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Citi Report: Slowing Global Warming Could Save Tens of Trillions of Dollars
Layzej writes with news carried by The Guardian about a report published by the Global Perspectives & Solutions division of Citibank (America's third-largest bank) examining the costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report examined two hypothetical futures: one "business as usual," and the other (the "Action" scenario) which includes an aggressive move to reduce energy use and carbon emission.
From the article: "One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario. Coupled with the fact the total spend is similar under both action and inaction, yet the potential liabilities of inaction are enormous, it is hard to argue against a path of action."
But there will be winners and losers, says the report: "The biggest loser stands to be the coal industry, where we estimate cumulative spend under our Action scenario could be $11.6 trillion less than in our Inaction scenario over the next quarter century, with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries."
Are the only "solution" and Envirowackos won't go for them.
>> the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario
Did you write that with a straight face? In any "strawman" study like this (with only two possible courses), the "take my specific action" will ALWAYS be shown to be the smarter/cheaper/faster/better option.
(Now, back to TFA article - I want to see what this one's about.)
That is all.
Yes, what is interesting about this is who wrote it-- this is one of the first detailed analyses of the methods and costs of dealing with global warming that I've seen that is not from an advocacy group, and is written by people who actually have a clue about real world economics.
In the short term, however, I am fairly confident that successfully slowing global warming will cost a pretty tidy penny itself.... and because of the amount of money that will have to be spent over a relatively short time scale, I expect it puts it well outside of what is anything remotely tenable to accomplish in anyone's lifetime living today barring that we don't make some revolutionary breakthrough which can reduce the cost of doing so by at least 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. It is almost certainly written with a corporate agenda.
2. It is attempting to predict the future of technological innovation (e.g. renewable power will get cheaper and more efficient). That's fine and good, but we don't know the future.
3. The elephant in the room with any discussion about reducing carbon emissions has always been, and remains that the rising third world carbon emitters aren't going to change their ways, and therefore the official reason for reducing emissions (to curb climate change) is pretty much ineffectual. Any realistic estimate of how much Western carbon capping will affect global climate change in the face of China and India's continued/increased emissions ends up with a puny number, and really a rounding error. If the problem isn't getting solved, then does any of this even matter?
Most renewable energy sources are never going to be competitive with coal in the third world, no matter how much tree-planting first world enviro-warriors dupe themselves into the belief that they're "making a difference". It's likely to stay that way until somebody makes fusion power work, or some other similarly dramatic innovation.
I agree with the statement that we probably should do something before it becomes an unfixable problem assuming it hasn't already become an unfixable problem. It's like maintenance for your car. You can get lazy and wait till something breaks but at that point it will probably cost you a great deal more and be far more inconvenient than if you had kept up with maintenance. The reality or problem is that people are rarely ever pro-active and on top of that people who make a living on the "stay the course" lifestyle obviously don't want change because it threatens their living even if it were to all come crashing down someday. And crash it will, although we might be able to weather this storm, there's many in poorer countries that are the end of their rope so to speak. When you have no future, food or home because its underwater there's nothing stopping you from trying to take it by force.
History I suspect will show that we either finally as a species managed to find some sort of co-operation and saved our world or we followed our own selfish interests and imploded.
There's no such thing as a disaster that's a disaster for everyone. War is a disaster for people in general, but it's great for munitions makers. Hurricanes are no good for the people who live through them, but very good for companies that sell them building materials.
Every catastrophe is a windfall for someone. If the public saves tens of trillions of dollars by slowing down climate change then that's tens of billions of dollars of revenue somebody won't be making.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Except for the drooling morons who insist it isn't happening because they make money from it ... people who live in the real fucking world are trying to figure out how to fix this shit before it's too late.
That the shills for the industries which do most of the polluting want to pretend it's not happening doesn't make it true.
The only people denying it's real have money invested in the sources of the problem. Funny how that works.
Compare deaths from nukes vs deaths from coal. There is no comparison. For each person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die from coal. Nuclear is by far the safer option - http://www.the9billion.com/201...
What...less than 40 accidents in 63 years?
Still safer than Oil and Gas and less damaging than wind and solar per Kilowatt when you take into account the manufacturing, transportation, and installation.
Fuck off you wanker.
We've saved even more money by having wildly inaccurate and dire predictions that didn't pan out. Think of all the money we saved by not having increased hurricanes, $12.99 gallon milk, $9/gallon gas, and New York City flooding... The real miracle would be to find a circa 2000 prediction of global warming that was even moderately accurate.
