<
p>So yes, some of these jobs will be “heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration mechanics and installers” with a wage range of $14.12 to $23.32 an hour for the middle 50% (and a median wage of $18 and the bottom 10% under $12 and a union density of 14%) but others will be “helpers-electricians” with a median wage of just under $13 and the bottom 10% below $9.
What a terrible label, right there.
Both from the jobs lost in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other industries directly impacted by climate change and from the tremendous transfer of wealth and damage to our economy and workers’ standard of living if we continue to depend on importing oil as global demand and prices rise.
<
p>
When the introduction of a new technology or the disappearance of an old need causes workers to lose their jobs, we have what economists sometimes call “churn”. The market is supposed to shift around so that labor is available for the best opportunities. Your garden variety libertarian conservative can be counted on to express contempt for those still working on buggies (their favorite metaphor).
<
p>I guess when planetary need, rather than market conditions, causes churn suddenly, suddenly these formerly tough-hearted libertarian conservatives get all melty and weepy.
<
p>Give me a break.
<
p>Here we have why liberals push for a welfare state: to ameliorate the dislocations caused by churn. For us, it doesn’t matter what had a hand in causing it.
The market isn’t there yet. Just as it isn’t there for organic milk.
<
p>It has always been private investors who have taken the financial risk to develop the technology and the market.
<
p>That your refer to “planetary need” is indication that the motivation isn’t from market conditions.
<
p>It would be refreshing to government live under the same rules they want to impose on private industry. Imagine the power of actually demonstrating how they reduced their own emissions. In my town, we can’t even get the schools to replace the lightbulbs and turn off said lightbulbs without the pols saying “we have to talk it over with the union.”
May I introduce you to the notion of the Tragedy of the Commons? Dweir, this Tragedy of the Commons. Tragedy of the Commons, this is dweir, a long-time commenter here with a new political affiliation.
<
p>”Pleased to meet you, dweir. I’m a well-known economic phenomenon. How are you doing? Are you enjoying your new political affiliation?”
<
p>Things like stopping global warming are unlikely to ever arise out of demand. Isn’t that true, Tragedy of the Commons?
<
p>”Why yes it is, KBusch. That sort of problem is my specialty.”
And yes, sometimes, this side of Paradise, it takes a while to get stuff done.
The common may become insufficient because of farmer overgrazing. Or it might become insufficient as the population of the town increased. In either case, the farmers would recognize the need for a new common before that happened. If they didn’t, I guess they’d fall in the same category as buggy makers.
<
p>But back to the topic at hand, if the earth is in peril and planting trees will save it, then cut to the chase and plant trees. Why bother with offsets? Ditto on investment in alternative energy, if that’s what you think it takes. The bill seems like an unnecessary song and dance.
<
p>Moreover, it misses an important role of government, and that is as the primary customer. There might not be a strong private market for “green” construction for example, but if government started requiring energy efficiency standards in all public building projects, you’d have an instant market.
<
p>And just like the early iPhones were way more expensive than the latest ones, the government would be the “early customer” providing much needed capital and real world application to the private industries that will develop these technologies. Costs come down. Quality improves. You then have a better chance of developing demand in the private market which will sustain the industry.
<
p>You said: “Things like stopping global warming are unlikely to ever arise out of demand.” I disagree. We have demand now. It’s just not primarily market-driven.
<
p>
Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse spends a lot of time in Polynesia. All those little islands in the Pacific are like so many little experiments in survival. The Easter Island failed. Tikopia succeeded.
<
p>Your wise farmers, may they prosper, did not inhabit Easter Island. Someone cut down the last tree there. With the loss of trees, came a loss of mobility, reduced ability to fish, and agricultural problems due to wind. The population saw a sharp decline. They failed.
<
p>Around 1600, the inhabitants of Tikopia (p. 292) realized that their population level and lifestyle were unsustainable. They took the radical step of killing every pig on the island. They also instituted a significant birth control regimen. They survived.
<
p>Or put differently, their regulations saved them.
The goal is a global reduction in greenhouse gasses and it doesn’t matter how that’s done. The alternative to cap and trade is either an across the board mandated reduction or some kind of complicated formula whereby each industry has a different target.
