PeterMP

Well, if you are so smart, why don't you explain it to us all?

The problem becomes, without discussing a reasonable alternative, you get to put undocumented numbers on costs without any associated costs for another solution. You've put the cost of prevention billions. How much is mitigation costs? How much of that billions makes sense to spend in terms of national security any way? How much are we (and have we) going to spend on "national defense" in order to keep the oil flowing from the ME? When you look at the costs of prevention, is it really that unreasonable? But if you can't even get people to admit that human caused climate change is something we are doing and something we can do something about, then you can't even start to have those conversations.

And as I've already stated in this thread, if the parties this thread is about, where actually discussing mitigation approaches, the conversation on climate change would be different.

There are things we can control and contribute to and there are things that we cannot. I doubt we can do much about the historical rate of the East coast sinking without ticking off much of the rest of the world (including Canada), but we can contribute more to the East Coast sinking (as ice sheets melt) and the effects of the east coast sinking (rising sea levels). Generally, this argument doesn't really make any sense in general. There are ALWAYS things we can't do anything about. Are those things an argument to do nothing at all? Why don't we just look at all of the things we can do nothing about and stay in bed?

There is no reason to think the issue is an either or case (and in terms of cancer, there's really no doubt that we are doing much better at treating cancer so I'm not sure why that would be much of a concern at all (actually the only thing in that list that seems much of an issue to me is fat)). Is there a reason we can't do both? At a local level, there is a lack of consensus because the local climate models aren't that good. It is difficult to predict that this river will see more rain fall and so there will be local flooding vs. this area is going to see less rain. The consensus certainly is that temperatures are rising and participation pattern ARE changing and sea levels ARE changing and that IS having effects NOW.

I'll point out your first link says if we nothing is done, but we've done things. There is no doubt our air is cleaner today because of actions that we took in the 70s and 80s. In terms of the others, they have been engaged, and they were even engaged at the time: "I doubt that greenhouse warming is a danger to the planet at geological time scales, as Mr. Oppenheimer and Mr. Boyle suggest. Why make such hyped-up claims? Isn't it enough that global warming (and the consequent rising of sea level) would be tragic for us humans? Isn't it enough that most of our large cities, situated at sea level (ports and harbors), would be flooded, and that masses of people and agricultural systems would have to move? This parochial focus is entirely appropriate and defensible." That was in the NYT in 1990 when the book was written and was written by Barry Commoner, who is credited with being one of the founders of environmental movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Commoner Due to the nature of academics (e.g. tenure) and a general unwillingness for curcifying people for making mistakes (let's face it if we ostracized everybody in climate science that was wrong at one point in time, there would be no climate scientists), little is actually done in these cases, but they are certainly engaged.

Out of curiosity, can you name some names? And I will point out, people don't apologize to the public for other people's actions (by and large) (and why should I apologize for something that somebody else said). It isn't hard to find climate scientists that say they think the extremists are wrong, and even the IPCC is wrong, but that we should do something. I remember a thread where a respected climate scientists was listed by somebody as "denier" for saying the IPCC was likely off by 1/3 with respect to the effect of CO2 on temperature. But that person was even saying there would be significant affects and he favored acting to save his (born) grandchildren from having to deal with the consequences. (I'll also point out with respect to another post that I didn't respond to that I never watched Gore's move, but I'm pretty sure that Gore NEVER said the Earth was going to become uninhabitable EVER (much less in a few years) because of human caused climate change.)

I think the issue becomes who are you running him off the line with. I don't know, but I suspect he's a good enough and tall enough shooter that a lot of smaller players don't bother him much when shooting. Also most PF/C aren't really good or comfortable at running anybody off the line. Do you think Booker or Nene could effectively run Love off the 3 pt. line? With Lebron and Irving on the same team, are you going to commit one of your better defenders to running Love off the 3 pt line?

