shifting to energy policy

Perhaps now with the collapse of the Copenhagen talks, the revelations of abuse from Climategate and the knowledge that the Himalayas are not going to disappear in the immediate future, we can turn our attention to the real issue of cheaper future fuel options, particularly for developing nations.

As is often the case, the template for discussion has been established by another article by the excellent Nordhaus and Shellenberger:

• In the end, whether or not the Senate passes a cap-in-name-only climate bill, the long-term failure of Kyoto and all other efforts to establish binding emissions caps is virtually assured and is a function of a basic technological problem. We simply do not have low-carbon technologies today that can at large scale replace fossil fuels at a cost that any political economy in the world is willing to impose upon itself. There will be no political solution to climate change, no binding international agreement to substantially reduce emissions, and no effective domestic carbon cap until low-carbon technologies are much cheaper than they are today. 
• ...Obama was following two decades of magical thinking among both greens and liberal Democrats about energy technology. In this view, energy efficiency pays for itself, solar and wind power are already nearly cost competitive with fossil fuels, and both can quickly and cheaply reduce emissions. This Pollyanna view of fossil fuel alternatives and efficiency, which makes going green seem cheap and easy -- little more than the cost of "a postage stamp a day" -- has provided the justification for green-policy advocacy that has overwhelmingly focused on pollution regulations and carbon pricing while ignoring serious investment in energy research and development. 
• Incumbent energy interests had, in short, hijacked magical climate thinking for their own uses. They took cap-and-trade legislation and turned it into an opportunity for them to raise energy prices on consumers, invest a fraction of the higher revenues in clean energy, remove existing regulatory obstacles to the construction of coal plants, and lock in their competitive advantage while crowding out energy newcomers, including clean energy firms, for decades to come. 
• Solving the technology challenge will not be easy, but in terms of our collective wealth and knowledge we are in a better position today than at any other point in our history. In the end, global efforts to address the climate challenge, if they are to succeed, must centrally focus upon the creation of a new and extraordinarily important global public good: the development of low-carbon energy technologies that are cheap, clean, and abundant. After two decades of domestic and international failure to take real action on climate change, it is time for the purveyors of magical thinking to take their exit so that the main act can begin. 

I am still far more optimistic about a free market approach to this solution than Nordhaus and Shellenberger, who prefer a contemporary Manhattan Project investment by government, but I can agree with their analysis of the the overall policy objective: eventually, we will need alternate cheap, energy sources.  Where we differ is both the approach to this resolution (free market or government directive) and the time scale.  

The role of climate alarmism has been to present the immediate need for collective de-carbonisation.  Absent of that alarmism, the developed world has substantial low cost energy sources and no real incentive to push the kind of technological advancement Nordhaus and Shellenberger identify.  The need today is for low cost energy sources to fuel developing countries: nations that also lack the capacity to independently initiate the type of technological advances cheap alternate energy requires.

So the real issue is: do we wish to view ourselves as a sustainable global community?  As much as Nordhaus and Shellenberger correctly identify the need for new energy technology, the most pressing barrier to future prosperity remains our need to reconcile the social imperative for sustainability: 

• expanding and improving our notions of community
• decreasing the specter of fear and its grip on public policy, and
• recognition that what differentiates us need not divide us.

Free market or state intervention is irrelevant until such time as we view our collective interest as our own self-interest.

live by the sword....

It is fashionable amongst some eco-activists to refer to themselves as eco-warrriors.  In deference to real troops who fight, and die, to protect people's freedom, I have a problem with the self aggrandizement that activists seek to confer upon themselves with this label.  

No matter: if its warriors they wish to be then this is what they can expect:

It appears many of the activists are quick to dish it out but appear shocked that anyone should respond in kind.  Not that hypocrisy is new to eco-activism.

Looking at the issue beyond the immediate conflict, a number of questions arise:

• how many of the lay public who give money in support of such eco-activism are aware that their money is being used so that, in the name of the environment, young people can roam the oceans of the world in a competitive power boat?
• what is the carbon footprint of the power boat? (sorry, I was forgetting that carbon is so yesterday)
• geography pop quiz: you want to make a media splash about whaling, do you get a boat and protest  (a) Icelandic or Norwegian activity in the North Atlantic, or (b) Japanese activity in the South Pacific?

