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Free Minds & Free Markets

Earth Day Dopes

Alarmists claim they're for "science," but what they're really for is a left-wing religion.

Expect more craziness this weekend. Earth Day is Saturday. This year's theme: Government must "do more" about climate change because "consequences of inaction are too high to risk."

They make it sound so simple:

1) Man causes global warming.

2) Warming is obviously harmful.

3) Government can stop it.

Each claim is dubious or wrong.

This weekend at a movie, I was surprised to be assaulted again by former Vice President Al Gore. In a preview, a puffy-looking Gore suddenly appeared, attacking Donald Trump and mocking critics of his previous movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the deceitful documentary that spreads fear in classrooms today. Yes, teachers play it in class.

Now Gore claims "the most criticized" part of the film was his assertion that the 9/11 memorial site would flood. Then, during Hurricane Sandy, it did

But Gore creatively misremembers his own movie.

He had claimed the World Trade Center would flood because of a permanent 20-foot sea-level rise.

Actual scientists called that nonsense. It would take hundreds of years for such a thing to possibly happen.

But since the area flooded, briefly, Gore spins that as confirmation of his exaggerations.

This preview was the first I learned that theaters will soon show a sequel to Gore's film.

Google tells us that An Inconvenient Sequel got a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival. Trendy Hollywood is so dumb.

At least critics who've watched it gave it poor reviews.

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  • Rat on a train||

    Saturday I will celebrate my ability to cross the US in 5 hours instead of 5 months.

  • Ben-Franklin||

    And you should celebrate that ability. It is amazing. AND you can also be concerned about our carbon dioxide emissions.

  • timbo||

    Not concerned about carbon emissions in the least Ben. If human activity is indeed imperiling the earth, then when the time actually arrives that it gets to hot outside, I would rather put my faith in the hands of a market economy to come up with a solution. After all, the only way that sustainable energy dreams will ever come true is when other forms of cheap energy become to expensive to exploit.

    Economies cannot function properly with manipulated price controls and distorted capital allocations. All green energy scams are the previous sentence visible in its fruition. Just like insurmountable debt, it is a pipedream to think that an economy can function under such albatrosses.

    Any other argument to the contrary is a actually a call for the suffering of millions in impoverished nations who would like the access to cheap energy to improve their lives. And since solar and wind energy are diffused energy sources and we don't have adequate battery storage yet, it is inhumane to wish for absolute mandate of an inferior energy source.

  • I am the 0.000000013%||

    Excellent comment - thank you!

  • Ben-Franklin||

    now that I can accept from you - I understand that you are really not concerned about climate change. And that you do not like the implications that accepting climate change would lead you to. I just ask that you consider if you are on the wrong site - this is a Libertarian site, not a Conservative site. "Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it" (Friedrich Hayek)

    I'd just ask people step back and evaluate if they understand climate science better than the National Academies of all major developed countries (G7 & BRICS), the American Meteorological Society, American Chemical Society, and American Geological Society (to name a few organizations with formal statements).

  • Finrod||

    I understand science better than they do, because I understand that actual scientists publish all their UNALTERED data, and welcome criticism.

  • renewableguy||

    Well Finny,

    I have never watched demonstrate one iota of climate knowledge. Surprise me.

  • timbo||

    Ben, the institutions you cite are the sole reason for my skepticism. Supposed dependable institutions have been caught in manipulations of data, partisan findings, and outright lies over this subject as time went on. Obvious examples are the penn state emails and I believe it was the doctored findings in the oxford studies maybe? Regardless, there have been so many doomsday predictions that were utterly false, and mandated regulations on business that have been extremely expensive and some cases crippling, that one who believes in free markets has a perfectly valid reason to suspect these so called experts.
    Also, when government funding or university funding is entirely how you make your living, one can surmise that the recipient of those funds has incentive to guarantee his income.

    I guess a shorter way of saying all of this is here; if the all knowing benevolent government is routinely and consistently a failure at solving almost every problem they tackle, why do the masses flock like zombie sheep to their feet begging for solutions?

  • renewableguy||

    There is also the prediction of less co2 is better and no co2 is best. That has been worked out in the science.

  • Azathoth!!||

    ^^^This right here^^^

    This is the kind of retardation we have to deal with.