Time to move on, buster. This hoax is boring. Find a job you're competent at.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Who gives a damn about the coal industry? I mean, what about the heroin industry? Dealers have a right to make a living, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So Citibank made billions in bad loans, almost went under, took massive bailouts and then awarded their executives huge bonuses.
What does this say about their knowledge of financial matters?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If we really took this problem seriously, we'd be pushing hard on nuclear fusion research. I suspect we could have had fusion plants up and running before 2000 if there had been research funding. Now it's 2015 and we've got lots of fusion research projects limping along on shoestring budgets, plus ITER which is paralyzed by bureaucracy and international politics. (Remember the 20 years they wasted arguing over where to build it?)
If we managed the Apollo Program the way we've managed ITER, people today would still be laughing at the idea of space travel and joking that "A moon landing is thirty years away -- and always will be!"
Weather is cyclic. The serious, non-governmental scientists all say we are headed for a cooling period. We are actually overdue for a mini ice age phenomena. Cap and trade is all about tax and control by the elites. Full stop. The fact that so-called intelligent people buy into this is ridiculous.
And for the "climate change" nazis, no, I'm not a right-wing nut nor a conspiracy theorist.
Just think, declining coal sales means fewer jobs and a Republican in the White House mean fewer food stamps.
At least they have their guns, bibles and lower federal taxes!
For some unknown reason, seeing a BANK funded study makes me not trust it.
Some things need to be said...
A goodly chunk of the One Percent _want_ AGW-fueled (emphasis on FUEL) disasters, as it will 'thin the herd' of the underclass (starting with foreigners but eventually even the domestic useful idiots), all the while turning a hefty profit. It's just "Make Room! Make Room!" with a sound ROI.
Does it account for inflation?
The solution is, of course, to increase the purchase power of the dollar and the cost will go down.
If the Republicans think they can profit from it, then they'll change their position and be on the right side of history...for the first time in their lives. They hate us and want us to die. We need to understand that so we know that we need to kill their group before they kill all of humanity. That is their end game. They hate life. All life. That is why their kind eats meat. Eats meat.
Insurance is more believable than Citibank - which relies on loans and investment in capital growth areas for income. (of which Coal and other established utilities are not)
Insurance has it's own flaws. Many of the WTF provisions in the building code (wired, networked smoke alarms without requiring a central management point or cutoff, residential sprinkler systems, head heights, deck railing requirements, etc.) have been written by the insurance industry to reduce their risk. Still, on a long term, overview approach to reducing risk and costs, they're pretty astute.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So let's see..we'll make a list of the people who cannot be trusted when it comes to climate change:
1. Climate scientists
2. NASA
3. The Insurance Industry, which is already figuring climate change into their actuarial tables
4. The energy industry, which is already using climate change models in their strategic planning
5. The military, which is already using climate change models in their strategic planning
6. The financial industry
I guess all that's left for you to trust is Alex Jones, Breitbart, Fox News and Jesus. Good luck with that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nukes will still be killing then, assuming anything is still alive on this planet.
And we don't actually know how many people have died from cancers due to exposure, but we do know that cancer rates have spiked incredibly in the nuclear age. The nuke apologist's "Nukes don't kill anyone!" refrain sounds like the Mafia Don's, "You can't prove nuttin'."
That was weak, amightywind. Go back to Digg, it's more your speed.
People predict that if I keep drinking and driving, I will get caught or get into wreck killing myself or someone else.
Has not happened. Therefore, I will continue to drive drunk.
If you are worried about the radiation then you have another good reason to switch from coal to nuclear. "the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." - http://www.scientificamerican....
And then you need to consider the turnover time of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in centuries, not years. - http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...
"The biggest loser stands to be the coal industry, where we estimate cumulative spend under our Action scenario could be $11.6 trillion less than in our Inaction scenario over the next quarter century, with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries."
Wrong.
The main beneficiaries here are humans, as we wise up and discover more and better ways of creating energy that do not rely upon resources that are depleting and will eventually no longer exist for our use.
I grow tired of seeing only a capitalistic viewpoint as we look to define winners and losers in this ever-growing problem that the human race faces. Buggy-whip manufacturers are not viewed as "losers" today. Their technology was merely replaced, just as coal and oil will be one day.
