Loyalty Oaths
The climate debate is so politicized that rational dialogue is virtually impossible between warring sides. A complicating factor is that there are also hostile camps within the same factions.
The climate blogosphere, in particular, is like the island in Lost, where the plane-wrecked survivors had to constantly determine who was on which side. (I loved the show, except for the final episode.) The global warming debate has become as cramped as the island on the show proved to be, and climate bloggers, like the Lost inhabitants, have adapted to the paranoid climate that makes communication a minefield to navigate.
For example, in a post yesterday that was critical of this New York Times story, Roger Pielke Jr. seemingly felt compelled to declare:
Before proceeding, let me reiterate that human-caused climate change is a threat and one that we should be taking seriously. But taking climate change seriously does not mean shoehorning every global concern into that narrative, and especially conflating concerns about the future with what has been observed in the past. The risk of course of putting a carbon-centric spin on every issue is that other important dimensions are neglected.
Roger’s position on climate change is well known to anyone who has been following his work over the last decade. Yet he wanted to “reiterate” where he stood on the issue, which I found slightly odd. It also made me think of this recent post by John Nielsen-Gammon, who picked up on the similar declarations of a well-known climate blogger.
Does this signal a new hyper-conscious phase in the climate debate, or just a more nimble maneuvering of the climate minefield?
I wouldn’t say that rational dialogue is “virtually impossible”, just that its not nearly as interesting for folks as the ideologues. There are plenty of bloggers like Science of Doom, Lucia, Nick Stokes, Bart, John N-G, and others who work to promote dialogue, they just get a lot fewer eyeballs than the Watts and Romms of the world.
I think the problem is that the data to-date is ambiguous. It is uncertain. It is not definitive. Our data has also been processed, homogenized, manipulated, gathered badly from poorly sited instruments, is full of human error, and probably not really all that accurate (i.e. people rounded to the nearest degree F, and didn’t really measure stuff to .01 degree F).
That means it supports both sides in this debate, and neither side can “prove” the other wrong – as both sides are within the margin of error of the data.
The only way to really measure the amount of warming we will experience by 2100 is to wait until 2100 and measure it. Then we can step back and see how the prediction compared with the observation.
Of course, one side of the debate doesn’t want to wait until the data show the answer definitively, because they argue it will be to late if we wait. The precautionary principle and all that.
Personally, I think we should measure more variables, more accurately, in more places, for a lot longer, and keep studying the data, use it to keep improving the climate models, and only take action once we have reached the point that a model is statistically verified. Not a single climate model has been statistically verified yet (I think a hurricane tracking model has been statistically verified, but not a global climate model).
Statistically verified means that a prediction is made for the future (five or 10 years say)(within a sufficiently tight range to actually be useful – not plus or minus 15C), which is found to show “skill”, i.e. be statistically verified. Maybe even do this more than once.
Until then, we are really just guessing – which I believe will involve a colossal waste of money.
In the meantime, lets invest lots (hundreds of billions per year) in energy research to look for non-carbon energy production which is actually cheaper than carbon based energy production.
Making clean energy cheaper than dirty energy is the only sure way to cause the world to switch over to clean energy. If is is cheaper it will happen all by itself.
Lets increase the use of nuclear and create regional storage of nuclear waste.
Lets do battery research to make electric cars cheaper and use clean energy to charge the vehicles.
Lets stop fudging the numbers on how much energy wind and solar actually produce – so we can do real cost comparison.
Bottom line – while the data is ambiguous I see no end to the arguing. Which is only right – as neither side really knows if it is correct.
Roger’s position on climate change is well known to anyone who has been following his work over the last decade. Yet he wanted to “reiterate” where he stood on the issue, which I found slightly odd.
It’s not odd at all when you look at how his writings and positions are used by those who wish to see no meaningful action on climate. Whether or not this is seen by Roger as a feature or a bug is something only he knows, but he’s well aware that he’s perceived to be a “skeptic” in spirit by other “skeptics”.
Does this signal a new hyper-conscious phase in the climate debate, or just a more nimble maneuvering of the climate minefield?
He (RP Jr.) has been doing this (reiterating his acceptance of the reality of anthropogenic warming as a sort of disclaimer) for 5 years +. Not much new there.
Steve McIntyre also buries disclaimers about how he’s not making any claims about the reality of anthropogenic warming within his rambling innuendo-filled attacks on climate science as he obsesses on this or that statistical bogeyman.
Same as it ever was.
Also, I agree with Zeke’s position @1. There is plenty of room for dialog. But the Wattsian/CA/Morano-type conspiracists don’t like it when the reality of anthropogenic warming is acknowledged, and those passionate about actually doing something about it (Romm, environmental groups) don’t care for anyone who is perceived to be giving cover to those seeking to delay action; partisanship tends to attract audiences. But these dynamics likewise have been in place for years.
“Roger’s position on climate change is well known to anyone who has been following his work over the last decade. Yet he wanted to “reiterate” where he stood on the issue”
Did you know Stephen Schneider told scientists to make up scary scenarios to get media coverage?
Did you know Kevin Trenberth secretly thinks it’s a travesty he can’t find global warming?
Did you know that Gavin Shmidt thinks the science is settled and there’s nothing to discuss?
The climate debate is dominated by irrational forces that are unconcerned with what was meant, what was said or what is true. All that matters is if it can be beaten, battered and twisted to make an agreeable point.