I was curious and looked. Love is actually down below 40% in the 15-19 foot range. Bosh is actually better in the 15-19 foot range. Bosh is actually better at every range they have it broken down to until you get > 20 ft with the biggest difference being the 15-19 ft. shot (where Bosh is actually over 50%). Bosh is actually better than most of the NBA from that range including people that shoot a lot from that range like Dirk, Carmelo, Durant, and Curry (and Bosh takes a lot of shots from that range too). And he's been lower in the past (but not a bunch, he's always been amongst the best), but didn't show a great improvement just from moving to Miami from Toronto. That just seems to be a shot that Bosh has been good at, and I suspect it is something he has worked on in Miami. With respect to Love, I suspect it is something he can work on and get better with. I suspect he might get better simply by having those types of looks be more open playing with Lebron and Irving. The actual trade was much better for Cleveland than some of the other ones that were announced, but I still would have rather given up Irving than Wiggins, I think. Though I think this is a trade that Cleveland reasonably had to make, and maybe you aren't there this year, but you hope that over the next year they can meld their game together (e.g. Love working on the mid-range jump shot so he can be an effective pick and pop player). To me, playing defense remains the issue. I'll point out that I think you could get away with him at a C if you had elite defensive perimeter players, but I don't think the Cavs have that (other than Lebron). I don't think they can effectively defend teams with 2 good perimeter players, or a team that has a good perimeter player and a good post player.

MCW's shot has huge issues and probably should be completely retooled. One of the reason Noel didn't play at all was so that they could work on his offensive game. Instead of having him worrying about offensive sets and things like that to play just try and develop/practice an offensive game. It'll be interesting to see what they've come up with (reports from the summer league is that he showed a pretty decent left handed hook, and was trying to face people up and take them off the dribble. Both moves would allow him to use his length and quickness and that he generally looked okay.)

I can tell you in my limited experience (which partly did include some state primaries with a relatively large history of registered independents that have a history of voting for the non-2 major parties), there were questions related to is there anything we can do to pick up some of these voters without alienating our other voters. It isn't uncommon for some non-major candidate issues to be taken over by one of the two major parties because they do spend some time thinking about how can we get those futures.

This is a bit beyond me too, but my understanding is that thorium reactors (and therefore their real costs and efficiency) are only theoretical in nature. China is "ramping" up their research programs with hopes of being able to construct one in 10 years. If you go back to 1950 and you can make these types of decisions, then things might be different, but in terms of energy now or in the relevant future, I'm dubious that thorium reactors are going to be relevant. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0328/Thorium-a-safer-nuclear-power (Though, I think it is clear in 20-20 hindsight that Reagan made the wrong decisions in 1980 in terms of military/energy spending/pressure.)

I don't think this is true. Obama has asked for more money to be budgeted for loan guarantees in several of his budgets and that has not been approved by Congress, including the House. The Republicans are for nuclear in the context that industry will build the nuclear power plants by themselves, but that isn't gong to happen due to the expense of building nuclear power plants and them only becoming cost effective over long periods of times (essentially building a nuclear power plant only makes sense if you assume the costs of electricity isn't going to fall dramatically in the next 20 years or so). Republicans like to talk about France when they talk about nuclear, but the nuclear "industry" in France is actually the French government. How about this, I can find you healthcare plans supported by prominent Democrats that pre-date and were essentially contemporary with Bush that were more extensive then then the prescription drug bill. Can you find me a current prominent Republican that actually has an actual plan to advance nuclear energy in this country that goes beyond what Obama wants (more money for loan guarantees)? Private and even state land (where a lot of fracking is going on in PA) is completely independent of the federal government. I don't think much of the increase in natural gas is tied to the opening of more federal lands. I think it is tied to the price of coal, the costs generating electricity from coal (e.g. new mercury standards go into affect in 2015, which would require even old coal plants to buy and install new technology) and the fear of what (near) future costs are going to be (e.g. what are the waste water requirements going to be), and the development of new (fracking) technology/practices. Because CO2 driven climate change isn't the ONLY problem that we have. And if your solution to global warming doesn't really fix the problem AND apparently at least in some cases causes earthquakes and ground water contamination in developed areas, then I'm not sure the trade off is really that great. I don't think anybody is claiming from a climate change perspective we should throw out natural gas, but fracking at least in some areas appears to have its own set of problems. (And there are actually questions with respect to climate change how much of an advantage is natural gas from fracking because of issues related to fracking itself (things like methane leakage).) If we were talking about natural gas (expansion) without fracking, it would be a different story, but we aren't. So the question becomes what is the advantage vs. what is the disadvantage. How much time (if any) have you actually bought yourself and at what (other) costs? And I'm not even saying we should stop fracking. I've said here several times in multiple threads, it should have probably been done more slowly with more work to understand the long(er) term impacts and implications. (I'll point out that I'm not actually very pro-nuclear partly because of the issue I've raised above about the costs only being recouped over long periods of time, and the consequences when something goes wrong (even in TMI, they have a nuclear reactor sitting there that they don't do anything with.). I think it is likely we missed the boat on nuclear in terms of an economically efficient way to produce energy over the life time of the plant (especially accounting for the time to build them). I don't strongly oppose it, but I doubt it is the best decision. TMI happened at the worse point in time from that perspective.)

