WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

[Monkey1976]

from priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Overview

What is a fossil fuel subsidy?

A fossil fuel subsidy is any government action that lowers the cost of fossil fuel energy production, raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers. There are a lot of activities under this simple definition—tax breaks and giveaways, but also loans at favorable rates, price controls, purchase requirements and a whole lot of other things. – priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2009/09/koplowtypesofsubsidy.pdf

Their argument seems to be based around redefining “subsidy” into something it means nowhere else. Outside of that echo-chamber website, a subsidy is money paid out with no expectation of return or renumeration. Calling deductions a subsidy is an example of the worst kind of straw-man argument.

How much money does the U.S. government provide to support the oil, gas and coal industries?

In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually yet these don’t even include costs borne by taxpayers related to the climate, local environmental, and health impacts of the fossil fuel industry.

None of that money actually comes from government coffers. It’s standard deductions - the vast majority of which are available to any commercial enterprise. When you take a deduction on your taxes, is the government giving you money that you didn’t have before, or is it reducing the amount of money you have to pay them? If we look at “alt-energy” companies, that’s when we start seeing the government actually handing out money beyond these deductions.

 

[Ridgerunner]

youtube.com/watch?v=DJuRjy9k7GA

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 26 year old poet of the Marhall Islands, addresses the opening of the Climate Summit in New York. To her baby, to the world:

dear matafele peinam,
you are a seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles
you are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha
you are thunder thighs and lightning shrieks so excited for bananas, hugs
and our morning walks past the lagoon

dear matafele peinam,
i want to tell you about that lagoon that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise
some men say that one day that lagoon will devour you
they say it will gnaw at the shoreline
chew at the roots of your breadfruit trees
gulp down rows of your seawalls
and crunch your island’s shattered bones
they say you, your daughter
and your granddaughter, too
will wander rootless
with only a passport to call home

dear matafele peinam,
don’t cry
mommy promises you
no one
will come and devour you
no greedy whale of a company
sharking through political seas
no backwater bullying of businesses with broken morals no blindfolded
bureaucracies gonna push
this mother ocean over
the edge
no one’s drowning, baby
no one’s moving
no one’s losing
their homeland
no one’s gonna become
a climate change refugee
or should i say
no one else

to the carteret islanders of papua new guinea
and to the taro islanders of fiji
i take this moment
to apologize to you

we are drawing the line here
because baby we are going to fight
your mommy daddy
bubu jimma your country and president too
we will all fight
and even though there are those
hidden behind platinum titles
who like to pretend
that we don’t exist
that the marshall islands
tuvalu
kiribati
maldives
and typhoon haiyan in the philippines
and floods of pakistan, algeria, and colombia
and all the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidalwaves
didn’t exist

still
there are those
who see us
hands reaching out
fists raising up
banners unfurling
megaphones booming
and we are
canoes blocking coal ships
we are
the radiance of solar villages
we are
the rich clean soil of the farmer’s past
we are
petitions blooming from teenage fingertips
we are
families biking, recycling, reusing,
engineers dreaming, designing, building,
artists painting, dancing, writing
we are spreading the word
and there are thousands out on the street
marching with signs
hand in hand
chanting for change NOW

they’re marching for you, baby
they’re marching for us
because we deserve to do more than just
survive
we deserve
to thrive

dear matafele peinam,
you are eyes heavy
with drowsy weight
so just close those eyes, baby
and sleep in peace
because we won’t let you down
you’ll see

What a terrible thing for a mother to tell her child (if, indeed, she does)
And if the mother believes her utterances, what a terrible thing it was for people to make her believe such things.

You would certainly think so if someone wrote something like this to her child:

Sleep in peace little baby
Your mommy and your daddy won’t let the environmentalists get you
With their wish to make you freeze and die
And have no food.

The world-devouring people
Who wish to own everything
And make your daddy have no job
And make your mommy cry with fear

Have things to sell; windmills, panels, batteries
That sicken and poison and kill birds
And so they wish to kill your mommy…
With fumes from their heavy metals…

And so on. Nauseating. Just nauseating.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Their argument seems to be based around redefining “subsidy” into something it means nowhere else. Outside of that echo-chamber website, a subsidy is money paid out with no expectation of return or renumeration. Calling deductions a subsidy is an example of the worst kind of straw-man argument.

None of that money actually comes from government coffers. It’s standard deductions - the vast majority of which are available to any commercial enterprise. When you take a deduction on your taxes, is the government giving you money that you didn’t have before, or is it reducing the amount of money you have to pay them? If we look at “alt-energy” companies, that’s when we start seeing the government actually handing out money beyond these deductions.

Now, a REAL subsidy is the $200,000 or so the government pays to build Volts so people can buy them for $30,000 or whatever.

 

[Monkey1976]

Now, a REAL subsidy is the $200,000 or so the government pays to build Volts so people can buy them for $30,000 or whatever.

DING! We have a winner!

 

[Theo520]

Now, a REAL subsidy is the $200,000 or so the government pays to build Volts so people can buy them for $30,000 or whatever.

What is also ignored is how much is paid already by such companies. From 2012

• Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%,
• Chevron’s was 48.3%
• Conoco’s was 41.5%.
  That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.

Our largest tax payers already are companies in carbon energy.

 

[weller2]

Canada has 43 million hectares of arable land (approximately one-quarter that of the U.S.) Arable land makes up about 7.9% of Canada’s total land mass. To date only 0.7% of Canada’s total land area is productive farmland. Essentially, that means Canada could bring into production over time the remaining 7.2% of its land mass.