    No, the 'science' has not said that "no CO2 is best"

  • Entelechy||

    50 years ago you could cross the US in 4 hours & change-- aerodynamically more efficient 21st century airliners make Greens happy and lower fuel bills by flying slower than the jet set's beloved 707.

  • colorblindkid||

    "Nothing we do today will stop global warming. The Obama regulations that Trump recently repealed, horrifying the Earth Day crowd, had a goal that amounted to a mere one percent reduction in global carbon dioxide. And that was just the goal."

    That is the whole thing I have a problem with the hysteria. The only chance we had to stop this ended 40 years ago when we killed off the nuclear energy industry. We reached the point of no return a long time ago.

    Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and magically got US carbon emissions down to zero by 2001, the effects on the climate wouldn't be seen for half a century. Also, because of fracking and Europe's general trend of shutting down nuclear plants, America has been decreasing their emissions faster than Europe.

  • Ben-Franklin||

    I have not read any author that wants to try to "stop global warming" by returning our atmosphere to 285 ppm. I think this article truly represents as much hysteria as comes from the left. It is not a matter of "stopping" global warming as acting responsibly. Our actions right now on what energy sources we are investing in do make a difference for the amount of fossil fuels we will burn, and thus the carbon dioxide concentrations in the air, and thus the amount of change we are forcing on future cities, property owners and people. I suggest Reason take a serious look at its own content to see if it is not acting just as hysterical as the left.

  • NoVaNick||

    It is not a matter of "stopping" global warming as acting responsibly.

    So Ben, is it responsible to drastically jack up the costs of energy with the intent of causing a miniscule reduction in global temperature if it means that millions will lose their jobs and many of the less fortunate will not be able to afford to heat their homes or buy enough food for their families?

    What about mining and processing all those rare earth metals to make solar panels and batteries for the electric cars, then discarding them when they run out- I haven't heard of a "sustainable" way to do that.

  • the_decadents||

    As long as the top men ensure the proceeds go to right-thinking people with strong feelings for all those lesser people, and not to those dirty Exxon people or two brothers in Wichita, well, you're on the right track.

  • Entelechy||

    NoVanNick needs a new playbook -- "all those rare earth metals" he yammmers about go into wind turbine magnets, not solar cells or batteries, and their combined CO2 cost (( 8,500 tonnes of Ne-Fe-B magnets a year= ~ 250,000 tonnes CO2 ) is less than the global share of 10,000 Americans

  • renewableguy||

    When we go to 100% renewable energy, this will go way down.

  • Enemy of the State||

    When will that be and how will that happen?

  • renewableguy||

    It will be when we make it happen. There is a lot of study going on and labs working to launch ideas and products into the mainstream. There is pleny of renewable resources world wide that every country can have energy independence in the world. Don't need no stinking oil or coal.

  • renewableguy||

    There are mire jobs in renewable energy than in fossil fuels

  • Roger Knights||

    Because renewable energy is less efficient, so more labor is needed by it.

    Also, there's a certain amount of fudging in determining what counts as a green job. A roofer who installs some solar panels in the summer shouldn't be counted as a green job, but is.

  • renewableguy||

    On the contrary a roofer that does should be counted. Install solar, solar job.

  • Quo Usque Tandem||

    "It is not a matter of "stopping" global warming as acting responsibly."

    "Acting responsibly" without commensurate or even attainable results?

    That sound a bit like doing something for the sake of doing something so you can feel good about it, even it causes economic damage with no discernible benefits.

    I love the natural world, the outdoors, and all aspects of the beauty of the earth. I truly believe we need to protect that as much as is feasible, and not let natural areas go to development without absolute need of doing so [and not just limited benefit of a few or for profit]. But I do not think we do the earth a damned bit of good by signing onto unfounded, histrionic and "feel good" movements and initiatives that do little more than give some misguided "progressives" the feeling that they are saving the earth.

  • timbo||

    What about the fact that the cleanest and healthiest of nations have functioning(albeit manipulated)market economies with a flash of capitalism in there?
    it is so moronic and a total luddite argument to call for4the suppression of progress brought about by affordable and exploitable energy when all of the poorest, socialist, third world country shitholes are filthy and garbage strewn.

