Originally Posted by zilch

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

H-m-m-m. You picked an oil-industry funded contrarian ...

And you're a ill-informed, albeit intentional, liar who didn't even bother to read the original Newsweek link I posted nor the rebuttal to which I nuked your nauseous "funded" lie.

Face it, Horn, you don't give a damn about any facts or science in this matter. All you care about is spewing moralistic sermons that make you feel good.

I knew about this guy before you posted anything. He, and a few others like this guy, have made careers from plying the far side of the street. In science, that's an important and legitiimate role. It not the role of a leader, though. Contrarians are sanity checkers. They rarely if ever develop theories and only rarely are experimentalists.

If they support the POV of monied interests, as is true of these two gentlemen, they attract money like garbage attracts flies. Both MIT's Lindzen and UVA's Michaels consult and speachify - for 'reasonable fees'. Both are smart enough to maintain a minimal appearance of objectivity. Without that, they have no market value. I also believe they believe what they're preaching. This does not make them right.

So what was your point again?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... I think Mike's carbon credit system has a lot of potential to fulfil the second option. Even that is unlikely to be sufficient in and of itself. There will still be the need for grand plans and Promethean projects, complete with their huge shared costs.

... Would you agree, though, that we shouldn't ASSUME that a priori? If we can do the transition without coercive measures, wouldn't that be better?

It seems to me that we should -- well also that we WILL whether we should or not -- try the gentlest ways first and only go to the others in last resort. Of course, the longer we delay, the more likely it becomes that said "last resort" will become necessary. If we'd started earlier, we'd have a lot more time.

I tried to made a similar point in the same post. I find it a bit ridiculous that all this energy is wasted trying to prove the magnitude of the AGW problem while potential solutions that have broad applicablity beyond global warming are put on hold. AGW is only one of several reasons to move away from fossil fuels. The other arguments are hard to deny. Yet, here we are trying to justify doing something that is already intuitively correct.

Maybe I'm just cranky.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I made a similar point elsewhere on the forum. I find it a bit ridiculous that all this energy is wasted trying to prove the magnitude of the AGW problem while potential solutions that have broad applicablity beyond global warming are put on hold. AGW is only one of several reasons to move away from fossil fuels. The other arguments are hard to deny. Yet, here we are trying to justify doing something that is already intuitively correct.

Maybe I'm just cranky.

You're not alone. I've been doing a lot of virtual head-banging while reading this thread.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I made a similar point elsewhere on the forum. I find it a bit ridiculous that all this energy is wasted trying to prove the magnitude of the AGW problem while potential solutions that have broad applicablity beyond global warming are put on hold. AGW is only one of several reasons to move away from fossil fuels. The other arguments are hard to deny. Yet, here we are trying to justify doing something that is already intuitively correct.

For Christ's Sake! David and Brian and Rani and I turn out to be all on the same side, after only several hundred agitated postings! The Internet might not be the most efficient means of coming to an understanding

Originally Posted by Justin '77

For Christ's Sake! David and Brian and Rani and I turn out to be all on the same side, after only several hundred agitated postings! The Internet might not be the most efficient means of coming to an understanding

Kumbaya, y'all. I'm going to watch my kid play ball.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Kumbaya, y'all. I'm going to watch my kid play ball.

And I, to snooze (it's just now almost 11:30; been full dark for almost twenty minutes; time to crash...)

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

IYet, here we are trying to justify doing something that is already intuitively correct.

Unlike most of the topics we discuss at this site, this one involves hard science.

It's not like talking about politics or economics, where there are different "schools" of thought and one can say practically anything and be "right" in some way. Here there are right (and wrong) approaches to the problem or ways of thinking. For example the warm soda pop analogy is flatly wrong in the case of global warming. For soda, the amount of CO2 is not changing and temperature exerts the dominant effect on solubility. For GW, the amount of CO2 is rising; the CO2 level exerts the dominant effect on solubility. If you know how to do phase equilibrium problems using Henry's Law, you would know this. Only if one is ignorant of phase equilibria science would one say something like this. Since the oceans and atmosphere are different phases and interface with each other, phase equilibria is a necessary part of climate science. You cannot be an "expert" or a valid source of technical knowledge about climate change if you make this analogy.

So when Cockburn quotes somebody making this analogy you immediately know that he doesn't know the science and so what he says can be discounted.

