Is President Trump a 'Climate Menace'?

None of his cabinet picks seem to think that man-made climate change is hoax.

Cpenier/Dreamstime

"Donald Trump is a climate menace, no doubt about it," asserts Greenpeace U.K. spokesperson John Sauven. "President-elect Donald Trump threatens our environment and we vow to fight him every step of the way," declares Kate Colwell from Friends of the Earth. The Union of Concerned Scientists Research Director Gretchen Goldman warns, "It is hard to imagine a Trump administration where science won't be politicized."

It is the case that in a 2014 tweet Trump notoriously asked, "Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?" In 2012, Trump tweeted that the concept of global warming had been created by the Chinese to make American manufacturing noncompetitive. During the presidential campaign, he vowed that he would "cancel" the Paris Agreement on climate change. Being his usual consistently inconsistent self, Trump claimed during a Fox News interview last year that the Chinese tweet was a "joke," and he told The New York Times after the election that he would keep an "open mind" about the Paris Agreement.

Yet none of Trump's cabinet picks seem to agree that man-made climate change is hoax.

In the hearings for various cabinet nominees, Democrats have sought valiantly to unmask them as "climate change deniers." So far, not one has questioned the scientific reality of man-made global warming. On the other hand, they have tended not to be as alarmed as their interlocutors, and/or have failed to endorse the climate policies that Democrats prefer.

Take Scott Pruitt. The Oklahoma attorney-general, nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency, stated flatly: "I do not believe that climate change is a hoax." He added, "Science tells us the climate is changing and human activity in some manner impacts that change. The ability to measure and pursue the degree and the extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was particularly annoyed that Pruitt pointed to uncertainties about the future course of warming. But those uncertainties are real. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argues that warming will continue unless GHG emissions are curbed, but it also notes that "the projected size of those changes cannot be precisely predicted." IPCC further observed that "some underlying physical processes are not yet completely understood, making them difficult to model."

Pruitt is one of the 27 state attorneys-general that are challenging the legality of President Obama's Clean Power Plan (CPP), which would require electric utilities to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide by 30 percent below their 2005 levels by 2030. The Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the CPP last February, which indicates that Pruitt and his fellow attorneys-general have substantial legal grounds to challenge that EPA regulation. In November, the eco-modernist think tank the Breakthrough Institute released a study that suggested that the U.S. could well speed up its GHG reduction trends if the CPP was abandoned.

Other nominees asked about their views on climate change include former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson (nominated to run the State Department), Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke (Interior Department); Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions (Justice Department); businessman Wilbur Ross (Commerce Department); and former Texas governor Rick Perry (Energy Department). Tillerson testified, "I came to the decision a few years ago that the risk of climate change does exist and the consequences could be serious enough that it warrants action." Zinke similarly declared that he does not believe climate change is "hoax."

Sessions offered, "I don't deny that we have global warming. In fact, the theory of it always struck me as plausible, and it's the question of how much is happening and what the reaction would be to it." Ross would head the department in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that just reported that 2016 was the hottest year in the instrumental record. Signaling a hands-off approach, Ross declared: "I believe that science is science, and scientists should perform science." In his opening remarks at his hearing, Perry states, "I believe the climate is changing. I believe some of it is naturally occurring, but some of it is also caused by man-made activity. The question is how do we address it in a thoughtful way that doesn't compromise economic growth, the affordability of energy, or American jobs."

Tillerson, unlike Trump, does not appear to be in favor of "cancelling" the Paris Agreement on climate change, testifying instead that the United States should have a "seat at the table" during international discussions of the issue. On the other hand, Tillerson did say that the Paris Agreement looks to him like a "treaty," which implies that it needs to go through the constitutional process of senatorial advice and consent. It would be unlikely to fare well in the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority of seats. Still, as a signatory to the already ratified United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the U.S. would continue to participate in international climate change diplomacy.

I have been reporting on the science and politics of climate change for more than 25 years. During that time it became clear to me that many pro-market policy makers have refused to acknowledge that man-made climate change might become a significant problem because they oddly accepted the plainly ideological claim by progressives that a vast collectivist reorganization of the world's economy is the only solution. Let's be clear: The existence of man-made warming does not mandate any particular policies. Trump's cabinet nominees are right to the extent that they point out that the risks of climate change need to be balanced against the risks that proposed solutions pose to economic freedom and future prosperity. Tillerson is also right when he argued that climate change is largely an "engineering problem" that can be solved with human ingenuity. And nothing unleashes human ingenuity like the incentives in free markets.