  • Fuck you, Shikha (Nunya)||

    So to you any force applied by government without any evidence of actual positive effect, although often detrimental, is an acceptable risk. Given that calling back even the onerous and accepted by fiat regulations, Obamas orders overturned by Trump as an example, receive unending shrieks from a large portion of the population, how do you suggest that continually added onerous regulation supposedly enacted with nothing less than benevolence don't eventually become a mountain that can't be crossed?

    We can all sit back and pretend to be pragmatic soldiers of logic, but when your logic produces nothing more than a continual slide into the abyss forgive me if I call you foolish.

  • Set Us Up The Chipper||

    The problem with climate science is there is no way to test the core prediction, that the Earth will heat substantially in response to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, other than to wait and see.

    Important secondary predictions which should be observable by now, such as the missing tropospheric hotspot, or a projected acceleration in sea level rise, have not manifested.

    Even more embarrassing, mainstream models cannot even tell us what climate sensitivity to CO2 actually is.

  • renewableguy||

    Set Us Up The Chipper|4.19.17 @ 2:25PM|#

    The problem with climate science is there is no way to test the core prediction, that the Earth will heat substantially in response to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, other than to wait and see.

    We are nearly at 1*C warming and the warming is all anthropogenic.

    Important secondary predictions which should be observable by now, such as the missing tropospheric hotspot, or a projected acceleration in sea level rise, have not manifested.

    Absolute humidity has risen which is also a ghg. That only rises in tandem with co2 rising pushing temperature up.

    Even more embarrassing, mainstream models cannot even tell us what climate sensitivity to CO2 actually is.

    3*C for a doubling of co2.

  • Roger Knights||

    We are nearly at 1*C warming and the warming is all anthropogenic.


    Say the extreme alarmists. The IPCC says only that "more than half" is anthropogenic.

    Absolute humidity has risen which is also a ghg.


    As it rises it encourages the formation of low-level clouds, which increase albedo, a negative feedback.

    That only rises in tandem with co2 rising pushing temperature up.


    No, it rises if the earth warms from natural variability too.

    3*C for a doubling of CO2.


    That was the warmists' guess five years ago. The latest papers have cut that by more than half.

  • renewableguy||

    We are nearly at 1*C warming and the warming is all anthropogenic.

    Say the extreme alarmists. The IPCC says only that "more than half" is anthropogenic.

    https://goo.gl/qJSTh7
    Earth should be mildly cooling into the next ice age and yet we warmed. Human activity overwhelmed the mild cooling and warmed 1*C. Over 150 years all the natural variability zeros out, because they are of much shorter duration in cycles.

    Absolute humidity has risen which is also a ghg.

    As it rises it encourages the formation of low-level clouds, which increase albedo, a negative feedback.

    Actually higher temperatures produce higher clouds which have positive feedback producing even higher temperatures.

    That only rises in tandem with co2 rising pushing temperature up.

    No, it rises if the earth warms from natural variability too.

    Again compared to 150 years, natural variability zeroes out because of short cycles. We are 100% human warming.

    3*C for a doubling of CO2.

    That was the warmists' guess five years ago. The latest papers have cut that by more than half.

    https://goo.gl/kIsU7h

    There really is no upper limit to climate sensitivity in what it might be, but it is clearly not less than 1.5. Several papers show 3 and can possibly go very high centuries out.

  • mtrueman||

    "The problem with climate science"

    It's climate modelling you seem to have a problem with, given the examples you give here. Climate science is as sound as ever.

  • MichaelL||

    Thank you! I had a feeling that information had a large bias in it

  • Jerryskids||

    Is it hysterical to note that by the year 2027, a mere 10 years away, at least 10% of the current population of the planet will be dead? I think not, 10% is hundreds of millions of human beings that will die in the next ten years.

  • Shirley Knott||

    It is hysterical, in both senses of the word, to believe that there is anything the government can do that will prevent 10% of the current population form dying.
    Death is not a problem to be solved. The death rate remains the same as it has always been -- 1 per person.
    100% of the people born in the 18th century are dead. Is there something that could have been done to prevent that?
    Is it something government can do.
    Hysterical indeed.

  • Zeb||

    The death rate remains the same as it has always been -- 1 per person.

    I suppose that's true in some sense. But it's absolutely useless when talking about the effects that environmental change has on human life.

  • renewableguy||

    Hurricane Sandy was influenced by AGW. Causing deaths and several billion dollars in damage.

