Gyroscopic Investing

[quote=Tyler]Sadly, stuff like this makes the "peer-reviewed" research qualifier pretty much worthless.  Interestingly, it's also evidence of how some scientists stuff the journals to build relevance by padding their references.  Consensus statistics may not necessarily indicate what you think.  [/quote]

I used to do academic research back in the day (Ok, Carter was president).  One of my acquaintances in the "peer-reviewed" community admitted that he really didn't care if his findings were refuted, because that would give him an opportunity to publish a second (or third or fourth) paper to pad his CV.

To my mind the crucial point is that IF we were to decide that climate change is a big threat, we wouldn't need government micromanagement to avoid it. It would just need a broad brush approach of having a tariff on fossil fuels. Then the free market and human ingenuity would tackle the job of sorting out alternative forms of energy.

Basically the tariff would need to be enough such that the less valuable/harder to extract reserves were left in the ground and prospecting for new reserves became uneconomic.

If people wanted, I guess the owners of fossil fuel assets (that were rendered worthless by such a tariff) could be compensated. Would that placate the people who now pay for a lot of the climate skeptic rhetoric?

I'm not sure that either such a tariff (and certainly not such a "set aside" compensation) would fit in with "what the left wants to do anyway".

stone wrote: To my mind the crucial point is that IF we were to decide that climate change is a big threat, we wouldn't need government micromanagement to avoid it. It would just need a broad brush approach of having a tariff on fossil fuels. Then the free market and human ingenuity would tackle the job of sorting out alternative forms of energy.

Basically the tariff would need to be enough such that the less valuable/harder to extract reserves were left in the ground and prospecting for new reserves became uneconomic.

If people wanted, I guess the owners of fossil fuel assets (that were rendered worthless by such a tariff) could be compensated. Would that placate the people who now pay for a lot of the climate skeptic rhetoric?

I'm not sure that either such a tariff (and certainly not such a "set aside" compensation) would fit in with "what the left wants to do anyway".

Exactly.  For the most part, we could use methods government has used for decades, if not centuries, to tax things that come with a certain social cost or need for government expenditures.  It's never perfect (pedestrians use roads but don't pay gas tax... one guy's 60 mpg prius uses just as much road as another's 20 MPG 535xi... but gas taxes to pay for roads still works out pretty well as a cost distribution system).

And, further, even if we're wrong about climate change, have we really slaughtered our economy buy consuming less fossil fuel reserves and producing less "general" pollution?  I really don't think so.

Simonjester wrote:

moda0306 wrote:
And, further, even if we're wrong about climate change, have we really slaughtered our economy buy consuming less fossil fuel reserves and producing less "general" pollution?  I really don't think so.

the devil is in the details, if you raise the cost of gas, you raise the cost of shipping and that raises the cost of almost everything to consumers. that is just one possible effect, that will itself have other effects... and there are potentially countless others. viewed in isolation small changes for top down social engineering seem harmless, when viewed from a broader perspective, the ripples in the pond travel far and can easily become waves.  i personally cant predict all the effects (or lack of effects) they might have, but i seriously doubt government can either...

The roads Americans drive on that pollute my lungs are social engineering.  The power we use to heat our suburban homes are part of a social engineering framework.  Heck, even us exporting the consequences of our pollution to foreign countries who may pollute less is social engineering.

So, yes, there are unforseen consequences to seemingly harmless actions... this is exactly why anyone's worried about climate change to begin with.

Squelch those naysayers!  Objectivity in reporting be damned.

... Mountaineer

From CNS News:

"COLD SHOULDER: ABC, CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of Global Warming for More Than 1,300 Days

Like a simple parlor trick, the networks are able to make skeptical scientists vanish, at least from the eyes of their viewers.

In some cases, the broadcast networks have failed to include such scientists for years, while including alarmist scientists within the past six months. ABC, CBS and NBC's lengthy omission of scientists critical of global warming alarmism propped up the myth of a scientific consensus, despite the fact the many scientists and thousands of peer-reviewed studies that disagree.

Neither CBS nor ABC have included a skeptical scientists in their news shows within the past 1,300 days, but both networks included alarmists within the past 160 days -- CBS as recently as 22 days ago. When the networks did include other viewpoints, the experts were dismissed as "out of the scientific mainstream" or backed by "oil and coal companies."

The networks were able to promote the myth that there is a scientific consensus for man-made, catastrophic climate change by including climate alarmists much more often than skeptical scientists and by challenging the credentials of the skeptics that they did include.

There are thousands of skeptical scientists, so it's not like the networks couldn't find any. Marc Morano, who runs the website Climate Depot, has published a special report listing more than 1,000 dissenting scientists worldwide who dispute man-made global warming claims made by the likes of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.

CBS was the worst, ignoring skeptical scientists for 1,391 days, ever since the May 15, 2010, "Evening News." That night, CBS interviewed former NASA climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer during an extensive profile of alarmist meteorologist, and non-Ph.D., Dan Satterfield.

It was just 22 days ago, on Feb. 12, 2014, that CBS included an alarmist physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku on "This Morning." Kaku is a contributor to "This Morning" and that day he warned of the "heating up of the North Pole" which "could cause gigantic storms of historic proportions."

ABC last included a skeptical scientist 1,383 days ago. During the May 23, 2010, segment of "World News," ABC played a brief, 23-second clip of Princeton-educated Dr. Fred Singer expressing his skepticism over man-made climate change, along with clips of two alarmist scientists. Singer's was the only opposing view in that report and his views were actually taken from a much earlier interview aired on ABC March 23, 2008.

Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton professor, appeared on ABC "World News" Sept. 27, 2013, arguing that climate change is "bearing down on us," only 160 days ago.

NBC did a far better job than the other broadcast networks, but the last time they included a skeptical scientist was still a whopping 298 days ago. NBC's May 13, 2013, "Today" included Dr. Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute. Lehr criticized the supposed link between carbon dioxide and global temperatures.

An alarmist scientist appeared on NBC much more recently, however, only 115 days ago.  On Nov. 11, 2013, "Today" Dr. Raghu Murtugudde predicted the increase of high-intensity hurricanes during a segment on how global warming would make hurricanes more powerful."