As soon as I understood the premise of this article, I began to formulate the counterfactuals you propose at the end of the essay. It's almost like the authors of the attribution study believe there was a kind of VHS vs Betamax moment in the past, when there was a chance to choose that other abundant, portable, energy-dense, but emissions free substance with the same abilities of crude oil and natural gas to bestow trillions of dollars of benefits to humanity by powering vehicles, powering industries, heating homes, generating electricity, and being feedstock for everything from fertilizers to plastics to medical supplies.
And the scope 3 stuff, sheesh. As if the oil and gas companies have been forcing their products down consumers' throats like geese having their livers fattened for pate'.
Had we just "chosen" the Betamax (that didn't exist then and doesn't now, but never mind that minor detail), it is certain that the oceans wouldn't be slightly less alkaline and the temperature would be in the "perfect" range, approx. 1.3 degrees F cooler than today.
As for counting "Scope 3" emissions, it's easiest just to put those on the O&G co's since the alternative is a carbon tax effecting everyone (and even that won't "recover" the "cost" of "damage" from CO2 emissions from my Dad or yours).
If you think these "studies" are off the deep end, wait 'till you see the next one we write about!
Well now, we all know that "science by consensus" is the only true science, that what "we believe..." is the foundation of reality, and now with, the brilliant revelation that "Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed." The circle is squared. Appropriate all material wealth from those who have it and give it to "scientists" and their attorneys as reparations!
Or, as Clay suggests, just have the oil companies stop selling product in Superfund states!
We've thought about the CEO's just pulling all product from those states. Have a vague memory that Rockefeller himself did that to threaten govt. over tax (kerosene? I have to try to find it.)
That would be a neat trick. People are swimming across the East river and Hudson in January to get out of there with no more than 3 days fuel cut off.
Until such time is charlatans like these are forced to feel the consequences of their calls to action, nothing will ever be solved. Perhaps Callahan and Mankin will quickly give up all the things they utilize in their lives that exist as a result of those evil fossil fuels, things like their homes, cars, clothing and the computers which they so "cleverly" use to calculate these ridiculous outcomes. If they can lead the life absent CO2 emissions, then they have a much better chance of gaining some credibility. but right now, it is just a money grab. disgusting
Excellent piece as usual. We are almost at peak hype for the green world, which should peak before oil given it's trajectory. Assumption on assumption on assumption. Not science, more like some science is becoming economics, the dismal science. The one Queen Elizabeth put in it's place in 2009 when she incredulously asked the London School of Economics, "Not one of you had any idea that this thing was coming?" On the upside for science, hearing yesterday what was done to cure a young person with Crisper was very cool. That is science.
In fact, we would peg the inflection point as some time between April 2023 (when Germany closed its last operating nuclear power plant in the midst of a self-inflicted energy crisis caused by its Energiewende, which also gave leverage to and invited Putin to invade Ukraine) and COP28 in Dubai in December 2023 (when a whole bunch of western nations committed to tripling global nuclear power capacity).
But, like "peak oil" when it occurs some day in the (probably distant) future, the decline will be gradual in the beginning, and that "beginning" is going to last a while.
With any luck, we'll be part of the battleship of energy realism/humanism that speeds up that process.
Nicely done, 'MENTAL. Your AI exercise at the beginning of your essay confirmed a suspicion of AI I've had for sometime now: AI doesn't make us smarter, it only makes us more verbose. Niels Bohr quite elegantly described the purpose of science as "the gradual removal of prejudice." (note, 5 words)
So-called ‘attribution studies’ are little more than searching for a scapegoat for a non-existent problem and our faith in models reminds me of the soothsayers who mystified monarchs by reading the entrails of a chicken. Your systematic evaluation, and subsequent evisceration of the alleged work is precise, logical, and complete. Therefore, I predict the C&M study will become the next media darling, the second coming of Piltdown Mann’s hockey stick!
Your thought experiment is worth repeating at any Sierra Club convention! Or better yet, in the opening ceremonies of the next COP. Thank you!!!
And damn Niels Bohr and his (and Doomberg's) concise elegance! (as not professional writers, we have Stage 4 verbosity without even using AI!!!)
We never thought of reading entrails.
However, good timing. We will have our hands in some perdiz and duck entrails in Argentina one month from today and will see if we can read anything in to them, not for the monarchs but for our loyal patrons like you!
Well, I happen to think your "Stage 4 verbosity" is enlightening, humorous, and spot on. Keep it up. It's truly amazing to realize how "Green stupid" is so impervious to actual facts.
The article is based on what I believe to be a fundamental false premise. Correlation is not causation, and in fact, the is not even correlation between rising temperature and CO2 emissions. It astonishes me that the organizations paying the price for this are not addressing this issue.
The paleolithic record shows that there have been repeated episodes of global warming in the past.