<
p>The motivation behind cap and trade is to let the market find the most efficient means of an overall systemic reduction. Today regulators might ask Smoke Stacks A and Smoke Stacks B to both reduce by 10%. What happens next year, when some technology firm finds a way to affordably reduce B by 50%? Cap and trade gives an incentive for every Smoke Stack B to reduce. An across the board mandate would only get a fifth of the Smoke Stacks B to reduce.
<
p>This lets the market take care of inefficiencies.
If the notion that government is somehow inferior in all ways to private business in both the development and implementation of products and ideas would stop being repeated without any basis in fact.
except in the cases of:
Canals (where states and localities took all the financial risk) or;
Railroads (where the state subsidized the risk of private investors by handing millions of acres and the power of eminent domain over to private enterprise) or;
Computing (where government developed computer technology to track weather and small enough computers to fit onto a spaceship) or;
The Internet (where the government built the first networked computer system) or;
The University System (where the government subsidizes millions – if not billions – of dollars in research, overhead costs and tuition without which much of your precious private industry wouldn’t even exist) or;
Space Ships (where the Soviet Union beat the US from 1957 to 1969 in every milestone until the moon walk).
<
p>
&hellip brought to you by wise spending of government funds on DARPA projects.
Titles don’t take HTML entities. But you can paste real ellipses into them.
Perhaps you misread my comment. I did not say that government is inferior in the development and implementation of products and ideas. I said that private investors always take the financial risk.
<
p>The government doesn’t dissolve as a result of bad investments. It can raise or print more money to the point where it is difficult to imagine it becoming insolvent. There are certainly many private interests that are well-served by taking advantage of the absence of financial risk in government spending.
<
p>In your list, you make it seem as if these items were 100% government projects. None of them were/are.
<
p>But what happens when the government keeps an industry or company afloat when there is no market? Take Amtrak for example. Not much financial risk for the company and no incentive for improvement (as would come from competition). If the politicians required private citizens and corporations to take the more expensive train as opposed to the cheap flight, but they themselves continued to fly on their private jets, that would be frustrating, no?
<
p>Sometimes big changes need impetus from the government. I’m only saying that it would be preferable to lead from example.
Consider that if a private company was awarded a government contract for some “green” product, it would drive competition in the market, improve quality (or at least choice), and lead to lower prices for the rest of us.
<
p>
<
p>I’m tired of this shtick. There’s tremendous incentive for improvement — the investors (gov’t) and the managers want it to be successful for reasons having nothing to do with profit. They believe that America is stronger with good rail transit so they work for it. The fact is that Amtrak stagnated because the GOP refused to properly fund it arguing “privatization” while never arguing for a private interstate at the Federal level (some GOP governors flirted with or made that jump). Now that the Dems control the purse strings, they’ve put some real money into capital projects which will improve Amtrak QoS. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
<
p>
<
p>P.S. State and local government is responsible for less than 5% of America’s carbon footprint. Federal government has amazing requirements in place for all buildings by 2015 (and even tougher for 2030), and will cut program’s funding if they don’t make it, and all new US military buildings on US soil must be LEED certifiable. The problem isn’t early adopter technology — the problem is that many building owners are myopic or suffer from split incentives. I agree that gov’t should lead the way, but don’t be fooled into thinking that US gov’t purchasing power is enough to push the market into action. It’s going to take tax/regulation.
… planetary needs don’t exist?
I mean one that really reaches out to affected families, not just invisible handwaving.
<
p>Moving away form this dirty, expensive (count those social costs, please), inefficient stuff will save trillions of dollars. No question that Congress could divert a tiny fraction of that to affected workers.
<
p>I’m still trying to learn what was or wasn’t in the bill.
Just say for the sake of arguement that global warming, so called, is actually the consequence of paradoxical siderial occurrences or something intrinsic to planet earth. All of the American workers who some will cavalierly throw onto the refuse heap of throwaway workers as the consequence of green industires (so called). The broken familes, fragmented households, displaced children.
Quite a burden to bear if this turns out to be bullshit—
Playing hypotheticals on the other side: there’s strong evidence for two things:
As climate change plays out in the next twenty years, this will give Republicans popularity somewhere between that of athlete’s foot and lice.
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>
And here I thought I was being too graphic.
????
Stomv was illustrating my quip
this will give Republicans popularity somewhere between that of athlete’s foot and lice.
by giving you pictures of the three things involved: (1) athlete’s foot, (2) Republicans, and (3) lice.