It’s not that surprising that individuals are forced to wrap their statements in a wider context since otherwise they’ll be used to support views they don’t share. It’s not about swearing loyalty, it’s about trying to communicate in an environment hostile to genuine dialogue.
Pielke Jr. is trying to circumvent the seemingly inevitable Chess Game that occurs when ever policy or actions related and even unrelated to Climate Change our discussed.
Nullius in Verba described it perfectly.
That does bring up a genuine problem with the debate, that those experienced in it have memorised point and counter-point and counter-counter-point like chess grandmasters with their openings. Both sides know what’s coming next. But you have to go through it every time to get to the middle game, where the contest is more genuine.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2011/05/26/why-u-s-climate-policy-is-radioactive/#comment-62815
thingsbreak … “he’s perceived to be a “skeptic” in spirit by other “skeptics””
No, not so much. Its actually almost exclusively folks like you, Romm, Roberts etc. that have tried to (mis)characterize me that way for years, I assume to avoid discussing the actual arguments that I make.
For instance, here is how Steve Milloy (junkscience.com) characterizes me: “a soft-science Colorado greenie.” And Steve Hayward (AEI): “Pielke fully accepts the core claim of the climate campaign that the planet faces potentially catastrophic warming several decades from now”
I’ve simply found that the best way to counter the disinformation found on blogs about my views is to accurately describe my position as concisely and clearly as possible.
None of this is new. People like to put other people in convenient boxes and Roger doesn’t fit into the normal boxes.
Also note that climate activists have strong internal disagreement about trading schemes like Cap and Trade. I remember that Hansen said it is worse than doing nothing, and got some ire from Romm about it. While Hansen has no need to state his bonafides, many who oppose cap and trade but maybe favor a direct carbon tax will often make some similar statement so that they don’t get put in the _wrong_ box. Simplistic as such boxes can sometimes be, they do provide a starting place.
Agree with TB (3) except for the McIntyre bit.
@6 Roger Pielke Jr.:
I was referring to your blog commentors and the like, not professionals from fossil industry front groups, er, think tanks. I also qualified “in spirit”, which is something also felt by “skeptics” about your father (though I know you also dispute this).
I’ve simply found that the best way to counter the disinformation found on blogs about my views is to accurately describe my position as concisely and clearly as possible.
I’m going to leave this alone. Despite Keith’s beliefs to the contrary, I’m not interested in cheap shots, no matter how temptingly they’re offered up…
Its actually almost exclusively folks like you, Romm, Roberts etc. that have tried to (mis)characterize me that way for years, I assume to avoid discussing the actual arguments that I make.
Roger, is it mischaracterizing you to point out that you repeatedly engage in attacks on climate scientists despite bemoaning the tone of climate debates? Is it mischaracterizing you to point out that you repeatedly invoke references to horrible, life-ruining historical persecutions in response to trivial things like bloggers emailing you questions or the writing of a paper based on publicly signed statements?
Perhaps you feel as though I’ve mischaracterized you in some other way? I am happy to correct any error I’ve committed.
thingsbreak (9)
I’m not much interested in debating your views as to whether I’ve offended the sensitivities of your academic colleagues in the sciences in a blog post from a year ago. Geez, get over it already 😉
If however you are interested in a discussion of issues, lay some out there. For instance, which of the arguments in The Climate Fix do you find to be flawed or even completely wrong? Or is playing the man the limit to your engagement?
TB in #9
“Despite Keith’s beliefs to the contrary, I’m not interested in cheap shots, no matter how temptingly they’re offered up”¦”
TB in #3:
“It’s not odd at all when you look at how his writings and positions are used by those who wish to see no meaningful action on climate.”
And you wonder why I don’t take you seriously?
Another rationale for mentioning the big picture amidts one’s criticism could be to as to avoid (as much as possible) that your criticism is extrapolated to mean that you think AGW is bunk.
A valid reason to my mind, though admittedly it is also a consequence of the dynamics of the debate, where people love to take what you say out of context as if it supports theior narrative.
@ Bart
I believe this is exactly what Roger was saying in 6.
@11 kkloor:
And you wonder why I don’t take you seriously?
No, I don’t. I point out things you don’t like about people and things you do. It’s pretty straightforward.
As to what you just quoted, I am saying that Roger’s writings and positions are used by others to justify things that Roger himself does not explicitly endorse. That’s in no way untrue- and it’s a phenomenon that Roger has commented on himself many times. I did not say Roger was soliciting this.
What on Earth do you find objectionable about that?
@10 Roger Pielke Jr.
I’m not much interested in
So, to be clear, you are no longer making the claim that I mischaracterize your views?
is playing the man the limit to your engagement?
I am deeply puzzled by this. I was referring to the previous instances in which I’d characterized your views. I was offering you a chance to take issue with them. How is that not speaking directly to your accusation that I mischaracterize you?
which of the arguments in The Climate Fix do you find to be flawed or even completely wrong?
An argument you made while promoting The Climate Fix:
“The “˜iron law’ thus presents a boundary condition on policy design that is every bit as limiting as is the second law of thermodynamics, and it holds everywhere around the world, in rich and poor countries alike. It says that even if people are willing to bear some costs to reduce emissions (and experience shows that they are), they are willing to go only so far.”
Personally, if someone submitted an article to me that said the above, I would return it with the suggestion that as impressive as it might be to embed a false equivalence inside a tautology, it’s not something I’d like to be seen as even tacitly endorsing as coherent, let alone logically sound.
