25 thoughts on “Samuelson On Climate Change”

  1. Why bother with science and engineering at all if there are no problems to solve?

    The Charles Lurio – Michael Griffin analogy applies here as well.

    People are laughing at you people.

    Pure entertainment.

    1. Only an idiot would imagine that I wrote that there are no problems to solve. And only an idiot would equate Charles Lurio with Mike Griffin.

      So I guess if I were an idiot, I’d post anonymously, too.

      1. Only an idiot would reblog someone who definitely states there are ‘no solutions’ to people who claim the problem under consideration is a ‘non-problem. This is for Lurio’s benefit, not yours.

        Perhaps Charles can be rehabilitated yet. You can’t and neither can any of your ‘followers’.

        2. Calls for rehabilitation for disagreeing with the latest political fashion are the signature of a fascist.

          1. Charles has a PhD. If reality and therapy doesn’t bring him around soon enough, he can remain in the flat Earth society with you. A PhD isn’t required for rehabilitation, however, but it helps with the embarrassment factor.

            If Charles isn’t embarrassed by his denial of an obvious energy imbalance of global proportions and magnitude, then that’s his problem. I’m just putting the obvious solution to his personal problem on the table. It’s his problem to solve.

          3. Yep, fascist who wants to “reeducate” people who dare question the One True Religion. I suppose burning people at the stake is prohibited only because that would release too much CO2.

    2. I don’t doubt that people like you are laughing at people like me. At one point, people like you were mostly to be found in “laughing academies” as they were somewhat euphemistically called. At least for now, however, the inmates have temporarily taken over the asylum and largely populate the commissariat of the Obama administration. This too shall pass.

    1. Obama has issued $6.5b in loan guarantees to spur the construction of nuclear power plants. Is that serious enough?

      1. So Obama has guaranteed some banks, financed by zero interest fiat dollars, to then loan that money to investors, at a higher interest rate, who think they can make a buck in building a nuclear plant some 20 years down the road when they have completed all the regulatory permit requirements to open a plant? The only beneficiaries of Obama’s loan guarantees are the banks, law firms, & EPA cronies, that will now commence pushing a 6.5 billion dollar stack of paper. ( basically his top donor list) I doubt a single nuke plant will come of it. As said by others here, I’ll believe the warm mongers are serious about a solution when nukes are considered, which will start with regulatory reform that not only enables a plant to be permitted in less than a decade, but also incentivizes newer and safer reactor designs. When the carbon taxes and regulations proposed by Obama amount to multiple trillions of dollars of cost, how can one not be cynical at 6.5 billion in loan guarantees? Is that even 1 day of federal spending?

        1. I still say you could short-circuit half of the key regulations by ‘floating’ the entire core section on a barge in an artificial (aka concrete) lake. The geological surveys seem to be the recurring problem as they get changes while the project is already pouring concrete.

        2. The democrats said they were going to build the border fence, and they did. Of course they’ll build this nuke plant.

      2. No, we both know he wont let one be built without necessarily bankrupting the company that tries. Offering up loan guarantees is an empty gesture considering all of his other policies that insure that no one will take him up on the offer.

      3. I’m under the impression that they still have to meet the requirement for disposal at “a certified high-level permanent waste facility”. That was supposed to be Yucca Mountain. (But, it’s in permanent limbo.)

        No, I don’t know how TVA appears to be going forward (State land? Different regulatory regime for some reason?).

        If that’s correct, then the ‘loan guarantees’ are completely useless. (At least, in most of the states).

        If they no longer have to meet that hurdle, I’d like to see who exactly repealed it, and when.

      5. Is that serious enough?

        It was in 1980, but while Obama is a lot like Carter (worse really), the value of the dollar today isn’t what it was in 1980.

    2. As the InstaPundit says, “I’ll believe there’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”

      In other words, when Obama cuts back on his use of Air Force One, when Al Gore cuts his carbon footprint to less than that of a small nation, when the warmists start holding their conferences virtually instead of flying by the hundreds to luxury resorts at distant locations, then perhaps it’d be easier to believe that carbon dioxide poses a real threat. Until then, it’s just rhetoric for the rubes.

  3. The most obvious idea is a carbon tax to help finance government and stimulate energy-saving technologies and new forms of non-carbon energy. If these technologies went global, the gap between rich and poor countries would narrow.

    Only to the extent that developed countries would get poorer.
    Regarding a carbon tax, or “decarbonisation”, see this outstanding essay by Nigel Lawson (via Judy Curry). He ends it with a word that is perfectly appropriate

  4. It’s always amusing when nuclear is simply dismissed.

    By hyping and insisting on ‘sustainable’ and ‘renewable’, (even for things that aren’t honestly sustainable -or- renewable), it sidelines nuclear entirely.

    The repeated conflation of Global Warming, Anthropomorphic Global Warming, and Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming is also a deliberate destruction of the core debate. Yes, most people think “now” is warmer than the Little Ice Age. Duh. So “Most people believe in Global Warming!”.

    Woo.

    But the information distinguishing GW from AGW has unfortunate error bars.
    And the problem is only CAGW. Which is a position only really publicly taken by people openly admitting they’re activists.

    1. Do you mean anthropogenic?

      Anthropomorphic = of or having human qualities, or assigning human-like qualities

      Anthropogenic = of or originating in human activities

    2. And, since I didn’t think it through too clearly and I can’t edit my post, I’ll add that references to “Harming Gaia” and “Killing Mother Earth” would actually be examples of anthropomorphizing Global Warming, but Anthropogenic is usually the word that people use.

      Besides, isn’t “climate disruption” the current euphemism for all of this lunacy? Global Warming is SOOO 2012…

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