Obviously, I’m with these guys. The first article’s quoted content is consistent with the private conversations I referred to in earlier posts. The second article amply illustrates how badly liberal politics degrades science until it decomposes into a form of religion, with the usual accomplices of dogma, cencorship, character assassination and retribution. Not that the Right isn’t guilty of the same thing on other issues, but it always seems to be a more poisoned and infected with totalitarian insistence on the Left.

Phil

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=c5e16731-3c64-481c-9a36-d702baea2a42

This article came from a reference, here

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57043

Outside of that, I appreciate your comments and I read the Chinese paper (not the CO2Science summary) with interest but I’m not in danger of turning into an AGW skeptic. Shall we agree that it will be interesting to see if the Chinese projection works out?

Looking at the political consequences of manufacturing crisis from willfully selective science is not demagoguery, it’s just analysis of what happens when an agenda is advanced by conjecture disguised as science. It’s the non-rational frothing, panic-inducing alarmism that constitutes the demagoguery. We all have to live in the political world, and the economic consequences of bad politics, too. Al Gore’s demagoguery is in his sensationalism, selective use of facts, non-sequitur assembly of data, irrational leaps, and omission of countervailing information that undermines his demagoguery. “Truth” rattles through much of the inventory of propaganda techniques used by Nazis, Facists, Yellow Journalists, and Communists of yore. Gore should be ashamed of himself. More to the point, he is self-aware after 2000 that he is polarizing. If Al Gore really cared about convincing people, he should have hired a more neutral presenter for his film, and constructed a more credible case. But no. His ego, and his hope the topic could return him to relevance mandated otherwise.

By the way, I say this as a lifelong Democrat who has been active in the party. Many Democrats are not Leftists. When I comment on the Left, I am not by way of extension commenting on Democrats as a whole. But some, even many, Democrats will be found in that net.

You believe “the crisis is among us now.” I, and many others, do not. Demagoguery, and blatantly false declaration that “the debate is over” are being used to try to browbeat the unconvinced into accepting an action agenda that we don’t believe is necessary, that we think is harmful, and that doesn’t make sense as the first response if you actually do believe climate change is anthropogenic.

SUVs, cars, trucks are not the low-hanging fruit if you believe carbon emissions must be mitigated now. Sequestering carbon from fixed location plants can be undertaken now. If the political energy expended on the false impact of transportation regulation were instead redirected to giving power companies incentives and subsidies to immediately engineer sequestering, you’d make far more rapid progress on your agenda to mitigate human carbon contribution to atmospheric content.

Carpool lanes has been shown in numerous studies, including over the last 15 years in the San Francisco Bay area, to boost emissions of all types, reduce actual incidence of carpooling behavior and increase congestion, which reduces overall fuel economy. And in a matrixed society, it doesn’t work for most people. And let’s understand that if carpooling were boosted, the 8 passenger SUV could be a nicely efficient vehicle.

1990s SUVs and trucks will be in the auto fleet for the next two decades. Changing the fleet is the slow road to you vaunted carbon reduction. It’s going to happen anyway, because every generation of vehicle, type to type, is more efficient, and new technologies will accelerate that trend. The market will be making the adjustment for you. It doesn’t need premature intervention and the unintended consequences. There is also no domestic benefit whatsoever to compounding the problems of US automakers who have a bigger transition to make. There is only harm in this. The car is already on its way toward reduced, and eventually benign, carbon contribution.

As I have written consistently, there are good reasons to burn less oil, including economic and reduced levels of real pollutants. But we can move power plants off oil, move home heating off oil. Bank carbon and plant trees. Liquid fuels are for the forseeable future needed for mobility. Mobility is the last place to target, for mobility is essential to economic prosperity, economic freedom and occupational choice. If people want to shift to smaller, less fuel-consumptive vehicles for their own reasons, great. The price of fuel will move some in that direction. We don’t need the regulators to force us down a path before the engineering, and individual preferences, catch up.

You are living your convictions, so I take seriously that you are convinced climate change is anthropogenic, and that you believe this requires individual action. So we disagree on the debated topic, but I respect your position. As a person of profile, I don’t have the same respect for Al Gore (nor most celebrity sympathizers to his position), as he does not have the personal follow-through.

As an automotive aficionado, I’d love to see fewer pickups and SUVs on the road, for the same reason I despised the rise of the van in the 1970s. But frankly, neither I nor anyone else knows where to draw the line regarding whose need is legitimate, and whose is vain. I do know, however, that many people who have trucks can also afford a second small car, but if everyone indulged that, there is environmental cost to the additional manufacturing. But the market, including changing psychology and tastes, eventually pared the full-size van market back to its natural core, and the same will happen to SUVs and pickups. If not, it will be because those vehicles are becoming efficient enough for the difference between them and a car not to matter to the consumer.