On the one hand, it’s tautologically true that people will take only so much until they won’t take anymore. That’s a completely meaningless statement. On the other, anyone willing to equate what a populace is willing to tolerate legislation-wise with the fundamental workings of the universe? That appears to me to be either a stunning example of why people (usually unfairly) laugh at poli sci, or else cynicism of the worst kind, not believing his words but hoping that others will in order to make them true. I won’t bother guessing the motivation for writing something like that. Perhaps you can explain it.
Are my criticisms supposedly to be narrowly restricted to something I haven’t read, thereby depriving me of any opportunity to make them?
I agree with a lot of what you say, but those ideas aren’t particularly original to you (or myself). They’re common sense. I disagree with anyone, you or otherwise, who presents the “breakthrough” gambit as an alternative to emissions reductions through a cap or [a non-trivial] tax without explicitly articulating how a clean energy fund will keep coal in the ground absent obscene governmental intrusion into the energy market [which is as politically radioactive as emissions pricing]. You completely sidestepped this and handwaved about the problems with cap and trade.
I argue, and I am happy to be shown otherwise, that you don’t articulate how this is possible because you simply cannot. And this is why people dismiss it as “pixie dust”. One can say whatever he likes about emissions trading, but it has been successfully implemented to reduce lead, sulfur dioxide, (in other countries) so-called Montreal gases, etc. That’s no *guarantee* that it will successfully reduce CO2, but at least there is a demonstrable, market-based mechanism for doing so.
As I have said plenty of times before, I want to be a believer. Help me embrace the breakthrough narrative by offering a plausible mechanism that keeps coal in the ground, prevents massive exploitation of unconventional, etc. that isn’t just as politically demonized by the American right and doesn’t resort to handwaving and/or special pleading.
I don’t think the prospects for a tax or cap and trade regime look great at the moment. I am looking for any port in a storm. Make me a convert! I’m more than capable of it, I’ve drastically shifted my position on nuclear as well as geoengineering and carbon sequestration research funding because I realized I was arguing from partisan reflexivity rather than the balance of evidence.
Help me help you!
Are my criticisms supposedly to be
Should read “supposed to be”.
A commenter recently noticed that I was listed as a “Lukewarmer” on someone else’s blogroll and wanted to know if that’s what I was, perhaps with stifled horror that he or she may have been mistakenly trusting my words all these years. (Identity politics meets climate science.) I scanned the available categories, and none accurately summarized my position. I’ve concluded that I’m hors categorie. This may leave me being trusted by no one.
Pielke can defend himself, I’m sure, but I just love, love, love this sentence from Thingsbreak: “I disagree with anyone, you or otherwise, who presents the “breakthrough” gambit as an alternative to emissions reductions through a cap or [a non-trivial] tax without explicitly articulating how a clean energy fund will keep coal in the ground absent obscene governmental intrusion into the energy market [which is as politically radioactive as emissions pricing].”
‘Cause, ya know, putting a “cap or a non-trivial tax” on energy just can’t be seen as an “obscene governmental intrusion.” But here we’ll get the circle-jerk: you want a cap-n-tax that would force people to stop using energy, but if someone points that out you will deny it, saying it’s really “cheap and easy,” to which we will point out that any “cheap and easy” action wouldn’t result in emissions cuts, to which you wave your hand and call us fossil fuel dupes opposed to any action, to which we say “build all the nuke plants you want,” to which you will point out that the most serious issue in the world is not THAT serious. Ad infinitum, ad absurdium
@17 jeffn:
“˜Cause, ya know, putting a “cap or a non-trivial tax” on energy just can’t be seen as an “obscene governmental intrusion.”
Seriously? It decidedly is seen that way. And it’s opposed because of that. That’s the entire point.
The question is, how do you get clean energy so inexpensive that coal and unconventionals get left in the ground without similarly large interventions by the government into the energy market?
If there is a miracle way to do this, I am all for it. However, the same people in Congress opposing cap and trade or a significant carbon tax are also opposing large clean energy subsidies. The breakthrough gang is ostensibly offering a plan that doesn’t suffer from the same susceptibility to right wing opposition that emissions pricing does. And massive clean energy funding does. That’s the entire point.
thingsbreak Says:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
<i>Help me embrace the breakthrough narrative by offering a plausible mechanism that keeps coal in the ground</i>
Voglte #3 and Vogtle #4 as well as VC Summer #2 and VC Summner #3 nuclear plants are being built in the absence of ‘cap and trade’.
@17 jeffn:
to which we say “build all the nuke plants you want,” to which you will point out that the most serious issue in the world is not THAT serious.
Uh:
@14 thingsbreak:
I’ve drastically shifted my position on nuclear
A) At least pretend to read the comments you’re ostensibly disagreeing with. B) Not even the most vocal pro-nuke proponents who study the issue believe that nukes alone are sufficient to the task. It’s at best a potentially large component of a comprehensive strategy, not a silver bullet.
thingsbreak (14)
You have this nice offer: “Help me help you!” Thanks, really.
But then in your lengthy exposition on my views you say: “Are my criticisms supposedly to be narrowly restricted to something I haven’t read?”
There is no need of course for you to read what I’ve written on anything, but if you are sincerely interested in understanding the arguments I’ve put forward on climate change policy, then yeah, you’ve probably got to read my book length treatment of the issue. If you did so you wouldn’t be writing silly things like “breakthrough “gambit”” and associate that with my views (hint: p. 226 dismisses the notion of energy breakthroughs).
I have no problem with your criticism of my views, but uninformed criticism that misrepresents my views is not so cool (especially from someone who should know better) … so if you’d like, go ahead and inform yourself and then let’s chat.
Thanks.
I pledge allegience to cheap energy, free markets, limited government, and real data from the real earth.
…oh, I thought we were taking oaths.
“rational dialogue is virtually impossible between warring sides”
Naaah, that’s not true. It’s just not pretty. It’s not like everybody’s gonna stop and render suddenly Kumbaya.
For some reason Keith’s site isn’t letting me comment via phone browser, so I’m trying to do so in a roundabout manner. This may get flagged as spam.
@21 Roger Pielke Jr.:
“There is no need of course for you to read what I’ve written on anything”
and
“I have no problem with your criticism of my views, but uninformed criticism that misrepresents my views is not so cool (especially from someone who should know better) “¦ so if you’d like, go ahead and inform yourself and then let’s chat.”
Roger, I directly commented on something you wrote. Now, in the interest of maintaining our cordial dialog, I’m not going to accuse you of misdirection, but rather call your attention to the fact that you’ve written quite a number of things that someone doesn’t have to read your book to evaluate.
The mechanism by which cap and trade or a carbon tax keeps unconventionals and coal from being massively exploited is well understood and agreed upon in the abstract if not in political feasibility. No one has to buy anyone’s book to discuss the basic outlines. GHG intesnive fuels are priced for their climatic consequences so that cleaner energy sources become economically preferable.
You said earlier:
“I’ve simply found that the best way to counter the disinformation found on blogs about my views is to accurately describe my position as concisely and clearly as possible.”
People have been begging for months for someone to **concisely** and clearly describe the corresponding mechanism proposed by BTI, the Hartwell group, et al. The answer surely cannot be the kind of clean energy funding opposed by Congressional Republicans, because the BTI, Hartwell paper, etc. are all claiming to avoid the kind of partisan gridlock that emissions pricing entails, which such clean energy funding does as well.
“but if you are sincerely interested in understanding the arguments I’ve put forward on climate change policy, then yeah, you’ve probably got to read my book length treatment of the issue.”
What happened to “clear and concise”? I don’t need to know the nitty gritty details. I am simply asking how you:
– keep coal and unconventionals from being the huge climatic perturbation they’re poised to be
– do this absent non-trivial carbon pricing
– do this absent the kind of massive funding of clean energy that Congressional Republicans oppose
– and do this without resorting to special pleading/handwaving
I can tell you how carbon pricing does this. Anyone can. We all agree that carbon pricing results in political obstruction that you and others claim to avoid. We’re looking for the missing step in the Gnome Underpants plan to break through the climate gridlock.
“If you did so you wouldn’t be writing silly things like “breakthrough “gambit”” and associate that with my views (hint: p. 226 dismisses the notion of energy breakthroughs).”
That’s just shorthand for the BTI, Hartwell, et al. ostensible work around. It’s short for BTI not necessarily clean energy breakthroughs. (Clean energy miracles/breakthroughs I usually refer to as “pixie dust”.)
Please focus on the meat of my comments and not the potential avenues of escaping the direct questions. Help me help you! I want to believe!
thingsbreak (24)
If you want to understand my arguments about the “iron law of climate policy” then read chapters 2-4 of The Climate Fix.
If you want to know how to get a non-trivial carbon price, then follow that up with Chapter 9 (and if you want gory details read Chris Green’s work).
Are these the best arguments out there? Maybe not (but they are the best ones I’ve got;-). Will you find them convincing? Probably not. But they are my arguments. And just as I tell my grad students, I’m not going to spoon feed you complex arguments found in the academic literature. If such arguments could be boiled down to fit into a blog comment box then they wouldn’t be so complex would they?
If you want to inform yourself, then by all means do so, but please don’t blame me for your lack of being informed when there is a simple and obvious remedy to that condition.
Thanks!
PS. If you don’t want to buy my book you can probably find it at your university’s library, (but really you should be assigning it to all of your students 😉
Well, let us spin it back the other way, trying to be oh so evenhanded about climate change does not mean shoehorning every global concern into the it’s only weather box. For example climate changes in Australia (droughts and floods) may be closely connected with the Antarctic ozone hole.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/06/eli-is-evil-bunny.html
Oh yes Roger, how is Uncle Fred doing?
[Eli, re: “uncle Fred”: stop speaking in weird jibberish that only you and three other people understand. If you want to be sarcastic about something, at least be direct. You have your own blog for the rabbet talk ./KK]
Wow… all the way back to Zeke?
”
Zeke Hausfather Says:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:57 am
I wouldn’t say that rational dialogue is “virtually impossible”, just that its not nearly as interesting for folks as the ideologues. There are plenty of bloggers like Science of Doom, Lucia, Nick Stokes, Bart, John N-G, and others who work to promote dialogue, they just get a lot fewer eyeballs than the Watts and Romms of the world.”
While Watts took an extreme position to our humble CoS, I feel all of the poor debates come from elsewhere (well, the *wildcard* Progress sites. The Morano and Rabbet smut sites are the ruin to all rational discussion. I pity the students of either of these personalities. It is sad when “Stoat” is making a reasonable argument these days (…that is in the “boundary”…).
Even though I have had issue with Zeke concerning “anomalies”, I am open only to “intelligent” discussion. Cult discussions of ozone and drought and floods will turn ANY intelligent lifeform’s stomach.
