Dick Cheney's logic and climate change
Tom Friedman is at it again and this time he is relying on the logic stream of former Vice President Dick Cheney to make his case for action on climate change.
Remember when Cheney warned about the threat of Pakistani scientists turning nuclear weapons over to terrorists? Friedman, in the New York Times today, pulls one quote: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney said. The former Wyoming congressman warned the U.S. must deal with a “low-probability, high-impact event.”
Friedman of course, suggests the world must follow the same path of thinking with climate change. The overwhelming majority of scientists in the fields of climate and natural science agree that there is a high probability that the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels has warmed the Earth.
But there remains uncertainty about how other mechanisms will either moderate to push that trend. If it continues, most warn, it could trigger a climatic catastrophe that would challenge human civilization.
In the face of this evidence Friedman says the prudent, precautionary approach is to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and to develop a new economy based on alternatives.
In comments on my blog, and from listeners on Nate Shelman’s KBOI News/Talk 670 radio show this week I heard a lot of people challenging the science of climate change. But I haven’t heard any good arguments why we should simply keep our economy rolling along on fossil fuels.
If you don’t buy this here is an alternative view.
China and the rest of the world aren’t taking that path and they are building an entirely new infrastructure around alternative energy sources. One only has to look at how the United States has given up its leadership on nuclear power to see the folly in letting their efforts go unanswered.
That’s why Friedman is pushing a simple fix, placing a tax on gasoline that discourages its use and encourages alternatives. Leaving it to the free market rewards the nations who are willing to invest in the new economy at the expense of those who prefer to ride the old fossil fuel economy out to the end.
But his isn’t the only answer. Instead of a negative signal some businesses are pushing incentives for alternatives including nuclear.
If all we do is drill for more oil then we will stay addicted and keep Venezuela, Iran and other parts of the world who have bigger oil reserves flush with cash to carry out their own agendas, Friedman says.
For Idaho the issue has a double advantage. We have to import every drop of oil and every ton of coal we use. But we get the economic benefits of the wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power produced within our borders.
It’s Buy Idaho for energy.
We can produce biodiesel from our crops to run our farms. The opportunities are endless.
But instead of arguing science we should be looking at logic, Friedman says, Dick Cheney’s logic.
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Gas Tax
Rocky:
I have to say that the tone and nature of your climate-related posts have become much more balanced and rational during the past few months. In addition to that, you are one of the very few journalists who have picked up and followed the Climategate story from near the beginning, and should be commended for your efforts in that regard as well.
That being said, there are lots of good reasons for modifying our uses of fossil fuels, as you point out in this column. Personally, I would support a strong gas tax for vehicles (not heating or electrical generation) under the following circumstances:
1) The tax is paid directly to the State, not the federal government.
2) It is used entirely for alternative energy production, including nuclear energy, with income and expenditures made transparent and publicly posted as they take place.
3) A focus is made to produce energy from dead trees and other wasted resources on federal lands within State boundaries.
Climate Change
The climate is changing. It has been changing for a billion years. It might be instructive if you would read Ian Climer's "Heaven and Earth, The missing science of climate change". It's not just another opinion book, but a massively detailed and documented book that explains the many significant drivers of climate change that really do affect us. CO2 is not one of them. The "warmers" all tend to base their views on some carefully selected short time frame, that align with their beliefs. They also base projections on models that are now shown to be not only flawed, but fraudulant. If you were a little more science literate, I could also explain that the thermodynamics of the theory are also contrary to the laws of physics.
The real reason that we need fossil fuel is that it is the only source of energy that can reliably produce the amounts of energy that our economy needs. The renewables are far too intermittant and unreliable to run our homes and factories. The exceptions of course are hydro, but you want to tear down the dams; and geothermal, which requires a combination of hot,close to the surface rock, and water together. Nuclear also works, but there are too many folks that think The China Syndrome was really science. Fossil fuels are after all nature's ultimate store of solar energy.
Well, for one thing, it was Ian Pilmer, not Climer...
Thank god you didn't attempt to barrage with us all your stupendous god-like knowledge on thermodynamics as well.
Pilmer's book is not without its' detractors as well. Some have said the missing science he mentions, is also missing from his book as well. Evidently he believes El Nino is caused by earthquakes under the ocean, but just can't seem to produce the evidence for such a conclusion.
BTW, you don't suppose that him being a director of a few mining companies has anything to do with his stand on global warming, do you?
Trees Grow.
People got by without fossil fuels for thousands of years. They're cheap and potable, is why modern economies have been able to utilize them so well.
Of course the climate is changing. By definition.
Not sure what else to say,except for thanks for not talking down to everybody about thermodynamics, too.
Certainty and risk
What's remarkable about that "alternative view" you offered (on www.masterresource.org) and similar expressions is the certainty so many people seem to have obtained that "alarmism" is a liberal, envirowhacko plot, and thereby disproves the theory of anthropogenic global warming.
I mean, "the climate continues its decade long trend of non-warming for another 10 years"? This is the decade during which glaciers have continued disappearing, we've seen record low Arctic sea ice (2007), and Greenland lose an estimated 1,500 billion tons of ice.
People who are unskilled and certain that what they "know" is right can be very dangerous.
Dangerous People: 10 Questions
Fortboise:
Are you saying, using your own definition, that you are a dangerous person?
I'm not sure whether you are skilled or not, but you certainly present that you are "certain" of what you "know."
Alarmism does seem pretty whacko to me, too, and the liberals certainly do seem to be near the head of the class in this department. I don't know if that disproves AGW or not, but the marriage of the two topics is certainly suspicious.
What glaciers disappeared in the past 10 years? Which ones grew? Where is most of the ice in the world? How is Antarctica doing in that department? And what -- precisely -- do those topics have to do with AGW anyway?
Here is a letter I signed that may be of interest to you (and should be to Rocky, too) -- be sure to look at each of the 10 questions carefully, because they are important to what you are saying:
http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/
Whacko Alarmists
If you're talking alarmists, you're talking evangelical Christians, and most of them would hardly qualify as liberals. This is not some abstract observation without relevance. Sarabaracuda has the smell of an endtimer, and there are plenty who would love to see her calling the shots. Drill baby drill, for the end of times draws nigh.
Oh Shoot.
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
Do you have to keep adding ways to spread this junk?
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
ClimateGate Who's Who
If you'd like to point fingers. Start here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/28/understanding-climategate-whos-who-a-video/
I would not want to point to the middle of the road.
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat