The Climate Change Fakery at Paris
The good news is that the world has time to burn and still solve the problem
Paris might have been convulsed with terrorist attacks a few weeks ago but the bigwigs gathered there right now are

confabing about …… wait for it!!!…….. global warming. As if that is not ironic enough, consider this: The money that the super-elite group of 12 "leaders" spent just on their opening dinner at the three-Michelin star L'Ambroisie would have offset 340-trees worth of carbon in Kenya.
But what is really hard to take in Paris is the fakery (and I don't mean of the French). Every one is pretending that the conference will prod the world into doing something truly grand and meaningful. But it will not, I note in my column at The Week. Why? Because of the free-rider problem: Paris has just become the latest venue where every polluter tries to shake down the other to secure the global commons. That was the logic of the "coercive" model to cut emissions in Kyoto and Copenhagen. And that's also the logic unfolding in the "cooperative" model in Paris.
I note:
Not a single major polluter has offered anything resembling an adequate plan to slash emissions. In fact, literally every country is busy gaming the process — demonstrating, yet again, the utter folly of an approach that is attempting to save the world by putting it on a collective energy diet.
But the good news is that once this "last chance" fails — and fail it will — the world will still have plenty of time to explore workable solutions.
Go here to read the whole thing.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Dalmia v Bailey?
It's not a Dalmia v Bailey thing.
She says that the global warming cult is supported by a large ecology of crony capitalists and rent seekers seeking to plunder the lower middle classes throughout the globe.
Bailey says that the members of the cult and their enablers are optomistic that they will get what they think is awesome; the cult expects that they will finally be able to force people to live austere lives, the rent-seekers expect to get rich.
They are both right and wrong; people crave prosperity and affluence, and eventually will find a way to escape the cult's strictures. The rent seekers will get rich, but their kids will live meaner lives than they would if the rent seekers hadn't made that deal with the devil.
US participation is dependent upon ratification by the US Senate, right? Good luck with that. Also, looks like we might have more important things to do. At this point we just have to keep running out the clock until reality prevails.
Don't forget that the terrorism problem is caused by warming. So if no warming, no terrorism. Therefore, we have to fix the (imaginary) warming. It's the greatest threat ever you know. And only jug eared goofballs like Obama and Prince Charles can fix it.
Crippling our economy to address the phony AGW hoax will provide a strong rebuke to the terrorists.
I think the terrorists have already figured that out. Which is why ISIS is onboard with the entire scam. Our corrupt leaders are probably stupid enough to give ISIS reparations for it, which they'll use to do guess what? Well, just forget the word probably in that last sentence.
That's my response to alarmists. I don't need to convince you that climate change isn't a big deal, we just need to delay any substantive measures until it's clearer and clearer that humanity and the planet are doing just fine.
In the meantime more important environmental problems are ignored.
Not according to the Obama administration.
They claim it's essentially the agreement will fall under the framework of an existing treaty the U.S. entered into in the 90's. That treaty permits "voluntary agreements". Thus, the admin argues, no ratification required.
It's essentially the same stunt they pulled in waging war unlawfully in Libya. They got away with it then, and I think they hope to get away with it now.
The reality, though, is that a voluntary agreement can be scrapped by the next president...
I don't think that Bailey is any advocate of the things the warmist cult or the rent seekers are advocating. I think he actually wrote a book about this.
Not as solutions, but I seem to recall Bailey being on board with the AGW "science". But, honestly, I could have missed a change of heart.
No, I think you're right. He thinks warming is happening, as is obvious by the charts he posts here.
But he's also cautious about anthropogenic causes and catastrophism. Also, you have to accept a certain amount of woo to be taken at all seriously by the people who are on the fence about this. As with so much else there's the purist position and the practical position.
He did support a carbon tax at one time.
Realistically, what would a carbon tax even accomplish, other than making reliable energy more expensive and, therefore, slowing global economic growth? Would such a tax actually reduce emissions enough to satisfy what is theoretically required to abate AGW?
The result would be like blocking the Keystone Pipeline: symbolic and legacy-enhancing, but not actually anything substantive. In the end, everyone except the greens would be worse off.