Where will all those miners go to get their tumors?
I guess all that's left for you to trust is Alex Jones, Breitbart, Fox News and Jesus. Good luck with that.
You've placed Jesus on the wrong list. He's on side with the economists/scientists/etc (so sayeth the pope): http://www.christianpost.com/n...
Also, this is prima facie false (althpugh liberals often rely on it being true):
> it is hard to argue against a path of action
Not at all. Here ya go:
Sticking a pencil in your eye is a path of action.
Sticking a pencil in your eye is obviously stupid.
Therefore, the path of action is stupid.
The question isn't "should we get out of bed and do something today?" The question is "WHAT should we do today? Should we go to work, rob our neighbor's house, plant a tree?" Another important question that is often debated, though in different terms, is "who is this 'we'?"
It's pretty obvious that things need to get done.
WHAT should be done? HOW should it be done? WHO should do it? What are the COSTS? How will it be PAID for? What are the alternatives? These are the questions of the day, and of every day.
Many, if not most, discussions with liberals follow this pattern:
Something should be done.
Plan X is something.
Therefore, plan X should be done.
Note they don't bother to read plan X. Plan X is something, and something should be done, so we should do plan X.
You have to pass the bill to know what's in it.
The other question about "we should do something" is "who is we"? My wife and I have a daughter. She's a year old, so she can't read yet. We should teach her to read. Who is the "we" who should teach her? My wife and I? The local school district? The federal government? These are questions worth discussing.
In the inaction scenario the technology and costs are fairly certain and predictable. But there is a possibility that they may be avoidable if warming turns out to be less than predicted.
In the action scenario there is a risk that all the abatement expenditure was fruitless, either because it didn't work, was too late to be of use, or because it just wasn't needed in the first place. Even so, the commitment will have been made and adaptation and cost avoidance impossible - money down the drain.
So without a huge economic benefit to either option, it comes down to risk and flexibility.
Also remember that there are more than these two options, having their attendant risks. Geoengineering, for example.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18988/climate-intervention-reflecting-sunlight-to-cool-earth
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. (Joel 2.30, 31)
Is Slashdot modding up posts that judge science by fictional TV shows?
No goalposts were set since that show wasn't making actual scientific predictions. It was a pseudo-reality TV disaster show. People were even encouraged to send in their own footage imagining future disasters caused by global warming. It was called "Earth 2100" because the depictions of the year 2015 were just setups for the disasters that would happen 100 years later in the show.
Here's a quote from the producer: ... we are not saying that these events will happen..." According to the linked article, some of the scientists consulted on the show didn't think the scenarios were plausable even in 2100.
"this program was developed to show the worst-case scenario
Let us not judge science by TV shows. If we did, I'd be complaining about the lack of robots with vacuum-cleaner hoses for arms. :-)
I do not have time to fully read the report, but doubt they address Javon's Paradox. From Wikipedia: "In economics, the Jevons paradox (sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand.[1] The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in ecological economics.[2] However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption and are an effective policy for sustainability, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.[3]"
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
That's my answer to "global warming".
See "Zetetic Astronomy", which contains a number of proofs that it's not a globe.
"They"[1] have their work cut out for them, but of course, they placed one in the first classroom we were ever in, thus indoctrinating us before our critical thinking skills kicked in.
[1] -- They talk a lot, don't they. -- Pulp Fiction
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Is this Slashdot or 'Climatedot'? Every single fucking day there is a 'climate change' alarmist article on here, at least - often two articles about promoting this bullshit.
There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming'.
www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com
it's perfectly safe.
with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries.
.... right, because everyone knows that leftists will just up and embrace nuclear, any day now.
That combination isn't on the table.
Way to miss the point. Well done. Continue with your agenda. Apparently it's all you know. My point is that if a bank is pointing towards a particular option it's because it's the one they are going to make the most money on (read that as it's the one everyone else is going to lose the most money on), period. Banking is merely legalized theft.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Approximately 5 years.
The hand waving about a closed box and net imbalance is conjecture.
I know the arguments:
"Climate scientists are all getting paid billions by fat Al Gore"
"The media is in the tank for climate change because they want to destroy the economy"
"If climate change was real, then why was there so much snow last winter? Boom!"
