One of the underlying problems illustrated by the climate change scam is that government usually cannot make economic decisions as well as the free market. In some cases the free market selects inefficient economic decisions, particularly in cases where actual pollution is involved. But much more often the worst decisions are made by government interference with the free market. That is the case with regard to climate change.
When there is no pollution involved, as is the case for carbon dioxide emissions, a vital trace gas necessary for life on Earth, and numerous vocal special interests, government decisions are often particularly inefficient. Government regulation (including subsidies and taxation) of economic decisions should usually be reserved for the most egregious cases where the free market decisions are occasionally particularly bad, such as smokestacks emitting pollutants that have been proven to cause serious human illnesses.
Carbon Dioxide Is Not the Problem; Government Regulation Is
In the case of the climate scam, no scientifically valid proof has been offered that CO2 is a pollutant. I realize that most of the world disputes this, but there is little doubt that this is the case. If so, there is no valid reason for the government to even be involved. Reducing CO2 emissions is particularly expensive and potentially very deleterious for the economy given how very critically important low cost energy is to modern society. Proposing that air travel be banned and that every building in America be modified so as to reduce heat loss, two of the objectives of the Green New Deal (GND) as proposed by two Congressional left wing Democrats recently are totally impractical, would incur monumental costs, and provide almost no benefits. But these are only two of the wild proposals in the GND. If left to the free market, such proposals would never be considered since the free market would never select them.
Increasingly, the Democrats, particularly the Democratic socialists, claim that the world will come to an end unless such drastic government action is not undertaken now. They appear to believe that government has too little power to control such problems. I would argue that the problem is that government has far too much control. The more control government asserts, the worse the alleged climate change problem will be, and vice versa. Modifying every building and outlawing air travel are so absurd that they simply will actually never be imposed by the government, with the result that they would soon be dropped, possibly after a change in government. The result is that the GND would end with a loss of several years and a delay in needed government action–to get government completely out of “climate change” policy and letting the free market solve the alleged problems. It is government that is causing the real problems, not emissions of a miracle trace gas that makes life on Earth possible.
Free Markets Have Resulted in Much Greater CO2 Reductions than Government Regulation
There is a reason why the US has reduced CO2 emissions more than any other country, and should thus be the most climatically virtuous country in terms of environmentalists who claim that decarbonization must be accomplished immediately. This is because of increased use of natural gas for energy, which is a result of increased use of fracking and substitution of natural gas for other fossil fuels that emit more CO2 per unit of energy. Other nations have imposed ever more government regulations and built ever more wind and solar, with little or no effect on CO2 emissions. But the Democratic socialists have learned nothing from this. By allowing fracking where natural gas can be obtained, other nations could have done the same thing. But they would have to allow a much freer market. The Democratic socialists are never going to allow this. Government can do better than a free market, or so they believe. They are wrong. There is no need to reduce CO2 emissions, of course, but this viewpoint is another error made by government in its “wisdom.”
The major need is to get government out of climate change policy and energy production to the extent possible, not further involved. Socialists believe in an increased role for government and will never understand that government involvement needs to be minimized in most cases, not maximized despite an endless series of government failures in making economic decisions.
And, when will Dr. Happer unload? I don’t see that as his style. He calls for civil debate. Politics is far from a civil experience. I’m hoping Happer has something dramatic in mind. I’m not holding my breath.
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I saw a you tube performance by Robert Francis O’Rourke. He waves his hands like he an orchestra conductor. Obama was no drama, but O’Rourke looks like he is having a nervous breakdown. Horrible body language. Like he got loose from a psychiatric ward.
He said stunningly Demented stuff about climate change making countries uninhabitable and displacing millions.
It makes me think the Democratic primaries are going to be great for further undermining climate change.
Climate change got into the IS mainstream because of the 2008 stock market crash that made a republican unelectable.
Also there were few democrat primary candidates. Obama acted responsible and Hillary was super boring. The result was Obama winning in a low key way and without too much babble about climate change.
It’s very different in 2019! There are a horde of Democrat candidates. many are going to be lunatic babbling about climate.
This is very helpful for the President, Profesdor Happer, And doc Carlin?
The horde of hard charging Democratic candidates are going to go berserk when Happer unloads on climate change. They will be so dopey and annoying that they will undermine their cause.
Global Warming and Climate change are getting long in the tooth! They used to say there was little time to save the earth 30 years ago. Now they want another 12 years to stave off Armageddon. You can’t scare people forever with the same old nothing.
My sense is climate change is going to damage democrats in 2020 and boost Trump. He won’t seem like an outsider anymore but as the only adult in DC.
Consider ChloroFluoroCarbons. These were nearly non toxic chemicals used as refrigerants and in aerosols. One was Freon. A scare arose circa 1973 that such molecules reach the stratosphere and that UV rays from the Sun liberated chlorine atoms and that these in turn attacked protective ozone that reduces UV rays from reaching the earths surface and potentially increasing skin cancers.
This led to a United Nations influenced prohibition on potentially ozone depleting chemicals.
It is interesting that the threat justifying global scale banning of CFCs was the rays of the Sun reaching earth.
In contrast, with global warming, later rebranded into climate change, the obvious potential of the Sun has been excluded or should I say Denied? The Climate Alarm folly is touted by Sun Deniers.