  • Eric Bana||

    Death is not a problem to be solved. The death rate remains the same as it has always been -- 1 per person.

    Seriously? What is happening with so many people making tediously idiotic comments like this?

  • Zeb||

    Is it hysterical to note that by the year 2027, a mere 10 years away, at least 10% of the current population of the planet will be dead?

    I suppose it depends on how you say it.

  • Ron||

    don't worry those dead will be replaced by births. But I think you were being sarcastic, I hope

  • Cynical Asshole||

    >blockquote>The alarmists claim they're marching for "science," but they're really marching for a left-wing religion.

    You're not suggesting that they don't really "fucking love science" are you?

  • Cynical Asshole||

    HTML tag fail. Been a while since I fucked those up.

  • timbo||

    They fucking love science when a raging leftist zombie is preaching their version of it.

    My favorite part of the whole hysteria is that this entire 40-60 crusade by leftist(Marxists) is still just a theory.

    We don't destroy entire economies over other theories do we?

  • Stevecsd||

    Sure, just ask the Russians who lived around 1917.

  • Stevecsd||

    Sure, just look at Russia in 1917.

  • renewableguy||

    Science should not be a political pawn in this. It is well studied evidence showing that AGW is true and real. That is why you need denier consensus with no proof that it is wrong. A philosophy of life should not embrace denial of reality. Actually libertarians should reject this article based on no evidence. This article is stressing doubt without any evidence. Snark as a way of life just is a big fail.

  • Roger Knights||

    It is well studied evidence showing that AGW is true and real.

    But not CAGW--that's speculative, depending on a positive feedback whose likelihood is undermined by the absence of the upper tropospheric tropical hot spot.

    That is why you need denier consensus with no proof that it is wrong. A philosophy of life should not embrace denial of reality. Actually libertarians should reject this article based on no evidence. This article is stressing doubt without any evidence.

    Sound reasons for skepticism were presented by Christy, Curry, and Pielke Jr. on "Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications and the Scientific Method" at the U, S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, hearing on March 29, 2016 Here are links to their written testimony

    goo.gl/2gnS2i

    https://goo.gl/KqInT0

    https://goo.gl/ZTGFxH

  • Roger Knights||

    Oops--that first link should be: https://goo.gl/2gnS2i

    And here are links to Curry's two threads on the hearings:

    https://goo.gl/VvDj3T

    https://goo.gl/B98ZM9

  • Roger Knights||

    For some reason the links above don't work, although they are the best ones I could find on Google.

    Here are links to Curry's two threads on the hearings:

    https://goo.gl/VvDj3T

    https://goo.gl/B98ZM9

  • renewableguy||

    It is well studied evidence showing that AGW is true and real.
    But not CAGW--that's speculative, depending on a positive feedback whose likelihood is undermined by the absence of the upper tropospheric tropical hot spot.

    Hot spot or not, CAGW is true at the extremes. We go to 1000 ppm co2, that is clearly CAGW. Its about 10,000 years of hell on earth. Negative co2 emissions is the very best, no co2 emissions is good, extreme co2 emissions is very bad.

    That is why you need denier consensus with no proof that it is wrong. A philosophy of life should not embrace denial of reality. Actually libertarians should reject this article based on no evidence. This article is stressing doubt without any evidence.

    There is good reason why the Republican party invites them in. Don't want to hear main stream science. Talking about exagerated uncertainty does not bode well for honesty.
    Sound reasons for skepticism were presented by Christy, Curry, and Pielke Jr. on "Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications and the Scientific Method" at the U, S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, hearing on March 29, 2016 Here are links to their written testimony

  • tlapp||

    The global warming alarmists would have you believe the government can determine the perfect temperature for the earth (was it perfect 10 years ago? 20? 100?) and not only that but that the government can control it if only we pay a huge new tax.
    Now that is truly living in an alternate reality.

  • Ben-Franklin||

    It is not about picking a perfect temperature. It is about recognizing that when we cause a shift in temperature there will be consequences - more droughts in some areas, higher peak rain events in some areas, and certainly raising sea levels to the degree that peoples property along ocean coast lines will be impacted. But, if you believe that we do not need to be responsible for our impacts on other peoples property - then you shouldn't care what we do.