Warmism is a branch of overpopulation theology. They legitimately believe that by slowing economic growth, they will goad people into using more "sustainable" energy methods with reduced emissions. They also think that sustained reductions in economic growth will reduce the human population in the long term.
Ask Europe about that. They already know the answer.
A carbon tax would accomplish precisely nothing. Before it would even be implemented, there would be howls about how it would impact the poor and the middle class. So, they would be indemnified for their tax increase, and would have little incentive therefore to conserve. The propensity to consume energy for the rich, so they too would not conserve.
So, the only significant effect of a carbon tax is to fund the $50 billion/year or so that the the US will pay to tinhorn dictators and their sycophants in developing nations to pretend that they are cutting CO2 emissions, which in practice means that the poor in those benighted places will remain poor so that their emissions will not increase.
The propensity to consume energy is relatively inelastic for the rich, so they too would not conserve.
I think he's in what Fred Singer calls the lukewarm camp: warming is happening; humans probably contribute but the degree of that contribution is unclear (and is almost certainly far less than the alarmists claim); catastrophic claims are absurd; & most of the proposed solutions are worse than the problem.
I think that's where I fall. The greenhouse effect is inarguably true, and carbon dioxide, methane, and the like are all greenhouse gases. So increasing their presence in the atmosphere likely has some effect on global temperatures, but there are many good faith disputes over what that is and even whether it is undesirable.
Of course, it is also inarguably true that the "solutions" offered by the greens will make everything more expensive and will further enlarge government power, while offering only theoretical "benefits" in return.
Sounds about right, Raven.
"The rent seekers will get rich, but their kids will live meaner lives"
Their kids will do okay. See, for example, Chelsea Clinton.
The problem is going to be when we slide into another maunder minimum quiet sun period around 2030. Scientists have already started warning about this. If there's something climate related that we need to worry about in the near future, it's that, not warming but cooling. I wonder if the warmists will switch back to new ice age fear mongering like they were doing in the 70s?
Of course, there is nothing we can do except adapt. We can't control the sun, even though I have no doubt that politicians will claim that we can if there are just enough taxes and redistribution of other people's stuff.
Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing; block it out!
That ultra-historical account of the Battle of Thermopylae provides some pointers:
"Our arrows will block out the sun!"
"Then we'll fight in the shade."
Molon labe!
Molten labia.
Moronic laborers
Molten lava!
I resemble that!
Our bees will blot out the sun!
Then we will hug in the shade.
Beezin is like looking into the sun
And he has a cat shirt. It's a nice cat shirt. You can find one right next to the wolf shirt at Walmart.
The future's so bright I gotta undergo surgery for solar retinopathy.
Herodotus actually documents that the statement was made by a Spartan named Dienekes. Herodotus is also the source for Leonides telling the Persians "Molon Labe". While the movie was rather ridiculous in terms of historicity, the Ancient Greeks would have found it right in line with their sort of "heroic" story telling. And it was alot of fun!
I would however love to see a modern movie based on a realistic accounting of Thermopylae (perhaps along the lines Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Fire"). Historical fiction that tries to be true to the history that we know.
What I'm proposing is a large bowl shaped structure that could theoretically block out the sun. Or direct the intense heat and light at our enemies.
We have to build a large dyson sphere all the way around the sun. The sphere will run totally off solar since it will have 24/7 360 days of sunlight to capture. It needs to have built in expanders so that if the sun gets hotter, we just back out a little, or get closer depending.
This is more reasonable than carbon credits. It's impossible right now, but it's still more reasonable than carbon credits.
The paradox of the Dyson Sphere. Of you have the technology to build a Dyson Sphere, then you don't need to build a Dyson Sphere.
Well, no one needs to eat a KFC Double Down, but people do it anyway.
That's a lie. Everyone needs to eat a Double Down, at least once.
Speaking of Dyson, he just wrote this article on the misunderstandings and question beliefs on display in Paris.
I hear kryptonians are proponents of more yellow sunlight.
I wonder if the warmists will switch back to new ice age fear mongering like they were doing in the 70s?