Given that 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, global terrestrial temperatures are, perforce, largely estimates. The only reliable source of global temperature data is tropospheric, and there is zero correlation between tropospheric temperature and CO2 emissions.
The other huge problem is that the blind belief in "climate science", and the ridiculous belief that humans can control climate, mean that little effort is being mate to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Mitigation, adaptation, investment in energy technologies, lifting the developing world out of poverty, up and over the environmental Kuznets curve, and rapid depopulation.
No tens or hundreds of trillions, no constraining the developing world from getting over those humps, no scaring the bejeezus out of a generation so they don't have kids (population decline is already baked...), no endless mining earth for minerals for tech that gets replaced every 15 years, no (God forbid) "geoengineering", some wind/solar on the margins where it makes sense, return to the core purpose of meaningful, non-partisan conservation-oriented environmentalism.
Exactly. But to achieve any of this, two things must be addressed; the futility of anthropomorphic climate change, and the fiction that CO2 is causing it. Everybody accepts that CO2 causes heat, but almost nobody knows that the effect is logarithmic, and ceased to affect global temperature before the Industrial Revolution (The Logarithmic Effect of Carbon Dioxide).
Love this. The scared companies won't do it, but lawyers should plead third party liability of all people represented in the stage 3 emissions. Then, they should heap more blame on anyone who ever flew in a private jet. Or commercial. To a COP say.
Somewhat related to our model for a Congressional preemption of all this litigation with legislation to propose a carbon tax.
A more nuanced element of Superfund is that it allows responsible parties to pursue recovery of costs and demand contributions from other identified RPs.
If Charlaticians who write legislation aren't careful with their idiotic state "Climate Superfund" laws, all consumers who ever drove cars are RPs and energy companies could, theoretically, bring in those consumers (not to mention their own contractors, subcontractors, material providers, etc. under Scope 2).
A carbon tax - which we vehemently oppose as we do "cap and trade" (even worse) - would be one theoretical "solution" to that dilemma. Which would be like trying to put out a gasoline fire with kerosene.
As soon as I understood the premise of this article, I began to formulate the counterfactuals you propose at the end of the essay. It's almost like the authors of the attribution study believe there was a kind of VHS vs Betamax moment in the past, when there was a chance to choose that other abundant, portable, energy-dense, but emissions free substance with the same abilities of crude oil and natural gas to bestow trillions of dollars of benefits to humanity by powering vehicles, powering industries, heating homes, generating electricity, and being feedstock for everything from fertilizers to plastics to medical supplies.
And the scope 3 stuff, sheesh. As if the oil and gas companies have been forcing their products down consumers' throats like geese having their livers fattened for pate'.
Great point.
We "chose" the VHS instead of the Betamax!
Had we just "chosen" the Betamax (that didn't exist then and doesn't now, but never mind that minor detail), it is certain that the oceans wouldn't be slightly less alkaline and the temperature would be in the "perfect" range, approx. 1.3 degrees F cooler than today.
As for counting "Scope 3" emissions, it's easiest just to put those on the O&G co's since the alternative is a carbon tax effecting everyone (and even that won't "recover" the "cost" of "damage" from CO2 emissions from my Dad or yours).
If you think these "studies" are off the deep end, wait 'till you see the next one we write about!
Well now, we all know that "science by consensus" is the only true science, that what "we believe..." is the foundation of reality, and now with, the brilliant revelation that "Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed." The circle is squared. Appropriate all material wealth from those who have it and give it to "scientists" and their attorneys as reparations!
Or, as Clay suggests, just have the oil companies stop selling product in Superfund states!
We've thought about the CEO's just pulling all product from those states. Have a vague memory that Rockefeller himself did that to threaten govt. over tax (kerosene? I have to try to find it.)
That would be a neat trick. People are swimming across the East river and Hudson in January to get out of there with no more than 3 days fuel cut off.
It is a satisfying fantasy........
Maybe the oils companies should just stop selling their products in Superfund states. See how long that lasts.
Brilliant!
Ohhh… the John Galt treatment.
Now THAT would be something to see….
Highly inciteful.
Thx!
Now I’m really mad. This is not holocaust-level fuckery, but it still makes me really mad. There, I fixed it.
Not that level. Bad, but not like that.
Until such time is charlatans like these are forced to feel the consequences of their calls to action, nothing will ever be solved. Perhaps Callahan and Mankin will quickly give up all the things they utilize in their lives that exist as a result of those evil fossil fuels, things like their homes, cars, clothing and the computers which they so "cleverly" use to calculate these ridiculous outcomes. If they can lead the life absent CO2 emissions, then they have a much better chance of gaining some credibility. but right now, it is just a money grab. disgusting
I'll go "You first" one better....... Stop exhaling CO2.
Doomberg has always said this best:
"You first...."
