The discussion here is about consensus, which is and has always been a vital part of the scientific process, allowing the community as a whole to move on and produce useful results, even if a small minority of its members disagree. And the consensus discussed in TFA is about AGW, not about degrees of impact, which as you say is less firmly understood.
Fine - here is the response to Tol, claiming his "rebuttal" contains a basic error itself. Have you read that one? Who do you believe now? Why?
All this shows is that disagreement exists, which we already knew. You can choose to believe one side or the other, whichever fits your existing beliefs, but without expert domain knowledge of your own you can't really judge for certain. But the findings of Cook's paper are corroborated by five other papers, and endorsed by rather more than a single dissenting researcher, so that does tilt the balance somewhat.
And that's the whole point of consensus - when 9 out of 10 doctors of physics agree, it's probably the best available advice for laymen to act on. If more evidence arrives to change the consensus, fine, but it's not wise to delay vital action saying "but it *could* change in the future!", particularly when the consensus has only gotten stronger in the last 10 years.
I don't deny them, I simply don't call them subsidies.
Society pays for those costs, so that the producers don't have to. This lowers the sale price of the goods to half their true cost. If it waddles like a subsidy, and quacks like a subsidy...
Anyway, we can disagree about the transition time, but consider this: The average lifespan of a coal power plant is about 40 years - and many of them are due for replacement fairly soon. Knowing what we now know, it would be insane to replace them with more coal plants, and since new solar & new wind is already cheaper than new coal in many places, we have the opportunity to clean up a whole sector by 2050. And most vehicles have significantly shorter lifespans than that, so they can be transitioned too. In fact, TFA itself points out that Brazil changed their whole market over to flex-fuel ethanol-capable vehicles in just 5 years, so any cars sold after that can be fully carbon neutral.
all the EPA grants on climate change research already presume that it is happening and that it needs to be stopped
Well yeah, that was firmly established long ago. It's been taken for granted in the science community for ages (hence TFA), and issuing grants to determine if it's still actually happening would be like researching whether the sun will shine tomorrow.
people who don't agree with the party line on climate change find it almost impossible to publish, get academic positions, or get research grants.
That isn't true, or at least the first part isn't. Further research establishing the (non)existence of AGW would never be ignored - if it's sound. If (and only if) your methodology is good and your evidence is strong, you'll get published, even - nay, particularly if you can actually show clearly that current warming is natural or not happening (and of course explain all the existing evidence to the contrary). Journals would love to publish a bombshell like that - if it's bombproof, and not just a bomb. Granted, for funding you may have to look outside mainstream sources unless you've got a strong case to start with, but I don't doubt Exxon, the Heartland Institute, Koch bros et al would happily pony up. For academic positions, likewise. Of course, that would change fast if you were The Guy who published evidence strong enough to be taken seriously.
government budgets that run into the trillions
Right, because the government would devote trillions to overblowing a crisis so that they could put a price on carbon/s. They already did that with SO2 emissions for far less money, and nobody freaked out. While it's true the government could potentially pressure researchers (as Bush did), that would come to light very quickly - and would have minimal effect all those climate researchers everywhere else in the world...
But the fossil fuel industry's very existence is at stake. They really are risking trillions, so their motive for pushing back is huge. And the industry isn't exactly short of funds either, so they have means as well as motive. When you add in the existing examples of them already funding misinformation, the case against them is far from laughable. So it's curious that you put more stock in unfounded claims of climate researchers falsifying results, despite the only specific accusations being thoroughly cleared of any wrongdoing.
Let ME be clear about it: the people speaking out against the "AGW FUD" have yet to show any good evidence to back their claims. All they've been doing the whole time is attempting to cast doubt on the reams of evidence that the climatologists have produced over the last forty years. That is the very definition of FUD. You might be one of the rarer people who accepts AGW yet thinks the consequences aren't so bad, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against that too. If you want people to listen, end your own FUD & vague accusations, and come up with real evidence for a change - if you can.
I scanned your comment history and didn't see a single citation, just more unsourced claims like the above.
I cited two specific examples (waived fuel tax and 100% deductible exploration expenses), with links to more, of fossil-fuel industry tax incentives that don't fall under any of your 3 categories. Can you cite any tax breakdowns that contradict the studies I linked?
