UPDATE: Turns out the OC Register screwed the pooch on this one — Woof!
The editors are the deniers and they misattributed this to Samuelson, who is just the same old anti-climate-action, know-nothing hypocrite he used to be on this subject. More on that later.
My apologies for … uhh, believing what I read in the OC Register.
Note: They have changed the attribution — but offer no explanation or correction on that web-page, which makes some of the comments very confused.
A reader alerted me to this stupefying (and stupefied) column editorial on California’s low-carbon fuel standard, “CO2 limits are unneeded, unjust,” by Robert J. Samuelson in the OC Register:
This is government by administrative decree from unelected ARB board members, administrators and staff, who concocted a fanciful “solution” to so-called global warming, an increasingly disputed phenomenon that hasn’t occurred for at least a decade.
Nevertheless, by a 9-1 vote the ARB deemed it urgent enough to demand a 10-percent reduction in carbon dioxide that fuel producers release into the atmosphere on the theory — also unproven — that CO2 increases temperatures. Reality inconveniently contradicts the theory. CO2 has risen over the past decade, but global temperatures have declined, precisely the opposite of what the theory contends.
Wow!
My point here isn’t to debunk what is just a standard denier talking point – although Samuelson’s this disinformation would surprise NASA, which says 2005 is the hottest year in the temperature record. And, of course, Samuelson apparently is clueless that Hadley Center and WMO say 2000s are easily the hottest decade in recorded history. And for completeness, here’s “Yes, the planet has kept warming since 1998.”
And just in case you thought that Samuelson the editors hadn’t drunk all the Kool-aid, he included the other big denier talking point:
There’s no evidence man-made CO2, even if it increases temperatures, is harmful. Indeed, some argue that warmer climes would benefit mankind by increasing crop productivity and reducing deaths from severe cold. None of that matters when government is intent on forcing change.
Yes, global warming isn’t happening but even if it is it would be a good thing.
Too bad crop productivity kind of gets wiped out by drought and Dust-Bowlification. And all those reduced deaths from severe cold — the standard Bjorn Lomborg talking point (he is the “some argue” guy on this one) — kind of pale in comparison to exposing 40% of the planet to severe drought, devastating agriculture in large parts of the developed and developing world, raising seas 3 to 7 feet by 2100 with sea levels rising perhaps 1 inch to 2 inches a year, not to mention losing all the inland glaciers that provide water to 1 billion people and turning large parts of the ocean into hot acidic dead zones (see “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water“).
But to know all of that you would have to get beyond the denier talking points, which are centered around the notion that the the entire scientific community is involved in a mass conspiracy to deceive the public so that liberals can regulate their lives:
A better explanation for the contrived urgency is that bureaucrats need to impose their Draconian rules before people realize they are unneeded.
Yeah, that’s what the entire scientific community and all the world leading governments are doing. Trying to trick people as quickly as possible before everybody catches on to the hoax.
Seriously. It’s like the editors Samuelson have been living in a cave in recent years, completely unaware that even the scientific advisers to the leading global warming deniers in the 1990s knew what crap they were pushing (see Scientists advising fossil fuel funded anti-climate group concluded in 1995: “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of GHGs such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied”).
Congratulations to the climate science deniers. You’ve duped another bunch.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
So, the Washington Post actually printed… not in a Letter to the Editor… but as a real column on the opinion page this statement:
“…SO-CALLED global warming, an INCREASINGLY DISPUTED phenomenon that HASN”T OCCURED for at least a decade.”
I want to laugh, but all I can do is cry. So, the Washington Post is now officially dead. If the Post was breaking the Watergate story today, I guess they would post a column on the opinion page with a statement like:
“…the so-called break in at the Watergate, an increasing disputed event which did not have any political motivations.”
And here is another economic study:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAN451616.htm
If you can stomach a little more denier crap, you should look at the piece by David Whitehouse posted in the Independent today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-missing-sunspots-is-this-the-big-chill-1674630.html
And more on carbon dioxide:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/27/arctic-carbon-dioxide-levels
Joe, did you ever wind up meeting with those cold fusion folks? If so, how did it go?
[JR: I'll blog on it later. Nothing terribly impressive.]