Of course they will, Hyper. That's one reason behind the rebranding from "Warming" to the ambiguous "Climate Change."
I wonder if the warmists will switch back to new ice age fear mongering like they were doing in the 70s?
Ima say this is one of them rhetorical-type questions.
Technically, it's not even a question.
-pedant
the world will still have plenty of time to explore workable solutions
That does not fit the narrative. We've been warned that this is our last chance, again. Shikha == DENIER.
To greenies, their beliefs will be vindicated no matter what the climate does. Catastrophic warming? It's because we failed to lower emissions. Slight to no warming? It's because we succeeded in lowering emissions.
Well I think it's been hypothesized that they changed the term from 'warming' to 'change' just in case.
Considering every aspect of the climate change movement operates exactly like a scam, when are people going to just call it what it is?
The money that the super-elite group of 12 "leaders" spent just on their opening dinner at the three-Michelin star L'Ambroisie
Yeah, not a scam at all. These people are acting precisely like people who are super concerned about carbon emissions and environmental footprints and the like. Because they say so. Remember, folks, listen to the words, ignore the actions. Right?
They have about as much business running the global economy as Steve Sarkesian does running the football program at USC.
He's suing for $30 mil now.
I hope Cutty Sark dies a horrible death.
Look Epi, they can hardly be expected to fix the world's problems on an empty stomach, okay?
And they couldn't slum it in a one Michelin star restaurant instead, to save the planet?!? I make sacrifices like that all the time! I'm a goddamn hero!
And I'm sure they would honor your sacrifice by not stepping on you if they happened to find themselves standing over whatever poor person gutter you're referring to. But let's be honest, these are very important people with very important problems to solve. They can't eat the same slop as the upper middle class dregs whose only problems are whether to fart or belch first.
Belch.
...what?
Upper middle class?!?!?!?
Is it true that if you fart and belch at the same time a voice asks if you would like to meet God?
Considering every aspect of the climate change movement operates exactly like a scam, when are people going to just call it what it is?
Can we finally slap an anti-science label on it and start lynching the skeptics in the name of science?
Re: Episiarch,
I still remember a discussion on CNN's Crossfire (in the early 90s) that Michael Kinsley and Pat Buchanan were having with an advocate for the homeless and a Christian church minister. I was living in Mexico at that time (I was in college) and was interested in learning about this homeless problem. The advocate was complaining about a lack of jobs which was the main reason most of the homeless were not able to secure shelter. The pastor asked the advocate why don't people simply apply for a job at McDonald's, and the advocate said that the homeless needed jobs that paid a decent and dignifying wage and that McDonald's and other places did not pay a wage that could achieve those things.
At that moment, I realized the whole thing was a scam. I see nothing different between that and the climate change scam.
In my (admittedly limited) experience with the homeless, there are three main types:
1) Recently released criminals with no family to turn to
2) Mentally ill
3) People who were in a vulnerable position and had even more bad shit happening
1 and 2 are the vast majority. People in 1 and 3 are homeless for a few weeks or a month, and pick themselves back up.
When you control the narrative and you fill the airwaves with this kind of nonsense:
More extreme weather is because of AGW
Less extreme weather is because if AGW
Colder temps are because of AGW
Warmer temps are because of AGW
Drought is because of AGW
Flooding is because of AGW
Earthquakes are because of AGW
Volcanoes are because of AGW
And all manner of other things are because of AGW
Then there is no way you can ever be wrong. And if you can't ever be wrong, you must always be right. And if you're always right, the economies of the world should let you have total control of their purse strings and let you completely control the global economy.
Climate Science is the Amway of science.
Heads they win; tails you lose.
Drought is because of AGW
This is especially relevant to opinions about the California water crisis. What, you think decades of diverting water to irrigate areas that were never optimal for farming might contribute to a water shortage? No, no, no, we can't question that.
The theory of AGW is the ultimate "blame someone else" tactic.
They never want to acknowledge the man-created dust bowl that is the lower Central Valley. An area that was essentially a swamp before man got there.
Anyone remember the Salton Sea? Another engineering marvel of Cali. Although, it was formerly a natural phenomenon.
