Climate change

[Bred Sob]

I wonder, are there any experts reading this thread who could possibly update us on the current state of the climate science?

As I mentioned earlier, in my own work I did at some point get interested in the climate models that were available at the time (the achievements were rather pathetic, to tell the truth), but only tangentially. I tried from time to time to follow the later developments, but not too closely or comprehensively. I believe my knowledge of the subject is sufficient to catch an obvious bullshitter in his bullshit, but no way I could consider myself an expert.

I could still try to sum up my understanding of where the science currently stands, but of course it would be great to hear from a real professional.

 

[TheJames101]

Reading this thread, one gets the sense there are many experts here Bred

 

[Bred Sob]

Well, let the record show that I tried to get serious for once. Obviously, I haven't succeeded in that endeavor.

 

[MattMiller]

So Sol Tee Nutz hates the carbon tax. It's not clear to me why [Is it just because its a policy pushed by the Trudeau government?]. With his post # 340 he seems to be all over the place. He tells us that "climate change is a scam as the climate has always changed at various rates before [the] industrial" era. But then he also tells us that "companies are working on it" [it being climate change]. But if climate change is not happening, if instead we are just experiencing trendless random temperature fluctuations, then what are companies working on?

If one accepts that climate change is happening, and that it is caused by the emission of various gases, chief among them CO2, then a revenue-neutral carbon tax (like pushed by the Trudeau government) is an essential but insufficient policy. Who says so? For instance, 27 Nobel laureates in economics says so. Also, several top-flight conservative economists say so: for instance, Greg Mankiw, Martin Feldstein, Edward Lazear, Michael Boskin - each of them a former Chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers under a Republican president.
See here: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

Also the International Monetary Fund [IMF] advocates for using fiscal policy to fight climate change:
IMF Fiscal Monitor, October 2019
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/Issues/2019/09/12/fiscal-monitor-october-2019
“Carbon taxes levied on the supply of fossil fuels in proportion to their carbon content are the most powerful and efficient . . . of the various mitigation strategies to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions,” says the report, “because they allow firms and households to find the lowest-cost ways of reducing energy use and shifting toward cleaner alternatives.”


A carbon tax is the fairest, most effective, most efficient single policy tool in the fight for a habitable climate. The Carbon Tax Center serves as a resource for people supportive of or curious about carbon taxes.
https://www.carbontax.org/

Gilbert E. Metcalf: Carbon tax myths
https://blog.oup.com/2018/12/carbon-tax-myths/
[blogpost by an US economist who wrote a whole book about the carbon tax: https://www.amazon.com/Paying-Pollution-Carbon-Good-America/dp/019069419X; a book that was endorsed by prominent US conservative economists Greg Mankiw and Douglas Holtz-Eakin; Mankiw was Chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers in the GW Bush administration; Holtz-Eakin was Director of the Congressional Budget Office when GW Bush was president, and chief economic policy adviser to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign]


The Economist: The climate issue. Sept.19, 2019
Editorial. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/09/19/the-climate-issue
Briefing on climate change.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/09/21/the-past-present-and-future-of-climate-change

The OECD agrees with the IMF:
Taxing Energy Use 2019: Using Taxes for Climate Action, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/058ca239-en

Why trust imperfect climate science?
Naomi Oreskes (and others): Why Trust Science? Princeton University Press, 2019
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Science-University-Center-Values/dp/069117900X/

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

^^^^ The poor get a tax rebate ( they produce very little GHG's compared to the wealthy ) and the rich do not give a fuck. How will a tax alter climate change? Without your links and in your own words, perhaps by buying carbon credits.


Quick search

Let’s start at the beginning. Much is being made of the fact that the federal carbon tax will be revenue neutral (it won’t actually be fully revenue neutral, only 90 per cent will be rebated). And indeed, economic theory states that a carbon tax should indeed be revenue neutral. But there’s a caveat here—to offset the harm the carbon tax does to the economy, the tax revenues must be used to reduce existing distortionary taxes such as the personal income tax or the corporate income tax. Rebating the revenues as lump sum rebates eliminates the opportunity to offset the harm of the tax by reducing other distortionary taxes.

Another explicit assumption about optimal carbon taxation is that it must be emplaced in lieu of regulations—not layered on top of them. Layering a carbon tax on top of regulations makes the regulations even more economically damaging. But the Trudeau government shows no indication that it’s ready to make that trade.

In fact, the government plans to implement a “Clean Fuel Standard” that “would incent the use of a broad range of low carbon fuels, energy sources and technologies, such as electricity, hydrogen, and renewable fuels, including renewable natural gas. It would establish lifecycle carbon intensity requirements separately for liquid, gaseous and solid fuels, and would go beyond transportation fuels to include those used in industry and buildings.”

That does not sound much like a swap of a carbon tax for regulations.

 

[GMA]

Well, I'm interested reading the above posts by MattMiller and STN.
Because we cannot get the Republican controlled US Senate nor Idiot In Chief Trump to admit to Climate Change, I haven't focused on the pros and cons of the carbon tax. But it's a benefit to the US that Canada is actively trying to figure out these federal government policy solutions, so the US can get up to speed more quickly if we win the POTUS election this November. I'm hoping that the college age generation will rise up and vote, but the Republicans are actively passing laws to suppress the student vote state by state.