It is a lie that is going to be quickly called out by intelligent people on the other side (and intellectually honest people on both sides). You don't have to to do much with respect CO2 emissions to clean up smog or related things like acid rain. And with the web and spread of information today and even "neutral" sites like factcheck politofact it will quickly and thoroughly debunked. The end result is that what you want done won't happen and you'll lose credibility to push for solutions in the future. In terms of a carbon tax, this guy in the chair of economics at Harvard. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-carbon-tax-that-america-could-live-with.html?_r=0 He was also an economics advisor to President Bush and the Romney campaign. There are prominent conservative economists that support a carbon tax. (I will point out that most cap and trade plans exclude small businesses.)

twa had already addressed the "hiatus", which you mention (i.e. the suns nap), and I addressed that and the "issue" with climate models.that you refer to. So those two topics have been covered, and your post didn't add anything other than repeat something that had already been said and refuted and to try and introduce something that I pre-emptively refuted. Because climate change is an issue, and our increasing levels of CO2 are having affects that are/will affect the human population, and even specifically the US. And so we should do something about it. That's why. So rather than post something on point that would actually make your point, you decided to post something that was essentially irrelevant?

Your piece has very little do with costs of generating electricty with respect to fossil fuels. The biggest issue from an economic stand point is that PV panels got a lot cheaper (related to Chinese "dumping"), but if it is close and another solar energy got a lot cheaper (even if that is due to Chinese "dumping") that just means that type of solar energy is now close (in that area). Is Obama a green? Because he's certainly been cooperative with the nuclear power industry.

visionary, you keep up with this much better than I do. Is there any where you'd say the changes that happened with the Arab Spring are positive?

Hydro certainly, and nuclear in some areas, and solar is very close if not there in some areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#Costs " New CSP stations may be economically competitive with fossil fuels. Nathaniel Bullard, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, has calculated that the cost of electricity at the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a project under construction in Southern California, will be lower than that from photovoltaic power and about the same as that from natural gas.[30] However, in November 2011, Google announced that they would not invest further in CSP projects due to the rapid price decline of photovoltaics. Google invested US$168 million on BrightSource.[31][32]IRENA has published on June 2012 a series of studies titled: "Renewable Energy Cost Analysis". The CSP study shows the cost of both building and operation of CSP plants. Costs are expected to decrease, but there are insufficient installations to clearly establish the learning curve. As of March 2012, there were 1.9 GW of CSP installed, with 1.8 GW of that being parabolic trough." (Realistically, coal with no regulations is still going to win, but I don't think anybody really supports burning coal w/o regulations.) But even if it IS there, there is the issue of existing infra structure. From an economic situation, why should I replace the things I'm doing to generate power with something that just is as economically efficient as what I've been doing. If I've been generating electricity by doing X, I have facilities to do X, I have experience and a work force designed to do X, why should I start doing Y just because Y is as efficient? It isn't going to happen without large governmental support. We're going to need the alternative energies to be clearly better than fossil fuels before we get any real shift, and if things keep proceeding the way they have in terms of technology/economics, that isn't happening any time soon. (And I think in some areas geothermal is actually in the same ball park.) Larry, our CO2 levels have dropped in total and per capitia. Much of it was even done under Bush and is largely tied to the economic situation and the (continued) loss of industry. Essentially none of it was tied to a resonable energy policy. From wiki: http://es.redskins.com/topic/380491-i-want-to-sue-the-republican-party-for-willful-denial-of-scientific-evidence-about-climate-change/page-4 In 2000, we were admitting 20 metric tons based on per capita numbers (it actually doesn't per a how many people), and in 2009 we were down to 17.2 Now, I expect it might have started to come back up as the economy has recovered. Yay, a let's throw out as much garbage as I can into one post without bothering to even worry about what has already been posted in the thread and see what sticks post.