In any event, simply denying what the best research says about the possible risks posed by climate change is unsound policy. Given their testimony Trump's Cabinet picks seem to understand that, even if the man who nominated them does not.

Comments

[The Fusionist]

"In the hearings for various cabinet nominees, Democrats have sought mightily to unmask them as "climate change deniers." So far, not one has questioned the scientific reality of man-made global warming. On the other hand, they have tended not to be as alarmed as their interlocutors, and/or have failed to endorse the climate policies that Democrats prefer."

Well, this is close to dog bites man, but not quite.

[WTF]

Gee, they moderate their comments to get through the committee hearings. Shocking, I know.

[UnCivilServant]

So long as the prescription is not "MOAR GOVERNMENT!" they can believe whatever they like.

[True Scottsman]

^This!
It's the same as Elizabeth Warren's assertion about money being the metric by which whatever it was ought to be measured. I asked a long time friend of mine, who is a climate scientist, "Why is it that the solution to global warming is to take more money from me?" He thought about it and said, "That's actually a good point." He hadn't even considered it before then.

[lap83]

Seriously. Incidentally, I can never understand why liberals are so afraid of their racist denier bogeyman when they simultaneously fear that the government will shrink to nothing and all of their precious bureaucrats will be out on the street. What would be so scary about Hitler if he was just a hobo in a back alley somewhere ranting about the JOODEN.

[lap83]

It's like the joke about the complaining old women "these politicians are so racist....and there aren't enough of them!"

[Jimbo]

I believe I'll have a large alcoholic beverage shortly.

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

One would think that there'd be more Trump coverage today... I mean it's a pretty historic occasion.

[UnCivilServant]

They got all trumped out over the past few months and are unable to rouse themselves from the stupor.

[ernieyeball]

You can tune in to NPR. President Pud is being covered there.

[SugarFree]

I just want to know if they are ever going to put up an inauguration thread.

[Swiss Servator]

Wait...? That is today?!

[Jimbo]

*narrows gaze*

[timbo]

I look forward to a day when we can transcend political bullshit; especially on this day of heightened political hot air

Chief among political bullshit is anthropogenic climate change.

[Jason Strickland]

Personally, I look forward to a day when people with your lack of intelligence no longer exist and are open minded, intelligent beings instead of the ignorant, indoctrinated drones you have become.

I suggest you educate yourself in a few areas of science so have a better grasp of what the human race is doing to the planet. To start with, you need to pick up a few books on atmospheric science, one primarily focusing on the Greenhouse Effect if you can find it, next add Thermodynamics to it, you need to understand how energy works, for that matter how the Greenhouse Effect works and it's relationship with energy. To grasp what I am getting about the implications of the energy from human activities you'll need to understand particle physics and quantum mechanics to do so, pick up an introductory book on quantum mechanics to start off.

You need to lose the ignorance, it's bad for the human race and the planet.

[x'); DROP USER Tony;]

"Personally, I look forward to a day when people with your lack of intelligence no longer exist and are open minded, intelligent beings instead of the ignorant, indoctrinated drones you have become."

Such derpy lulz

I'm going to guess by your inability to explain your position without appeals to broad subjects that the majority of people who post here are likely to be far more educated on science, and in general, than you are.

Judging by the above quoted excerpt, I'm absolutely positive the large majority of commenters here are far more equipped for an intellectual debate than you are.

[MikeP]

Poe's Law

[ant1sthenes]

You... understand that the relationship between solar energy inputs/outputs is a little more complicated than just the greenhouse effect, right? And that carbon released into the atmosphere by humans doesn't necessarily stay in the atmosphere, since there are plenty of solar-powered natural chemical reactions that bind it into organic solids?

[DRM]

But, if you don't have time for all that, here's the cheat sheet to what you would learn.