And I'm not sure how you reconcile your agreement that carbon is a "huge problem", yet deny the many externalised social costs of emitting that carbon (i.e. the "made-up number" from your point #2).
Luckily, I disagree with your pessimistic assumption that we'll end up burning all our fossil-fuel reserves. That might be a risk if we assumed that
a) politicians continued to give fossil-fuel industries free reign, even if unsubsidised (actually not that unlikely),
b) the afore-mentioned externalised social costs of fossil fuels continue to be ignored (depends on how much more money the industry pumps into fueling that denial),
c) direct costs of fossil fuels don't rise significantly, and
d) that alternative energy prices stop falling, and never drop below current fossil fuel prices.
I think that, at this stage, point d) is highly unlikely, so even if all the others turn out to be the case, it simply won't make business sense to use the more expensive option of fossil fuels. For example, renewable energy plants have been cheaper to build than new coal plants in many parts of the world for some years now, and of course they have zero ongoing fuel costs, so there the transition is inevitable, once existing coal power stations get old enough.
You really are trying hard to miss the obvious, like the footnote directly after that cost on the very first page:
The numbers specified in this report refer to the actual year and are real values of 2002.
Then you claim (with zero evidence of course) that mitigation funding is a) currently $100B+, b) ineffective, and c) will cost more than what is avoided in damages, while deliberately ignoring the report's findings (with cited evidence) that a real program of mitigation funding started ASAP will save us $12 trillion.
How is that not pure denialism based on your own biases? I mean, if you had cited equally strong evidence of your own, that would be more convincing, but it seems your claims are all based on "I think". Opinions are fine, but ignoring evidence to the contrary isn't.
If you're an academic, you must get government research grants
But nothing says those grants must reach a pre-decided conclusion. It's purely an assumption that these academics would not get grants to study other aspects of the climate, should global warming be disproved.
you're out of a job and your career is in the toilet
You know what would cause that even faster than your grant not being renewed? Getting caught lying about your results, or showing consistent bias. That would sink your reputation in a heartbeat. It's curious that such a huge proportion of climatologists around the world all apparently suffer from this alleged bias - and are also apparently unable to see it in others' publications either, even during peer review. That would make climatology unique in the fields of science.
What biases oil and gas company sponsored scientists have (the few there are) is irrelevant.
Again, I find it amazing that people simply refuse to see the distorting influence of such large sums of money on the public debate, despite the oil and coal industry demonstrating it for decades.
Well, Cook is a Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute, plus there's also the qualifications of the eight other authors on his paper. That's somewhat more expertise than Duartes has demonstrated. And that doesn't mean "nobody has the qualifications to challenge him", only that Duartes doesn't. And the whole point of said expertise is that it enables a more correct interpretation of the "mountains of evidence" you claim. Without a solid knowledge of the field, a layman has no real idea if a particular claimed fact is even relevant, let alone not merely cherry-picked to support a contrary position.
I don't think the evidence for a vast consensus is very strong.
Despite Cook's findings being corroborated by five other surveys, as TFA points out.
Other evidence I have seen shows little or no consensus.
Is it peer reviewed? If so, do please cite it.
this constant bleating about consensus rather than evidence
You are clearly trying hard not to see all the evidence then. That's been available for many, many years. The consensus merely makes clear that this evidence is taken seriously by the vast majority of climatologists.
And yet, here you are making the huge assumption that "no position" implies "uncertain", when Cook's simplification (that "uncertain" implies "no position") is far more justifiable considering the tiny fraction of genuine "uncertain" responses.
But it comes down to this: If you think your analysis is more valid than Cook's, despite the fact his has passed peer review and yours hasn't, then go right ahead and write your own paper. It should easily pass peer review if your claims are correct; then you'll find people take more notice.
There's also the notable fact that Cook's findings are corroborated by five other surveys, each using different methods. So if he is indeed lying through statistics as you claim, then either the others are all lying too and there exists a planet-wide conspiracy among climatologists AND all major scientific institutions to suppress evidence of this, or the findings are in fact correct, despite your misgivings.
That's a pretty big "if" right there, considering the total lack of justification for that assumption. Are you sure it's not just a fiction to help you feel better about your lack of compassion? Particularly in light of the unjustified assumption that the consequences of climate action would be somehow worse (rather, it could save us trillions of dollars).
I've read a lot of the IPCC report. Which evidence specifically are you referring to from it?
I too have read a lot of it, and I'm referring mostly to WG1 as a whole, and the many papers cited there.
If you feel that some/all of that evidence is not valid for some particular reason, feel free to cite peer-reviewed papers that support your case. I'd say I had a reasonable understanding of the topic for a layman, but not enough to contradict experienced climatologists who doubtless know considerably more than I do on the subject. OTOH if you feel your own subject knowledge exceeds that of the experts, then perhaps it's best if we don't waste each other's time.
Except clean energy doesn't get all of them as well. Many of these tax deductions are specific to fossil fuel companies as my links show - just like there are other incentives that are specific to clean energy. The point is, there are particular tax incentives available only to fossil fuel industries, and not to other industries. Can you show any evidence to the contrary?
If you don't think that forgiving billions of dollars of tax revenue from a specific industry counts as a subsidy to that industry (in that it lowers their cost of production), then perhaps you don't understand what subsidies are. There is zero difference between giving billions in taxpayer dollars to a company, and not taking the tax from them in the first place.
The real question is, why are fossil fuel companies being granted hundreds of billions of dollars in specific tax incentives at all? Subsidies are often given to desirable new industries to help them become competitive, but that's hardly the case with oil and coal.
It covers transportation too, e.g. Brazil's switch to ethanol fueled cars, but it's talking about market transitions, switching new sales to non-fossil-fuel equipment, not eliminating old equipment.
The study itself never once claims to cover "phasing out all fossil fuel", only the transitions to a new market & infrastructure, which can and have happened with surprising speed.
The myth that fossil fuel industries don't get industry-specific subsidies is the one that keeps getting repeated. Fossil fuel exploration and mining in particular are heavily subsidised, far beyond standard business expenses.
In AU for example, billions in fuel tax credits are freely given out to oil & coal mining companies - try getting those for your own business. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/...
In the US, there are tens of billions annually of tax write-offs, financing, and loan guarantee benefits specifically for fossil fuel producers. One single example:
The deduction for intangible drilling costs, worth $3.5 billion in 2013, provides a 100% tax deduction for costs that are not directly part of the final operating oil or gas well, including exploration expenses.
Renewable subsidies are needed initially to build industry scale and solve the chicken & egg problem. Fossil fuel industries really don't have that problem - so why are they still getting such huge industry-specific subsidies?
Hundreds of billions in health costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths, from coal power in the US alone. Coal prices would double, if the true cost of supply was covered.
Disbelief doesn't make costs go away, and is the very definition of denialism.
The obstacle is not the wires, it's the cable/telephone oligopolies.
That's exactly why they're running new connections of their own - so they can compete with the incumbents. Fibre just happens to be the most future-proof way to do it.
And while broad wireless is great for low-bandwidth, low-cost, and mobile links, it's no substitute for the data firehose that is fibre, so they'll still be rolling out that. But maybe large-scale wireless will let them compete with existing ADSL providers at minimal cost.
And we should believe some random blogger, why? Even Richard Tol's opinion isn't worth any more than that of the expert peers who reviewed the paper.
It's got nothing to do with whether they're in the government or not. It's got everything to do with their expertise. Assuming that some random layman (or yourself) has picked out the crucial flaws in a peer-reviewed paper that the authors and reviewers all somehow missed is the Dunning-Kruger effect at it's finest. Laymen simply don't have the in-depth domain-specific knowledge required to offer a credible opinion. First they have to convince an expert why they're not completely wrong.
Dissenting opinions from other experts are taken more seriously - but they're hardly gospel either. When scientists disagree, they try to persuade each other with evidence. Over time, as more evidence rolls in, eventually most are convinced by both argument and corroborating evidence of a prevailing position - and the field achieves a consensus. There are often still a few dissenters, but until they can produce better evidence or at least a more convincing argument, the rest of the community just gets on with the job. This is how science has always worked.
Except in climate science, and a few other controversial fields. For some reason consensus doesn't seem to be enough, and the laymen & politicians still think they know better than all those eggheads. However, history has virtually always come down on the side of the evidence, not the politicians, and the "reason" usually turns out to be a distorting campaign of misinformation from vested interests...
Usual sort of I'm-all-right-Jack dismissal of other people's suffering that I've come to expect, thinly justified by "it'll happen to them anyway" and the unfounded assumption that any solution requires "harming" the rest of the world. Not to mention ignoring that Bangladesh is hardly the only place this will happen.