Excellent piece as usual. We are almost at peak hype for the green world, which should peak before oil given it's trajectory. Assumption on assumption on assumption. Not science, more like some science is becoming economics, the dismal science. The one Queen Elizabeth put in it's place in 2009 when she incredulously asked the London School of Economics, "Not one of you had any idea that this thing was coming?" On the upside for science, hearing yesterday what was done to cure a young person with Crisper was very cool. That is science.
Thanks!
We actually think we are past peak Green stupid.
In fact, we would peg the inflection point as some time between April 2023 (when Germany closed its last operating nuclear power plant in the midst of a self-inflicted energy crisis caused by its Energiewende, which also gave leverage to and invited Putin to invade Ukraine) and COP28 in Dubai in December 2023 (when a whole bunch of western nations committed to tripling global nuclear power capacity).
But, like "peak oil" when it occurs some day in the (probably distant) future, the decline will be gradual in the beginning, and that "beginning" is going to last a while.
With any luck, we'll be part of the battleship of energy realism/humanism that speeds up that process.
I hope we are past peak Green stupid, but I fear it's only on pause to regroup.
Nicely done, 'MENTAL. Your AI exercise at the beginning of your essay confirmed a suspicion of AI I've had for sometime now: AI doesn't make us smarter, it only makes us more verbose. Niels Bohr quite elegantly described the purpose of science as "the gradual removal of prejudice." (note, 5 words)
So-called ‘attribution studies’ are little more than searching for a scapegoat for a non-existent problem and our faith in models reminds me of the soothsayers who mystified monarchs by reading the entrails of a chicken. Your systematic evaluation, and subsequent evisceration of the alleged work is precise, logical, and complete. Therefore, I predict the C&M study will become the next media darling, the second coming of Piltdown Mann’s hockey stick!
Your thought experiment is worth repeating at any Sierra Club convention! Or better yet, in the opening ceremonies of the next COP. Thank you!!!
Thank you, sir!
And damn Niels Bohr and his (and Doomberg's) concise elegance! (as not professional writers, we have Stage 4 verbosity without even using AI!!!)
We never thought of reading entrails.
However, good timing. We will have our hands in some perdiz and duck entrails in Argentina one month from today and will see if we can read anything in to them, not for the monarchs but for our loyal patrons like you!
Well, I happen to think your "Stage 4 verbosity" is enlightening, humorous, and spot on. Keep it up. It's truly amazing to realize how "Green stupid" is so impervious to actual facts.
Thanks but on top of that my wife gave me an Honorary Doctorate in Tautology, too.
So, I got that going for me.....
:)
The article is based on what I believe to be a fundamental false premise. Correlation is not causation, and in fact, the is not even correlation between rising temperature and CO2 emissions. It astonishes me that the organizations paying the price for this are not addressing this issue.
The paleolithic record shows that there have been repeated episodes of global warming in the past.
Given that 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, global terrestrial temperatures are, perforce, largely estimates. The only reliable source of global temperature data is tropospheric, and there is zero correlation between tropospheric temperature and CO2 emissions.
The other huge problem is that the blind belief in "climate science", and the ridiculous belief that humans can control climate, mean that little effort is being mate to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Mitigation, adaptation, investment in energy technologies, lifting the developing world out of poverty, up and over the environmental Kuznets curve, and rapid depopulation.
No tens or hundreds of trillions, no constraining the developing world from getting over those humps, no scaring the bejeezus out of a generation so they don't have kids (population decline is already baked...), no endless mining earth for minerals for tech that gets replaced every 15 years, no (God forbid) "geoengineering", some wind/solar on the margins where it makes sense, return to the core purpose of meaningful, non-partisan conservation-oriented environmentalism.
Exactly. But to achieve any of this, two things must be addressed; the futility of anthropomorphic climate change, and the fiction that CO2 is causing it. Everybody accepts that CO2 causes heat, but almost nobody knows that the effect is logarithmic, and ceased to affect global temperature before the Industrial Revolution (The Logarithmic Effect of Carbon Dioxide).
Love this. The scared companies won't do it, but lawyers should plead third party liability of all people represented in the stage 3 emissions. Then, they should heap more blame on anyone who ever flew in a private jet. Or commercial. To a COP say.
Somewhat related to our model for a Congressional preemption of all this litigation with legislation to propose a carbon tax.
A more nuanced element of Superfund is that it allows responsible parties to pursue recovery of costs and demand contributions from other identified RPs.
If Charlaticians who write legislation aren't careful with their idiotic state "Climate Superfund" laws, all consumers who ever drove cars are RPs and energy companies could, theoretically, bring in those consumers (not to mention their own contractors, subcontractors, material providers, etc. under Scope 2).
A carbon tax - which we vehemently oppose as we do "cap and trade" (even worse) - would be one theoretical "solution" to that dilemma. Which would be like trying to put out a gasoline fire with kerosene.