Sun Deniers blame the non existent problems of climate upon photosynthesis or it’s enabling molecule CO2.
A far cry from ozone layer depletion which involved awareness that Earths temperature is controlled by the big yellow ball in the sky.
For climate, in contrast, alarmists have now forgotten about the Sun. It is now irrelevant. Only CO2 is now naughty. ?
Great tweets by President about the Fake climate science so championed by the socialist Fake News
Clearly the President sees climate change as a tempting target for the 2020 campaign.
This is very very encouraging for his loyal supporters.
This topic supplements the lack of respect for free speech and debate at US universities. It is a monstrous absurdity that carbon dioxide changes climate. Universities should criticize this, not endorse it, as the do. It is dunce cap absurd.
There is an unholy alliance of groupthink and socialist media and politicians as regards energy and climate.
Doc Carlin and I have seen other environmental topics that exaggerate risks. It’s not surprising to either of us. This is by far the worst case, because of the economic ramifications and the shameless widespread folly.
Also a false idea is given undeserved support among those who should be thought leaders within society. It diverts society from tooics that are genuine and serious.
The Dubya Bush Administration went along with the climate hoax in the name of compassionate conservatism. A generation of school children were taught nonsenses and fables. Science fiction not realistic science.
The Trump Administration needs to look at the topic carefully and share its opinions. It’s not just about the economy, but about upholding the first amendment in the pursuit of honest science.
Also socialists need to be held accountable and not given a free ride to make up hoax narratives. Giving them a pass will only encourage more folly and bad behavior from them in future.
Happily Doc Carlin and I agree climate change is an example of what Feynman called cargo cult science. As such, it is unsupported and thus a hoax.
A hoax is a hoax, whether it be perpetrated by socialists or not. It little helps society to invest in more expensive and less reliable forms of energy all because of a pernicious hoax.
What supports the hoax? Remarkably little. There has been a slow increase in co2 gas in the atmosphere. This may owe to exhaled co2 from animals and people. Does this increase cause harm? Even this is not known reliably. there is late 19th century guess that it does, but this is just a hypothesis and unconfirmed by real world evidence.
Satellite based monitoring does not reveal increasing of changing temperatures.
Land based monitoring indicates increasing temperatures yet the data are compromised.. older temperatures have been adjusted downwards, so as to make today’s temperatures seem higher. This is impossible to trust.
And that’s it. remarkably little evidence of anything.
But the Democrat party wants to revise the energy economy based on their fuzzy brained aspirations for more costly and less effective wind and solar electricity.
They and their journalist pals want you to think their opinions are supported by scientific evidence. Sadly their opinions are not.
There are needed roles for governments. One is to manage the disposal of waste materials so they are not just dumped in streets or rivers.
Environmentalists later got a lot of mileage out of acid rain. This was directed at coal fired power plants and was supposed to threaten forests, lakes, and oceans. It was a cause during the 1960s to 1990s. Emissions were curtailed by emission control technologies.
Another cause that arose by 1970s were CFC refrigerants that we’re hypothesized to be destroying the ozone layer and exposing us to cancer causing sun rays. This got escalated to the UN for a global solution. There was a Montreal Protocol to end cfcs and replace them as refrigerants.
This narrative must have been so successful in demonizing synthetic molecules that a new successor narrative was needed.
The new narrative took an audacious calculated risk. It demonized an essential gas, carbon dioxide. However the reason to do so was CO2 allowed a war on combustion and got environmental socialists into the drivers seat of an essential economic sector, energy. They got greedy and could not curb the lust for influence. This is understandable.
The future of the world became at stake, according to Mad Jim, Governor Moonbeam, Gore, Obama, and Merkel. Dubya Bush got into the game by endorsing ethanol based on corn and not attacking the science.
CO2 and other carbon emissions were going to heat the earth and melt the ice caps, drowning us all.
When this did not soon happen, the socialist narrative was remarketed as climate change or climate extremes.
But What if modestly more CO2 does not heat the earth? No problem, just use politicians, environmentalists, and Government scientists to assert it does. Like men bite dogs. And rivers flow up mountains.
Use the CIC to broadcast a tidal wave of cargo cult science.???
The risk in this false narrative was potential loss of credibility.
But one protective shield was virtue signaling. Maybe you are wrong, but at least you care for the earth and it’s people. Surely you can be foregiven the fault of caring too much for the environment.
The absurdly cynical false narrative that has been revealed about Russian collusion that was funded by the Democratic Party, complete with Steele and other foreign agents, is a helpful revelation about how the hardball game of politics is shamelessly played.
The political narrative of catastrophic global warming was cynically altered to climate change when the poles did not melt. Same culprit, CO2. Just a different harm, changing climate, whatever that meant. No one knew.
Universities became centers of cargo cult eco nonsemse. Harvard’s department of the environment wanted billions of dollars to design a defense against climate change by reducing sunlight received on earth.
The tidal wave of Fake News emanating from socialist media during the Trump Administration is also revelatory by its shamelessness.
Socialists seem to feel under a great deal of pressure to maintain their narratives.
They used to be able to impose false narratives through fuller control of tv news and newspapers.
The internet has disrupted this in many ways. One way is the spread of more reliable information and opinions via Breitbart, Fox, and other web sites, including this one, unhelpful for socialists long used to dominating environmental narratives.