  • Ron||

    all weather conditions you describe have occurred in different parts of the world though out history and have been dealt with through technology or simply relocating and we can continue to do so. Note not one weather or storm can be attributed to global warming and many models predict a calmer weather pattern but you cant get people to pay higher taxes with claims of better weather.

  • timbo||

    If the sea level rises in Bangladesh, why does it not rise on the east coast of the US?
    I have lived here my whole life and see no signs that the water marks on thousands of structures are rising.

    Water rise is consistent. if you put a large rock in a pool, the whole thing rises consistently.

    I know there will be plenty that say other forces at work actually make if different. I call utter bullshit.

  • $park¥ leftist poser||

    It's because the Earth is fatter around the equator so water levels will be higher closer to the equator than far away from it. Bangladesh is closer to the equator than any point of the US east coast.

  • timbo||

    That is a fair argument for the pull of the moon at certain latitudes. Does that account for some sort of precipitous rise due to factories only affecting the topics and zero effect further north? Miami is not sinking and it is pretty far south.

  • mtrueman||

    "Miami is not sinking"

    Rising sea levels in Miami have been observed and measured. Have you heard otherwise?

  • Roger Knights||

    Miami is sinking primarily because of ground water extraction and other non-AGW reasons. And its sea level statistics haven't been reported in full context:

    https://goo.gl/0r7Nku

  • mtrueman||

    People in Miami are spending lots of money raising their buildings to stay above the rising waters. Quibbling over statistics is not going to protect their property.

  • pan fried wylie||

    He's not referring to the tides, the earth is an oblate spheroid due to it's angular momentum.

    However, the sea floor being higher up does not raise the ocean above it.

  • Entelechy||

    You need a larger rock and a bigger jacuzzzi.

  • renewableguy||

    Sea level on the east coast is rising a little faster than the rest of the world. About a third of the US population lives in vulnerable sea level rise areas.

    https://goo.gl/w7DnQ9

  • Set Us Up The Chipper||

    Ben where is the hot spot, what is CO2 doubling sensitivity? If you don't know the answers to those questions (I know you don't know the second one), then shut the fuck up.

  • renewableguy||

    Soooooo Chippy,
    real attitude you got there. General consensus around climate sensitivity is 3*C for a doubling of co2 to 560ppm by 2100. But, there is the long term effect going beyond 2100 and the sensitivity goes up even more. James Hansen puts it at 4.5*C for a doubling of co2 going out a few hundred years.

  • NoVaNick||

    As a "scientist" (I have a Ph.D. in molecular biology and worked as a researcher for several years but am no longer doing that ), I can say that there are two types of scientists: (1) actual scientists: People who are inspired by their love of discovery and look to solve problems first, rather than whine about them. (2) science cult followers: these people may or may not have actual education or training in a scientific field (most do not) but somehow science defines their identity as a leftist substitute for religion; their idea of science comes from the likes of Al Gore, Bill Nye, and Chris Mooney-these will be the vast majority of the science marchers. There may be some actual scientists there too who are concerned about cuts to government funding, but a march isn't going to help their cause.

  • Conchfritters||

    I have a bachelor of arts degree, and I concur with this assessment.

  • timbo||

    nova, my guess is that everyone in your latter categorization are either university or otherwise government funded scientists or politician scum.

  • ATXChappy||

    OMG! After reading the comments on this article I popped over to Reddit. And, apparently Bill Nye is currently doing an AMA. And, this is the Tittle he chose "I am Bill Nye and I'm here to dare I say it…. save the world. Ask Me Anything!". He's going to Save the world people These F'ing people really do have a messiah complex don't they?

  • ||

    I'm a scientist too (Ph. D. in physical chemistry) but hope not to be doing it much longer. I agree with your assessment, but will add that many of the "actual scientists" are indeed educated and smart, but they are also very political and very partisan (leftist). It gives them a permanent blind spot to anything that might be "good news" on the climate front. They can be very logical on other scientific topics, but anything approaching healthy skepticism on anything climate-change related will be met with a huge dose of scorn.

  • colorblindkid||

    I'm an engineer, which I consider to be more of a scientist than any social science. Do we really think that any amount of evidence would convince many scientists that glyphosate is not dangerous at low levels? Is there any amount of evidence that would get them to admit that fracking has no effect on groundwater? Absolutely not. Is there any climate scientist today who doesn't go into the field already dead set on proving how apocalyptic global warming will be? Doubtful.