I don't think this is true in any real significant manner. The Republicans have talked about supporting nuclear and even passed a couple of laws, but what have they really done to advance nuclear power. Nothing. Obama has given out loan guarantees and over seen the approval of the first new nuclear power plants in this country for a long time. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/obama-announces-plans-for-first-nuclear-power-plant-in-3-decades.html And he's doubled down on that with more loan guarantees in 2014. There is no question that in my life time the two President's that have most aggressively supported nuclear power were both Dems (Carter and Obama). Bush might have been more supportive than Clinton, but the net effect was the same in terms of advancing the nuclear power industry in the US. Nothing. The rise of natural gas is directly tied to the decrease usage of coal. As using coal became less economically efficient due to environmental regulations, industry has moved to the next best things, which is natural gas. And this is a case where the Dems can't actually claim all of the credit because Bush 1 and the clean air act. But that had essentially nothing to do with climate change via CO2 and is something that the Republicans have and are actually pushing back against in a consistent manner today. I also think that a lot of our reduction in CO2 is tied to the increase in gas prices and the resulting increase effeciency of the US car fleet (how many Hummers do you see on the road today as compared to the 1990s?), and the general economic down turn, which is partly coupled with and to out sourcing of industry. I'm also not a huge fan of the rise of natural gas as tied to fracking, especially in developed areas. At some level, I suspect that lowering CO2 by going to more natural gas obtained from fracking is the equivalent to biting your nose to spite your face. I don't think the Republicans have affectively supported any policy with respect to preventing climate change or mitigating climate change for that purpose. And I think the last time that it actually happened at all (affectively) was the first George Bush and one of the reasons he lost that election was issues with the right not being happy with respect to the relevant law and its a law Republicans have tried to undermine and replace since. I was working on it. The science is more interesting/important to me, but it was something I was working on coming back to. **EDIT** With respect to national security, the all of the above approach makes sense. But with respect to preventing climate change, it isn't likely to get the job done. Given the huge historical advantages that fossil fuels have in terms of infrastructure and government it isn't likely going to get the job done. Alt. energy approaches are getting better and in some cases and in some areas of the US they are really close if not there with respect to being economically effecient to fossil fuels. But that isn't enough in terms of them being adapted even in those area's of the country. With respect to climate change, you have to do something to shift the economics (e.g. cap and trade) to prevent climate change, or you should be talking about mitigating the effects.

We're 12th per capita. China is down in the 30s. We're releasing about 2X as much per a person.

I think that's another good example. Essentially all economists believe some level of debt is okay and even good. But most recognize that there are levels of debt that are bad and most that I know believe that we've crossed that thresh hold in general and should be trying to lower our debt (though I do know some that have been arguing that with interest rates so low we should be borrowing money to make long term investments in our economy, but even there you are talking about specific increases in debt for specific things given the very specific conditions present right now.) But there's no magic number out there where people are saying if the debt doesn't get below A, X is going to happen and if it isn't below B, Y is going to happen.

I honestly don't believe twa believes half of what he posts. I think he just likes to be difficult. (For example, I don't think he believes that producing drinking water for vast regions of the US is actually economically viable (which he didn't actually say, but did sort of insinuated), while alternative energy isn't.) I respond, because its good general education. In that same context, I'm going to put a part in here with respect to climate models: http://www.skepticalscience.com/curry-mcintyre-resist-ipcc-model-accuracy.html I particularly like this part: "The observed trend for the period 1998–2012 is lower than most model simulations. But the observed trend for the period 1992–2006 is higher than most model simulations. Why weren't Curry and McIntyre decrying the models for underestimating global warming 6 years ago?" "It's also worth looking back at what climate scientists were saying about the rapid short-term warming trend in 2007. Rahmstorf et al. (2007), for example, said (emphasis added): "The global mean surface temperature increase (land and ocean combined) in both the NASA GISS data set and the Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit data set is 0.33°C for the 16 years since 1990, which is in the upper part of the range projected by the IPCC ... The first candidate reason is intrinsicvariability within the climate system."" And I'll quote more from the paper: "A second candidate is climate forcings other than CO2" This would be the models are right about CO2, but there is something else going on that we don't understand. Then lastly: "A third candidate is an underestimation of the climate sensitivity to CO2 (i.e., model error)." And that would be that CO2 induced climate change is going to be worse than was being predicted by the models at the time. At a time when models appeared to be "bad" based on UNDERESTIMATING the temperature change, the pro-climate change scientists that were publishing weren't saying "Oh No, it is worse than we thought!" And it just wasn't temperatures. From the same paper: "Since 1990 the observed sea level has been rising faster than the rise projected by models" "Again, we caution that the time interval of overlap is short, so that internal decadal climate variability could cause much of the discrepancy." Over relatively short time scales, when the climate models have under estimated temperature increases and sea level rises, the response of pro-climate change researchers has been, well it is probably just natural variation. (And I'll point out before, I think we will get to the a point where the climate models will start to fail. There will be unanticipated interactions as things change.)