I’m really thankful for your identification of (1). Reminded me of a filmstrip my cousin stole from his WW II basic training.
coldest months of June, if not the coldest, on record. K, you have to just consider the possiblility that it will be social engineers (Dems) who come out looking foolish and inept. There are many of us, as you know, who still don’t buy the new Mother Earth Religion.
Noisy series like temperature will do that. I refer you to this post particularly the graph.
<
p>This was precisely the reason, by the way, that researchers were very careful with hurricane data. Katrina, by itself, proved nothing about hurricanes becoming more severe.
<
p>There are three kinds of opponents here: those who deny global warming, those who deny that global warming is caused by humans, and those who deny we can do anything about it. Some members of the first group like to pick out cold or snowy days and say “See! It’s not happening!” Some members of the same group will say, “Look your extrapolating from too small a base of data.”
<
p>I wish that group would choose one methodology or the other.
how anyone can be so sure one way or the other. Not all researchers were that careful with hurricane data, and you would have to agree that there are some hucksters on your side of the argument, as well. As a survivor of Hurricane Carol in 1954 (and several others in the fifties and early sixties) I found nothing but humor in some of those weather prognoses of the alarmists.
As a NewEnglandite you know that our weather is just that: a succession of mini-trends.
Even noisy series have trend lines. A hot day in April and a cold week in June do not mean that the weather has gone into reverse.
Do you conclude from the weather that autumn will begin in July? Are you scheduling your foliage tours a few weeks from today?
<
p>Answer: probably you aren’t.
<
p>Why is that? The answer is that arriving at the prediction of autumn in July involves a misuse of data and an over-reliance on mini-trends.
Why, indeed, are we getting these cold months if we are on the road to boiling temperatures? I live real close to the ocean and haven’t seen one inch of ocean rise on the landmarks which I remember as a child.(I thought that melting icebergs were going to flood us out?) I am not saying that autumn will begin in July, only that there are too many observable phenomena for me that rebut any kind of global warming. We won’t change anyone’s thinking on this subject, including our own, but I think a little bit of skepticism is necessary, regardless of which side one takes.
That’s the point about noisy trends. The average can move up while lots of low values still occur. If I’m not mistaken, one of the predictions of climate models is greater variability. That means the upward trending zigzags can zig low and zag high.
<
p>Like all statistical questions, this is a matter of not taking care with salient anecdotes.
<
p>I don’t think you’re following the logic of my example at all. Maybe this restatement will help: Saying a cold June contradicts the evidence for global warming is like saying a cold June contradicts the evidence for summer: it overweights a salient fact.
You are covering all possibilties with such a statement. Another one you cited: “One of the predictions of climate models is greater variability.” With all due respect, K, you sound like one of those mind readers who used to work the Ed Sullivan Show. Nothing in the history of the world has been more variable than the climate.
Part of how I’ve earned my living these many years has required an ever more intimate familiarity with statistics. There really are occasions where one can have an accurate estimate of the mean of a probability distribution where that distribution also has a largish standard deviation.
<
p>This is intuitive to those who work with such things. To those who don’t, it’s probably surprising.
… and trends are not mutually exclusive.
first of all, global warming is a global phenomenon. The data is global temperature. A cold June in Massachusetts is in no way indicative of a global temperature in June — making your observation as useful as finding a grasshopper in your entryway and concluding the locusts are going to pull a march to the sea consuming everything in sight.
<
p>secondly, a month’s data can’t be a trend in the context of climate change. It is, by definition, merely noise. This works in both ways — if June’s data showed a 0.25 deg C increase over the recent data, it would prove nothing. Temperature data within the context of climate change must be looked at years at a time.
<
p>finally, no scientist has made the claim that Massachusetts is destined for “boiling temperatures”. It’s not even clear that Massachusetts will have a higher mean summer, winter, or year-round temperature should climate change really kick in. Again, the issue is global average temperature increasing, not our specific spec on the planet’s surface increasing temperature.
in Chicago, and the Dakotas have had June snowstorms for the first time since records have been kept. Maybe it’s not a grasshopper in my doorway. And haven’t there been some errors and miscalculations of “global temperatures” during the late 90’s?