Show me a future that has reasonable infrastructure that does not have turbines and/or solar as the backbone to charging all those IPod, iPad, iApple products and then we can talk. RPJ has done a good attempt and even Connolley has a fair assessment (though short…).
Get your “Green” out of the Greenpeace Machine!
RPJr. wrote:
>For instance, here is how Steve Milloy(junkscience.com) >characterizes me: “a soft-science Colorado greenie.”
Gee, Roger, I think you should put that one on your masthead. Preferably with a Cartoon by Josh.
@6 Roger Pielke Jr.:
I’ve simply found that the best way to counter the disinformation found on blogs about my views is to accurately describe my position as concisely and clearly as possible.
@24 thingsbreak:
People have been begging for months for someone to **concisely** and clearly describe the corresponding mechanism proposed by BTI, the Hartwell group, et al. The answer surely cannot be the kind of clean energy funding opposed by Congressional Republicans, because the BTI, Hartwell paper, etc. are all claiming to avoid the kind of partisan gridlock that emissions pricing entails, which such clean energy funding does as well…
… I don’t need to know the nitty gritty details…
@25 Roger Pielke Jr.:
…read chapters 2-4 of The Climate Fix…
…follow that up with Chapter 9…
…If you don’t want to buy my book you can probably find it at your university’s library, (but really you should be assigning it to all of your students…
@24 thingsbreak:
The mechanism by which cap and trade or a carbon tax keeps unconventionals and coal from being massively exploited is well understood and agreed upon in the abstract if not in political feasibility. No one has to buy anyone’s book to discuss the basic outlines…
…I can tell you how carbon pricing does this. Anyone can…
I’m not asking for a detailed proposal, Roger. I’m asking for you to simply state what the mechanism is. It’s not a difficult request. I don’t have to get into revenue neutral, non-regressive schemes for a carbon tax to say what the mechanism it works by is. I don’t have to talk about percentage of permitted auctions, or offset qualifications to say what the mechanism for a cap and trade program is. They make clean energy goods and services economically preferable to GHG-intensive goods and services by pricing in the assumed climatic costs of GHG-intensive goods and services.
What keeps the coal/unconventionals in the ground in BTI/Hartwell/Roger world? I’m happy to read your book at some point. I anticipate that I will agree with much of it! However, I am a little perplexed as to why you don’t seem to want to concisely and clearly summarize the alternative mechanism to non-trivial carbon pricing.
KK,
Personally, I started putting in the obligatory “I believe in AGW” a while back, years back actually.Mostly to forestall the people who take what I might say out of context, although that didn’t stop Romm. And it didnt stop skeptics from using what I said either. People will use your words however they wish, they dont really belong to you.
Agree with Zeke. There are places where rational dialogue can happen. The question is how do you make it popular and preserve it.
hmm maybe there is a way to monetize it. I certainly would pay to here certain people discuss things and I would pay for certain people to shut up. i would also pay to watch certain people go toe to toe, irrationally of course
Roger,
You asked TB to engage you on the substance. He did so with a well reasoned argument without “playing the man” (of which you accused him). Not that you owe him anything, but the courteous thing to do would be now for you to engage him, no?
Just curious, but this whole “I believe” business is weird. What exactly are you confessing to when you say “I believe” – that there is *some* antrhopogenic influence, that catastrophe looms, that you favor a carbon tax, that you own a solar panel, that you aren’t a republican.
It’s interesting you guys feel compelled to confess this “belief” – a litmus test, I suppose – but I have no idea what you actually mean. I’m not sure you do either.
Sorry to dodge out and have a life last night- TB #17 “The question is, how do you get clean energy so inexpensive that coal and unconventionals get left in the ground without similarly large interventions by the government into the energy market?”
And the answer is not pretending that massive subsidies and high taxes make “clean energy” (like ethanol?) inexpensive. They make everything expensive.
@20 “I’ve drastically shifted my position on nuclear A) At least pretend to read the comments you’re ostensibly disagreeing with.”
I read it and afforded it the value it deserves. So, everybody now agrees with nukes? Where’s the apology for the decades of anti-nuke activism based on junk science? Heck, where is there any nuke construction in the US since this became partisan issue numero uno amongst the alleged environment concerned? What firmly held, obnoxiously promoted, half-baked position will you “shift” next? TB in 2013 “gee whiz guys, I’ve drastically shifted my position on how much warming we’ll see in the next century, why don’t you at least pretend to read before slapping me around for demanding an even higher carbon tax.”
As for the rest – I really don’t understand the loyalty oath codicil I’m seeing from several comments – including RPJ – that it’s wrong to assume “breakthroughs” in energy in the next 100 years. Of course there will be. We’ve been asked what will keep coal in the ground and the answers are already forming based on breakthroughs we’re already seeing- next gen nukes and natural gas. The better question is why anyone is holding out for windmills and tax hikes.
What Bart said. However, in the time honoured fashion of putting words in Roger’s mouth, let me try to answer the question.
The anwser is that you can’t keep coal in the ground. The TBI proposal isn’t about ‘solving’ the problem, it’s about doing something (i.e. R&D + small carbon price) rather than nothing (C&T, larger carbon tax, etc.)and hoping for the best. S&N have discovered that hope and aspirational messaging works better than paralysis-inducing ‘facts’ 🙂
On the one hand it’s hard to argue with this logic. something is indeed better than nothing. On the other hand, it would help if advocates of the basic TBI approach were a little more upfront about the shortcomings of the alternative that they are putting on the table for discussion.
