Recycling: "It could be you or could it?"

This simple video is strangely emotionally powerful or I am just going soft in my old age?



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Krugman on climate change, the press and the republicans

Hot on the heels of my first post of today Paul Krugman joins in.

His main point and something hinted at in the previous posting is exactly this:

"Where do they find these people".

More to the point - why do they find "these" people when there are so many to pick from?

The Truth, Still Inconvenient [NYT]

So the joke begins like this: An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room. What’s the punch line? They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science.

But the joke actually ended up being on the Republicans, when one of the two actual scientists they invited to testify went off script.

Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley, a physicist who has gotten into the climate skeptic game, has been leading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort partially financed by none other than the Koch foundation. And climate deniers — who claim that researchers at NASA and other groups analyzing climate trends have massaged and distorted the data — had been hoping that the Berkeley project would conclude that global warming is a myth.

Instead, however, Professor Muller reported that his group’s preliminary results find a global warming trend “very similar to that reported by the prior groups.”

The deniers’ response was both predictable and revealing; more on that shortly. But first, let’s talk a bit more about that list of witnesses, which raised the same question I and others have had about a number of committee hearings held since the G.O.P. retook control of the House — namely, where do they find these people?

My favorite, still, was Ron Paul’s first hearing on monetary policy, in which the lead witness was someone best known for writing a book denouncing Abraham Lincoln as a “horrific tyrant” — and for advocating a new secessionist movement as the appropriate response to the “new American fascialistic state.”

The ringers (i.e., nonscientists) at last week’s hearing weren’t of quite the same caliber, but their prepared testimony still had some memorable moments. One was the lawyer’s declaration that the E.P.A. can’t declare that greenhouse gas emissions are a health threat, because these emissions have been rising for a century, but public health has improved over the same period. I am not making this up.

Oh, and the marketing professor, in providing a list of past cases of “analogies to the alarm over dangerous manmade global warming” — presumably intended to show why we should ignore the worriers — included problems such as acid rain and the ozone hole that have been contained precisely thanks to environmental regulation.

But back to Professor Muller. His climate-skeptic credentials are pretty strong: he has denounced both Al Gore and my colleague Tom Friedman as “exaggerators,” and he has participated in a number of attacks on climate research, including the witch hunt over innocuous e-mails from British climate researchers. Not surprisingly, then, climate deniers had high hopes that his new project would support their case.

You can guess what happened when those hopes were dashed.

Just a few weeks ago Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent climate denialist Web site, praised the Berkeley project and piously declared himself “prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.” But never mind: once he knew that Professor Muller was going to present those preliminary results, Mr. Watts dismissed the hearing as “post normal science political theater.” And one of the regular contributors on his site dismissed Professor Muller as “a man driven by a very serious agenda.”

Of course, it’s actually the climate deniers who have the agenda, and nobody who’s been following this discussion believed for a moment that they would accept a result confirming global warming. But it’s worth stepping back for a moment and thinking not just about the science here, but about the morality.

For years now, large numbers of prominent scientists have been warning, with increasing urgency, that if we continue with business as usual, the results will be very bad, perhaps catastrophic. They could be wrong. But if you’re going to assert that they are in fact wrong, you have a moral responsibility to approach the topic with high seriousness and an open mind. After all, if the scientists are right, you’ll be doing a great deal of damage.

But what we had, instead of high seriousness, was a farce: a supposedly crucial hearing stacked with people who had no business being there and instant ostracism for a climate skeptic who was actually willing to change his mind in the face of evidence. As I said, no surprise: as Upton Sinclair pointed out long ago, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

But it’s terrifying to realize that this kind of cynical careerism — for that’s what it is — has probably ensured that we won’t do anything about climate change until catastrophe is already upon us.

So on second thought, I was wrong when I said that the joke was on the G.O.P.; actually, the joke is on the human race. 

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The 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Accident

Given the events unfolding in Japan I have seen a large number of statistics being thrown around many of which explain the excellent safety record of nuclear often in light of the Chernobyl accident.

I believe it would be useful for the media to read this paper to get a deeper understanding of the short and medium term implications. Is 25 years long term?


The 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Accident
Date: 2011
By: Simmons, Phil
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare11:100713&r=env

The nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in 1986 is described and a summary of its immediate effects on people and the environment outlined. Then there is a summary of the important parts of the literature on diseases and deaths resulting from radiation and mortalities to date and the way mortality data became increasingly conservative over the years is discussed. Today, there is still uncertainty about future mortalities dues to long latency periods for many cancers however cancer deaths in Chernobyl affected regions are expected to be similar to non-Chernobyl controls. The major literature on environmental effects on wild species, forests, water and agricultural land are then reported with a brief discussion of remediation work and of current trends. Finally, contemporary perceptions of the Chernobyl accident are described in the context of popular anti-nuclear sentiment that prevailed in 1986, the immense publicity surrounding the accident and the natural tendency of people to exaggerate prospects of unlikely, yet extreme, events.

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Communicating Climate Change

Climate sceptics remain "sceptical". The "significant" chance of "catastrophic environmental, social and economic consequences" during the next 100 years barely registers on the public's list of concerns.

Kevin Parton and Mark Mossison investigate.

This is an interesting topic of debate.


Communicating Climate Change: A Literature Review
Date: 2011
Parton, Kevin
Morrison, Mark
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare11:100693&r=env

For climate scientists, climate change is a problem that has a significant chance of having catastrophic environmental, social and economic consequences during the course of this century. In contrast, public opinion seems to regard with scepticism the pronouncements on climate change that emanate from the scientific community. Why the difference? This is what our research project was designed to examine. Or to put it another way: Assuming that the scientific information is correct, and that without a dramatic change in technology (and policy to promote such a change) there would be a significant risk of man-made, global catastrophe, what must be done to communicate this urgent issue to the public? We have approached the analysis of this problem by reviewing the literature on communicating climate change. By organising the literature according to the role of the major groups of participants in the information transfer process, useful insights can be gleaned. These groups include scientists, business, the government, the media and the general public. This analysis leads to an overall model of the information transfer process that highlights various issues including the role that the media plays as a lens through which the public observes scientific results.