It’s my understanding that although global warming may be the measurable phenomenon that is causing changes, the climate change that results will affect climate differently in different parts of the world. Some parts will get colder, some warmer.
<
p>Which is not to say that one person’s personal observations of the data they can see by looking around can establish a scientific fact on a global level.
Of course, I am being cynical now, but what happened to those poor little polar bears, the flooded Asian lowlands, the deserts of mid-america, the tropical jungle in Western Siberia? Gee, I sure missed a lot when I decided to watch that movie on demand on Comcast. (Though I must admit that “Devil wears Prada” was one of the best that I have seen in a while.
but I’ll use data to observe that the average temperature in June 2009 is about 0.3F warmer than it was in June 2008 at ch04 (surface layer). Hey lookie — data, not anecdotes.
<
p>Click on “draw graph” on the bottom, leftish part of the page. I can’t link directly to the page because it’s generated dynamically; you’ll have to do that much yourself.
<
p>Once you do that, you have three choices:
1. Admit that your anecdotes don’t make good science
2. Come up with some other reason why this is all crazy, a reason free of science, data, or consensus, or
3. Just pretend like you didn’t see it and not comment on it.
<
p>I’m naively hoping for (1).
But I’m not really seeing any conclusive data. Check all the boxes and review the result. There seems to be cooling and warming, all within a very tight standard deviation over the prior 20 years. But, it is a very cool graph.
But thanks for choosing (2). The data I showed was to point out that Edgarthearmenian’s anecdotal evidence that June 2009 was cool is, in fact, wrong.
<
p>Climate change, on a year to year basis is slow. More importantly, the variance (weather) is relatively high.
<
p>That means that in any given year the result can be a reduction even if the mean is trending higher. In fact, it looks a lot like the stock market from 1950 – 2000, but squished down so that the difference between the beginning and the end is only a few degrees Celsius. You can still find small and large dips, and if you look closely you won’t see a trend at all, a rising trend, a lowering trend, a plateau. Still, step far enough away and you’ll see the upward trend. sabutai has posted those charts many times, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you (gary) have seen them.
<
p>
<
p>Really, this head-in-the-sand refuse to honestly try to learn crap is so so old.
P(A): prob of that global warming has recently occurred.
P(B): prob that global warming will continue
P(C): prob that man caused it
P(D): prob that cutting CO2 will prevent it
P(E): prob that we can actually reduce C02 with legislation, technology, etc.
P(F): prob that the cost of reducing CO2 actually has a net cost benefit.
<
p>Heck, for all we know, we’re at peak oil, and from now on out manmade CO2 is doomed to be reduced because there’s less and less stuff to burn.
<
p>Once you get past P(A), it’s all pretty much unknowable with any certainty, and therefore unquantifiable. Certainly, P(F) is totally unknown. We’re left with the liberal lament: “But, we have to do something! Think of the children who haven’t been born yet.” (aside: we must abort them to save them from global warming) Global Warming, is a great political boondoggle: a catchy sound bit that can’t be proved or disproved, but rather easily used, on either side, for political gain.
In no way is climate change probabilistic. It is or it isn’t. You can write about certainty, confidence intervals, and the like… but your P(alphabet) is pure misapplication of mathematics.
<
p>P(A) == 1 or 0 (I don’t know which)
P(B) == 1 or 0 (I don’t know which)
P(C) is illformed
P(D) is illformed
P(E) == 1 trivially
P(F) == 1 or 0 (depending on implementation)
<
p>Note that I use know in the mathematical sense, like I know that pi is irrational, 2 is the only even prime, 1 serves as the unique multiplicative identity, and QQ^T = I <==> the rows of Q are othonormal.
<
p>The fact is that there is overwhelming evidence that P(A) == 1 and P(B) == 1. P(C) is illformed because we know that man’s actions are contributing to the problem but aren’t the sole contributor. P(D) is illformed because prevention is entirely the wrong word. Mitigate might be a better choice. P(E) is certainly 1 if “we” is mankind. We could simply shut down all power plants, natural gas pipelines, and oil refineries. Man-caused CO_2 output would plummet. I’m not arguing that we should take this approach, merely pointing out that P(E) == 1 because there does exist an approach. P(F) is 1 or 0 and it depends entirely on implementation.
It will rain tomorrow, or it won’t, yet weathermen assign a probability today. Bad math? You decide. Me, I find it appropriate.