Oh, the Telegraph has proved the scientists all wrong, lol. Pack it all up guys, a tabloid has disproved our peer-reviewed evidence, who knew..
As for the alleged "lying" in your WSJ link, no fewer than eight independent investigations all cleared the CRU of any misconduct. What we need now is an investigation into why this dead horse is still being beaten..
Except we're not just relying on the authority of the group. There's those IPCC reports and all the evidence cited there, as has also been said many times.
The consensus here is of experts in the field who have reviewed that cited evidence and all reached the same conclusion.
There are obviously a few experts who disagree, but it's telling that their arguments have failed to convince the vast majority of climatologists, don't you think?
The evidence for the case of AGW is clearly far more compelling, to those who have proven, in-depth expertise in the subject.
Well, apart from the many, many details involved in narrowing those error bars, how about local impacts?
How can a local government efficiently allocate funding to mitigate the impacts of changing climate until we can tell them in some detail what those impacts are likely to be, in their area? This requires applying the general predictions to every local situation.
Australia recently slashed funding to its CSIRO climate research division, saying "Yes we get it, AGW is happening, no need to keep studying it", and the question was immediately raised of who would now be able to provide the specific information needed to decide what to do about it.
It still amazes me that people continue to point wildly at climate funding as if it were some huge incentive to betray everything science stands for - while somehow managing to ignore the oil & coal elephant in the room, with trillions of dollars stake, with an obviously huge incentive (some would say a duty) to protect that, and with a clear and existing record of massively financing misinformation to do so.
But no, it must be the climatologists who are all baldly lying to us to protect their incomes..
What's the big difference here? The scientists have decades of hard evidence and observation. Unlike the politicians behind the Iraq war.
You know who else has been pushing hard on this agenda? The fossil fuel industry. And, like the politicians, they too lack evidence, and so have resorted to money and influence instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that would be off-topic, in this article.
The discussion here is about consensus, which is and has always been a vital part of the scientific process, allowing the community as a whole to move on and produce useful results, even if a small minority of its members disagree. And the consensus discussed in TFA is about AGW, not about degrees of impact, which as you say is less firmly understood.
Fine - here is the response to Tol, claiming his "rebuttal" contains a basic error itself. Have you read that one? Who do you believe now? Why?
All this shows is that disagreement exists, which we already knew. You can choose to believe one side or the other, whichever fits your existing beliefs, but without expert domain knowledge of your own you can't really judge for certain. But the findings of Cook's paper are corroborated by five other papers, and endorsed by rather more than a single dissenting researcher, so that does tilt the balance somewhat.
And that's the whole point of consensus - when 9 out of 10 doctors of physics agree, it's probably the best available advice for laymen to act on. If more evidence arrives to change the consensus, fine, but it's not wise to delay vital action saying "but it *could* change in the future!", particularly when the consensus has only gotten stronger in the last 10 years.
I don't deny them, I simply don't call them subsidies.
Society pays for those costs, so that the producers don't have to. This lowers the sale price of the goods to half their true cost. If it waddles like a subsidy, and quacks like a subsidy...
Anyway, we can disagree about the transition time, but consider this: The average lifespan of a coal power plant is about 40 years - and many of them are due for replacement fairly soon. Knowing what we now know, it would be insane to replace them with more coal plants, and since new solar & new wind is already cheaper than new coal in many places, we have the opportunity to clean up a whole sector by 2050. And most vehicles have significantly shorter lifespans than that, so they can be transitioned too. In fact, TFA itself points out that Brazil changed their whole market over to flex-fuel ethanol-capable vehicles in just 5 years, so any cars sold after that can be fully carbon neutral.
all the EPA grants on climate change research already presume that it is happening and that it needs to be stopped
Well yeah, that was firmly established long ago. It's been taken for granted in the science community for ages (hence TFA), and issuing grants to determine if it's still actually happening would be like researching whether the sun will shine tomorrow.
people who don't agree with the party line on climate change find it almost impossible to publish, get academic positions, or get research grants.