The quality of thinking can be gauged much better. One can easily spot faith masquerading as reasoned argument.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Justin has made a more substantive objection too. He doesn't exactly understand the science but intuits a real issue with his coefficients issue, although the situation is not exactly as he argues it is.

You also do not understand the science either. You claim that scientists put CO2 and other greenhouse gases into containers and study their absorption of IR radiation to show that the greenhouse effect is real. Actually this was done by Angstrom in 1901 in response to Arrhenius's paper in 1896. He placed CO2 and water vapor into a glass tube, shone IR light through it and measured the amount of absorption. The amounts of CO2 and water were chosen to be similar to the amounts a beam of IR light would actually encounter as it passed through the atmosphere. He measured significant absorption, which supported the idea that there is a greenhouse effect that warms the Earth above its radiative temperature. He then doubled the amount of CO2 and water and measured no increase in absorption.

He concluded that although the CO2 greenhouse effect was likely responsible for keeping the Earth warmer than the temperature it would be from radiative balance, the absorption bands of CO2 were saturated at the present concentration of CO2 and further additions of CO2 would have little effect on temperature. For fifty years after Angstrom's work the scientific consensus was that increases in CO2 would have little effect on temperature.

So you see it is not a matter of simply studying the absorption of CO2 in the laboratory. If it were, there would be no controversy at all, anthropomorphic climate change would have become an accepted fact a long time ago.

It's odd that you chose to dwell on Angstrom's work without going into why it was flawed. His early spectrographs could not distinguish the between the bandwidths of CO2 and water. In trying to pass light through as much CO2 in the lab as it would encounter passing the entire atmosphere, he saturated his sample beyond the point where additional CO2 would matter. But, mostly, he did everything at sea level temperatures and pressures. Heat and pressure matter. At sea level, CO2's absorbing properties are quite different from at altitude.

As you say, Angstrom, with all the best of intentions, set back global warming science 50 years. This does not mean that with better understanding and modern instruments, meaningful work can't be done in the lab. You can measure the light absorbing properties of greenhouse gases. The Earth is not at a saturated point currently. Further increases or decreases will have an effect, unlike Angstrom's inadequately chosen set up.

Early scientists did make some early calls on global warming. Arrhenius calculated 4 to 5 degrees C temperature drop by halving CO2 concentrations in 1896. Hulburt got 4 degrees C in 1931. Callendar got 2 degrees C in 1938. Now, all this was done without computers. You couldn't do any sort of interactions. Notably, everyone was aware that more heat meant more clouds which meant more sunlight reflected back into space. Thus, the simplicity of the pre-computer attempts at modeling was an acknowledged flaw.

Still, I'm curious. What are the modern estimates? You quoted a number a while back that, if I recall correctly, was dang close to Callendar.

The direction of the criticism has now shifted. Rather than complain that a given set of calculations does not take this or that into consideration, you get criticism that models are too complex to understand and verify. Perhaps true. The atmosphere is too complex for a human to fully grasp all the interactions, so any decent computer model will be too.

But the point I'm trying to push is the different shapes of the solar forcing and greenhouse forcing curves. The early 20th century saw a significant increase in solar energy, which has leveled since. The late 20th century saw a significant increase in greenhouse gasses, which is not leveling. Current models attribute X amount of forcing from sunlight variations, Y amount from greenhouse. I believe these are a few of the basic 'coeficients' under discussion. So far, as I understand it, they have only found one pair of values for X and Y that will make things work for both halves of the 20th century.

Justin seems to have acknowledged that Y (or lambda) is not zero. That's a start.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

It's odd that you chose to dwell on Angstrom's work without going into why it was flawed.

I wanted to show that people had done experiments placing gases into tubes and measuring absorption and gotten results different from the present understanding. That is wasn't as straightforward as you made it sound. That there had once been a different consensus.

Angstrom didn't set the science back. He made an important contribution. It shows how science works.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

You quoted a number a while back that, if I recall correctly, was dang close to Callendar.

Yes. These early estimates are pretty good. Often using the complex models just adds frosting on the cake, much, much simpler models will capture the essential features.

I just produced an estimate of lamba using a very crude sensitivity analysis of my own and got values of 0.53 and 0.45 depending on whether I considered just CO2 or both CO2 and solar factors simultaneously.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

But the point I'm trying to push is the different shapes of the solar forcing and greenhouse forcing curves.