Bart (32) … Thanks, I’ve gone around with thingsbreak on many occasions, such that I’m not sure what else to offer him. He seems to think that I, Hartwell, TBI are all against carbon pricing, when the exact opposite is the case. So once again …
In a nutshell, here is the answer to his question: If you want a price on carbon (which I, Hartwell, TBI, Green etc. have all proposed), then start low. How low? As high as the politics will allow. I suggested $5/tonne in my book, but who knows? From there the political ability to increase that price will be a function of the proportion of carbon-free energy in the supply mix, the greater the proportion the greater the likelihood that the politics will be favorable to increasing a carbon price. How do you increase that proportion? By treating innovation in energy like we do in health, ag and defense. This approach differ from the conventional approach because we see innovation leading pricing rather than vice-versa.
Is there a guarantee of success here? No of course not (see my short essay titled “success is not guaranteed”). No policies are guaranteed of success.
Is this a better approach than calling for the impossible (a high carbon price to start)? I think so.
This argument is not hidden and the mechanism is not complicated — it has been describe a zillion times … in Harwell, TCF, on my blog about every week;-)
Marlowe,
Per my current post (“Game Over?”), it would also help if climate advocates were a little “more upfront” about the energy challenge and were more realistic about how to meet it. That is is even more the case now with the backlash against nuclear, and, increasingly, natural gas.
@37
Agreed. More grown-up conversations about the challenges of meeting the UNFCCC ‘dangerous interference’ goal would be helpful. OTOH, I’m not sure how well that would sell in modern democracies where the maturity level of political discourse is somewhat lacking.
@Roger
“Is this a better approach than calling for the impossible (a high carbon price to start)?”
How is this different from the ACES/WCI proposals? Last time I checked allowance prices for 2020 were forecasted to be in the 20-30 t/co2e range. IOW, aren’t you beating up a bit of a strawman here? Who is advocating for a $100/tCO2e starting in 2011?
Perhaps it’s in your book :), but what I think is missing from your blog postings is what the thresholds for political feasibility are (at the federal level) when it comes to putting a price on carbon, and more importantly what factors other than the carbon intensity of the electricity supply mix influence public acceptance of higher carbon prices.
FYI, the interested reader can see the ACES analysis by the EPA here and the WCI analysis here
@24 thingsbreak:
I am simply asking how you:
– keep coal and unconventionals from being the huge climatic perturbation they’re poised to be
– do this absent non-trivial carbon pricing
– do this absent the kind of massive funding of clean energy that Congressional Republicans oppose
– and do this without resorting to special pleading/handwaving
@36 Roger Pielke Jr.:
If you want a price on carbon (which I, Hartwell, TBI, Green etc. have all proposed), then start low. How low? As high as the politics will allow. I suggested $5/tonne in my book, but who knows? From there the political ability to increase that price will be a function of the proportion of carbon-free energy in the supply mix, the greater the proportion the greater the likelihood that the politics will be favorable to increasing a carbon price. How do you increase that proportion? By treating innovation in energy like we do in health, ag and defense.
Thanks for the response, Roger. The problems, from my perspective, with this outline **only in terms of it being presented as better than non-trivial carbon pricing** would seem to be the following:
– carbon price starts too low prevent massive exploitation of coal/unconventionals (i.e. trivial initial price). Obviously, the plan is to crank the carbon price up and clean energy prices down, but that leads us to:
– flat out rejection of any- not just a non-trivial but any- carbon pricing by Congressional Republicans. Also, a trivial price that is intended to increase over time is going to be fought not on its initial price, but whatever price its opponents want to scare people into believing it will “end up costing” (this problem is not unique to your plan, we saw it with cap and trade legislation. But again, that it has the same political vulnerability is kind of the point).
– innovation in defense, medicine, and agriculture depends in no small part on significant government intervention (subsidies, regulation fast-tracking, etc.), which Congressional Republicans likewise oppose for clean energy. Again, not unique to your plan, but again, that’s kind of the point.
It’s not that your plan is necessarily a bad plan. I think it has some good points. But it’s just not a plan that avoids Congressional Republican obstructionism, which is arguably its key selling point (at least to those in the media desperate for a new “game” or “narrative”). It’s basically a slightly watered down version of the compromises people have proposed for other carbon pricing mechanisms (start off as painless as possible, direct funds to clean energy). In this political climate, however, it’s going to be demagogued as just as badly as a strong carbon price, without a strong carbon price’s impact on coal/unconventional development.
We’ve all been asking for months how these plans thread the needle of actually doing something meaningful about GHGs while avoiding political obstruction. The answer is, while they sacrifice some of the former but don’t really escape the latter. Now, that’s not to say it’s a worse plan than cap and trade or a high carbon price. It’s just not what we were led to believe by the hype machine (not necessarily laying that at your feet, Roger).
@36 Roger Pielke Jr.:
Is this a better approach than calling for the impossible (a high carbon price to start)? I think so.
Last point, and I sort of touched on this, but the actual proposals for cap and trade that have gone to Congressional vote already contain much of this trade off. Instead of 100% auction of permits at a strong price there’s a huge give away, certain sectors are initially exempt, etc.
I will reiterate once more that the problem many of us have is seeing how something can avoid the political problems of cap and trade while doing something meaningful about climate.