Not a lot of "eco" and certainly no "warriors". 

The Copenhagen Collapse

Towards year's end and time for lots of people to comment not only on the past year but the past decade.  Based on the collapse at Copenhagen, Lorne Gunter makes this valid observation that environmentalism is just the latest manifestation of authoritarian control, of stasis incarnate:

• ...saving the planet is not what environmentalism is all about. Saving the planet is just the excuse. Controlling other people’s lives and redistributing global wealth is the true goal.
• I’m not saying there is a conscious conspiracy by old socialists meeting in secret to rebrand themselves as new environmentalists so they can revive their Cold War-era campaign for international governance and regulation.
• Rather, it’s a mindset.
• When socialism collapsed as an intellectual movement in the 1990s, the intrusive, holier-than-thou, we-know-best attitude behind it did not disappear, it merely refashioned itself in the last decade as environmentalism.
  
• To be happy, they have to be telling others what to do based on a self-assured belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority.

Change is a constant in life.  The essence of sustainability is the capability of communities to adapt to change, something current environmentalism ignores to its detriment.

Rather than embracing change as the essence of sustainability, stasist politics seeks to control change and environmentalism to direct change towards ideological pre-determinism.  They are mutually reinforcing bedmates: stasist politics supplying the tools of enforcement, environmentalism the moral imperative for intervention.

It is an ideology that neither seeks, nor values, individual empowerment. In contrast, globalization is predicated upon a massive increase in individual empowerment from information technology.  The Copenhagen collapse is evidence that stasist politics is a bankrupt ideology, and so is environmentalism.

the medium is the message

One of the most basic tenets of politics is controlling the message, spinning the information that is in the public domain and framing the way issues are viewed.  As McLuhan famously observed, the medium is the message and no where is this more true today than with the default public record of "fact", Wikipedia.

So, if you wanted to embed science within pre-dominant political consciousness, a key component would require a communications strategy to:

• bring the mainstream media on board by special access, the use of alarmist scenarios and iconic graphics that overwhelm any sublte nuances of the real scienc
• block anyone who disagreed or might disprove your ideas from publishing in normal, recognized media, say refereed journals
• establish a blog that frames your view of the "real" science and refuse to publish comments that fail to conform to your "consensus", and, lastly
• establish control over the on-line source of facts, Wikipedia.

The Climategate papers show exactly how the conventional dogma for climate utilized all of these strategies to frame and  package their perspective of the science for political consumption.

Of course, the final step was then to demonize anyone who still disagreed, questioned or otherwise objected to this force-feeding of conformity, as a denialist. It was the perfect Orwellian use of newspeak. 

Skeptic became a pejorative for the lunatic fringe, rather than a descriptor of essential scientific practice.  But since so many within the AGW fraud had already dispensed with such other scientific staples as transparency and empiricism, what was the problem?  Their reaction to the Climategate papers continues these tactics.  But authoritarian regimes only exist up until the point the public is no longer scared by the bully tactics and the fear the regime seeks to engender. 

The political wind has now changed.  Copenhagen revealed the extent to which neither the science nor the environment were ever really central to the politics.  They were a convenient contrivance.  Now their 15 minutes of political limelight is done and the realpolitik of wealth, wealth transference and corruption, sorry influence, will resume normal broadcasting.  Watch for a new round of celebrity faces to endorse the new message and whatever path to enlightenment is to be used to package and sell the politics it embraces.

Update: the Team's guy on the inside has had his status as Wikipedia administrator revoked. 
It will be interesting to discover if Wikipedia can or "can't handle the truth!". Apparently not.

burden of proof and the precautionary principle

I have always enjoyed Brian Micklethwait's writing. He has a nice economy of style and a keen insight.  Here is his latest post and take on Climategate.  He links to the Monckton video that challenges the Team to come clean about their deceit and suggests that the burden of proof in the debate on climate is changing.