I recall seeing a litany of AGW horrors that included the Aral Sea. I guess Soviet engineering idiocy was somehow the result of global warming.
The theory of AGW is the ultimate "blame someone else" tactic.
You forgot the "and then use that blame to extort money and power from them" part.
It's a scam. A huge, not-going-away-as-long-as-people-are-retarded scam that taps into one of the primal human stupidities, which is a fascination with the concept of apocalypse and the end of the world.
I keep getting these thoughts about how similar ISIS and the warmies ... well pretty much all the left, are.
I think though, that fundamentalist religion is part of what makes me so skeptical. When I was a kid, I was forced to go the church at a place where the fire and brimstone pastor was always in your face screaming about the end and how it was nigh. Always nigh, so repent now, sinner! The warmists are like this. Only instead of threatening you with hell in the hereafter, they're threatening to exile you from society here and now.
True. Trial lawyers are currently lobbying for legislation that grants a private cause of action against energy producers for "causing" global climate change.
What, you think decades of diverting water to irrigate areas that were never optimal for farming might contribute to a water shortage?
I think the water shortage can be attributed more to the refusal of CA to engage in any kind of long-range planning or water projects for over 40 years, while the population of the state exploded.
True, though I did write "contribute to."
I'm not sure, but haven't California municipalities and the state government effectively priced water below market cost, both to farms and to cities like LA?
You forgot near-miss asteroids as a function of global warming.
Seriously?
It's right up there with Guam (which I still refuse to believe wasn't said in jest).
I don't think that was a joke.
It's so embarrassingly dumb I'm willing to preemptively give the senator the benefit of the doubt. For my own peace of mind.
This is comic gold.
Ditzy blonde asks twice if meteors are increasing in frequency because of global warming. Smug douchebag is even embarrassed by the question enough that he had to nervously deflect the question. But he does make the oddly irrelevant statement that the word meteor comes from the same root word as meteorology. Ok, science guy, what the fuck do meteors have to do with the weather on earth? Dumbasses, both of them.
In case you haven't seen it, here's a partial list of things caused by AGW:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
I don't think it has been updated lately, but it's still impressive.
People like Tony will say that the only reason why libertarians and others oppose climate "science" is because we don't like the "necessary government solutions."
Thing is, people like Tony support climate "science" because it is an excuse to punish the corporations, tear down the rich, and have the government take control of our lives.
Supposedly, once upon a time, Tony had an important job as some sort of analyst that had something to do with climate change. Now he doesn't, and that's the fault of libertarians.
Oh, and anyone in a STEM field is not a real scientist. They have jobs, but they're not scientists.
When your science can't be fucking critiqued or questioned your science ain't worth a motherfucking stack of rat turds- especially when your science spews divine data about human involvement in the environment of a goddamn planet half-dark and half-lit at any given time because of orbital proximity to a gargantuanly massivistic ball of fiery fucking gas.
When your science can't be fucking critiqued or questioned your science ain't worth a motherfucking stack of rat turds
Indeed, at that point it's a religion.
Complete with deniers, a key feature of all religions.
Every time a prog falsely (I'm more of a disinterested lukewarmist) accuses me of being a denier my life is made more whole.
I'm at the point now that when someone asks me about climate change, my reply is "I'm not religious."
"I'm agnostic."
Assuming there is a problem with coal and oil you need to move to nukes and natural gas. At least until we get to Fusion and high capacity batteries in about 20 years.
Fusion, that's the magic bullet. What about this thorium reactor thingy I've been hearing about. Is that a hoax or is it real? I guess I need to do more research.
It is real.
Thanks. I'm curious now, have to do some reading...
Thorium is real. The Cadillac concept car not so much.
http://energyfromthorium.com/2.....batteries/
But still cool to look at.
Don't need Thorium, at least not for a few hundred years. MSR's are real but then so are AP1000's. They're all fission reactors but some have better features than others.
All I know is global change is making me thirsty.
? Dumb, dumb, dumb,
dumb.
Dumb, dumb, dumb,
dumb. ?
He's ? smart, smart, smart,
smart.