In the US, it seems like the options are as follows:
– effective
– politically acceptable
– markedly different than previous proposals
Pick any two.
Thanks for this interaction, Roger. I will do my best to read The Climate Fix in the near future, and promise to read it from not just an unbiased but rather sympathetic perspective. I hope it makes a convert out of me. I enjoy growth and finding new perspectives- it makes life so much more interesting.
And just to clarify one more thing:
@36 Roger Pielke Jr.:
He seems to think that I, Hartwell, TBI are all against carbon pricing, when the exact opposite is the case.
Roger, I don’t think that you’re against carbon pricing. I think that the groups/individuals mentioned have been presented as offering an alternative to non-trivial carbon pricing that avoids the political gridlock of non-trivial carbon pricing. I hope that clarifies the angle from which my queries were coming. I was not seeking to misrepresent your position, but rather to evaluate your position against what it has been presented as.
Thanks thingsbreak, I have two quick responses to your critique, which is perfectly fair.
One is that it is overly focused on the US. These issues are playing out in many places, and perhaps most importantly, in the growing parts of the global economy.
The other is that I am not so willing to write off the US. Yeah the politics are poisonous at the moment. But if AEI can get behind a version of these arguments, well, others on the political right can also. And as you are probably aware, the strongest opposition to these ideas has not been from the political right.
Feel free to drop by my blog sometime, as I am happy to continue a constructive engagement.
@43 Roger Pielke Jr.:
One is that it is overly focused on the US
I thought about adding a caveat that it sounded reasonable for a Western European context, but had two reservations that prevented me: 1) other schemes are similarly not non-starters politically (regardless of their eventual implementation success or failure) abroad, and 2) I was focusing on the BTI/Hartwell/Climate Fix plans from the perspective of an explicit alternative in the US to cap and trade and the like that offered away around domestic political obstructionism (i.e. in posts by Kloor, Revkin, et al.).
The other is that I am not so willing to write off the US. Yeah the politics are poisonous at the moment. But if AEI can get behind a version of these arguments, well, others on the political right can also.
That’s certainly one way to look at it. And I hope that’s the case. My head, however, tells me that the kind of positions that groups like AEI take are dictated not by what they will actually endorse, but rather by what they hope can derail what they fear will be enacted otherwise.
A prime example of this being the health care debate and conservative proponents of individual mandates as an alternative to HillaryCare. Once health care reform became a reality, the positions that were formally acceptable from conservatives became “socialist” almost over night- with the Heritage foundation attacking its own idea when it threatened to become law.
And as you are probably aware, the strongest opposition to these ideas has not been from the political right.
I think that is largely attributable to how it was pitched. I have no idea how much the narrative was an emergent media-driven one vs. how much it was cultivated intentionally internally, but I think you’d have seen a vastly different reaction to presenting a plan as slightly different than cap and trade, with political vulnerabilities similar in kind if not degree. Instead, we got the ‘cap and trade is dead, this plan doesn’t have its flaws’ spin that sounded too good to be true.
Feel free to drop by my blog sometime, as I am happy to continue a constructive engagement.
I will try to read your book and do so.
A prime example of this being the health care debate and conservative proponents of individual mandates as an alternative to HillaryCare. Once health care reform became a reality, the positions that were formally acceptable from conservatives became “socialist” almost over night- with the Heritage foundation attacking its own idea when it threatened to become law.
(And obviously, cap and trade schemes were a market-based alternative to command and control environmental solutions, and used to be endorsed by the political right; George W. Bush ran in 2000 on a carbon tax that would earn him accusations of crypto-communism today; etc…)
@ TB (41)
How about tax-and-dividend? Could you try it on your 1,2,3 requirements?
@46
On what basis would you allocate the dividend? More for rural/poor? or would everyone get the same? Imagine how the politics of this would actually play out in the u.s…
TB, some excellent points and I enjoy the dialogue between you and Roger.
You wrote:
– effective
– politically acceptable
– markedly different than previous proposals
Pick any two.
Isn’t the whole challenge to get a combination of 1 and 2 (I can do without 3 on my least fashionable days)? Clearly not all combo’s of two are feasible (in the current political climate).
Personally, I would divide it equally, per capita. That way the big emitters willbe punished and low emitters will benefit. I don’t see anything politically controvercial about this particular way of distribution but I’d be open to other ideas.
So you would ‘punish’ rural people for being….rural, and reward urbanites for being urban? Remind me again how this gets past the farm lobby in the Senate…
I’m not sure what you mean. One can be rural and emit little CO2. Live in a small house, don’t use AC, drive a moped. The options are there. Urban people are already well punished by high cost of living so I don’t see why they need to be punished some more.
The farm lobby would be pacified by giving them what they want: some tax breaks for high energy farm users. Not that I would prefer it that way but, realistically, this is the only way it could happen giving the very low count of cojones in Congress.
@48 Bart Verheggen
Isn’t the whole challenge to get a combination of 1 and 2 (I can do without 3 on my least fashionable days)? Clearly not all combo’s of two are feasible (in the current political climate).
Yes. The third prong is irrelevant to actually solving the problem. My point was that even if Roger’s/BTI’s/Hartwell’s plan passed the first two, it wasn’t significantly different than previous proposals before Congress. The third prong doesn’t have anything to do with the climate, it has to do with the media obsession for a “game changer”, new “narrative”, etc.
