Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Environmental Indifference Point

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2009-11-16T23:55:40.181-05:00

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10kZebra said... @PeteKent . . . I understand want...

2009-06-26T19:01:56.926-04:00

10kZebra said...
@PeteKent . . . I understand wanting to tow the party line,

10kZebra,

Considering that the 'party line' that PK tries to tow is so lightweight scientifically, philosophically, morally and ideologically because of all the holes that have been blown in that party line, I'm sure he has no problems towing that line.

However, the phrase is 'toe the line', an idiomatic expression meaning to conform to a rule or a standard. Considering how lightweight all the GOOPer lines are because of the holes blown in them, I can understand why those lines blow all over the place, and why PK and others have a difficult attempting to toe the line. I must give them credit for the fancy footwork they perform to keep their toes from crossing that line, though, since the line they're trying to toe keeps moving so much and so fast.

Mike in Maryland

My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965

@Keith said "Don't really care if you think the WS...

2009-06-26T18:16:11.645-04:00

@Keith said "Don't really care if you think the WSJ is right wing or not.
If you're supporting it as fact, isn't that proof enough?

Don't try to insult me, I get death threats weekly at my job, your ad hoc, ad hom attacks don't pass muster.

So this is proof the detractors have no case. I asked if we should try to save the earth, no matter what the cause of its woes, and the answer is that I'm a bleeding heart liberace... That doesn't help the discussion, it only makes the right look desperate, out of touch and willfully ignorant.

@PeteKent... really? There aren't that many scientists in the world? You do know we're not talking about Intelligent Design scientists, right?

I understand wanting to tow the party line, but you do realize that this is our one and only planet on the line, don't you?

Is there any one policy of Obama's on which the PeteKent's, Dr. Who's and Keith's agree? I'm doubtful, which is why I don't see any point in trying to persuade them, but if there is, I'd sure love to hear it.

An unflinching capacity for self-deception should not be mistaken for the truth.

Obama advances two arguments for cap and trade. O...

2009-06-26T17:00:03.874-04:00

Obama advances two arguments for cap and trade.

One that it is needed to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. The other is that there is global warming.

Here is what I wrote about that in another thread:

Obama claims we need to end our dependence on foreign oil.

Well, then, let’s drill for our own!

Oh, but that too will run out?

Okay . . . .

But long before the last drop is extracted or chunk of coal mined, the cost of extraction will rise steadily as more and more remote sources are plumbed. This will cause the price of fossil fuels to rise and will naturally engender the very alternative energy industry Obama wants. And it will do it without imposing a tax on any of us or killing our exports and reducing our jobs!

Also, as noted in that thread :

The tide is turning on Global Warming Pseudo Science. The latest Inconvenient Truth? The skeptics are winning out. There is no manmade Global Warming ( http://tinyurl.com/moqe2e )

How curious that the left accused the Bush administration of ignoring science for political reasons. It seems it is actually the modus opperandi of the Left!

Even if I admit, arguendo, that GW is real, the self-imposition of a tax system on our country will do nothing to solve the global problem.

Consider that as India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, and Africa (nothing is ever expected of the Africans, but lawlessness) continue to pollute and don't impose a tax on their own selves, United States exports become relatively more expensive and less competitive.

We lose jobs and wealth to the developing world and at best have a speculative impact on the environment.

This is folly and madness only a very stupid or evil man would propose such a thing.

Which one is President Obama?

If , as I noted in my above, there is no global warming and the whole thing is turning out to be a hoax, and we will have years to find cheaper alternative sources for the plentiful fossil fuels we have right here, and it will cost us jobs when we can ill-afford to lose them, why, then, are we doing this?

The statistics do not lie: the earth has been cooling since 2000 and the polar ice caps are replenishing. Climate cycles last 100s of years. A bit of anecdotal evidence is not meaningful.

Also Dotty is lying when he says there are 100s of thousands of scientists that support his theory of GW. There are not that many "scientists' in this whole vast, chilly world!

Read what these hoaxters write --all hot air and no facts or citation.

petekent01 (on twitter)

@10kZebra Don't really care if you think the WSJ ...