Others are less convinced.  One primary corollary is the observation that climate alramism and ecomyths are vested in the precautionary principle and not the certitude of their science. 

As I have posted previously, slavish adherence to and reliance upon the precautionary principle is the very lifeblood of ecomyths.  Their zombie-like ability to morph into new parables for the demise of humanity rests on the continued acceptance of the precautionary principle as both reasonable and beneficial.  

The precautionary principle exploits the possible, the "what if?"  angst of cultural fears and societal anxieties: it neither requires nor respects the probabilities of scientific observations.  

The most damning indictment arising from Climategate is the arrogance and conceit of the scientists involved who thought they could control the politics of precaution they embraced.  Little do they realize the speed with which those politics will dispense with them now they are an embarrassment to its cause.

Mind you, nothing seems to be a political embarassment to climate nihilism.

climate nihilism

Over at Breakthrough, Shellenberger and Nordhaus have posted a provocative commentary on the Contrivance in Copenhagen.  Their preface:

• From the opening ceremony's video of a little girl running from an earthquake to the promises of emissions reductions, everything taking place in Copenhagen is contrived. The outcome of climate talks -- no treaty, no emissions reductions -- was known in advance. And yet participants pretend there is an unfolding drama. As such, Copenhagen is history's first completely postmodern global event. It's a festival of phoniness. With the ambitions of Versailles but the power of Davos, Copenhagen creates a cognitive dissonance for its creators, which results in ever-more manic displays of apocalypse anxiety and false hope. In the end, Copenhagen tells us more about ourselves -- our post-American world, our fragmented media environment, and our hyper-partisanship -- than about any attempt to slow global warming.

After setting the stage by delineating the post-modern realities and politics of the global  political climate, they suggest that:

•  Lacking any power to effect reality, Copenhagen has thus become a kind of spiritual pilgrimage. But the pilgrimage is postmodern and the faith is bad.

• Nihilism is the phenomenon of going to church, saying confession, and sometimes even praying to God, even though you no longer believe that God will do anything for you.

• Climate nihilism is the phenomenon of going to Copenhagen, promising to reduce emissions and pretending to believe the promises, even neither though you nor anybody around you has any intention, plan or funding to do so.

• Copenhagen is what you get when science lacks the power to re-shape economies, rich nations cannot tell poor ones what to do, and a supposedly common global threat divides rather than unites the world. Copenhagen represents the twilight of modernist idols.

It is a brilliant and incisive piece.  It reveals the realpolitik challenges of post-modernism and the failings of post-modernity to create positive, viable narratives for sustainability and future prosperity.

The present generation of youth have never not known environmental awareness.  They are immune to protests, posters and placards, the staples of an environmental ideology external to the locus of power. If nothing else, Copenhagen establishes the very political correctness of contemporary environmentalism.  It is no longer radical, chic and daring.  It is the bureaucratic mainstream of inactivity and broken promises. Its zenith is climate nihilism.

It is in response to this reality that the present generation seeks leadership and empowerment.  The Copenhagen conference offers symbolism, not integrity.


Nothing fuels a revolution quite like the discovery that the information you have been fed is dogma, not the truth.

something is rotten in Denmark

From todays National Post:

• Sunday marked the coldest Dec. 13 in Edmonton’s history.

• Environment Canada recorded a frigid -46.1 C, or -58.4 C with wind chill, at the Edmonton International Airport at 5 a.m., Environment Canada meteorologist Pierre Lessard said.

• The old record of -36.1 C was set last year, he said.

• “To break a temperature by 10 degrees is very exceptional,” said Lessard.

Elsewhere, in Copenhagen:

• Countries like China and India say the industrialised world must make bigger cuts in emissions and help poor nations to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world.

• Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast it must sign up for curbs in emissions to prevent dangerous levels of warming.

It appears there is a disconnect between the virtual, modeled world of AGW and the reality of observed, global climate temperatures.  Perhaps we just need to start modifying the data sooner, like at the thermometer.  Perhaps some university somewhere can get a grant to do this.