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300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds

A nicely put together left handed artists summary of 300 years of fossil fuel (from the inbox).

An award winning youtube video no less



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Third World US and Europe

Arriving at an agreement on limiting carbon emissions was never going to be easy but when one looks a little more closely at the lobbying going on in the US it is no surprise that the average American is skeptical about the whole global warming "scare".

The following article goes straight for the emotional jugular. "Jobs, revenue and modern living standards". These are all in danger - why? Because of the scare-mongering "warmists" and environmental regulations.

This article and others like it reveal clearly why the planet is ultimately doomed.

The solution? Move to a high place and either buy or sell oil stocks.

Welcome to the Third World [No pain, no gain]

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Welcome to the Third World, Europeans, where costly electricity is available only from time to time, at unexpected hours, depending on bureaucratic whims and how much power wind turbines and other “environment-friendly” generators can muster.

Is the USA next in line? The United States is reaping imaginary bounties from its $814-billion “stimulus” spending orgy. It hemorrhaged $223 billion in red ink during February alone – on its way to a projected 2011 deficit of $1.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office reports.

Over 13.7 million Americans remain unemployed; another 8.3 million are involuntarily employed only part-time; black unemployment stands at 15.3 percent; and gasoline prices have hit $4 per gallon, foretelling more rough waters ahead for the still fragile US economy.

America depends on abundant, reliable, affordable energy – 85% of it hydrocarbons. Coal generates half of all US electricity, and up to 90% in its manufacturing heartland – versus 1% from wind and solar. Newfound natural gas supplies promise a sea change in US energy supplies and electricity generation. However, oil still powers transportation, shipping and petrochemicals – and in 2010 the United States exported $337 billion to import 61% of this precious liquid fuel.

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Unlocking America’s still abundant hydrocarbon resources and unleashing our innovative, hard-driving free enterprise system would generate hundreds of billions of dollars in leasing, royalty and tax revenues for federal, state and local governments. It would put millions back to work … help stanch the flow of red ink … keep tens of billions of crude oil spending and investment in America … and create enormous new wealth, instead of redistributing a dwindling pool of old wealth.

We must drill safely, use fuel more efficiently in vehicles and power plants, and get more from every underground reservoir. And we could do so, if government would allow it.

Just consider the incredible revolution that the genius of American capitalists has presented the world: hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits. This technology has turned “depletion” and “sustainability” claims upside down. It has already doubled US natural gas reserves and given North America over a century of recoverable gas, at current consumption rates.

It is also unlocking oil wealth in the vast Bakken shale formation of Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Oil production there has already soared from 3,000 barrels a day five years ago to over 225,000 today. The US Energy Information Administration says it could reach 350,000 barrels a day by 2035; industry sources say it could top a million barrels by 2020. Related oilfield employment has soared from 5,000 to over 18,000 in the same five-year period, and could eventually reach 100,000 jobs. At $100 a barrel, even 350,000 barrels a day could mean $1.6 billion in annual royalties, from Bakken oil alone.

The new Made in America technology is already changing energy, economic and political landscapes in Europe, and will soon do so across the globe. It is a technologically possible and economically affordable solution that generates bountiful jobs and revenues – as opposed to pixie dust solutions that require perpetual subsidies and address speculative problems. Offshore and ANWR drilling could do likewise.

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President Obama wants oil, gas, coal and electricity prices to “skyrocket,” to make “green” energy appear more attractive. Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe” – over $8 per gallon! Most of all, these anti-hydrocarbon politicians want a self-sustaining political-environmentalist-industrial-public sector union complex based on government subsidies to favored industries and companies, in exchange for campaign contributions that will keep them in power.

This palpable, intolerable insanity must end. It’s time to tell Congress (and the European Commission) we need real energy for real jobs, real revenues and a revitalized economy. And we need it now.

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Krugman on Hotelling and the 40% rule

Paul Krugman has a neat piece in the NY times reminiscing about his time as a research assistant for Nordhaus when the latter formualated the hotelling rule of non-renewable resource extraction.

Having seen Marty Weitzman recently present at the World Congress last year I can perfectly imagine how he came up with his 40% rule.

What is the 40% rule you ask?

What was wrong with those circulars? They were much too optimistic about the costs of alternative energy sources, especially alternatives to oil. Basically, the engineers were understating the difficulties involved. Later Marty Weitzman would formulate a law on this: the cost of alternatives to crude oil is 40% above the current price — whatever the current price is.

This is the sort of rule I like. Simple but also entirely doom-laden.

It is almost poetic. My guess is that our increased knowledge and technical expertise will have reduced the 40% rule to somewhere around 20-30%. Can I make a claim to have invented the "approximately 25% rule"?

The links in the Krugman article are worth following. Here is a taster.

The Answer, My Friend [NY Times]

And shining in the sun, too — or so say two papers cited by Brad Plumer, arguing that we can have a fully renewable-based, nuclear-free economy by 2050. And I’m sure that’s right — but I’m a bit skeptical about the cost estimates, for reasons having to do with personal career history.

The story: I effectively began my career as a professional economist way back in the summer of 1973, working as a research assistant for Bill Nordhaus. Nordhaus was in the early stages of a long and highly successful run of research into resource economics, and was trying to come up with a way to estimate “appropriate” energy prices. And he had come up with a wonderfully elegant approach, building off the classic Hotelling model of exhaustible resource pricing.

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