That isn't true, or at least the first part isn't. Further research establishing the (non)existence of AGW would never be ignored - if it's sound. If (and only if) your methodology is good and your evidence is strong, you'll get published, even - nay, particularly if you can actually show clearly that current warming is natural or not happening (and of course explain all the existing evidence to the contrary). Journals would love to publish a bombshell like that - if it's bombproof, and not just a bomb. Granted, for funding you may have to look outside mainstream sources unless you've got a strong case to start with, but I don't doubt Exxon, the Heartland Institute, Koch bros et al would happily pony up. For academic positions, likewise. Of course, that would change fast if you were The Guy who published evidence strong enough to be taken seriously.
government budgets that run into the trillions
Right, because the government would devote trillions to overblowing a crisis so that they could put a price on carbon /s. They already did that with SO2 emissions for far less money, and nobody freaked out. While it's true the government could potentially pressure researchers (as Bush did), that would come to light very quickly - and would have minimal effect all those climate researchers everywhere else in the world...
But the fossil fuel industry's very existence is at stake. They really are risking trillions, so their motive for pushing back is huge. And the industry isn't exactly short of funds either, so they have means as well as motive. When you add in the existing examples of them already funding misinformation, the case against them is far from laughable. So it's curious that you put more stock in unfounded claims of climate researchers falsifying results, despite the only specific accusations being thoroughly cleared of any wrongdoing.
Let ME be clear about it: the people speaking out against the "AGW FUD" have yet to show any good evidence to back their claims. All they've been doing the whole time is attempting to cast doubt on the reams of evidence that the climatologists have produced over the last forty years. That is the very definition of FUD. You might be one of the rarer people who accepts AGW yet thinks the consequences aren't so bad, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against that too. If you want people to listen, end your own FUD & vague accusations, and come up with real evidence for a change - if you can.
Read up on Patronage.
A lot of the world's fine arts was created under this system. So it's certainly feasible.
No, WG1 just shows that it's happening. WG2 is the part that shows it's worth worrying about.
I scanned your comment history and didn't see a single citation, just more unsourced claims like the above.
I cited two specific examples (waived fuel tax and 100% deductible exploration expenses), with links to more, of fossil-fuel industry tax incentives that don't fall under any of your 3 categories. Can you cite any tax breakdowns that contradict the studies I linked?
And I'm not sure how you reconcile your agreement that carbon is a "huge problem", yet deny the many externalised social costs of emitting that carbon (i.e. the "made-up number" from your point #2).
Luckily, I disagree with your pessimistic assumption that we'll end up burning all our fossil-fuel reserves. That might be a risk if we assumed that
a) politicians continued to give fossil-fuel industries free reign, even if unsubsidised (actually not that unlikely),
b) the afore-mentioned externalised social costs of fossil fuels continue to be ignored (depends on how much more money the industry pumps into fueling that denial),
c) direct costs of fossil fuels don't rise significantly, and
d) that alternative energy prices stop falling, and never drop below current fossil fuel prices.
I think that, at this stage, point d) is highly unlikely, so even if all the others turn out to be the case, it simply won't make business sense to use the more expensive option of fossil fuels. For example, renewable energy plants have been cheaper to build than new coal plants in many parts of the world for some years now, and of course they have zero ongoing fuel costs, so there the transition is inevitable, once existing coal power stations get old enough.
That would be 4 trillion USD in today's dollars
You really are trying hard to miss the obvious, like the footnote directly after that cost on the very first page:
The numbers specified in this report refer to the actual year and are real values of 2002.
Then you claim (with zero evidence of course) that mitigation funding is a) currently $100B+, b) ineffective, and c) will cost more than what is avoided in damages, while deliberately ignoring the report's findings (with cited evidence) that a real program of mitigation funding started ASAP will save us $12 trillion.
How is that not pure denialism based on your own biases? I mean, if you had cited equally strong evidence of your own, that would be more convincing, but it seems your claims are all based on "I think". Opinions are fine, but ignoring evidence to the contrary isn't.
If you're an academic, you must get government research grants
But nothing says those grants must reach a pre-decided conclusion. It's purely an assumption that these academics would not get grants to study other aspects of the climate, should global warming be disproved.
you're out of a job and your career is in the toilet
You know what would cause that even faster than your grant not being renewed? Getting caught lying about your results, or showing consistent bias. That would sink your reputation in a heartbeat. It's curious that such a huge proportion of climatologists around the world all apparently suffer from this alleged bias - and are also apparently unable to see it in others' publications either, even during peer review. That would make climatology unique in the fields of science.
What biases oil and gas company sponsored scientists have (the few there are) is irrelevant.
Again, I find it amazing that people simply refuse to see the distorting influence of such large sums of money on the public debate, despite the oil and coal industry demonstrating it for decades.
Well, Cook is a Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute, plus there's also the qualifications of the eight other authors on his paper. That's somewhat more expertise than Duartes has demonstrated. And that doesn't mean "nobody has the qualifications to challenge him", only that Duartes doesn't. And the whole point of said expertise is that it enables a more correct interpretation of the "mountains of evidence" you claim. Without a solid knowledge of the field, a layman has no real idea if a particular claimed fact is even relevant, let alone not merely cherry-picked to support a contrary position.
I don't think the evidence for a vast consensus is very strong.
Despite Cook's findings being corroborated by five other surveys, as TFA points out.
Other evidence I have seen shows little or no consensus.
Is it peer reviewed? If so, do please cite it.
this constant bleating about consensus rather than evidence
You are clearly trying hard not to see all the evidence then. That's been available for many, many years. The consensus merely makes clear that this evidence is taken seriously by the vast majority of climatologists.
And yet, here you are making the huge assumption that "no position" implies "uncertain", when Cook's simplification (that "uncertain" implies "no position") is far more justifiable considering the tiny fraction of genuine "uncertain" responses.
But it comes down to this: If you think your analysis is more valid than Cook's, despite the fact his has passed peer review and yours hasn't, then go right ahead and write your own paper. It should easily pass peer review if your claims are correct; then you'll find people take more notice.
There's also the notable fact that Cook's findings are corroborated by five other surveys, each using different methods. So if he is indeed lying through statistics as you claim, then either the others are all lying too and there exists a planet-wide conspiracy among climatologists AND all major scientific institutions to suppress evidence of this, or the findings are in fact correct, despite your misgivings.
If
That's a pretty big "if" right there, considering the total lack of justification for that assumption. Are you sure it's not just a fiction to help you feel better about your lack of compassion? Particularly in light of the unjustified assumption that the consequences of climate action would be somehow worse (rather, it could save us trillions of dollars).
I've read a lot of the IPCC report. Which evidence specifically are you referring to from it?
I too have read a lot of it, and I'm referring mostly to WG1 as a whole, and the many papers cited there.
If you feel that some/all of that evidence is not valid for some particular reason, feel free to cite peer-reviewed papers that support your case. I'd say I had a reasonable understanding of the topic for a layman, but not enough to contradict experienced climatologists who doubtless know considerably more than I do on the subject. OTOH if you feel your own subject knowledge exceeds that of the experts, then perhaps it's best if we don't waste each other's time.
Except clean energy doesn't get all of them as well. Many of these tax deductions are specific to fossil fuel companies as my links show - just like there are other incentives that are specific to clean energy. The point is, there are particular tax incentives available only to fossil fuel industries, and not to other industries. Can you show any evidence to the contrary?
If you don't think that forgiving billions of dollars of tax revenue from a specific industry counts as a subsidy to that industry (in that it lowers their cost of production), then perhaps you don't understand what subsidies are. There is zero difference between giving billions in taxpayer dollars to a company, and not taking the tax from them in the first place.
The real question is, why are fossil fuel companies being granted hundreds of billions of dollars in specific tax incentives at all? Subsidies are often given to desirable new industries to help them become competitive, but that's hardly the case with oil and coal.
It covers transportation too, e.g. Brazil's switch to ethanol fueled cars, but it's talking about market transitions, switching new sales to non-fossil-fuel equipment, not eliminating old equipment.
The study itself never once claims to cover "phasing out all fossil fuel", only the transitions to a new market & infrastructure, which can and have happened with surprising speed.
The myth that fossil fuel industries don't get industry-specific subsidies is the one that keeps getting repeated. Fossil fuel exploration and mining in particular are heavily subsidised, far beyond standard business expenses.
In AU for example, billions in fuel tax credits are freely given out to oil & coal mining companies - try getting those for your own business. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/...
In the US, there are tens of billions annually of tax write-offs, financing, and loan guarantee benefits specifically for fossil fuel producers. One single example:
The deduction for intangible drilling costs, worth $3.5 billion in 2013, provides a 100% tax deduction for costs that are not directly part of the final operating oil or gas well, including exploration expenses.
Good luck getting that one yourself. Plenty more in the US breakdown linked here: http://www.odi.org/publication...
Renewable subsidies are needed initially to build industry scale and solve the chicken & egg problem. Fossil fuel industries really don't have that problem - so why are they still getting such huge industry-specific subsidies?
Hundreds of billions in health costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths, from coal power in the US alone. Coal prices would double, if the true cost of supply was covered.
Disbelief doesn't make costs go away, and is the very definition of denialism.
The obstacle is not the wires, it's the cable/telephone oligopolies.
That's exactly why they're running new connections of their own - so they can compete with the incumbents. Fibre just happens to be the most future-proof way to do it.
And while broad wireless is great for low-bandwidth, low-cost, and mobile links, it's no substitute for the data firehose that is fibre, so they'll still be rolling out that. But maybe large-scale wireless will let them compete with existing ADSL providers at minimal cost.
And we should believe some random blogger, why? Even Richard Tol's opinion isn't worth any more than that of the expert peers who reviewed the paper.
It's got nothing to do with whether they're in the government or not. It's got everything to do with their expertise. Assuming that some random layman (or yourself) has picked out the crucial flaws in a peer-reviewed paper that the authors and reviewers all somehow missed is the Dunning-Kruger effect at it's finest. Laymen simply don't have the in-depth domain-specific knowledge required to offer a credible opinion. First they have to convince an expert why they're not completely wrong.
Dissenting opinions from other experts are taken more seriously - but they're hardly gospel either. When scientists disagree, they try to persuade each other with evidence. Over time, as more evidence rolls in, eventually most are convinced by both argument and corroborating evidence of a prevailing position - and the field achieves a consensus. There are often still a few dissenters, but until they can produce better evidence or at least a more convincing argument, the rest of the community just gets on with the job. This is how science has always worked.
Except in climate science, and a few other controversial fields. For some reason consensus doesn't seem to be enough, and the laymen & politicians still think they know better than all those eggheads. However, history has virtually always come down on the side of the evidence, not the politicians, and the "reason" usually turns out to be a distorting campaign of misinformation from vested interests...
Usual sort of I'm-all-right-Jack dismissal of other people's suffering that I've come to expect, thinly justified by "it'll happen to them anyway" and the unfounded assumption that any solution requires "harming" the rest of the world. Not to mention ignoring that Bangladesh is hardly the only place this will happen.
Oh, the Telegraph has proved the scientists all wrong, lol. Pack it all up guys, a tabloid has disproved our peer-reviewed evidence, who knew..
As for the alleged "lying" in your WSJ link, no fewer than eight independent investigations all cleared the CRU of any misconduct. What we need now is an investigation into why this dead horse is still being beaten..
I could go on but why bother.
Except we're not just relying on the authority of the group. There's those IPCC reports and all the evidence cited there, as has also been said many times.
The consensus here is of experts in the field who have reviewed that cited evidence and all reached the same conclusion.
There are obviously a few experts who disagree, but it's telling that their arguments have failed to convince the vast majority of climatologists, don't you think?
The evidence for the case of AGW is clearly far more compelling, to those who have proven, in-depth expertise in the subject.
Well, apart from the many, many details involved in narrowing those error bars, how about local impacts?
How can a local government efficiently allocate funding to mitigate the impacts of changing climate until we can tell them in some detail what those impacts are likely to be, in their area? This requires applying the general predictions to every local situation.
Australia recently slashed funding to its CSIRO climate research division, saying "Yes we get it, AGW is happening, no need to keep studying it", and the question was immediately raised of who would now be able to provide the specific information needed to decide what to do about it.
It still amazes me that people continue to point wildly at climate funding as if it were some huge incentive to betray everything science stands for - while somehow managing to ignore the oil & coal elephant in the room, with trillions of dollars stake, with an obviously huge incentive (some would say a duty) to protect that, and with a clear and existing record of massively financing misinformation to do so.
But no, it must be the climatologists who are all baldly lying to us to protect their incomes..
What's the big difference here? The scientists have decades of hard evidence and observation. Unlike the politicians behind the Iraq war.
You know who else has been pushing hard on this agenda? The fossil fuel industry. And, like the politicians, they too lack evidence, and so have resorted to money and influence instead.