If the US builds carbon sequestering at fixed sites now, we can use coal to reduce oil demand while we develop solar and bring modern nuclear online. If the market is allowed to work, technology will reduce the impact of private transit at the rate it can. I have to laugh at politicians who erect a wall in 2020, with a steep slope to climb after that, patting themselves on the back that they’ve done something constructive. Again, stupid response spurred by demagoguery and informed by the classic state of ignorance of the media politician.

Already, a group of Chinese climatologists have modeled and made the case that global cooling is our looming threat:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N3/C1.jsp

I can’t wait to see how Gore, Pelosi, Clinton, et al, and the anthropogenic alarmists spin their response to that, if a trend line of data comes to support the idea.

Phil

As to demagoguery and Al Gore, it is you who is looking at a scientific problem through a political lens.

If one believes the problem is considerable, why should one not speak out about the problem now? Al’s actions with regards to AGW would be the same whether he was running for office using AGW as his issue or seriously concerned about the problem. Since I think the problem’s serious, I don’t care what Al’s motives are. I’d be concerned with or without Al’s involvement. I’m happy that some others ARE concerned because of Al’s involvement. People who dislike Al will choose to believe Al is doing this solely for political gain (since he gets no press for anything else and this is far from a done deal in public opinion, it’s hard to see how Al will ride this to the White House, nor can I see where his ego needs the gratification, he’s already won the popular vote once).

More pressingly, even if we begin to cut emissions dramatically, total atmospheric CO2 will continue to rise for some years. The crisis is upon us now. Why would we wait 10 years to start thinking about what we might do to combat the last 10 years of GHG increases? We probably should have done something about this years ago.

If we decided to swap all coal plants for nukes – how many years before the first nuke comes on-line? How many nukes can be online in the next year after that? And the next? How long before the last coal plant is closed? How fast could we ramp up nuke production? Or nuclear fuel production?

In fact, some of the reports I’ve looked at suggest really mundane things we might to do mitigate GHG increases, especially with methane, which climate scientists are sometimes accused of ignoring. None of the recommendations even seem particularly onerous (like sequestering methane at landfills and we could then burn it to turn it into a less potent GHG – CO2).

The transit aspect of CO2 reduction policy has less to do with guilt or a conspiracy to destroy the American way of life than with the fact that SUVs and cars are simply some of the low-hanging fruit. If we can encourage people to car-pool, use mass-transit or just switch to a smaller vehicle, we get CO2 savings the first year – the first minute. In fact, conservation savings are often like that. Fluorescent lights, more efficient furnaces, more insulation, they all have an impact today and without a long-term compromise in life-style (for the most part – savings in the long run).

It’s really a pity to think of coercing people into reducing the size of their car or car-pooling because they’ll save money doing it! Go look at Edmunds; SUVs cost on the order of a buck a mile; a Prius is about half that. A casual glance out the window at the rush-hour freeway suggests where we might get some emissios savings. Car-pools are the exception, not the rule and SUVs and pickups are usually heavily burdened by the driver, his cell-phone and, maybe, his lunch. 5000 lbs or more for 200 lbs of payload? What a waste.

Need I point out that a significant, immediate reduction in the demand for oil would also cause a drop in the price of oil? This reduces our trade deficit and reduces the amount of money we’re shoveling into the hands of despots and terrorists.

Now, I don’t know where you get the idea that Leftists are troubled by our material wealth and consequently determined to destroy it. I’m active in the local Democratic Party and I don’t know anybody like that. Maybe you should meet some actual liberals and see what they’re really like.

I see you’ve got the old walk-the-walk objection. No one like this when it involves the word, “chickenhawk,” of course.

I live in an 1800SF house and I commute three miles (when the weather’s good enough, I bike or walk). We bought a car in 1986 and put less than 75K miles on it in 18 years. Yes, we have had other cars in the interim, also retired with low miles. No SUVs, just some reasonably-sized car (we have a minivan).

Could we have more? Yes, actually, we’re pretty well off. However, I wouldn’t move. My short commute has meant more time with the children (I could even go have lunch with them in the school cafeteria from time to time, when they were little and it was still cool to have Dad come in and eat school food, this fades after 4th grade).

Could everybody else live this way? Certainly not in the foreseeable future; sprawl is a fact of life, we just have to find ways to mitigate its effects. Maybe we must reduce it in the future. To survive.

Here’s an interesting road test (page 2) which talks about the Touring Edition handling.

http://alternativefuels.about.com/od/vehiclereviews/fr/07ToyotaPrius_2.htm

I’ve noticed the Prius (non-Touring edition) is a little blown around in 25+ mph side-winds, but this is easily explained.

Relatively soft suspension. Extremely aerodynamic (don’t know why but I ‘ve found in the past that very aerodynamic cars don’t care for side winds – the Prius is no exception). Light weight. Relatively high side profile.

Cobra213, with regards to the global CO2 saturation experiment, we do not run a version of that experiment every time a volcano erupts. Volcanos release little CO2 compared to the masses of gases and dust they emit that are believed to contribute to cooling:

Well, what I actually said was “that experiment gets run for us every time there is a spike in volcanic activity.” I didn’t say, “every time a volcano erupts. Volcanoes spew some CO2, but they also frequently start massive fires, which does release carbon. More to the point, they release something much more greenhousey — methane. Yes, volcanic activity also obscures some radiation due to increased dust. My point was that lots of events alter the composition of the atmosphere, not just us. A spike in the termite population will too. It’s a mix within a window, not static in its precision.

Your personal contact with climate-related and atmospheric scientists seems to be different from mine. Can’t comment on that.

Al Gore’s contribution to this has been to apply demagoguery and politics to what ought to be an investigation. I think the science will continue to be debated, and should. But it is premature to move the issue into the political arena. The idea of anthropogenic global warming is in the political arena propelled primarily by people who made up their minds without evidence, because they see that if they can induce enough fear and panic, they can move public support in the direction of their prior agendas. The greens have hated the car for decades. Public policy mavens have been mass transit darlings. Both became rabid anthropogenics at the first suggestion of observable phenomena, because they saw the idea as key to ramping political sentiment. Europe looks for any way it can to slow American economic progress. Most content generators in media dislike the car as well, and their business model and personal egos demand crises, so this is an easy way to create a few and keep feeding them. Much of the Left has ongoing guilt about the success of capitalist societies, so they see anthropogenicsm in climate change as a way to throttle mass personal freedom, markets and materialism. Not to mention they hate the fact that the mainstream culture ignores them.

The demagoguery in “An Inconvenient Truth” is unconscionable. The resulting premature politicization has regulation-minded governments all over the world entertaining all sorts of wacky ideas that will impoverish many, truncate improvements to quality of life in many poor areas, drive investments into dead-ends and away from productive use, and — most likely — to no affect at all on the intended objective.

If you believe man’s activities cause climate change, then pin that belief to immediate beneficial action. Planning on revamping the transportation fleet — and human habits — over the next 30 years is not a good bet IF you actually believe it’s us and it’s urgent. This is the smoking gun of insincerity (or superficiality) among anthropogenics. If you really think we have to slash carbon, start with the greatest impact the soonest: sequestering at fixed location power plants. Immediately start planting 1 billion trees. Advocate nuclear power. Let’s build solar collection farms on vast tracts in the dry southwest. Get wave power online. More solar. Stop building big houses. You’re really a believer? Dismantle or close off any portion of your house over 2,500 s.f. We can solve carbon release faster if we start with things we can do at fixed locations. Mobility is essential to prosperity. It’s the attack on the private automobile that blows the credibility of anthropogenics in the political arena, for that is the nexus of regulation, ideology, agenda, manipulation and insincerity. It’s also the subject over which you’re most inclined to be faced with a “the debate is over” mindset, disconnect between urgency and solutions proposed, and willingness to leave poor people behind.

There has been a lot of data generated by climate investigation, but the rush to judgment is unwarranted, and the parties rushing to judgment are proving willfully hardheaded about reconsidering their interpretations of prior data, as new data that casts doubt becomes known. Demagoguery does work all too often, but it’s not credibility-enhancing. Al Gore and people like him have destroyed any chance of an intellectually-honest investigation into cause of climate change, and concomitantly rational human action, if any is needed.

Phil

I think you must have misread my prior post. I think GM’s intent to build the Chevy Volt as a series hybrid is a much better idea than current parallel hybrids. You can use a small liquid fuel engine turning at a constant speed when necessary, to simply charge the batteries as the plug in charge is depleted.

My impression of the Prius is that its driving characteristic is less benign than merely numb, and just a bit short of evil-handling. You can’t get in trouble as quickly as in, say, a ’70s Jeep CJ5 (that was the short wheelbase) with the V8 option and bald tires, but it’s more likely in a crisis to leave you suspended by your seatbelt than an Impala, Taurus or a Fusion.

Toyota is subsidized by the Japanese government in myriad ways. I see no indication that the Volt’s development has been financed by anything other than GM’s own, scarce, funds.

Ford, by the way, also spent their own money developing its hybrid powertrain, but that doesn’t intrinsically make a design better. Overall, I think the series hybrid reflects much clearer thinking for building two-technology vehicle. And I’ll anticipate push-back about Ford licensing some hybrid technology from Toyota: What has been lost by the anti-Detroit media, from the initial reporting on that story, is that the agreement was a license swap. The two companies developed their technologies independently, but gravitated to similar implementations. The two companies were bound to sue, but cooler heads prevailed and they negotiated a licensing swap instead.

Phil

SDSU on Volcanoes

As to the climate scientists who seem to be telling you, privately, that they have some sort of reservations about the solidity of the science, I guess experiences differ. The people I’ve talked to who have knowledge in this field are split between, “We’re so screwed” and “people will hem and haw until it’s too late and then we’ll be so screwed.” They express no reservations about the solidity of the science at all.

Finally, I don’t see why you’ve never been impressed by Toyota. Toyota has built several vehicles that impress me. The Prius, for a start. Excellent fuel economy through remarkable technical innovation (regenerative braking! A/C entirely electrical! Coolant siphoned into a thermos when not operating!). More remarkably, in spite of its complexity, it offers good reliability. You can watch Chevy’s Volt program all you like but Toyota, Honda and even Ford have good parallel hybrid vehicles on the road, NOW, at reasonable prices.

Luther, it is certainly true that science is not a popularity contest. However, I look to people trained in the field to evaluate the work of their colleagues (which they do) and to say, “yes, your theory is clear; yes, your evidence makes sense; yes, your evidence supports your theory” or to punch holes in their colleagues’ work (while there’s not as much glory in that, it’s probably more fun and less work).

If a panel of 2500 scientists can be gathered to hammer out a broad agreement on climate, I’m going to respect their work and take notice.

The only populatiry contest or cult of personality revolves around Al Gore – specificially fuelled by the reactions of people who hate Al Gore and reject the concept of Anthropogenic Global Warming because of their hate of Al Gore or fear the policy implications of recognizing Anthropogenic Global Warming an, so, hate Al Gore for bringing it to people’s attention. People spend an inordinate amount of time cutting down Al Gore.

And, so what? Al Gore isn’t a climatologist. Al Gore did not discover the existence of greenhouse gasses, nor could he compute the energy balance of the atmosphere with different concentrations of GHGs. Al Gore’s contribution has been to bring considerable attention to the work of people who research GHGs and climate and to shine a spotlight on a potential problem. Al has never claimed to be a climatologist – or even a scientist – and he always refers to the work of others. He listens to experts and respects them.

To point out that Al Gore’s electric bill is large or that Al Gore has ridden in a jet tells me nothing about the science.

Al Gore can commute to Cannes by private jet or a team of dolphins harnessed to a rowboat; either way I don’t care about Al Gore and, when it comes to the science involved in Global Warming, neither does practically anybody else. Personally, I had heard about GHGs and the potential for anthropogenic global warming long before I even heard of Al Gore.

And, if your “before he invented the Internet” was meant to be ironic, that would be inappropriate. Al Gore never claimed to invent the Internet. He did say he took the initiative to create it, from the foundation of work being done for DARPA and that is entirely true and Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf both agree to this.

And, finally, Luther, I’ll thank you to stop using the phrase “maggot classes” as what appears to be a reference to government workers. I know some; some are friends or the children of friends and most of them are hard working, creative and thoughtful. Like any other group, some are not; that’s the luck of the draw. All work at tasks that our elected representatives have, collectively, decided is work worth doing and, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing but dignity in that.

Wow! I have never seen or heard of a Prius ass over teakettle, but see SUV’s regularly greasy side up in the ditch here in Michigan, especially in the winter time. I suppose that Toyota needs to add Vehicle Stability Control onto the Prius – mine has it and it only kicked in once in 2 1/2 years (in the winter time). Actually, I was pushing it a bit to see whether it would do anything! I guess I’m a pretty conservative driver most of the time. My boy racer days are long done.

I was impressed with the Civic hybrid, but this car can’t (yet) be had with VSC. I suppose the center of gravity is somewhat lower than the Prius, and the handling is probably better, which compensates.

Good luck with the Escape hybrid if you buy one. I haven’t spoken to anyone with one, but have not read or heard of any horror stories. Have two colleagues with Highlander hybrids, spoke to the one (who came to me for advice since we’re friends and also since she knows I bought a Prius) and she now wants a Prius instead of her Highlander hybrid. (Her decision after having the Highlander for a year or so).

I agree that GM’s Volt is not necessarily the best idea. Toyota had to spend their OWN money – not taxpayer money (Clinton gave away tons of money to the then big 3 to develop hybrids – but was too busy getting hummers to think of forcing their hand and then demanding they build them!) My point is – Toyota spend their OWN MONEY in developing a hybrid – as did Honda – and these two systems seem to be the most logical at this point in our technological evolution. Nothing like using your own dough-ray-me to bring clarity to thought, is there?

I’ve driven a current-production Prius. The car is under-tired, squirrelly in the rain, numb handling, but seems acceptable for a town runabout. Except that’s not my driving pattern. In the past 3 months, I’ve seen three Priuses shiny side down on the freeway. One of these rollovers happened within my line of sight and I stopped. I talked to the driver a bit. He was dumbfounded how quickly he lost control during an evasive hard stop.

If I want a hybrid, there is a perfectly fine one in the form of a Ford Escape Hybrid. It’s made here, so my money stays here and in circulation all the way back to HQ and Ford’s largely US supply chain. I also haven’t seen a single Escape Hy wheels up since they’ve been introduced.

A parallel hybrid is unnecessarily complex. I’m watching GM’s progress on the Chevy Volt and its series hybrid scheme, using a small gasoline engine as a generator to recharge the batteries after the plug-in charge is used up. All the motive power is via electric motors. Simpler, more elegant, sensible. We’ll see if GM can keep it on schedule.

But I agree: Efficiency is desirable. If you reject anthropogenicism in climate change, there are good reasons to mitigate fuel consumption quite apart from global warming. In my next vehicle buying cycle, I am expecting the range of hybrid vehicles to broaden.

Phil

Maybe I’m just a simple guy with an IQ of 127, but it seems to me that if the simplest explation fits, that is the one to use.

We know that Mars and Uranus AND earth are having “some” warming each. We know that the sun has hotter and cooler “cycles” and that we are in a warming “cycle” right now.

Why are scientists even getting their undies in a bunch about “how the car is destroying the world”? It’s not even science. It’s supposition on their part.

The answer is that a certain number of elitists (Gore, et al) want to keep their standard of living up to where it is and lie / manipulate the “peasants” of the world to keep a lower standard of living so there is more for them. Doesn’t that answer make the most sense?

It’s obviously un-PC to demand that China and India stop growing economically, so these elitist hypocrites want to destroy the middle class in their own nations. So they make up this Bullfeathers to (hopefully) convince us to give up modern civilization and “cut back.”

It’s all fairly simple, and sad.

Phil, you should give a modern Prius an open-minded try. Or a Honda Civic Hybrid. (I sense you prefer Honda – they are equally good cars to Toyota in my mind – perhaps once I’ve had one, I’ll prefer them to Toyota – I’ve only had one Toyota, and that is my 2005 Prius).

I look at efficiency as a positive thing because it’s less wasteful. It’s kind of like the latent engineer deep down in my soul, doesn’t like waste. I work at a place which sells collector car insurance. One of my customers, and owner of a Model A Ford, once told me “my A gets 25 miles per gallon and it is 1928 technology – there is no excuse for modern cars not getting 50 miles per gallon”. I could not disagree – and his comment planted a seed in my mind. Within a few months, the 2004 Prius came out.

Mid-sized instead of subcompact, the new car obtained about 4 miles per gallon better than did the prior Prius, rode better, cost the same, was safer and was a highly flexible hatchback. So, I went to look and was taken by surprise. What I’d considered a “science experiment car” by Toyota had matured into a viable car.

I bought a 2005 Prius after waiting 9 1/2 months, and have steadily obtained exceptional mileage – approximately double the mileage of my wife’s mid-sized V6 car with broadly similar performance, more luggage flexability, and an equally nice ride. The technology is phenomenal. The fact that I’m recapturing some kinetic energy is fantastic, in my book.

You might consider the hybrid cars such as Prius or Civic IMA the earliest iterations of what will become the future of the automobile, or a bridge to the future of the automobile (be it hydrogen fuel cell/hybrid or full battery powered). I certainly do.

Give a Prius a try, with the idea that – why NOT use 1/2 the energy of a broadly similar car to do the same work? Plus the absence of shift-shock (mild as it may be on modern cars) will start to spoil you if you switch to a Prius or Civic. I always feel slightly annoyed in my wife’s Sonata with conventional drive; shift, shift, shift. How archaic! Plus I feel wasteful when I put on the brakes – all that nice energy – being wasted by conversion into heat instead of captured!

Like it or not, folks, Toyota are right – hybrids are going to be in “everything” on wheels within a decade or so. Honda are coming around to this realization, but are less convinced. But they’re convinced enough that I’ll make a prediction.

Companies NOT on the hybrid bandwagon within a decade will fall by the wayside permanently, and hybrid-centric auto makers will rule the day.

Services- is not a logical development of a country, it is a sign of a decline of the country. japan doesn`t quit manufacturing. Are they underdeveloped?

In fact services are a logical development of economic maturation, when seen as a percentage of economic activity. Like Japan, the US hasn’t quit manufacturing, and retains leadership in several areas. But outside of manufacturing, Japan is underdeveloped in significant ways that keep the standard of living of individuals well below what you’d expect from their GDP. Japan has nowhere near our distributional nor financial markets efficiency, ability to provide high quality housing, nor are they commensurate with our level of economic mobility. The US hasn’t quit growing food either, even though the rest of our economy grew faster. In fact, we were the major generator of the green revolution and still the prodigious producer despite seeing agriculture decline from 80% of the workforce engaged there to 1% in a century. We won’t cease manufacturing, but what we manufacture will change over time.

And your american cheapness of manufacturign is felt ewerywhere- starting from Folgers coffee and endind with paper quality of fashion magazines.

Every culture puts its stamp on what it makes. The US is the progenitor of mass manufacturing, logical for our challenge of creating a new and huge country quickly, and assimilating the flow of people to it. Our whole business ethic has been to make material wealth more accessible to everyone. We created the world’s first majority middle class. Folger’s Coffee makes perfect sense and many people like it. It doesn’t matter that you or I don’t. They sell a lot of coffee for a reason. Japan is a craft culture that came late to mass manufacturing. Same is true for some European countries. European cars have over their history not had the long-term durability of simpler American iron that was made in larger quantities and available less expensively and this was in part due to craft cultures of France, Italy, the UK. Germany is a blend with a true industrial heritage. For us, material access is vital. It’s always amusing to see Europeans come to the US, stunned by how affordable cars are here, along with most other things. Many aspects of material quality of life we Americans take for granted are not within reach of Japanese, Chinese and Europeans of similar economic standing. But there are other compensations. The world isn’t (yet) homogenized. Every culture has its own priorities.

The paper quality of some US magazines is a reflection of greater migration to recycled stock, as well as the faster movement of media audiences from paper to the Web here. Some high end magazines are printed on par with high-end Japanese and European magazines, but not more than the market requires.

American manufacturing is market-driven, not government protected, with a few mild exceptions. Under competitive pressure, every American automotive brand is producing superior product to 5, 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Boeing is the largest aircraft maker and it’s not a government enterprise, unlike its Euro counterpart. But the US’ competitive advantage is in creative output, design, software, imagineering, entertainment, technical services, business services, aerospace engineering and fabrication, energy services, data services, etc. A service economy isn’t just fast food. It is real muscle too. What we need and undoubtedly will have is a continuing mixed economy. I’d like to see American consumers take more responsibility for the viability of the US automotive sector, but overall we’re moving to a higher-order knowledge economy that is more creatively driven than process driven, though the older endeavors will remain big parts of the mix.

Phil

Not many people can comprehend that science is not a popularity contest…Always looking for WHO to believe rather than WHAT to believe.

Al Gore is a classic example of someone who drove themself crazy because he could no longer keep his lies straight (The Human brain’s ability to memorize fades with age. The Brain works best as a concept-integrating device). Good that he invented the Internet before that happened.

if an overwhelming majority of scientists think that there’s no case for anthropogenic global warming, why didn’t they show up at the IPCC and say so?

First, I didn’t ever say a majority of scientists disagree with anthropogenicism on climate change. (Although if you claim a majority for that side I have to point out that while Al Gore cited some 2,000 scientists, most of whom are not climate or atmospherically specialized, nearly 9X that number signed a petition stating that climate knowledge was not sufficiently sophisticated to warrant the actions in Kyoto.) I said majorities aren’t convincing for their existence. I don’t know or care which side has the actual majority. I only care who’s correct.

I can’t say for sure why more dissent isn’t published through the IPCC. But I am sure that part of the reason is that dissenting from the view of the IPCC is a little like dissenting with the Vatican, trying to discuss the point that the existence of God or the Holy Trinity cannot be proven. The IPCC , like a prosecutor, worked toward a preconceived conclusion.

And don’t say “there’s an avalanche of countervailing evidence and inference of available data all over the web.” The Web is evidence that Sturgeon’s Law, “99% of Everything is Crud” applies to Information Theory.

No kidding. An avalanche of information arguing anthropogenic cause to climate change is also available. To be fair I suppose you have to assume 99% of that is crap too. Sturgeon doesn’t take sides.

I’ve repeatedly been told that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, to go look at this web site or that web site and I find essays using stale, distorted and skewed data, all sourced out of a very few “scientists” who mostly have their hands in the pockets of the carbon companies.

I’ve already explained why this is irrelevant if the data and reasoning taken by such people is sound. I don’t believe the science is a hoax, but the political use of it is.

However, we’re running a global atmospheric experiment (to wit, how much CO2 can ol’ Mother Nature take?) in a laboratory that also doubles as our home. We’d be smart to curb our hubris and our appetites for carbon and reduce our risk.

And that experiment gets run for us every time there is a spike in volcanic activity. My answer to the point of being prudent is this: Fine. If you’re serious about reducing carbon emissions, lets not start with transportation, instead immediately start installing carbon sequestering at every fossil-fuel-burning generating plant in the US, and elsewhere. That’s something we can actually have an impact with within a decade. Mobility is essential to prosperity. Let’s keep mobility while the car gets engineered out of the equation.

the IPCC report DOES notice and consider increased solar activity. They have reasons for believing it accounts for just 10% of the warming phenomenon. Just because some web site with an agenda tells you a bunch of conspiratorial scientists with a social agenda are ignoring it does not mean they’re ignoring it.

Some solar astronomers believe their (IPCC) accounting underestimates the role of solar output, and their reasoning for the 10% is a wing-it number. Mounting evidence suggests solar variance is the 1st order instigator.

I have no argument with a scientist who says, “I know my climate models are feeble and this isn’t a proven case, but my best judgment tells me we have a climate change problem that is induced by us and we must change some things to avert a catastrophe.” That’s what I hear in private from climatologists who are on the anthropogenic bandwagon. That’s not nearly the same as “’the debate is over’ and you’re getting curtailed because we’re gonna use this panic to regulate you.”

Most anthropogenics admit their computer climate models are far from an analog to the actual climate and the factors that influence it. They just work with the best they have. It’s a feeble start, and the political users of selective science would have much more credibility if they admitted the element of doubt.

The IPCC hasn’t answered simple questions:

1/ Why is 1850’s climate defined as “normal,” when man has been present for cooler and warmer periods?
2/ Why do you have confidence in computer models that can’t explain prior warm(er) periods when human carbon contribution was nil?
3/ Why should we believe the same community that predicted global cooling 30 years ago, with the same certainty?
4/ With mounting evidence that the solar system is in a warming phase, why don’t you re-evaluate your data and conclusions in light of new information?
5/ Why do you underplay the role of water vapor as a greenhouse gas, as well as the role of methane?

Phil

Also, FYI, I’m dying to get “herded” onto public rapid transit. There isn’t any kind of decent service here and I’d rather sit and read the paper on my way to work than sit and stare at some Hummer’s ass, waiting for the light ahead to go green so that I can crawl forward two more blocks and find mysel sitting and staring at that Hummer’s ass again. When I drive my car, I want to enjoy the experience, not just endure it.

Why don’t they publish? I mean, publish where and how it really counts as science?

And don’t say “there’s an avalanche of countervailing evidence and inference of available data all over the web.” The Web is evidence that Sturgeon’s Law, “99% of Everything is Crud” applies to Information Theory.

A tiny sliver of the web is edited, fact-checked or subject to critical review. The rest of it is just out there… way out there.

I’ve repeatedly been told that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, to go look at this web site or that web site and I find essays using stale, distorted and skewed data, all sourced out of a very few “scientists” who mostly have their hands in the pockets of the carbon companies.

Now, it may be that a lot of very sincere, very smart and very hard-working scientists are wrong and that we have nothing to worry about for one reason or another. However, we’re running a global atmospheric experiment (to wit, how much CO2 can ol’ Mother Nature take?) in a laboratory that also doubles as our home. We’d be smart to curb our hubris and our appetites for carbon and reduce our risk.

That the world is not flat is empirically provable. We have no debate between conjectures on that. Climate change itself is empirically observable and even provable, but the contention that it is anthropogenic is not. This is a conjecture and one for which its proponents have blithely dismissed every dissenting, undermining data point as irrelevant because they say so. That’s not persuasive. We have a continuing debate between conjectures: one side says they read the available evidence as the cause is human. The other side says both the evidence and the reasoning are insufficient to draw that conclusion and the conjecture isn’t actionable.

Bureaucracies and the politicians who are inclined to regulation always coalesce around phenomena that can suggest crisis, whether or not the crisis is real. A substantial portion of western liberal polity is elitist (I say this as a disappointed liberal) and deeply irritated by personal freedom and the tendency of individuals to ignore elites. The Greens and many Democrats in the US would love nothing better than to punish Detroit, saddle the power companies, throttle oil, herd you to public transit and make you drive 55 in a 30 hp car. But they won’t, because people are smarter than that in the aggregate, and the personal transporter — the automobile — is going to be gradually engineered out of the problem.

One of many overriding facts: We have empirically observed planetary warming simultaneously on two planets in our solar system that have atmospheres, and empirically-measured increased solar reflectance from at least one gas giant. When this warming trend peaks, a future generation of people who can’t see beyond their locally and temporally restricted reference will peg that moment to “normal” and the cooling alarm will sound. Can’t wait for the bleating demanding the return to the carbon-emitting internal combustion engine! Perhaps Toyota will make it the cornerstone of their illusory environmentalism then.

Phil

TTAC has no more intrinsic credibility than an ad-monetized car magazine.

The old adage in investigative journalism is to “follow the money.” Your posts haven’t convinced me that this rule suddenly no longer applies.

It’s pretty obvious that Mr. Michaels is in bed with the fossil fuels producers, which makes his positions suspect. But even if he is sincere, that doesn’t change the fact that most scientists do not agree with him.

You don’t think there’s any funding of anthropogenic alarmists by governmental parties and elites that are funding an intended outcome?

Governments would be far, far better off if climate change was not a problem. If climate change was a myth, we could keep doing what we do and not worry about it — that would be a win-win for virtually everyone. The last thing that any politician wants to tell his constituents is that the party is over, that sort of pessimism just doesn’t get very many votes.

The threat of climate change is going to force massive lifestyle changes down all of our throats. I, for one, am not exactly thrilled about living in a world with more bus rides and less horsepower — even a lefty like me has his moments of hoonery — but we need to face the music and get used to it.

Debate is debate. “Widespread” has nothing to do with it.

Of course it does. The Flat Earthers clearly believe that the world isn’t round, and dedicate some effort to making the claim. But that doesn’t mean that there is a “debate” about it, it just means that a few looney-tunes make a lot of noise that most people who understand science tend to ignore.

Time and time again, it becomes clear that virtually every scientist who disputes climate change is paid to make the argument. It is also clear that there are very few of them. These two facts alone make it obvious that the debate doesn’t exist.

The only reason that the Bush administration likes to pretend that there is a “debate” is to sow seeds of doubt about something that is generally accepted by those in the know. It’s just an extension of the propaganda tactic of the “Big Lie” — keep restating a falsehood often enough so that the unknowing masses begin to believe it.

You don’t think there’s any funding of anthropogenic alarmists by governmental parties and elites that are funding an intended outcome? If you don’t see this, you are not paying attention. Brush funding and organizations aside and examine the facts and the reasoning. The facts and the reasoning — including facts that continue to pour in which anthropogenics choose not to assimilate, do not support anthropogenic cause for climate change.

Debate is debate. “Widespread” has nothing to do with it. Science has repeatedly found itself vulnerable to being proved wrong when “widespread” was equated to “certain,” in matters of conjecture and projection of incomplete understanding of current phenomena.

I already said that majorities are not convincing, so why cite what you believe to be a game of numbers? This is not persuasive. Once again, Michaels operates a compendium, not a singular blog. The sources of dissent and dissenting data are numerous.

Phil

If you believe that, then it’s interesting that you’d like TTAC. One of the basic premises of this website is that it has more credibility than do those the glossy car mags because unlike them, TTAC is not dependent upon handouts from the automotive industry.

It’s easy to see the linkage here. Scientist bought and paid for by the mining and oil/gas industries says stuff that said industry wants to here. No surprise there.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of scientists don’t agree with Mr. Michaels or his small editorial staff. But you’d like to claim that the existence of his website proves that there is massive debate, despite the fact that almost nobody engages in it.

False logic, all around. Again, “debate” is equivalent to widespread disagreement. There is no such widespread disagreement. Very few people with credibility in the sciences agree with Mr. Michaels. You’d like to claim that there is some sort of massive gag order that prevents them from speaking, yet it’s hard to imagine that being true when the only guys who seem to hold the contrary position are tied directly to the producers of fossil fuels.

Yes, we were talking about Toyota. My prior point was that the role of Toyota’s marketing is underestimated in their market rise in the US. The cars aren’t that exceptional. Honda is more deserving if it were only about product and quality. Toyota has had mediocre but reliable product with some of the most consistent marketing of all the mass producer brands, for over 20 years.

Phil

In any academic environment of relevant scientists, you can find evidence in person-to-person interaction that the debate over climate change causal factors is alive and kicking. Only in Al Gore’s mind is it “over.”

Again, new information continues to cast doubt, yet anthropogenics fail to process new data. It’s just another form of dogma.

Phil

Hey, aren’t we talking about Toyota here?