Nobody said that only CO2 drives temperature increases and only temperature increases, but I'll directly address the idea of a TEMPERATURE hiatus. The black line represents the linear best fit for the data from 1979-1998 (when people like to talk about a haitus starting). The red line is that line extrapolated further. The blue is what you get if there is no real change in temperature (right there might be noise, but the temperature would be flat in the context of that noise). The dotted lines show the 95% error rate. In other words, if the actual data was below the red dotted lines, you'd conclude that there was a 95% probability that the pre-1998 trend had not continued. And the same thing is true for other temp data sets too: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/global-temperature-the-post-1998-surprise/ And I'll point out that there could be NOT a haitus, but simply that the 1979-1998 trend had not continued (which is what has actually probably happened). The data though is not consistent with concluding that the 1979-1998 temperature increase is not continued to the present. And last year was the warmest non-El Nino year on record, and this year is even warmer. And that's not even starting to talk about things like sea ice, which nobody is claiming shows a hiatus.

What projections don't match the pattern? So we should encourage people to think things that don't fit the evidence just so we don't practice group think? People that go out in the rain and declare it isn't raining should be lauded because they aren't "falling victim" to group think? Ignorance and dishonesty should always be an issue. Group think about data when there is an abundance of data indicating the group is right, shouldn't be. That you'd equate the 3 of them though isn't surprising.

I'm just going to respond to this. I suspect without government regulation, "normal" energy consumption will go up. Whether that causes an increase in energy prices depends on a few things, including how we do it. For example, the best way, that I know of to do this, is actually to build a nuclear power plant and use the steam it produces in its function as desalination. In which case, you actually produce more electricity. The Japanese actually do a lot of that. Of course, I suspect given with what happened in Japan people are going to be a little edgy about building nuclear power plants near where they have easy access to large amounts of salt water. Without some sort of real government requirements, the desalination plants are going to tap into whatever is the easiest/cheapest energy source that they can so that they can make the most money possible. Which means the electric grid and/or natural gas. Which likely will increase prices. The reason waste energy is wasted because it isn't very cost effective to do something with it. If it was, companies would be doing things, like generating electricity, with it now. Yes, if you do things, like use government regulations, you can force companies to do things with it. But they aren't jumping up and down to do it because it makes economic sense. And the fact that you can produce different minerals from it doesn't help that much. It isn't like there is a shortage of NaCl or in the last 30 years that's flipped the switch in terms of desalination becoming more wide spread. Yes, if it makes sense to get water from desalination, then the extra NaCl (and other things) can be sold, but it doesn't make sense to desalinate water to get NaCl (and other things). And the more water you have to desalinate, the more NaCl (and other things) that you have, the less value they have (i.e. supply goes up and demand goes down and prices go down). And this is my point, that's where if Republicans wanted to do, they could start to do things like say, hey here's one problem, and here's a solution, and here's what we are going to do to help. Now, in terms of the GOP and carbon capture: This is from your link: "Could Texas, whose governor dismisses global warming and opposes climate legislation, deliver the world’s first carbon-neutral coal-fired power plant? That looks increasingly likely thanks to a $1.75 billion project in West Texas that received a signed agreement last week for a $350 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy." http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/200633-house-gop-launches-probe-into-epa-climate-rule "The Department of Energy has also backed the technology against GOP claims that carbon capture technologies are not ready to be used at coal-fired power plants and represent a de facto ban on future plants all together." http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/institute/news/republicans-question-federal-funding-ccs "As Congress grapples with an ongoing debt crisis, some House Republicans are questioning how the federal government spends money on advanced coal technology. "Does it make sense for [the Department of Energy] to continue focusing its $400 million coal R&D effort almost exclusively on carbon capture and sequestration?" Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, asked at a hearing yesterday." The new plant is going forward because of a grant given to it from the DOE, while Republicans in Congress question whether the funding makes sense. The technology, the approach, and the funding aren't being supported and nobody thinks the thing would be being built without the funding, and/or the fear that in the near future that CO2 may be capped. The technology is being driven because of things Dems have done and the things that the industry is scared the Dems will do. Not because it makes economic sense currently (even with the ability to sell CO2) and not because of ANYTHING the GOP has done.