A modest but increasing price on carbon coupled with spurring clean energy innovation is nothing new from a conceptual or narrative perspective, yet this is what we were pitched. Do I care at all in terms of climate that it’s nothing new? Of course not. If that can do the job and get the votes, great. I will shout it from the roof tops! But I’d also bet every dollar I have that any political climate in which that plan can pass and not be completely gutted along the way could also pass a version of cap and trade or tax and dividend…
intrepid_wanders,
This is going a bit off topic, but…
I hate to burst your bubble on anomalies, but unless you are doing all your calculations in Kelvin you are already using them :-p
For a more interesting discussion on the ability of anomalies to affect results (at least for temperature reconstructions using a common anomaly method — reference station and least squares methods avoid this), see: http://anotherclimateblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/base-period-vs-trend-vs-spatial-coverage/
Likewise, Lucia had a rather good series of posts on the basics of the subject back when we were dealing with the whole station dropping silliness:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/the-pure-anomaly-method-aka-a-spherical-cow/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/giss-anomalies-more-spherical-cow/
As far as future energy options go, renewables will have a role as prices (particularly for solar) drop, but they will be limited until we develop better (and cheaper) storage technology (or significantly upgrade the grid) to deal with intermittence issues. I’m bullish on natural gas to replace coal for baseload generation, generally support building nuclear power plants (though I’m still skeptical on the economics of it), and think electric cars will win out over the next 30-40 years assuming storage technology becomes cheaper over time (something being driven rather quickly by the consumer electronics industry, oddly enough).
Roger’s position on climate change is well known to anyone who has been following his work over the last decade. Yet he wanted to “reiterate” where he stood on the issue, which I found slightly odd.
That might be the closest we ever see of Keith criticizing Roger Pielke Jr!
There are 2 reasons why one would want to make a declaration that they support the general consensus on climate change. First, as been described here, political hacks / deniers have a tendency to misrepresent everything anyone says, spinning any words or work as being that of a full-fledged contrarian, and this has certainly happened with Pielke.
Pielke (a political scientist) has another related reason for doing it, but quite different from why someone might state it about Harold Brooks, who is skeptical of global warming’s link to tornado activity (as am I). By regularly stating that he accepts the general consensus on global warming, it allows Pielke to seem more credibile among a wider audience – allowing him to more effectively downplay global warming concerns. It’s also a unique market niche. There are plenty of full-fledged deniers – not so many in-betweens. So he hates the idea of him (or his father Pielke Sr.) being characterized as a skeptic, as it challenges the heart of his persona. But the problem is, Pielke spends the majority of his blog posts promoting and praising skeptic and skeptic material and/or bashing mainstream science, so it’s very easy to get the impression that he’s a skeptic, thus the real need to constantly claim otherwise.
“But the problem is, Pielke spends the majority of his blog posts promoting and praising skeptic and skeptic material and/or bashing mainstream science…”
What are you a Joe Romm troll? If I want to read such outright BS, I can easily go and dig up one of Joe’s various slanderous posts on RPJ. The big difference between Joe and you is that he at least puts his name to his posts.
Do you really need examples, Keith? Take off the blinders.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-personal-lies-from.html
The big difference between you and Joe Romm is that Romm consistently backs up what he says.
You said, in characteristically hyperbolic fashion (my emphasis): “Pielke spends the majority of his blog posts promoting and praising skeptic and skeptic material and/or bashing mainstream science…”
Again, as anyone who’s been reading Roger’s blog for years would know, this is such utter manure that I can only conclude that you’re obviously a Romm troll.
As for Romm backing up what he says: sure, if you count self citations to his own posts.
Let me ask you: why hide behind an anonymous handle? If you feel so strongly about this, come out behind your cover and man up.
Keith,
My post (#54) had nothing to do with Joe Romm, and your rant amounts to a weird misdirection. You are absolutely obsessed with him, and I don’t really understand it. The number of posts where you spew venom towards him vastly exceeds anything he’s ever written about you, and I’m not interested in any further nonsense regarding him (particularly on threads not the least bit related), nor am I interested in personal jabs over anonymity.
My post points out my observations on Pielke’s potential reasons for constantly re-iterating support for the general climate change consensus. He’s someone who you treat as a teddy bear, refusing to take a truly critical look at what he says and reacting with attacks when someone does, as if you’ve been personally slighted.
What else do you need?
Pielke:
The IPCC continues to show blinders when it comes to energy technology innovation
The IPCC statement (PDF) is a remarkable bit of spin and misinformation
The more that the IPCC resembles an advocacy group with a narrow political agenda tied to the Kyoto Protocol, the more it risks its credibility, legitimacy, and ultimately, its sustainability.
and now the convenient “solution”:
We will need honest brokers if we are to made good decisions about climate policy.
Your comments here typically drip with contempt for anyone who dares to challenge conventional climate policy, or anyone who is critical of catastrophists like Romm.
The thing of it is, your broad brush characterization and hyperbolic tone when talking about RPJ (and others) eerily echoes Romm. That certainly makes you a good mimic.
‘Roger’s position on climate change is well known to anyone who has been following his work over the last decade. Yet he wanted to “reiterate” where he stood on the issue, which I found slightly odd.’
Given that RPJ is regularly criticized by AGW supporters for aiding and abetting “skeptics” as characterized by TB @3 or a “denier” flying under the radar by NYJ @54 it is understandable that Roger feels the need to state his position on AGW from time to time.
It will not change the opinions of zealots on either side of the debate but it is informative for people new to climate blogs.