2009-06-26T16:54:57.014-04:00

@10kZebra

Don't really care if you think the WSJ is right wing or not. Your numbers for how little Cap and Trade will cost are baseless and wrong, but it's the only thing the left can say to ram it through. But hey, that's what I expect from the entitlement redistributionist mentality. Never fail to gin up a good crisis to pass your treehugging agenda. For my next magic trick, I'll invent he Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ponzi schemes and tell everyone it will only cost them 3% of their paycheck! Thanks Dems for continuing to bankrupt the middle class piece by piece so you can "feel good" and win votes!

LOL. :)

2009-06-26T16:15:59.952-04:00

LOL.

:)

Glenn Doty said... At this point, "global warming ...

2009-06-26T15:47:28.124-04:00

Glenn Doty said... At this point, "global warming denier" is almost perfectly synonomous with "uninformed idiot". The data is there, if you but pull your head out of your ass long enough to review it...
Hey hey hey! Civilized people don't use that kind of language, Buster! If you want to use such speech you must at least be accurate. Instead say "pull your head out of your PeteKent".

Sheesh, am I the only defender of common decency left anymore? Boob vagina.

@ Pete Kent That completely assinine article list...

2009-06-26T15:41:57.220-04:00

@ Pete Kent

That completely assinine article lists ~700 scientists that deny global warming...

There are literally hundreds of thousands of scientists who understand the issue sufficiently and are concerned about the eventual effects of global warming.

The last geographer who was a member of the flat Earth society died several hundred years after Magellan. The fact that there are a few unrepentent dumbasses in the scientific community doesn't in any way discredit the very real data which is incontrovertable.

At this point, "global warming denier" is almost perfectly synonomous with "uninformed idiot". The data is there, if you but pull your head out of your ass long enough to review it...

There are very real questions and concerns about the cost of mitigating climate change vs. the costs of adaptation. We can, and should, have that debate... but as for the debate concerning the reality of global warming, we've had that debate and your side lost. You lost because you were absolutely wrong. Now shut up and stop trying to re-fight the philisophic debates of the middle ages. Science won, and it values empirical data over passion and uninformed belief... Get over it, and join us in the discussions that we need to have in THIS century.

PeteKent said Global warming proving to be a hoax....

2009-06-26T15:37:38.382-04:00

PeteKent said Global warming proving to be a hoax.
Okay, now you're just being a fool. Either you're an idiot or you think the rest of us are... sure, only 99.5% of scientists agree that climate change is real AND caused by the activities of man, but then there's PeteKent, forever towing the conservative line, even if it means the mass destruction of life on earth (not the entire destruction, but your money won't be much comfort when fresh water is more valuable than gold.)

Man I wish this was my site sometimes. Boy howdy would I run things differently.

And to the conservatives, check this, the Gospel of Judas is as valid a Biblical text as any. Atheists say that means they all have equally zero value, but Christians have to look at the facts, it's a solid book, byotches... Read Misquoting Jesus and then renew your blind, dogmatic adherence.

Then I'll give you my address so you can come punch me in the face in person... that make you feel better?

Forgive me if I sound passionate, it's just that I think life on earth should be preserved.

Global warming proving to be a hoax. We don't nee...

2009-06-26T15:18:31.989-04:00

Global warming proving to be a hoax.

We don't need this bill!

http://tinyurl.com/moqe2e

petekent01 (on twitter)

To all: Dr. Who may be caustic, but in this issue...

2009-06-26T13:35:46.313-04:00

To all:

Dr. Who may be caustic, but in this issue he is right. Most people are seriously underestimating the challenge of large scale energy market transitions.

That said, we are talking about taxes here. The money doesn't actually leave our economy, it goes to the government and is spent on government programs... without this we'd just have either higher taxation or greater debt, so that point is utterly mute in the large picture.

But I do agree with Dr. Who that this is going to be one hell of an undertaking, which will probably take ~7 decades.

Currently wind power accounts for ~1.5% of our grid energy profile, hydro and nuclear power account for ~26% of our grid energy, and biofuels account for ~3% of our petroproducts demand.

For the grid, most good damable regions have been exploited, so hydro will have a tough time increasing its penetration. New nuclear is WAY too expensive to compete without completely absurd levels of government subsidies, so it will be a very long time before nuclear increases its penetration (more's the pity). Solar is still a decade away from being truly competitive, and currently accounts for only ~0.01% of the grid energy in the U.S. So hoping that solar energy will carry us forward is somewhat foolish; and continuing to press for more biofuels will result in more industrial agriculture displacing natural land (VERY bad in terms of greenhouse gasses) or more people starving to death (very bad in any terms).

While people have brought up natural gas, the U.S. likely has less than 15 years worth of retrievable natural gas - total. With Russia forming a natural gas cartel (similar to OPEC) with Iran and Qatar, it would be foolish to increase our dependence on natural gas.

That leaves wind as the only current market-viable "green" energy platform in America... and the good wind regions are becoming saturated. Transmission expansion is difficult, as it involves literally thousands of personal lots, hundreds of townships with their individual zoning issues, dozens of parks and rivers, etc... It can take as much as a decade to get through the beurocratic mess to get started on a 200 mile high voltage line, and there have been projects where the litigation for a 300 mile transmission upgrade cost more THAN THE SPACE STATION. So if the good wind regions are saturated (and they are fast becoming so), then it's going to be tough for wind to continue to grow as well.

That isn't to say we shouldn't try. But we need to know what we're looking at. It's going to be difficult.

Sorry, thats alphalpha and grass instead of soy an...

2009-06-26T08:43:06.507-04:00

Sorry, thats alphalpha and grass instead of soy and corn:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090621/ap_on_re_us/us_burpless_cows

So I just read that the way this legislation got o...

2009-06-26T08:34:22.137-04:00

So I just read that the way this legislation got out of comittee was with "compromises to agracultural states". That is no good. I may be a coolaide drinker, but I completely disagree with Obama's policy on agra-subsidies.

The reason this ties in is a recent set of studies showing that alfalfa and soy feedstocks produce drasticly lower methane from cows than their current corn feedstocks (I'm looking up the reference now). As has been shown, farmers will feed cows whatever is cheapest (even crushed up chickens that had been eating crushed up cows). Why oh why are we making corn so cheap.

@10kZebra: There was a (science-oriented) Cathol...

2009-06-26T01:19:19.149-04:00

@10kZebra:

There was a (science-oriented) Catholic theologian who was asked (presumably during the Reformation) what he would do if the Vatican declared 2+2=5. He said he would agree with the Vatican.

This seems to be the logic many are (unfortunately) using.

PS: This theologian continued by saying "and I would count 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, ..." (which many are *not* using).

@Ole Forsberg... But that's truly the logic oppone...

2009-06-26T00:12:06.181-04:00

@Ole Forsberg...
But that's truly the logic opponents are using. It's strange. They can't ALL be on the fossil-fuel payroll, there's too much cash left over at the end of the day for that.

But I was seriously asking, does 1+5=chocolate doughnut? I should call in to Rush. Meh, he's deaf, he can't hear himself, let alone logic.

@10kZebra I am glad we agree.

2009-06-25T23:44:23.890-04:00

@10kZebra

I am glad we agree.

@Ole Forsberg... 1 - I don't see what any of your ...

2009-06-25T23:09:46.959-04:00

@Ole Forsberg...
1 - I don't see what any of your supporting points has to do with your conclusion. It read like "One plus five equals chocolate doughnuts".

2 - Let's say there's a meteor on a collision course with earth, and it's going to kill us all (or maybe just a few hundred million people). Should we harness the power of human technology, or should we just say "hey, it ain't OUR fault we're going to die, this is a naturally occurring event."

It IS happening. We may have the power to stop it.

Shouldn't we try?

Shouldn't somebody at least call Bruce Willis and see if he's willing to help?

@Keith...
Wall Street Journal is an extremely right wing newspaper. I'm not calling them liars, but they have a strong republican lean.

@Christopher...
I really appreciate your input on this discussion... that's all.

[[slightly off-topic, but it has been mentioned ab...

2009-06-25T22:52:41.162-04:00

[[slightly off-topic, but it has been mentioned above]]

Regarding the myth of global warming:

CO2 and CH4 are both greenhouse gasses (fact); that is, they reflect infrared EM waves and are transparent to higher-energy waves (e.g. visible light), thus allowing sunlight to penetrate the layer and allowing infrared light to become trapped.

Human beings are responsible (both directly through some types of power generation and indirectly through increased demand for cattle, although neither is an exhaustive list) for increasing the amount of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere (fact).

Thus, we are not at all culpable for any of the recorded increased global average temperature.

I'm sorry. I missed the logic for that last step.

@Keith: Now that is interesting. Are the minutes t...

2009-06-25T22:32:18.262-04:00

@Keith: Now that is interesting. Are the minutes to these things on CSpan or anything like that, where the public can actually see them? I'd be interested in seeing how that hatchet-fight went down.

'k so on the Global Warming tangent I've picked up...

2009-06-25T22:28:57.941-04:00

'k so on the Global Warming tangent I've picked up a couple things, starting with a graph based on weather service numbers - as all of this information is recorded in the newspaper record &c either the graph is totally accurate or a bald-faced lie, with the latter being far less likely.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
Seems to go against the "global cooling trend" comment as per BeanoCook.

Also, for reference, the aforementioned ice core graph from 2006:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a316/JoINrbs/DSCF0016-2.jpg
The only decent argument I've heard about the above has something to do with ocean stratification and algae blooms - I'm not an oceanographer so I didn't understand it, but the general explanation was that the warming trend started before the CO2 spike, and we're just ass unlucky to be here when it happened. Which is really more of a "we're doomed and there's nothing we can do about it" argument than an "everything is fine" one, come to think of it.

Nate... Your analysis is completely flawed and mi...

2009-06-25T22:25:58.973-04:00

Nate...

Your analysis is completely flawed and misrepresents the CBO's study. At no point does the CBO state that the average household's electricity bill will increase by $175 per year. That is their estimate for the TOTAL NET COST of the legislation...

Taking into the account the gross cost associated with complying with the cap ($110 billion); the allowance value that would flow back to U.S. households ($85 billion), both in the form of direct relief and indirectly through allocations to businesses and governments (all of which would eventually benefit households in people’s various roles as consumers, workers, shareholders, and taxpayers); and the additional transfers and costs discussed above (providing net benefits of $2.7 billion), the net economywide cost of the GHG cap-and-trade program would be about $22 billion—or about $175 per household.

The total increased cost burden to households will be borne partially through higher electricity costs, partially through higher fossil fuel costs and partially through higher costs of all goods that use energy for production, storage and transport.

Well Nate, if all this is true as you say and it r...

2009-06-25T22:19:41.124-04:00

Well Nate, if all this is true as you say and it really isn't going to cost that much, then tell us why...

Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won't pinch wallets, behind the scenes they've acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

From The Wall Street Journal "The Cap and Tax Fiction
Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change "

@uberfrosh You are correct here. Whenever a depen...

2009-06-25T22:13:33.096-04:00

@uberfrosh

You are correct here. Whenever a dependent variable is constrained (between 0 and 100, in this case), OLS is not the correct model to use for the extremes (although it is a good approximation when you are tinkering in the 35--65 range as here). It would be much more appropriate to use a logit model (or probit or cloglog or log), which constrains the dependent variable (public opinion, here) to the range 0--100.

The short answer is that interpolation (as Nate is doing) is more robust than extrapolation. [Mark Twain had a humorous (as always) view on this when he read that the Mississippi River was shrinking a few feet per year.]

@10kZ: That comment was also directed at the good ...

2009-06-25T22:01:12.930-04:00

@10kZ: That comment was also directed at the good Doctor, for what it's worth.

Christopher said... "On "Shut up and let the big p...

2009-06-25T21:47:26.956-04:00

Christopher said... "On "Shut up and let the big people talk": Implying that one's detractors are incapable of rational thought is a good way to make sure that no actual discussion takes place."
Maybe go back and re-read what Dr Who has been saying, and not even just in this post, in all of them. He speaks without facts (similar to Beano who apparently convinced you of a cooling trend, not the actual truth), attacks everyone and runs valid discussions off the rails. There is no chance of actual discussion from Dr Who.

Your questions, however, are valid and valued. People are saying things and you want citations. That is intelligent skepticism and the people making claims, asking you to believe them, should know that many readers need them to show their work.

So let us see where facts and figures are coming from. (And kudos to those who already have.)