  • Ben-Franklin||

    colorblindkid, you obviously don't know many climate scientists. Your prejudgments might help you sleep good at night but don't reflect reality.

  • Finrod||

    Irony: the leftist warmist talking about "prejudgments".

  • mtrueman||

    "Is there any amount of evidence that would get them to admit that fracking has no effect on groundwater?"

    Have you got such evidence?

  • renewableguy||

    I'm wondering if this is all PHD huffing going on is a big bluff. Again this is a very broad brush stroke going on that is easily taken down. Why would you do that to yourself.

  • renewableguy||

    NoVaNick|4.19.17 @ 9:55AM|#

    That's a pretty broad brush picture you are painting. Very unscientific if I might add. What about the conservatives that know AGW to be true?

  • Mark E Deardorff||

    The fact is, and always has been, the Terra gives not a whit about Man. We are, at best, a pesky moss on the geologic time scale. Our failure to observe such scales is understandable. Whether real or otherwise, the only solution to the potential issue is an engineering and scientific solution to cope with the result. Design in the coastal regions more to assist migrations rather than reclaim flooded lands at a ridiculous price. Science to make once arable lands arable once more.

    At this point with a planning horizon so wide, contemplation is in order. Later, as confirmation is clearer (or not,) more intense action can begin. Not the pessimist, but the realist in me believes that the will just doesn't exist to spend the inordinate assets necessary to defeat a problem that is so speculative.

    Mark E. Deardorff
    www.ScienceViaMarkets.com

  • timbo||

    Will should not have to exist until there is an economic reason to do so.

    Markets are far more efficient and capable of allocating capital towards a profitable return on such an endeavor.
    Things such as price signals, innovation, creative destruction, and profit motive will be a much faster solution to this problem, if it even exists, than anything that a central planning dumbass bureaucrat can ever fathom.
    The Marxists have zero understanding of this time proven truth so they will be willing to ignore that solution in favor of killing and eating capitalists.
    And after all, that is the central tenet of the global warming ruse and why scum politicians capitalized on it with such meteoric fervor.

  • mtrueman||

    "Markets are far more efficient "

    I'm always interested in market solutions to this climate change thing, and figure Reason is the place to go to learn of them. But I don't see any. The science writer here promotes nuclear and carbon sequestration, anything but market solutions. Do you have other solutions or do you follow the Reason line?

  • loveconstitution1789||

    Solar panels on home. Electric car charged by solar. Small wind turbines for power needs after the Sun goes down. Batteries are not great but always have enough electricity, usually too much and sell it back to the power company.

    I am on track to the solar and wind systems paying for themselves in about 10 years. Imagine if government would get out of the energy business and technology would improve solar panels, batteries and non-fossil fuel energy production. Plus, markets could decide what energy sources would be the winners and losers.

  • timbo||

    mtrue,
    the solutions have yet to be invented. In the past, necessity has always been the mother of invention.
    I have faith that the invisible hand will tackle a problem when it presents itself. The deflationary benefits of innovation and technology will present themselves with a viable alternative to fossil fuels when fossil fuels become too expensive.

    Batteries are making tremendous progress and will be good but there is an argument for the expensive inputs that go into them and their disposal.
    My only point continues to be that a market solution driven by the profit motive, price discovery, and innovation for market share will solve this problem far more efficiently because enormous amounts of capital will not have been wasted on government boondoggles. What governments all over the world have been doing is throwing enormous sums of basically confiscated and FED created money at a problem that has little in the solutions department and very little in the proven catastrophe department.

    That is an insanely bad investment of capital that could have been deployed by individuals for the greater good. Instead, the proponents of global warming advocate for more cronyism, more debt, more waste, and more corruption while those same people protest everything under the sun.

  • mtrueman||

    "Instead, the proponents of global warming .."

    Proponents is a strange word. I suppose that makes you an opponent of global warming. I doubt the market shares your opposition. The most powerful entities on the market own vast reserves of fossil fuels.

  • renewableguy||

    The government can accelerate the trend of the market if that is necessary. Time is lost changing our emissions, that is kicking the can down the road making it harder on the future generations. In a lot of ways, the market wants to be led on some things. Some markets need rules to be stable and deal with the bad actors. That is why we have laws.

  • mtrueman||

    You may be correct but battery tech is not there yet. It may come, whether or not it is ultimately 'carbon free' is a different matter.

    "if government would get out of the energy business...:

    Are you familiar with the current secretary of state? Not long ago he was the head of one of the largest companies of the planet, an energy one at that. It goes both ways.

  • renewableguy||

    You may be correct but battery tech is not there yet. It may come, whether or not it is ultimately 'carbon free' is a different matter.

    We may go to carbon sequestration. Burying it in the ground. May have to do it anyway for several centuries to keep sea levels lower.

  • mtrueman||

    "a pesky moss on the geologic time scale"

    Humans are a rather recent addition to life on earth. Mosses and such plants have been around incomparably longer. Mosses have been able to survive billions of years not due to science or engineering but because to their ability to adapt to new circumstances. If humans find themselves unable to survive on the planet without the benefits of their burning fossil fuels, chances are going to die out.

  • pan fried wylie||

    My gripe with the moss analogy is that moss is slow growing. Humans are more like a radish planted in the geologic timescale.

  • renewableguy||

    Not the pessimist, but the realist in me believes that the will just doesn't exist to spend the inordinate assets necessary to defeat a problem that is so speculative.

    There have been 5 IPCC's and not one has been speculative about whether or not there is global warming. They looked at the evidence to see if the evidence followed global warming theory. James Hansen and many others projected a warming trend and there has been a clear warming trend that is only from humans.

  • Rebel Scum||

    Trendy Hollywood is so dumb.

    Wiser words were never spoken.

  • Rebel Scum||

    Some ways to celebrate:

    Use your phone or computer
    Drive a car
    Take a hot shower

    I plan on parking near one of these Earth Day rallies and letting my cardle idle with the ac blasting and the windows down...with a 2-stroke pwc on a trailer behind me, also idling.

  • Trainer||

    Markets (though not exactly free) are prevailing in one form of global warming alarmist control- light bulbs. Went to the store today and noticed the incandescent light bulbs are on the shelves in large numbers again but marketed as "specialty bulbs" which are not required to be LED (ugly light), florescent (hurts my eyes) or halogen (have no idea what that means). I bought the specialty "soft white" which is what I used to use. Price wasn't much different. There were daylight spectrum bulbs, the ever popular 3 way bulbs and, my favorite, the rugged bulb with a filament that can withstand some extra abuse- just in case you want play a game of catch with it, I guess.

    It really bothers me because I have a 5 room house that is 950 sq. ft. and has 3 or fewer bulbs in each room yet I'm expected make ugly changes to make up for those people in the 3,000 sq ft homes that have like 28 light bulbs in their kitchens alone and just as many or more in their other 10 rooms.

  • pan fried wylie||

    halogen's are just a special incandescent that's a lil more efficient because the filament can run hotter.

  • renewableguy||

    Some LED bulbs are the same colr as incandescents.

  • IceTrey||

    I read an article that said 95% of published science papers don't even follow the scientific method.

  • Longtobefree||

    This is from so long ago I lost the citation:
    Adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the administration, urged the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the public's attention.
    There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo.
    "This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit," he wrote. "This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter."
    Wrong then (1969), wrong now (2017). "Widespread" agreement does not constitute truth; see flat earth.
    I was taught that carbon dioxide was necessary for plant life; has that changed?

  • renewableguy||

    The earth thaws very slowly. We have gone up 40% in carbon dioxide now. Thaw heads poleward on the earth releasing even more co2 and ch4. This is a pos. feedback in the system destabilizing the earth all the more.

  • renewableguy||

    They make it sound so simple:

    1) Man causes global warming.

    Man is the only reason the earth is warming. Otherwise we would be going into the next ice age in the next 40,000 years.

    2) Warming is obviously harmful.

    Our food is vulnerable to warming. Crops production will be stressed as temperatures go higher.

    3) Government can stop it.

    Government helps to stop it. With universties, government, and the private sector working together to acheive the outcome.

    Each claim is dubious or wrong.

    Stossel has been dubious on this post all the way through.

  • Azathoth!!||

    They make it sound so simple:

    1) Man causes global warming.

    Man is the only reason the earth is warming. Otherwise we would be going into the next ice age in the next 40,000 years.

    Other planets are warming as well. Is man doing that, too? Or is it possible that there's something going on that we haven't figured out yet?

    2) Warming is obviously harmful.

    Our food is vulnerable to warming. Crops production will be stressed as temperatures go higher..

    Our food grows better in warm climates. Warm climates will lead to higher and better food production. Additionally, more land will move into the arable range as water is freed from it's solid form.

    3) Government can stop it.

    Government helps to stop it. With universties, government, and the private sector working together to acheive the outcome..

    Government has turned a scientific effort into a power grab--and it will continue to do this--AGW/CC is the perfect generator of intrusive legislation. Anything that happens can be attributed to the 'effects' of AGW or CC--and all of those things MUST be prevented!! AND it has the added bonus that it isn't really a problem at all.

    Each claim is dubious or wrong.

    Stossel has been dubious on this post all the way through..

    Are you sure you know what 'dubious' means?

  • renewableguy||

    3) Nothing we do today will stop global warming. The Obama regulations that Trump recently repealed, horrifying the Earth Day crowd, had a goal that amounted to a mere one percent reduction in global carbon dioxide. And that was just the goal.

    What a load of garbage. The end goal is zero co2 emissions and 100% renewable energy.

  • Roger Knights||

    The end goal is zero co2 emissions and 100% renewable energy.

    For the developed world. But it won't make any difference, because the developing world, whose emissions will in time dwarf ours, won't get on board unless we give them trillions we don't have.

  • renewableguy||

    Roger Knights|4.19.17 @ 10:29PM|#

    The end goal is zero co2 emissions and 100% renewable energy.
    For the developed world. But it won't make any difference, because the developing world, whose emissions will in time dwarf ours, won't get on board unless we give them trillions we don't have.

    Help them learn how to have a more developed world based on renewable energy. After awhile they will earn their own money.

  • renewableguy||

    Instead of celebrating Earth Day Saturday, I'll celebrate Human Achievement Hour. The think tank behind it, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says Human Achievement Hour pays tribute to "our basic human right to use energy to improve everyone's quality of life."

    Everyone can enjoy 100% renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels in the future.

  • Henry Buttal||

    How much per hour do you make working at home on your computer posting about why we should by solar panels? Enough to but (but not charge) a Tesla...

  • renewableguy||

    You don't have to buy solar panels. You can buy renewable energy from the grid made by someone else. I'm already doing it.

  • Azathoth!!||

    Actually, you're buying power from the local power plant and it comes from standard sources, but you pay a third party that claims to be 'producing' the power you use with 'renewable' resources.

    You have no way of knowing where your power is coming from. Even if you've toured their 'plant' you have no proof that it's tied to 'the grid'.

    You're buying indulgences.

  • I. B. McGinty||

    I've been involved in weather for 15+ years, and have studied local climate for the last 10. Is our climate changing? Sure. There's no longer 3 miles of ice over Minnesota. What does the future climate look like? One of 4 possibilities - cold and wet, cold and dry, warm and dry, and may favorite warm and wet. It's nice when you're with your lady but bad when you're in the jungle (to loosely quote Good Morning Viet Nam). Anyway, Mother Nature wins every time. If you're that concerned about CO2 plant a tree.

  • renewableguy||

    How many trees does it take to remove 15 gigatons from the atmosphere for every 2 ppm co2?

  • plusafdotcom||

    Don't forget to post the link to this page onto Neil deGrasse Tyson's page at https://www.facebook.com

    /neildegrassetyson/?fref=nf

    in reply to his latest short video.
    :)

  • Dinerboy||

    Any carbon-limiting AGW mitigation strategy, in simple terms, Will. Not. Work. Apart from the enormous market forces that will thwart it, there's the cold reality that the BRICS nations will not comply, not to the degree we are told is necessary. They shouldn't, not when their people are still rising out of subsistence living (1/4 of India still doesn't have electricity, IIRC).

    It is the height of arrogance and callousness that the West demand the imposition of enormous human suffering (and the avoidable deaths of millions of the world's poorest, because that will be the result of wholesale carbon caps and taxes) to mitigate a problem that remains insufficiently understood or quantified, and whose worst-case effects are literally a hundred or more years away.

    The only solutions to AGW-induced problems, should they be required, will be technological in nature. Not brute-force carbon caps/taxes or brute-force "alternative energy" mandates in contravention of free market outcomes.

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