The actual physics answer to "how much do carbon dioxide emissions warm the Earth" is one Kelvin per doubling of the atmospheric concentration. You need to go from the current 400 ppm to a concentration of 800 ppm to go up 1 K from the current temperature, redouble to get to 1600 ppm to go up 2 K from the current temperature , double a third time to 3200 ppm to go up a total of 3K, and so on. Given all industrial activity on Earth in human history only managed to raise us from 280 ppm to 400 ppm, it's a rate at which there is no crisis of any type. Dumping literally three times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as has been done in all of human history won't manage to raise temperatures a whole Kelvin.

Incidentally, this pure physics theoretical model actually matches the observed warming in the instrumental climate record during the whole industrial age. So both in theory and instrumental observation, anthropogenic climate change is real, but unimportant.

[Skeptischism]

Do you have a source for these claims? A certain amount of warming is already baked in at present ppm, so I find it suspect that your baseline temperature is 'current tenperature' when that's been far from stable in the last decade, as opposed to the more typical pre-industrial baseline - also only 1 Kelvin (aka 1 centigrade) of warming for more than tripling all output since the industrial revolution seems hard to believe, given 2 C by end of century (you also don't specify a time frame in your claim, which lends credence to it being bunk science) is on the absolute lower end of current projections. I'll grant there's a chance you're dramatically misunderstanding some of the science - would love to see whatever source material you're drawing upon. Also, you are aware there are other greenhouse gases with greater GWP than carbon dioxide, right?

[Diane Merriam]

Yes. He's correct within about 10%. The actual lab figures are 1.1?C per doubling of the concentration of CO? with all else being held equal. It's also a logarithmic function. From 280 to 560 ppm would be one doubling. For the next we would have to go from 560 to 1120 ppm. So to get 2.2?C increase would require going from 280 to 1120 ppm.

That being said, once you get out of the lab and into the real world there are all kinds of feedback mechanisms that can serve to increase or decrease the net effect in the open chaotic system that is the Earth's complete climate. That's really where all the argument is.

Empirical evidence seems to show a multiplier of, at most, a little over 1. The catastrophists use a multiplier of 6 or more. There isn't hard science behind it as there is for the basic greenhouse gas effect.

And yes, there are several common gases that are stronger GHGs than CO?, the most common ones being H?O (water) and CH? (methane). Water, as clouds, reflects sunlight back out in the day, which cools the planet but at night they hold heat in. Also, clouds move ... a lot. The energy absorbed by evaporation is released by condensation, but in a different place. Any given molecule of water spends a very short time in the air, as opposed to most other GHGs, but there's a LOT more of it. It also absorbs some of the IR heat energy frequencies that would otherwise be absorbed by CO?. We're still really just starting to work out the dynamics of clouds.

[Hicks]

What's the the source of your data? I do appreciate your response, its obvious you have given it more than a cursory look. I think you're correct about the question of feedback loops, and while some are overblown, others seems like legitimate concerns.

I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and left the field for good after the nuclear catastrophe of TMI. Ironically, I tried to convince people that Nuclear energy caused less damage to environment, largely due to less CO2 and other pollutants, but the media of the day saw mutants on every corner, and Jane Fondle coming to the rescue.

But we just saw Louisiana get hit with two 1000 year floods, and a town in NC got drowned for the second time in 5 years, and I think parts are still under water.
We got maybe 50,000 homes/lives destroyed because they thought they were safe from flood, and didn't have flood insurance, but fuck them, they rolled the dice and it came up snake-eyes.

I'm worried about the 75,000 homes with claims paid by Nationalized Flood Insurance. What's wrong with free market? Insurance companies see drastic increases in flood claims, and would require premiums 10 times higher to be profitable, so government comes to the rescue and promises eternal flood insurance for a grand-fathered rate, leaving tax-payers on the hook for $5 trillion in potential claims.

So why do the same people who deny any risk from climate change demand government subsidized flood insurance?

[newshutz]

So we "really don't know clouds at all", even though we've "looked at clouds from both sides now"

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Point of interest; so far as statistically significant change is concerned, world temperature HAS been stable in the last decade. Almost the last two. The graphs proudly desplayed by the Climate Change faithful are a) very carefully chosen periods b) heavily adulterated with data 'corrections' and c) very small scale. Amd they show changes of less than a degree in decades.

My issue with Climate Change is that in all cases that I know of powerful centralized States produce widespread pverty, general environmental degredation, and frequently resort to mass murder as a tool of statecraft. So, even assuming that the Climate Change believers are right, I'm far from sure that the proposed cure isn't worse than the disease.

[Sevo]

Jason Strickland|1.20.17 @ 3:56PM|#
"You need to lose the ignorance, it's bad for the human race and the planet."

Yeah, the government taking over the economy would be sooooo much better, right?

[GamerFromJump]

Which can only be believed by someone who has never been to a place where the government runs the economy.

[timbo]

And of course the smug toolbars like Jason Strickland express derision at a point made such as mine.
My point of course is that none of the above is resonating anymore because once this supposed science became politicized and every single prediction with a passed expiration date was not only wrong, it was laughable horseshit, the catastrophists deserve less and less credibility to include the minutia of "evidence". People are rapidly realizing that the arguments have lost so much validity and so much wealth has been incinerated fighting man bear pig that no one cares what government funded scientists have to say. Ignorance, Jason, is believing the same false promise over and over again. Or is that insanity?

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

Jason, give me accurate estimates for TCS and ECR. I know you fucking love science but you are an amateurish piker.

[Fist of Etiquette]

So far, not one has questioned the scientific reality of man-made global warming.

Man-made reality.

[Jimbo]

Is that like VR Pron?

[Thymirus]

Let's also keep an open mind about what we're going to do to get Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis to that asteroid in time.

[Citizen X]

Giant slingshot.

[Swiss Servator]

Circus cannon.

[CE]

Easy, promise them no income taxes forever. The audience in my theater cheered when they heard that one.

[Jimbo]

Question: Do we WANT them to get to the asteroid in time?

[King's Ransom]

Toyota Prius

[ant1sthenes]

So, OT except that it's a Bailey post... in terms of replacing science funding via government grant, could we legalize science betting to cover it? The scientists would have to get an equivalent cut regardless of outcome, and the methodology would need to precisely specified beforehand and the execution be rigorously documented. But, it seems like it could work?

[True Scottsman]

Have you not heard of the stock market?

[UnCivilServant]

It's that place where useless people pretend to provide a service but are really engaged in gaming the system for a quick buck leaving most actual investing to take place elsewhere.

[True Scottsman]

Yes, but isn't that essentially the kind of gambling ant1sthenes is referring to?

[UnCivilServant]

I don't know His proposal was poorly phrased, so I didn't try to pick it apart.

[Jimbo]

Aren't WE being judgmental, hmm?

[ant1sthenes]

Not really? I just mean straight up gambling, as on the outcome of horse races and sporting events. The scientist comes up with a hypothesis and experiment, people wager on the outcome for the thrill of the risk, and the scientist takes a cut to fund his studies.

[mad.casual]

leaving most actual investing to take place elsewhere

Right. Actual investing in applied science that you use to produce goods and services for profit is generally known as 'R&D'.

[kbolino]

But hey, they're all following a strict regulatory system that ensures fairness and transparency!

until the next totally unforeseen "financial crisis", anyway...

[Bra Ket]

If the govt stopped funding research the private sector would undoubtedly find a way to make use of the talent and invest in the promising projects, even if they have a very long term outlook. But right now you have to make these big high-risk and long-term investments while directly competing with the freaking govt.

[CE]

You could always short coastal cities I suppose.

The fake news site "The Washington Post" had a story last year about how it would take multiple nuclear power plants in Antarctica to pump all the excess seawater from rising oceans back inland to refreeze. It turns out that a 30 cm (one foot) rise in the world's oceans in a century is a lot of water, they were trying to say. It seemed to me that a simpler solution would be to build your seawalls one foot higher. You have a hundred years.

[Diane Merriam]

Even though the sea level in NYC has risen a couple of feet since it was first settled by Europeans that measured such things, Manhattan is actually *larger* than it was then.

And yes, the sea level has been rising all along. It's only an increase in the rate and we don't know what that rate will wind up being. But we do know how to deal with it already. It's only a question of what we are willing to spend to do what mitigation.

[Devastator]

The sea level will always go up and down. When it gets too high and walls are no longer sufficient then people will have to move inland, it's what humans have always done and what we'll continue to do. Human's are basically mammalian cockroaches, we can adjust to just about any circumstance and will continue to live barring a mass extinction even. Even through a nuclear war. Even though civilization wouldn't survive.

[Devastator]

event* Humans*

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

So far the rate of sea level increase does not appear to be increasing.