"The numbers that Citi came up with for climate change cannot be trusted because they're all getting paid billions by fat Al Gore and they took a bailout in 2009"
"Insurance companies projections on climate change should be ignored because they're all being mind-controlled by the Marxist/Fascist Obama. And fat Al Gore (who owns his own fleet of jets piloted by John Travolta and leaves his air conditioner running 24/7, even in the winter)."
Am I missing any?
That is partly true. But banking itself isn't legalized theft, but it is the way Citicorp does it. However, Citicorp is a huge conglomerate with shareholders and divisions and investments in lots of industries and probably stand to lose a lot more from climate change than they stand to gain.
And how exactly is slowing climate change supposed to mean staggering new profits for Citi? The entire carbon credit industry is projected to get as big as $30 billion. This is about half as much as Citi pays in fines every few years.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sounds like a list that benefits largely from falsifiying every tidbit of information possible regarding "climate change" in order to maximize their income. They have my trust... just like you.
I'm sure the study is worked out using a model with no more unknowns than say, the Drake Equation.
Mitchell and Webb's Moon Landing cost analysis
The catholic Jesus. The evangelical Jesus is with the denialists.
Several evangelical groups have praised Pope Francis' major encyclical on the environment released on Thursday, which warns that climate change is real and is impacting all of God's creation, including impoverished people in different corners of the world. Francis said that it's wrong to treat nature and other living creatures as "mere objects" for "human domination."
"We are grateful that the pope has joined with over 300 Evangelicals like Rick Warren, Rich Stearns, and Bill Hybels, and other Christian leaders who understand climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time and the greatest opportunity for hope. It's time to make hope happen by fueling the unstoppable clean energy transition, stopping the ideological battles, and working together," said in a statement Rev. Mitch Hescox, president & CEO, Evangelical Environmental Network.
"Creating a new energy economy that benefits all and addresses climate change is not about a political party but living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We urge all people of good will, especially fellow Christian conservatives, to read and study these timely words from Pope Francis." Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/n... Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/n...
- http://www.christianpost.com/n...
Both the RSS and UAH satellite earth temperature systems show that warming stopped 18+ years ago. So problem solved.
I like the satellite measurement systems for several reasons.
1) They have the greatest coverage (RSS 82.5N to 82.5S & UAH 85N to 85S)
2) They clearly show the warming/cooling due to the el-nino/la-nina events
3) They are managed by scientists with similar credentials who have opposing views on CO2's effect on the climate. Dr Mears (RSS) feels that CO2 is the major driver of climate and Dr Spencer (UAH) feels it doesn't. I like that. That is healthy and prevents fixing the numbers like is so prevalent in other data sets.
You can forget about quoting the Karl et al study which supposedly got rid of the pause because they unjustifiably raised the accurate temperature measurements (ARGO bouy) to match the higher inaccurate measurements of the ship engine intake.
So the question becomes "How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that your theory is WRONG?". 20 years? Almost there. 30? 50? Never?
1. Climate scientists - Like Dr Spencer of UAH? Dr Judith Curry? Dr Richard Lindzen, Dr Don Easterbrook, Dr Khabibullo Abdusamatov, ( I could go on and on but you get the point?)
2. NASA - You mean like the Karl et al paper which raised the accurate temperature measurements (ARGO bouy network) to match the contaminated temperature measurements (ship engine intake)
3-6 NONE rely on the IPCC models which have been proven to be useless. They all use their own which includes cooling for the next few decades.
Just one vote for Obama is saving ten's of trillions.
Just look at the DJIA.
Goldman Sachs put all their money on Obama and Americans are reaping the benefits!
Again, I ask the question to you and anyone else. We have progressed through disease, famine, war, natural disasters and for the lasts 3 million years we've evolved into who we are now with 7 billion people on earth and yet, we are being told that progress must halt because of warming. Why? How did we get to this point with all of the adversity of simply living to have the highest standards of living and ways of life never seen by anyone before in human history. Even the utter destitute have fared by orders of magnitudes better then their predecessors. And yet we are being told we are doomed if we don't do something. All the while people like you invoke special interests and greed as a reason for why we live the way we do and totally and utterly ignore what is before you. The way you are living now, which is better than anyone else ever. If you want to hobble yourself for the sake of stopping global warming, you go ahead and do that, but do not presume to make or force others to follow suit and resist the temptation to castigate others who don't subscribe to your ideas on the subject.
Nobody has told you that "progress has to halt because of warming". Nice strawman argument. After that, not one thing you say can be taken seriously.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Okay, now watch this: https://www.youtube.com/playli...