Smart, smart, smart,
smart. ?
Just imagine if a Republican president is elected in 2016. The GOP are all deniers. We'll all be doomed then. All progressive will be forced to move to Canada and Canada will tip over.
Re: Hyperion,
Just imagine if a Republican president (Trump) is elected in 2016 and all of a sudden has an epiphany by which he realizes that man is the cause of Global Warming and starts pushing Congress to pass meaningful regulations in order to enrich his crony friends stem the carbon emissions increase.
I don't believe this is a Republi-rat vs. Demo-rat thing but a "who's holding the purse now, bitch" thing
I don't see any Republican going along with this sort of thing. It could never pass congress anyway as long as the Dems don't have a new super majority, god help us all if that happens.
What tune am I supposed to hum or sing that to?
I'm assuming it's the tune from the Mormon episode of South Park.
WTF is smart, smart, smart.
And Rufus is dumb.
its beecus ov de pees ob korn in mY hed.
Your floppy, floppy head.
Fucking Gaia apostates! Your biodivergent rebellion oozes the primordial stenchies.
All this hysteria makes it more difficult to convince people of the need to throw virgins to the Volcano God in order to appease Him. All this noise and running around and finger-pointing... Nobody is listening!
[There cannot be a realistic solution to a problem that doesn't exist in the first place, Shikha. It is one thing to say Global Warming is a real thing - which it is. Quite another to assert it is a 'problem' and worse, that there are realistic 'solutions'.]
Bill Nye propaganda guy.
Go back to your kid show!
The left have turned a once lovable host of a TV show intended to get kids interested in science, into a giant self righteous douchebag. Is there anything that the left touches that doesn't turn to pure shit?
Leftists have turned science into pure shit.
Once I was surprised to see Libertarians like the author proposing top-down state-heavy solutions like building 1000s of nuclear reactors around the world or sequestering billions of tonnes of CO2, equally top-down and top-heavy with government involvement. I thought Libertarians favoured bottom-up market oriented solutions which enhance individual autonomy and self reliance. I was mistaken.
Once I was surprised to see Libertarians like the author proposing top-down state-heavy solutions like building 1000s of nuclear reactors around the world or sequestering billions of tonnes of CO2, equally top-down and top-heavy with government involvement.
A lazy person wouldn't distinguish between yourself and a moron, much like a lazy moron wouldn't distinguish between advocating a technology and allowing the market to use it and command-style economic policies requiring reactors to be built to fix/combat a problem that is largely imaginary.
I'm glad you made something out of that senseless babble. I just stopped reading and moved on.
The nuclear industry is centralized and firmly under government control whereever it exists. Always has been. Sequestration is simply not practical given CO2 emissions amounting to 10s of billions of tonnes of CO2 yearly. Yet these are routinely trotted out by Liberty Lovin Libertarians as solutions. Congratulations you managed to read until the end.
That government control is a political issue, not related to the actual technology.
You're making a case to ease regulation, which libertarians would certainly favor.
" which libertarians would certainly favor"
I've seen endless screeds here in favour of scrapping regulations regarding food trucks, the taxi industry, gun ownership etc. All of these I have some sympathy for. I've yet to see any contributor or commenter here arguing for scrapping the regulations that exist which prevent you and me and anyone else in the world from owning and operating our own nuclear power plants.
Yeah, props for decoding that, i guess.
"allowing the market to use it "
There is no such market. We are forbidden from buying and selling nuclear power stations without involving ourselves up to our eyeballs in government rules and regulations even more stringent than those that interfere in the market for firearms. Likewise there is simply no market for sequestered CO2.
George Carlin's take is pretty good.
That's great stuff.
Irony... I do not think this word means what you think it means.
the world will still have plenty of time to explore workable solutions.
Assumes problems not in evidence.
From Derpbook
"Climate change is like a disaster movie you don't want to watch"
Climate change is like a disaster movie. Just like Titanic.
If it was sinking at a rate of about 1mm per year.
In the Caribbean.
And it was a swingers cruise.
The good news is we have carbon to burn to provide energy. The also good news is that the weather might get slightly more pleasant.