[mad.casual]

Being his usual consistently inconsistent self, Trump claimed during a Fox News interview last year that the Chinese tweet was a "joke," and he told The New York Times after the election that he would keep an "open mind" about the Paris Agreement.

The issue that he's being inconsistent, it's he's not scientifistic enough in his inconsistency. He really needs to make several computer models of all the possible positions he could take and then go with the average or secretively cherry pick the data and go with the 'most Trumpy' one.

[Bra Ket]

It is the case that in a 2014 tweet Trump notoriously asked, "Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?"

Notorious among the urban intelligentsia you hang out with you mean? Another example of why no one in the media could imagine Trump winning or understand why any reasonable person would vote for him.

And this is without me taking a side on the issue, just noticing what the polls say on the topic.

[MikeP]

The Union of Concerned Scientists Research Director Gretchen Goldman warns, "It is hard to imagine a Trump administration where science won't be politicized."

The irony! It burns!

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I suspect that some of them simply didn't have the stones to say out loud what they really think.

[DesigNate]

The media has completely misrepresented and continues to pound that fucking grizzly bear comments of DeVos's. They would be fighting with each other to tear any of the nominees apart for going against the clerics.

[MikeP]

Yet none of Trump's cabinet picks seem to agree that man-made climate change is hoax.

I think it is disingenuous to believe that Trump himself believes that man-made climate change is a hoax, and it is irritating to see this notion persist.

Which of the following is least probable?

1. Trump authentically believes global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese -- or anyone else -- to sap American competitiveness. Especially given his explicit denial of that position.

2. A couple of times over the last half decade Trump made fun of global warming alarmism by calling global warming a hoax.

3. A couple of times over the last half decade Trump fed red meat to the most idiotic of his very idiotic support base by calling global warming a hoax.

It takes a callous indifference to truth to claim such a bald-faced liar as Trump authentically believes something he typed on a phone a couple of times.

[CE]

Still seems like a hoax to me, or at best an unproven theory.

[WTF]

Given the spectacular failures of the climate models, it is a falsified hypothesis.

[Diane Merriam]

Not quite ... the *Catastrophic* crisis models have failed in comparison to reality, but not the general greenhouse gas science itself.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Which would be the models themselves. With almost no exceptions they show warming rates well above actual observations. Their ability to hindcast shows very limited skill and their tuning requires higher impact from aerosols than the latest observation data supports, i.e. their ecs is even more out of whack with the actual observations. And let's not mention the fact that they are non-physical in their ability to simulate enso events.

If you want to claim that co2 absorbs in the 1-20um band consistent with a peak in olwr, ok sure. But that doesn't validate what the models are claiming.

[Bill]

They go back to 1880 for the total change in temperature but agree that it is only since the 1950's and really the 1970's when CO2 and other GHGs became significant. It is not yet clear that the rate of temperature change is greater than the one since 1880. It depends on which temperature database you use. I say use all of them. It also needs another 20 years so that we are most of the way through (say 50 out of 60) the normal ocean cycles (and 5 or so sunspot cycles) so that we can determine more accurately which is natural variability and which is anthropogenic.

[ant1sthenes]

But the attempts to revive the hypothesis making flimsy excuses to alter the data in a way that makes the model converts it from legitimately discredited theory to hoax.

[mpercy]

"2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA"?headline, MongaBay .com, May 22, 2006
"NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season"?headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007
"NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season"?headline, gCaptain .com, Aug. 7, 2008
"Forecasters: 2009 to Bring 'Above Average' Hurricane Season"?headline, CNN, Dec. 10, 2008
"NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records"?headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010
"NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season"?headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011
"2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected"?headline, LiveScience, Aug. 9, 2012
"NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season"?headline, NOAApress release, May 23, 2013
"A Space-Based View of 2015's 'Hyperactive' Hurricane Season"?headline, CityLab .com, June 19, 2015
"The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years"?headline, CBSNews, Aug. 11, 2016

"NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike"?headline, CNSNews, Oct. 24, 2016

Thanks James Taranto's WSJ "Best of the Web" column...

To mix parables, crying wolf about the sky falling is a quick way to get people to ignore actual serious issues.

[Devastator]

Say what you want but averages don't lie. While I don't believe the current models are accurate I do believe there has been a small increase. It will not hit any catastrophic level though as the jump has been relatively minor over a about 100 years of being able to get world wide averages. It's not nearly as catastrophic as they say either. Life has survived much higher changes in temperature. It's a Chicken Little situation.

[DesigNate]

the scientific reality of man-made global warming.

Wait, when was it definitively proven that man is the cause? I don't think I've seen that in any of your previous articles Ron.

[WTF]

Because such a thing has not been proven. The warming since the Little Ice Age is just as likely to be a natural cycle.

[Diane Merriam]

There's a big difference between mankind being *the* cause and mankind being *a* cause. Science and evidence supports the latter, but not the former.

[DesigNate]

Totally corpse fucking this thread, but if mankind is one of a dozen causes, then global warming isn't "man-made".

[Bill]

Yep. Even the IPCC reports say "most" which actually means (the way they define it)
more than half. So >50% (they leave off any +/- 10% or whatever the error is) they think
is caused by man, mostly due to CO2. That's the 97% consensus. That and that CO2 has
increased in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 400 ppm.

NOT that it is catastrophic or has
had detectable changes in severe weather or sea level, etc. By some measures sea level
rise rate has increased but these are newer methods over very short time periods. Arctic
ice melts more in the summer and this year was very unusual for most of the year as far
as temperatures but still 10-15 C below freezing most of the year.

[Gary T]

If I remember correctly, mankind puts out ~6% of all the CO2 that the atmosphere receives.
This would imply that if our industrial output of CO2 doubled, the atmosphere would receive an increase of about 6% more CO2.
If it is 400 ppm right now, after our doubling of CO2 output, the number would be ~424 ppm.

[american_socialist]

Nothing will be done of consequence to abate "climate change"

The paris agreement which will be met like half of California cars becominmg electric by now

[Devastator]

Like it or not cars will become electric and fuel celled over the coming decades. Dino cars are on the way out as electric cars get cheaper and go further. I was always partial to fuel cell, as the tech is there, just not the will to push it. Fuel cells and nuclear power would be glorious.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

I always get a kick out of bailey preaching against the precautionary principle except when it comes to global warming.

Releasing gene drives into the wild that are self-replicating, what could go wrong?

Using disproved models to create disaster scenarios decades or centuries in the future, we must act!

[american_socialist]

Don't journos whine why the dems don't bring up climate change when the elections roll around? Are they really that un-aware?

[Holger da Dane]

At least some are woke to the threat.

[Uncle Jay]

RE: Is President Trump a 'Climate Menace'?
None of his cabinet picks seem to think that man-made climate change is hoax.

Of course none of his cabinet picks seem to think that man-made climate change is a hoax.
They all can make a ton of money off of climate change just like Al Gore did.
There's gold in them thar lies!

[Gary T]

Climate change is not man-made, although it is man-influenced.
Virtually every climate commenter, pro or con AGW, agrees on the first order affects that a greenhouse gas has.
It is the supposed positive feedback multiplier that is controversial and disagreed upon strongly.

[JeremyR]

Let's hope

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[C. S. P. Schofield]

""Donald Trump is a climate menace, no doubt about it," asserts Greenpeace U.K. spokesperson John Sauven."

And this is all I need to know about "Climate Change". Greenpeace is an extremist organization. If the belief in some cause my gut reaction is to doubt its every detail.

Then you start looking at the details. Various Climate Change organizations have been caught diddling their data so often that at this point nothing they say about their 'studies' can be taken seriously. Indeed, saying that they have been 'caught' is inaccurate. They flat out SAY they have 'adjusted' their data. How can I believe anything they claim after that?

Climate Change skeptics say that "Consensus" isn't a scientific standard. In actual fact it is. Consensus is the standard that gets invoked every time the scientific establishment hasn't got a factual leg to stand on. Consensus is what the scientists who fought long and hard to obstruct the acceptance of Plate Tectonics claimed was on their side. When 'Consensus' is the argument being made, you know they science has been swamped by politics, either academic politics or the broader sort.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

cntd.

There is scant evidence that any 'climate change' models work to predict worth a damn. There is little evidence that carbon dioxide has a causal relationship with climate change, and lots of evidence that it doesn't. The groups that push climate change are, SURPRISE!, groups that at left appear to be motivated by the degree to which climate change can be used as an excuse to push people around.