Something like this:



Here CRF is cosmic ray flux, which is a measure of solar activity as well as being the proposed mechanism for the effect Justin was trying to allude to with his galactic topology stuff. The methodology is outlined in a post I made at the Sciencebits blog.

Anyways as you can see solar activity or CRF rose a lot in the early 20th century when temperature did too. In the late 20th century when temperature has also been rising a lot, CRF has not been rising. If solar factors were responsible for warming in the early 20th century then they are too weak now to account for much of the current warming. Some other factor (i.e. CO2) is affecting temperature recently.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

For Christ's Sake! David and Brian and Rani and I turn out to be all on the same side, after only several hundred agitated postings! The Internet might not be the most efficient means of coming to an understanding

Yeah, some folks are just suckers for the Big Orgy. Kum-by-yah ain't a bad song, ya know. In fact it really feels good to sing it... sorta like having an orgas... well, out on Main Street in broad (no pun intended) gaylight, er, daylight.

Hey, ya'all oughta revive that old Big Orgy thread. It'll be really cool. Sorta like oldtimes...

Originally Posted by zilch

Hey, ya'all oughta revive that old Big Orgy thread. It'll be really cool. Sorta like oldtimes...

This time I think I'll just watch the rest of you, if that's OK.

And take pictures.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Something like this:



Here CRF is cosmic ray flux, which is a measure of solar activity as well as being the proposed mechanism for the effect Justin was trying to allude to with his galactic topology stuff. The methodology is outlined in a post I made at the Sciencebits blog.

Anyways as you can see solar activity or CRF rose a lot in the early 20th century when temperature did too. In the late 20th century when temperature has also been rising a lot, CRF has not been rising. If solar factors were responsible for warming in the early 20th century then they are too weak now to account for much of the current warming. Some other factor (i.e. CO2) is affecting temperature recently.

Your cartoon makes me pause and say, "huh." Something anomalous is going on here. I wonder what it would look like if more data were available over a longer stretch of time...

Originally Posted by zilch

Yeah, some folks are just suckers for the Big Orgy. Kum-by-yah ain't a bad song, ya know. In fact it really feels good to sing it...

Nawww... This one's better suited for this thread. It's about the epicenter
of the current environmental meme, including global warming. Besides it's a better jam...


Well I came across a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him tell where are you going
This he told me

Well I am going down to Yasgur's farm
Going to join in a rock and roll band
Goin' to get back to the land to set my soul free

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

Well then can I walk beside you
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning
And maybe it's the time of year
Yes and maybe it's the time of man
And I don't know who I am
But life is for learning

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers jet planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in a devil's bargain
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

Hey, ya'all oughta revive that old Big Orgy thread. It'll be really cool. Sorta like oldtimes...

Woodstock was like that. Even I remember that on TV. As for the song, it's one of those that still makes my spine tingle for some reason. Another one is "Man In The Box" --- Alice in Chains.


I'M THE MAN IN THE BOX
BURIED IN MY SHIT
WON'T YOU COME AND SAVE ME SAVE ME

FEED MY EYES CAN YOU SEW THEM SHUT
JESUS CHRIST DENY YOUR MAKER
HE WHO TRIES WILL BE WASTED
FEED MY EYES NOW YOU'VE SEWN THEM SHUT

I'M THE DOG WHO GETS BEAT
SHOVE MY NOSE IN SHIT
WON'T YOU COME AND SAVE ME

FEED MY EYES CAN YOU SEW THEM SHUT
JESUS CHRIST DENY YOUR MAKER
HE WHO TRIES WILL BE WASTED
FEED MY EYES NOW YOU'VE SEWN THEM SHUT

FEED MY EYES CAN YOU SEW THEM SHUT
JESUS CHRIST DENY YOUR MAKER
HE WHO TRIES WILL BE WASTED
FEED MY EYES NOW YOU'VE SEWN THEM SHUT

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I... Yet, here we are trying to justify doing something that is already intuitively correct.

Unlike most of the topics we discuss at this site, this one involves hard science.