<
p>P(C): prob that man caused it
P(D): prob that cutting CO2 will prevent it
<
p>You call each illinformed. You say bad math; I say bad vocabulary. Here’s the question: what is the likelihood that Man caused the alleged global warming. I answer something between 0 and 1. You answer “illinformed”. Huh?
<
p>P(E) is trivial? That’s pure nonsense absent some explanation.
<
p>And finally, the coup de gras, P(F): prob that the cost of reducing CO2 actually has a net cost benefit. You say it’s 0 or 1, an answer like the guy in the balloon joke. Of course, ultimately a path will either be a success or not. That’s useless and obvious information.
<
p>The politicians, doctors, engineers, lawyers who undertake any course of action seek, prior to commission of the action, the liklihood of success. (i.e. Patient: what’s the liklihood I’ll survive the surgery. Answer: You will or you won’t. Patient: You’re fired.) Of course the answer requires a probablistic answer.
<
p>Unfortunately, with regards to P(F), the probabilities are unknown and for now unknowable, so to engage in unruly spending without having a clue as to the value of success relative to the cost is irresponsible.
Matter of fact, check out the graph of cooling, over time, at 102,000 ft. Oh my God! Global cooling! And lower, global warming!
<
p>And worse of all,at some levels, global nothing; we’re stagnating at the same temperature. Quick! Pass some meaningless legislation to save us from the boredom of it all.
Why are you saying “climate change” now? Yes, the chart looks impressive, but it’s another cold day in June; I almost turned on the oil burner last night to keep warm. And you still haven’t explained why the Atlantic Ocean south of Boston hasn’t gone up one inch in my lifetime. I understand your science but remain a bit skeptical, especially when the social engineers start throwing around “cap and trade” schemes.
is to help folks like EtA understand that worldwide-average-warming doesn’t mean that every location will see warming. The change in climate will result in an average increase in temperature, but some places will stay the same or even get cooler (Europe might if the Atlantic’s Gulf Stream changes due to a stoppage of the Atlantic Conveyor).
<
p>As for the seas rising, they are, by about 3mm per year. That means they go up about an inch every 9 years. Given that you can’t see an average sea height but it’s current state, which includes impacts due to waves, tides, wind, and weather, it’s no surprise that you can’t see the increase. Keep in mind that the change is non-linear. As the climate is warmer, thermal expansion makes the same mass of water take up more volume… hence higher sea levels. Floating ice won’t change the height of the sea, but land-based ice (Antarctica, Greenland) slipping into the water will. So, will it continue to go up at one inch every 9 years or will that rate increase? Furthermore, just like you can’t see an average, you can’t feel it. Instead, you feel the big wave coming in at high tide with the aid of wind. So, the 3 inch increase over 30 years might not matter most of the time, but in bad weather with a big wave, you’ll see all kinds of coastal property suffer.
To find the costs of our dependence on on oil too high. We don’t possess the reserves of this resource to bet our future on it forever, even if the byproducts weren’t also causing environmental damage. If conservatives really cared about this country, they would be pushing hard for clean energy sources, since those jobs and profits will stay here.
Have you been watching the discussion about peak oil? I’m only aware of it, but it does look potentially calamitous.
But don’t think you need special gifts, or an economics degree, to read these tea leaves.
<
p>Denmark and Brazil were smart enough to pursue alternative energy sources in a big way. Our government’s policies subsidize the oil and gas industry. It’s just dumb on so many levels.
of these countries, including oil-rich ones, are investing in nuclear power.
This is a good thing?
but I’d rather see a big push for wind, solar and biofuels, since they don’t have the problem of what the heck to do with the dangerous and toxic spent fuel.
… is that it’s a moving target because as price increases so does supply because the supplies with a higher price threshold for economic viability become viable as price increases.
<
p>Not to say that it isn’t a worry, but this one problem was overlooked when the subject was first talked about in the 20th century.
Eugene Mallove
Philio T Farnsworth
Dr. Brian OLeary
Years ago you could have had a minibar sized appliance in your basement producing all of you electrical power needs.
It’s not about energy, it’s about control.
Lets give displaced coal workers scholarships to be used for college or technical training courses.
<
p>Also, I hear the mountains of West Virginia have quite a bit of wind power potential.