Here’s a great study on the increase in C02 and temperature forcing on particular crop productivity (Samuelson cites increased crop productivity as a reason C02 is beneficial). In section 6 the study finds: “Nevertheless, by including the CO2 effect a different picture emerges, in particular for common beans. One may note that the fertilization effect of CO2 plays an important role in increasing crop productivity despite warmer conditions compared to the year 2000. One might note that for maize the positive effect of increased CO2 concentration is not sufficient to compensate the negative effect associated with temperature forcing.” Boy C02 sure does help some crops grow, however since c02 leads to increased temperature that productivity is completely wiped out by the effects of increased C02. Narrow thinking at its finest.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/4/1/014013/erl9_1_014013.html
The effect of increased CO2 on plant respiration is a topic of great current interest. In addition high nighttime temperatures have very deleterious impacts on rice yields.
If the fear really is that this is about either being unbearably regulated and/or going back to the stone ages in terms of wealth and lifestyle, then lets just keep on proving that action that happens to help fight the climate also means more wealth, jobs, security, health, freedom, independence etc. and stop talking so much about whether one guy or another gets the science or cares about printing anything resembling fact or not.
I know some of you will say that this is regularly being done already and it’s not getting much traction. But I’d say it’s not being done enough and to continue, as I’d rather be arguing about action for wealth, security, health, jobs and so on because:
1) ‘our side’ starts to better learn these important points,
2) ‘their side’ starts to show their true colors (many are just corporate hacks),
3) their hypocrisies are exposed (ex. don’t want gov’t to pick market winners but want state-funded nuclear power), and
4) its just a far more positive and productive debate to have in terms of trying to win over the undecided and uninformed masses
According to the NY Times, a recent conference on cities concluded that this was the best way to go — forget about the science talk… few get it… talk concrete benefits and people connect
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/cities-mull-how-to-sell-green-agendas/
[JR: Nah. I've seen the recent polling data and focus groups. If you don't talk about the science, then the other side has won and you are condemning the next hundred billion people to walk the earth to untold misery and suffering. Cities don't have the ability to avert catastrophic global warming -- only the federal government does in concert with other nations, and that requires the full, informed support of the American public.]
The thing that kills me about these “warming is good” people is the implied belief that warming will stop once we’ve reached the optimal temperature (whatever “optimal” means). It’s as if they think there’s a giant thermostat that will turn off the furnace before things get too hot.
The text below is extracted from the following report, unfortunately we are on a GHG emission scenario, which is significantly worse.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-3/final-report/default.htm
Using the representative grain crops – maize, soybean, etc. – some expected effects resulting from the projected rise in CO2 of 380 to 440 ppm along with a 1.2ºC rise in temperature over the next 30 years are explored.
Thus, the benefits of CO2 rise over the next 30 years mostly offset the negative effects of temperature for most C3 crops except rice and bean, while the C4 crop yields are reduced by rising temperature because they have little response to the CO2 rise. The two factors also nearly balance out on crop transpiration requirements. Thus, the 30-year outlook for crop production is relatively neutral. However, the outlook for the next 100 years would not be as optimistic, if rise in temperature and CO2 continue, because the C3 response to rising CO2 is reaching a saturating plateau, while the negative temperature effects will become progressively more severe.
Off-topic, but
Leland — I can’t find a link to the tests by Jupiter Oxygen Corporation you wrote about. This link
http://coalteck.com/Oxyfuel.html
is undated, but seems to describe an earilier test.
Why have some many influential folks voiced their belief that global warming can’t be real? The bottomline is that this is one of the greatest crises faced by humanity. It takes a while to get your arms around such a big thing and the way our media works today; everything at one point, including what Brittany is wearing, is made to sound like a crisis. Yet this one hasn’t gone away yet. I believe a lot of non-scientists don’t have the analytic tools to determine that this isn’t some plot out of “A Brave New World”.
We really need to make sure out children are taught how to tell fact from fiction.
Andy,
If we wait for our children to figure it out, they are lost.
The grownups need to fix this now.
Is the U.S. some kind of North-Korea of science? Your people read this kind of Samuelson shit and think yes, the case is settled.
The dirty paper WP must have some kind of chief editors, are they really stupid enough to continue as editors? Of course, they are paid for releasing the shit.