It's not like talking about politics or economics, where there are different "schools" of thought and one can say practically anything and be "right" in some way. Here there are right (and wrong) approaches to the problem or ways of thinking. For example the warm soda pop analogy is flatly wrong in the case of global warming. For soda, the amount of CO2 is not changing and temperature exerts the dominant effect on solubility. For GW, the amount of CO2 is rising; the CO2 level exerts the dominant effect on solubility. If you know how to do phase equilibrium problems using Henry's Law, you would know this. Only if one is ignorant of phase equilibria science would one say something like this. Since the oceans and atmosphere are different phases and interface with each other, phase equilibria is a necessary part of climate science. You cannot be an "expert" or a valid source of technical knowledge about climate change if you make this analogy.

So when Cockburn quotes somebody making this analogy you immediately know that he doesn't know the science and so what he says can be discounted.

The quality of thinking can be gauged much better. One can easily spot faith masquerading as reasoned argument.

Mike, I'm not arguing against the science, I'm arguing against getting caught in a linguistic trap. There are always deniers of any scientific argument that can't be demonstrated to the nth degree. Look at the debate on evolution or, even more to the point, the tobacco industry's rear-guard action against the health effects of using its products. It's obfuscate and delay.

If you actually want to get started on a solution while the debate continues to rage, shift the argument to more solid ground. Is oil dependency wise on economic or political grounds? I don't think so. We have a good oil war going right now. Why not move to something else that doesn't carry a trillion dollar support cost ... to say nothing of the lives lost or destroyed? Coal is dirty and the secondary costs of mining are rapidly becoming unacceptable. Why not move on from coal too, while we're at it?

Once that decision is made, the logical method of attack is conservation first. You've argued for that yourself. Next in line is renewables and non-chemical sources like wind and solar. Nuclear follows after that. None of these options needs AGW to justify it, and none of them releases sequestered carbon in the form of CO2. There are other technologies, like all electric cars and smart buildings, that just need a shove to get going.

That's a lot to put on our plate for starters - probably more than we can do for a while. Your idea of using carbon credits to move us to these options is a good mechanism. No one wants economic and political stress or dirty air, so there are plenty of reasons sufficient to justify that choice.

Meanwhile, the scientific argument can continue, with the evidence pointing toward a more definitive answer than we have today. After all, we know a lot more today than we did 20 years ago. In another 20 years, the debate should be settled. We may have also solved the bulk of the AGW problem, too.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Something like this:



Here CRF is cosmic ray flux, which is a measure of solar activity as well as being the proposed mechanism for the effect Justin was trying to allude to with his galactic topology stuff. The methodology is outlined in a post I made at the Sciencebits blog.

Anyways as you can see solar activity or CRF rose a lot in the early 20th century when temperature did too. In the late 20th century when temperature has also been rising a lot, CRF has not been rising. If solar factors were responsible for warming in the early 20th century then they are too weak now to account for much of the current warming. Some other factor (i.e. CO2) is affecting temperature recently.

Yes. Your "solar activity or CRF" is labeled as 'Solar' and is charted in red on the Wiki / Meehl charts that break out five plausible elements rather than just the one.

One might break CRF into three segments which share similar "cosmic rays cause cloud formation" mechanisms. At a very long time scale, the stellar arm 130,000,000 year cycles are a CRF mechanism. Novas tend to occur in and near the arms. At the short term, solar variance effects solar winds which effect cosmic rays. Thus, the sunspot cycles and longer term maximums and minimums tie into CRF. In the middle, there is a possibility of a nova going off in the not to great distance, or the solar system entering the cone of a cosmic jet. Thus, stellar topography could also induce a CRF effect in theory. I just don't see how we would not notice the nova or the cosmic jet. Thus, I don't see that stuff happening outside the solar system is apt to be a major factor. Still, all three could be considered aspects of CRF. I'd as soon keep them separate.

And, yes, there could be other effects not yet modeled. I'll make up one off the top of my head, just from watching a PBS Nova program. Some think the Earth's magnetic field is reversing. It does so, every once in a while, the north and south magnetic fields switching position. During the switch, the Earth doesn't have much in the way of a magnetic field, which does not a little to protect the Earth from cosmic rays. If we are at the beginnings of a magnetic field reversal, what does this do to CRF forcing? More rays yields more clouds yields global dimming equivalent??? (A quick Google indicates I'm not the first person to throw this idea up, but I haven't seen it in the global warming literature.)

But if one watches the Nova shows on magnetic poles, then the ones on climate change, neither one references the other at all. The common denominator of cosmic rays is kind of obscure. Are the scientists a bit better connected than that? Then too, work on a possible modern magnetic reversal is very preliminary.

Anyway, I remain less kindly towards Angstrom's work than you. He made a bad assumption - no need to account for temperature and pressure - which gave the impression that the CO2 issue had been clearly decided. I can't really blame him. Such assumptions might get made all the time. Still, if no one thinks to go back and test such assumptions, research in a field can atrophy. What happened wasn't good.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

If you actually want to get started on a solution while the debate continues to rage, shift the argument to more solid ground. Is oil dependency wise on economic or political grounds?

This has already been discussed in detail in Peak Oil threads. The market as it is currently constituted can handle these issues. Justin and the libertarians are already on board with this. The second issue really comes down to the war. We should get out of the ME. Once against Justin and the other libertarians are on board with this too. The liberals are mostly on board too. The wingers are a lost cause. Nothing to discuss, we mostly agree.

Coal is dirty and the secondary costs of mining are rapidly becoming unacceptable. Why not move on from coal too, while we're at it?

The issues from mining coal are localized and are actionable in torts. There already is a mechanism to deal with these issues. If coal really was unacceptable to the people living with it, it would stop being used.

There isn't a mechanism to deal with GW. If it is real, then we will get cooked like the proverbial frog in a pan of warming water.

Once that decision is made, the logical method of attack is conservation first. You've argued for that yourself. Next in line is renewables and non-chemical sources like wind and solar. Nuclear follows after that. None of these options needs AGW to justify it,

Most of these options cost more or are inconvenient. I don't want to ride the bus. And I'm not going to shell out more money for more efficiency unless I get something for it. Most Americans are on the same page as me in these respects. We aren't going to change unless we have to.

There is no need to talk about technologies. This is all relatively easy. All it take is for the suits to say to guys like me, here are the resources, make it happen. And it will happen.

But you see that isn't going to happen. Instead the suits plan to eventually shut down technical operations in this country and have it all done in India. So you see its not about technology, its about the suits. How do you get them to use America's technical resources instead of downsizing them away?

The suits generally think along libertarian lines in the sense that they are anti-tax, anti-regulation and pro-captalism. So libertarian-leaning thinkers have to get on board with any program to retain technical competence to deal with a problem like GW.

Your idea of using carbon credits to move us to these options is a good mechanism. No one wants economic and political stress or dirty air, so there are plenty of reasons sufficient to justify that choice.

Actually our air is much cleaner than when I was a kid. Water quality too--lake Erie is alive again and our rivers don't burn.

Nobody I know experiences "stress" from dirty air. I don't know about you, but I am going to continue to drive and use my AC.

OK. We can all be happy now. The suits have spoken...

For discussion purposes...

BANGKOK, May 4 (Reuters) - Humans need to make sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years to keep global warming in check, but it need only cost a tiny fraction of world economic output, a major U.N. climate report said on Friday.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in the third of a series of reports, said keeping the rise in temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius would cost only 0.12 percent of annual gross domestic product.
"It's a low premium to pay to reduce the risk of major climate damage," Bill Hare, a Greenpeace adviser who co-authored the report, told Reuters at the end of marathon talks that ran over their four-day schedule to finalise the document.

"It's a great report and it's very strong and it shows that it's economically and technically feasible to make deep emission reductions sufficient to limit warming to 2 degrees," he said...

Mike shouldn't have to give up his air conditioner...

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

There are always deniers of any scientific argument that can't be demonstrated to the nth degree. Look at the debate on evolution.

I have. The evolution deniers acknowledge their religion. The GW deniers do not believe that they are arguing from a faith tradition. They also corrrectly point out that many on our side of the debate also argue from a faith tradition.

Now in political and economic issues faith and reality are so intertwined as to be inseparable (e.g. the Iraq war). But in a scientific issue there is a correct answer and people, regardless of their faith traditions, can come to an agreement on what is correct and what is not. I worked with Chilean scientists who supporter of Pinochet and Allende. Obviously they disagree violently on politics, but on science they would go where the data took them. Or previous plant manager was a rightwing religious conservative like HC, but in discussions about the results of experiments and on how we should proceed in the plant, the issues were always about what the data said.

It should be possible to discuss scientific issues with a scientist like Ricercar or an engineer like Justin, even if the consequences of the research suggest things that seem to violate their respective faith traditions. After all, if Christian scientists could accept a heliocentric solar system, then why cannot libertarian scientists accept CO2-induced climate change as a real problem?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

After all, if Christian scientists could accept a heliocentric solar system, then why cannot libertarian scientists accept CO2-induced climate change as a real problem?