Update:

Three must read posts from today: the first characterizes environmentalism as zombie politics; the second has some interesting conjecture on the likelihood that Climategate is the product of an insider leak and why; and the last is a glimpse into the Copenhagen fairy tale.

the harry read me file

Many will have heard about Climategate.  Some will have heard the dismissals that the leaked emails and files are not important to the larger narrative of human induced climate change, which has now supplanted the previous narrative of human induced global warming.

One of the key reasons the leak matters is that it provides a window not only on the conduct of many of the leading scientists in creating the narrative, it goes straight to the claims of scientific robustness and accuracy of the data upon which the claims of crisis are based.

Here is a summation of the Harry Read Me file. It reveals the extent to which the very base data for climate modeling and policy development is presumptive rather than definitive.  That's a polite way to say more fiction than fact.

An example:

• getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.

• I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.

Now I have no problem with the fact that the data are incomplete, complex and contradictory.  I would expect that, especially since climate itself is a complex, dynamic system about which we really know very little.  My objection is the warmist, alarmist insistence on proclamations of data certainty and the necessity for immediate policy actions that are counter-intuitive to the uncertainties and gaps in our knowledge.  

It is the deceit and the assertion of ideological dogma in the name of science that offends me:

• The Party wants the Earth to be warming, so that its members can establish their power over every aspect of our lives. The Earth has not warmed in a decade, in fact it has gotten colder. But the Party says warmer, and further, says that the warming is due to human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Come clean, and admit the whole narrative is a political artifice and stop trying to hide behind a sheen of science and claims to a superior environmental morality.

Skepticism

Christopher Essex also teaches at the University of Western Ontario where I am a professor. He offers this succinct exposition of those who remain skeptical of the climate change dogma.

Three simple questions form the basis for our concern :

• Is there really a problem at all? Who says? Oh yeah, how do they know?

• What? You thought there’s something more to skepticism’s talking points than simple questions that any reasonable person would ask? But that’s all it ever was about.

• There is no political wing of some mystery faction. Scepticism isn’t an ideology. There is no hidden agenda. There are no meetings to plot talking points and define positions. It’s not funded by anyone

• The skeptics, who have actually spoken out, are a motley crew of individuals, who don’t only question the party line, but each other as well.
• The big money never was in skepticism, although there was some talk about cashing in with a famous skeptics pinup calendar. But we don’t actually need money. We have a secret weapon. Despite the money power fame and influence we are up against, we know that neither the IPCC nor its supporters know what climate will do. No one does.

Sorry, no conspiracy. Some of us even have brand new laptops of our own and have no need to steal one from another professor, nor surreptitiously purchase one from eBay "no questions asked". Nor are we jealous of the limousines, the air travel and the fawning UN entourage. We are mostly just insulted that our resistance to the imposition of dogma should call our own intellectual motives into question.

Meanwhile, for the latest exposition of skepticism and skeptics there is this open letter to the UN.

And, lastly, here is a succinct summation of the whole Climategate fiasco, its relevance and key links to comments, excerpts and the raw leaked/hacked files themselves.

When is data adjustment really data fraud?

So, the Copenhagen boondoggle has commenced and the hypocrisy is rampant.

Amongst the most galling claims are those that proclaim the changes in climate to be increasingly dire and that the email revelations from Hadley CRU are irrelevant as they do not significantly alter the "facts".

The problem is the emails do call the very facts that undermine the AGW theory into question because they do suggest that the very base data upon which the IPCC process is based are themselves suspect and the product of self-fulfilling manipulation: we know the result that is needed and here it is. The emails provide evidence to suggest this, but in the absence of an audit of the data themselves this remains assertion.

Well here is evidence that moves this claim past assertion and into the realm of substantiated cause for concern.

So, if the science really does matter, more of this type of specific audit of the base climate record is required to demonstrate that the data have not arbitrarily manipulated and biased.

However, if climate change is really only about the politics of constraint and guilt, then the science is irrelevant anyways.

• ...delegates in the Danish capital have practically glossed over the CRU “Climategate” leaks. That’s partly because they refuse to let the facts get in the way of their cause, but it’s mostly because Copenhagen isn’t about climate change as a physical phenomenon, but rather climate change as an opportunity to regulate people’s lives and incomes on a global scale.