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

The carbon tax puts Canada at a disadvantage in manufacturing and basically any exporting we do. The added costs to everyone from farmers to delivery will be passed on to the consumer, for what, trying to alter climate change. If we meet the Paris Accord agreement and it looks doubtful we would on a global scale reduce GHG's by 0.0004%, the cost does not justify the means. Even the Swedes voted that the biggest waste of 2019 taxpayers dollars was fighting climate change ( How dare they, Greta must be furious )
Taxing a country for using fossil fuels is nothing but a money grab and if you think that it will alter climate change, well I have a mint 1975 pinto to sell you for $200,000.00.

This is just the take of the GST for Alberta and BC.
Nov. 1, 2018 ·*A 2017 analysis by the Library of Parliament said that if the GST were charged on all of the revenues collected from existing carbon levies in British Columbia and Alberta it would add as much as $150 million in a year to Ottawa's coffers. That was based on those governments having a carbon tax of $30 a tonne.
Yes, nothing to do with money....right

 

[Albacor]

I told you since the beguinning, carbon tax is just another disguised form of money grabber from the government ! all they do is just planted a few trees with the money, that's it; the rest goes into their pockets !
and you know what? the biggest polluter in the world is not my car! it is the military ! an F-35 taking off an air craft carrier equal emission of 100 cars ! no need to mention all the tanks, missiles, and battle ships circling around the middle east ready to trike if any war ! but shuuut ! please do not spread this out, the media never mention it because the government do not want you to know that, got it ?
Every countries is increasing their military budget ! Greta please go after them ? and leave my car alone, please ? Thanks.

 

[Bred Sob]

the biggest polluter in the world is not my car! it is the military ! ... Greta please go after them ? and leave my car alone, please ? Thanks.

Agree! That will be a true clash of titans.

 

[GMA]

I agree with STN that a carbon tax in only one country seems logical to put it at a competitive disadvantage for international trade. That's why it was so bad when Trump got elected and pulled the US out of the Kyoto accord. It's going to take a worldwide effort, and unfortunately it doesn't seem likely to happen. It will be an uphill battle to get all the big countries to cooperate in time, even if Trump loses the election.

 

[Bred Sob]

That's why it was so bad when Trump got elected and pulled the US out of the Kyoto accord.

Never mind that it was done in 2001 and the villain of the day was named "George W. Bush". It is still Trump's fault, that is indisputable.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2001/mar/29/globalwarming.usnews

Always a pleasure to read your well-informed posts.

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

Did not want to search for the post so copy and paste.
*Originally Posted by*GMA*

That's why it was so bad when Trump got elected and pulled the US out of the*Kyoto accord.

Bad luck? He saved the taxpayers billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. We here in Canada have to pay a large amount to make zero difference, Trudeau wants a seat at the UN and our economy will not get in his way.

 

[Bred Sob]

*Originally Posted by*GMA*

That's why it was so bad when Trump got elected and pulled the US out of the*Kyoto accord.

Bad luck? He saved the taxpayers billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

I am afraid there is some confusion here. Trump of course had nothing to do with the Kyoto accord, except maybe in the GMA universe. See the link in my post above.

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

My error, meant the Paris accord. Read your link before I posted.

 

[MattMiller]

I wonder, are there any experts reading this thread who could possibly update us on the current state of the climate science?

Maybe of interest:

Syukuro Manabe & Anthony J. Broccoli: Beyond Global Warming: How Numerical Models Revealed the Secrets of Climate Change. Princeton University Press, 2020
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Global-Warming-Numerical-Revealed/dp/0691058865
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691058863/beyond-global-warming

Robert Henson: The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change. American Meteorological Society, 2nd edition, 2019
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Persons-Guide-Climate-Change/dp/1944970398/

Scientists have gotten predictions of global warming right since the 1970s. Dec 4, 2019
The first systematic review finds that climate models have been remarkably accurate.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envi...315/climate-change-prediction-models-accurate

 

[Sol Tee Nutz]

^^^^^ Depends what you search

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-s...st-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-3/

 

[Bred Sob]

Maybe of interest

Thank you, I have no doubt there's no shortage of this kind of insightful books.

Here is some good advice for their authors:

How to Convince Skeptics that Climate Change is a Problem

 

[jalimon]

I don't know where to post this question and I do not want to start a new thread.

For those who have watch the Oscar yesterday. Can you let me know what the fuck Joaquim Phoenix was rambling about??

Was his point about lgbt rights, protecting our planet, being a vegan..?? This is how I looked trying to listen to him http://i.imgflip.com/10q6t1.jpg

 

[Albacor]

At least Trump is honest, he said will pull out of the Paris agreement and want to show the world that he wants the USA be the leader of the whole world, not lagging behind riding horses and donkeys !
However Trudeau is an hypocrite: he signed the Paris accord even though he knew he will miss it's target and can not fulfill Canada's commitment to this accord; more over he bought the Trans mountain pipeline project and give millions to the sand oil companies in Alberta !
So tell me who is lying huh ? Greta help !

 

[TheJames101]

So tell me who is lying huh ?

Both lie, don't be silly.