A heliocentric solar system presents no true logical challenge to Christian doctrine. God can still have a special plan for humanity involving the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ whether the earth or the sun is taken as the center. One may argue that this is also the case w/r/t evolution, although there are obviously Christians incapable of reasoning their way through that as yet.

The problem is that the steps needed to deal with global warming, as you have pointed out, involve government action. They may involve an increase in government authority. Even if they don't, at the least they require maintaining government authority somewhere around current levels, while changing the focus of government activity. Therefore, at worst they threaten what libertarians would consider further erosion of liberty, and at best they forestall what libertarians would consider progress and improvement.

These present a true logical challenge to libertarian ideals.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The problem is that the steps needed to deal with global warming, as you have pointed out, involve government action. They may involve an increase in government authority. Even if they don't, at the least they require maintaining government authority somewhere around current levels, while changing the focus of government activity. Therefore, at worst they threaten what libertarians would consider further erosion of liberty, and at best they forestall what libertarians would consider progress and improvement.

These present a true logical challenge to libertarian ideals.

Only if the solution is truly presumed to be beyond the capacity for free people to handle.

And frankly, any level-headed libertarian would scoff at that idea. I've tried to help with our hypothetically-based discussion to at least point in the general direction that would be appropriate -- even desirable in its own right! -- to deal with the consequences of anthropogenic carbon emissions in a more pro-active way.

That is, after all, what we're broadly talking about when we talk about addressing AGW, correct? Causing society in general to be cognizant of the fact (presupposed for the purposes of discussion) that mowing their lawn is marginally contributing to mass property destruction in Tampa? And to modify their lawn-mowing accordingly to reduce the incidence of destruction?

Really, stated so in the broad, the goals of the AGW crowd couldn't possibly be more libertarian. So chalking up skepticism on the science side to a philosophical inability to reconcile a heliocentric universe with the libertarian religion strikes me as somewhat... inaccurate.

Prove that the anthropogenic component is the critical one in warming global climate, and libertarians will have their strongest Cause yet! Please, please prove it!

Justin:

I, personally, AM cognizant of the danger posed by AGW. Am I able, personally, to do anything about my share of contribution to that danger?

Yes, but not nearly enough. I can increase my energy efficiency -- have done, actually -- by taking public transportation, walking, or bicycling rather than driving; by replacing my light bulbs; and in other ways. But I cannot use 100% green energy, because the market doesn't offer that. There are parts of this problem that are out of my control.

If the market did offer 100% green energy, it would do so at considerable extra cost. Even if I, personally, could afford that cost, there are people who could not. And there are also people who would not care. It's the same old problem: I will pay for a benefit to myself. That's fair. Why should I pay for a benefit that will be enjoyed equally by everyone? That's NOT fair! And so people tend not to.

That's why we have taxes. Supporting a military force (for example) keeps enemy armies from invading the country, killing people (possibly me), and destroying or stealing property (possibly mine). So it's to my benefit to pay to support a military force (if not necessarily of the size we actually have) -- but it's not any MORE to my benefit than it is to my neighbor's. So why should I voluntarily pay for it while my neighbor takes a free ride on my responsibility? You understand that's the way people tend to think, and it's why voluntary contributions for universal benefits don't work.

What needs to be done to stop greenhouse emissions is similar. It will benefit everyone equally. Why should I pay for it and have my neighbor get a free ride? Also, by the nature of things some people will be paying more than others. If I own/run an electric utility, I have to pay a lot to replace all of my generating capacity. If I own/run an oil company, this transition is going to utterly destroy my company's profits. If I own/run an automobile manufacturer, it will cost a lot to retool for producing green cars. Etc., etc.

People won't do this kind of thing voluntarily for the benefit of a bunch of freeloaders, even when it also benefits themselves. My contribution is supposed to benefit me -- not us.

Still chugging through this myself.

But I can't help snatching one little phrase:

the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Brian:

You offer an evidence-free, faith-based rejection of my contention that free people are capable of accounting for the consequences of their actions and choosing accordingly. Granted, my opinion that they can is ultimately not significantly less faith-based than yours.

Which means we may be at an impasse.

It happens.