Seriously; climate change might be real, but the coalition that pushes it is made up of people I can't trust.

[Gary T]

It will be interesting to see what kind of actual published science comes out on Climate Change, when grants start going out to researchers who are climate catastrophic skeptics.

Until now, there simply were no grants available for that kind of research, or potential conclusions.

[mpercy]

Greenpeace is not what it once was. Even its former co-founder says as much.

Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore is a vocal critic of man-made climate change alarmist hysteria.

Moore, quit Greenpeace after 15 years when "it lost its humanitarian perspective,"

"There is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate 'narrative.' Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy."

[PlaystoomuchHALO]

"Climate Change", brought to you by the same "scientists" that brought you "global cooling", "peak oil", and "the population bomb", produced by "we need our government funding", and directed by "while we keep altering the raw data, please cede all power to the UN"...

A Watermelon Incorporated event....

[mpercy]

For me, the main problem with the church of AGW is not that the science is questionable, although there is always a responsibility to be rationally skeptical of any claims, but that the solutions are not scientific. Rather, the "solutions" are always cached in socialist propaganda.

It has stopped being about the environment, stopping pollution, providing clean energy, etc.

It's watermelon all the way--control of money, punishing the wealthy, redistribution of wealth. Without a doubt there are many above-board climatologists and environmentalists for whom the science is key, and finding real solutions (e.g., fusion power) are the most important thing. But they have let their science be co-opted for political purposes.

Ottmar Edenhofer, a co-chair of the IPCC : "The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month [back in 2010 actually] is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."

[mpercy]

"I'm Camille Risler. I'm from France but I'm living in Thailand. I'm working for a feminist network that is called Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and I'm working for the Climate Justice Program...So what we want to highlight here is that Climate Change is a clear symptom of an unequal and unjust world...So if we are to address the Climate crisis we need to challenge the structural causes of the crisis which lies on unequal distribution of wealth, of carbon, and of power. Whether it's political power, economic power, or even military power."

Christiana Figueres, who serves as the Executive Secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."

[C. S. P. Schofield]

""This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."

And if you point blank asked them what was wrong with the Industrial Revolution, they wouldn't be able to come up with a single answer that wasn't disprovable hogwash. The real problem they have with the Industrial Revolution is that said revolution has empowered so many of the Great Unwashed to tell their 'betters, to go piss up a rope and stand under it while it dries.

[Lee S]

That is absolutely incorrect. The 1300 climate scientists today are not the same tiny band of researchers that made magazine covers decades ago with their controversial and heavily theorized (and incorrect) global cooling/new ice age.

[GamerFromJump]

The idea that the US is somehow the main entity that needs reining in on the environment is ludicrous on its face.

Name one place here where you can see the smog from space.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

It's all about control. It's all the drive for power over their fellows. Which is what enrages me the most; these swine have taken over a perfectly good cause and corrupted it. There are serious environmental issues, but none of them are at all likely to be usefully addressed while the Progressive Left has control of the issue.

*spit*

[Lee S]

(My goodness, you really have some work to do in understanding the very basics of climate science.) Nobody in their right mind is stating that the climate change should be tackled mostly by the USA -- hence Paris!

[Jonah Kyle]

Every confirmation should have Ted Cruz go to the "back of the bus" and ask the final round of questions and absolutely get clear, unambiguous answers. Only then will I and other conservatives get a full take on each nominee.

[dougbrockman]

I think the policy of ignoring climate alarmism will be just fine as will the politics for rational red state inhabitants. The politics will be bad for climate alarmist statists though.

[Lee S]

Let's see what NASA has to say about whether human-caused climate change is important:

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.

According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase.

"Taken as a whole," the IPCC states, "the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time."

[kenzy9]

In the hearings for various cabinet nominees, Democrats have sought valiantly to unmask them as "climate change deniers." So far, not one has questioned the scientific reality of man-made global warming. On the other hand, they have tended not to be as alarmed as their interlocutors, and/or have failed to endorse the climate policies that Democrats prefer.
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Take Scott Pruitt. The Oklahoma attorney-general, nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency, stated flatly: "I do not believe that climate change is a hoax." He added, "Science tells us the climate is changing and human activity in some manner impacts that change. The ability to measure and pursue the degree and the extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue."