Nice piece…. to much to respond too as a whole but just one point….
When the Bureaucratic science spokes people say anything, I tend to take it with a big grain of salt. The easiest way to take a bright engineer or scientist and make them stupid is to turn them into the “B” word…. everything goes down hill from there… anyway, in particular, when the term statistical significance(SS)is used, I always shutter a bit. There are some things or perhaps better said as situations, that are very difficult to show SS without an exact control reference. As example, if we had another earth 180 degrees in space across from us, that was just like us except that humans were not there, we could compare and KNOW exactly the effect ~6.5 billion of us had on the planet. Of course, that is currently unavailable (no parallel control group, or planet in this case) so you have to try and show SS using other means. In many situations where and exact control is absent, SS can not be shown until the end game is basically over. In this scenario waiting that long will probably be way to late. Climate is complex, however, so is putting a man on the moon, but you don’t need a PHD to know that the rocket at least went up and came back down. Simple observation is all that is required…..

…..Bill

Clearly all of the scientists quoted in my post here have made many other statements on the subject of climate science than those I have quoted.

If you re-read the quote I used from Dr. Lacis, it doesn’t suggest at all that climate change is not happening, but rather that the IPCC presented the science in an unprofessional manner. I have not seen any indication that Dr. Lacis has actually retracted that statement, only that he clarified his views on the science.

As Dr. Lacis suggested in his criticism of the IPCC report, extreme rhetoric on climate issues doesn’t help address the problem.

If you re-read what I wrote:

“Personally I feel absolutely certain that humans must be having some influence on climate, just based on the scale of influence that 6.8 billion people have on everything on the planet. Very few people would disagree with that premise. But clarifying how the many human and natural factors impacting climate will interact, how those factors will manifest themselves in complex climate systems, how significant our human influence will be and whether changes will have positive or negative impacts on agriculture and other critical aspects of human society, are all determinations that unfortunately are outside any clear understanding or real consensus in the scientific community at this time.”

My point here is that the politics of how many environmentalists present the issue are unnecessarily divisive and that detracts from the goal of actually addressing the problem.

Yes, I used the word alarmist in what I wrote. I also used the word skeptic. Perhaps I should have tried to find some new less inflammatory words that describe the varying positions of this debate. The bottom line is that like many others, I think it is past time to be arguing. Its also past time for politicians to be selling out to Wall Street or the nuclear power corporate welfare interests and instead create real solutions to the problem that people of all political persuasions can agree to.

Others may not embrace the climate issue with the same concern that you do, but will embrace responsible solutions like a revenue neutral carbon tax if we address the solution from a perspective of economic problems, jobs, terrorism, national security, balance of trade and other issues that they do care about.

Respected responsible scientists like Phil Jones, Judith Curry, and James Lovelock readily acknowledge that significant scientific uncertainties remain in climate science. The point here is that uncertainty really doesn’t matter.

Nobody responsible is suggesting that the climate is not changing or that human factors have no influence. As I suggested, I anticipated reactions like being called things like a “flat-earth climate-change denier”:

“I expect that acknowledging the scientific uncertainties regarding the long held beliefs of many of my friends in the environmental movement may result in some calling my integrity and intentions into question. The best answer I can offer them is that unlike those supporting ineffective convoluted answers currently favored in Washington, I am serious enough in my concern on these issues to advocate for policy solutions like H.R. 2380, The Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act that puts an immediate, real and dependable price on carbon emissions. That bipartisan legislation would also address our economic and unemployment problems as well as our energy and environmental concerns and it wouldn’t add a penny to our monstrous federal debt. That’s the kind of solution the vast majority of Americans would support and that credible politicians should also support if they are really more serious about solving problems than they are about handing out pork to their special interest benefactors.”

As you suggest, I do have a political agenda. I hope that NESEA and other organizations which are concerned with climate issues will help advocate for real and effective solutions like a revenue neutral carbon tax rather than the corrupt solutions currently favored in Washington.

Cap and Trade favored by the Wall Street interests who stand to benefit most from the scheme would create what US Commodities Future Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton is quoted by the Financial Times as predicting would become “the biggest of any derivatives product in the next four to five years.” We all know how well the mortgage derivatives game worked out.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag described some of the challenges of Cap and Trade in his testimony to Congress last March saying: “If you didn’t auction the permit, it would represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States”. Let’s see how the politicians and lobbyists handle that question.

Its clear that emerging legislation is going to feature massive new handouts for the corporate welfare champions in the nuclear industry. That in itself speaks volumes about the real interests in Washington.

I firmly believe that a less polarized political debate around climate issues would help lead to responsible solutions that most Americans would favor and that would not only reduce carbon emissions immediately, but could also create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and address all sorts of real concerns of all Americans.

I agree 100% regarding “the economic basket cases and environmental disasters like nuclear in particular.” The economics of nuclear power are outrageous and your comment doesn’t even begin to address the terrorism, national security, health and civil liberties concerns that will ultimately become apparent with the widespread disbursement of nuclear materials. Anyone thinking that nuclear power is an answer to anything at all other than subsidizing one of the biggest corporate welfare schemes in history really needs to think a bit deeper.

The economics of renewables are a different matter.

Well sited wind projects are already competitive with coal and natural gas fired generators. If the subsidies for everyone were removed and we taxed carbon or natural resource extraction or pollution to offset currently ignored “economic externalities” of traditional fuels, wind would be our least cost electricity supply.

Solar economics really depends on regulatory factors. Today, throughout the country even after so called “utility deregulation”, generally utility regulators strictly control retail electricity prices. Resulting blended electrical rates shield customers from the feedback signals of real electricity price signals.

Past NESEA Board member Dr. Richard Perez published studies almost a decade ago showing that because solar irradiance is coincident with peak demand on the grid, if consumers had to pay the actual spot market electricity prices, solar would have been economical in New York without subsidy even back then. Since that time, the price of solar has dropped dramatically while the price of electricity from the grid has risen.

Real time-of-use pricing, combined with emerging demand response technology and services, would also have huge beneficial impacts on conservation and energy efficiency.

Solar and wind also lend themselves to distributed generation, reducing the need for transmission and distribution infrastructure. But those benefits are not directly accounted for in the current economics of electricity markets.

Bottom line: I agree with you that once “the subsidies are removed, the truth about polluting industries will be exposed for all to see”. And I also agree that we should aim to eliminate subsidies for clean energy as well by working toward a market based regulatory environment which provides real and clear price signals to consumers on both the current real-time costs of electricity and the very real “economic externalities” of incumbent energy providers that are in truth just massive public subsidies for polluting energy systems.

The discussion about whether we should be taxing carbon, natural resource extraction, consumption generally, or a broad basket of pollution is one that we really should be having in the environmental community. It is pretty clear that any such tax shifting that captures public benefit for the consumption or despoiling of natural resources would provide far more rational and favorable economic impacts than our current system of taxing work, productivity and job creation.

Of course we will be told that economically rational solutions are not politically feasible. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t advocate for rational solutions. It only goes to prove how corrupt and irrational our politics have become.

Fred Unger uses the criticism of the IPCC4 by Dr. Andrew A. Lacis, with this oft-misued quote: “There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary.”

What Dr. Lacis has just published is this: “My earlier criticism had been that the IPCC AR4 report was equivocating in not stating clearly and forcefully enough that human-induced warming of the climate system is established fact, and not something to be labeled as “very likely” at the 90 percent probability level.”
http://anunexpectederror.blogspot.com/2010/02/andrew-lacis-on-climate-science.html

It appears that this Fred Unger is just one more person with his own political agenda who has chosen to cherry-pick and misquote experts to suit his prejudice while denying the largest scientific consensus in the history of the scientific enterprise.

The dead give away was when he used the term “climate alarmists” for those who’s objective research has consistently underestimated the rate of anthropogenic global warming and climate disruption.

When climatologists and emergency preparedness agencies warn of the danger of an impending hurricane or tsunami, they are not called “alarmists”. So when anyone uses that loaded term in an argument against the science of climate change, it’s clear that they have the same kind of distorted agenda as the Tea Baggers who are yelling “baby killer” at conservative Congresspersons.

I agree, once the subsidies are removed, the the truth about polluting industries will be exposed for all to see. However, to be fair, the non polluting industries must also shed thier subsidies. Then we’ll all see just what welfare cases the wind, solar and nuclear industries are. Let the public decide what industry they want to continue to support.

My guess, they’ll opt for coal or oil fired power because it is old technology, it’s cheap to build, cheap to maintain and efficient, but the problem is the carbon emissions. Big problem yes, but not something which cannot be overcome.

The cleaning up of polluting industries like coal power is cheap compared to the economic basket cases and environmental disasters like nuclear in particular.