Whooosh. That was the sound of my point flying over your head.

Could Canada increase arable area 10-fold? Possibly. But: agriculture currently employs 4% of people in Alberta. 10-fold increase in cropland, ceteris paribus would mean sending 40% of workforce into agriculture. There would also be a corresponding change in GDP composition and export structure. Canada would no longer be an industrial economy but an agricultural one – with all the problems it entails. I doubt Canadians would like the idea

This is why “adaptiation is cheaper” is a lie – high warming scenarios would require remodelling of the entire world economy. If we must remodel the entire world economy anyway, we can as well move it off carbon.

The surface mineable area of the tar sands region is 475,000 hectares. That is just over 1% of Canada’s total arable land. I am not clear how “irreversibly polluting” 1% of its arable land will effectively destroy productivity on the remaining 98.9% of the potentially productive land mass. Perhaps you could explain that to me. Thanks.

One word: water.

 

[weller2]

I found this graphic quite telling:

http://www.catholicvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/per-square-mile.png

Yeah, it’s quite telling about the level of ignorance of its author.

NYC uses much more space than it occupies directly, because you also need to grow the food to feed New Yorkers. Last time I was in Manhattan, there were not many farms around.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Whooosh. That was the sound of my point flying over your head.

Could Canada increase arable area 10-fold? Possibly. But: agriculture currently employs 4% of people in Alberta. 10-fold increase in cropland, ceteris paribus would mean sending 40% of workforce into agriculture. There would also be a corresponding change in GDP composition and export structure. Canada would no longer be an industrial economy but an agricultural one – with all the problems it entails. I doubt Canadians would like the idea

This is why “adaptiation is cheaper” is a lie – high warming scenarios would require remodelling of the entire world economy. If we must remodel the entire world economy anyway, we can as well move it off carbon.

With all due respect, you’re mistaken in projecting the number of people to be engaged in farming in Canada. Farming is one of those things in which scale matters a lot. You don’t increase farm labor ten-fold by increasing farm land ten-fold. You do a little, but not by very much. One farmer can go from farming 500 acres to 2,000 acres by upgrading his equipment and not hiring anybody.

And it’s going to get more that way as time goes on. I know a guy who farms about 5,000 acres. He uses four very large tractors at a time. Only one of them is operated by a human being. The other three are controlled remotely by a combination of GPS coordinates in their computers and corrections made by him from his tractor if need be. It truly is a marvel how that works.

Ranching is somewhat different, but not a whole lot. One human being with one helper could handle the cattle on a 100 acre ranch or a 1,000 acre ranch. For most of them the helper would be a family member. The equipment would be different, of course. Bigger corrals, mainly, and an ATV or a very good cattle dog and no ATV. I’ll admit it’s tough to run cattle without a helper on those few times/year when you take them through the corrals for separation, vet work, loading and so on. But that’s as true on a 100 acre ranch as it is on a 1000 acre ranch.

 

[estesbob]

Yeah, it’s quite telling about the level of ignorance of its author.

NYC uses much more space than it occupies directly, because you also need to grow the food to feed New Yorkers. Last time I was in Manhattan, there were not many farms around.

Looks Like the rest of the world is available for farming

 

[Theo520]

This is why “adaptiation is cheaper” is a lie --** high warming scenarios would require remodelling of the entire world economy**. If we must remodel the entire world economy anyway, we can as well move it off carbon.
.

It is ludicrous for anyone to focus on the ‘high warming scenarios’
They only exist in the climate activists’ wet dreams, and unsupported IPCC projections for encouraging policy change.

More and more research is pegging CO2 sensitivity between 1.5 to 2.5, meaning we can’t change the climate and must deal with natural variation…

 

[Theo520]

This is why “adaptiation is cheaper” is a lie --** high warming scenarios would require remodeling of the entire world economy**. If we must remodel the entire world economy anyway, we can as well move it off carbon.
.

It is ludicrous for anyone to focus on the ‘high warming scenarios’
They only exist in the climate activists’ wet dreams,

More and more research is pegging CO2 sensitivity between 1.5 to 2.5, meaning we can’t change the climate and must deal with natural variation…

 

[lynnvinc]

Yeah, it’s quite telling about the level of ignorance of its author.

NYC uses much more space than it occupies directly, because you also need to grow the food to feed New Yorkers. Last time I was in Manhattan, there were not many farms around.

Yes, but don’t you see. Once AGW really kicks in at, say 6C, which could happen end of this century and very likely by the end of the next, most of the world’s population will be killed off, and the beleaguered remnant will easily be able to fit in various areas around the Arctic and maybe even farm them, assuming they are not busy fighting each other over what life-sustaining resources are left.

 

[Mark121359]

Wow! Talk about hypocrites. Have a look at the tons of garbage these so- called
“environmentalists” left behind on the streets of N.Y. City. Earth lovers?..Uh huh.
breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/22/litterbugs-climate-marchers-leave-piles-of-trash-behind
fchornet.com/news/climate-change-protesters-who-marched-through-manhattan-are-branded-hypocrites-for-leaving-litter-strewn-across-the-city-h4662.html
newsmax.com/US/climate-march-trash-Manhattan/2014/09/22/id/596221/

And then there’s Robert Kennedy Jr. He’s on record for accusing global warming deniers of “treason” and complains that there’s no law that can be used to put them in jail. No, you read that right. Kennedy is actually lamenting the fact that the United States government currently does not have any laws on the books that would allow them to prosecute people who dispute global warming. Kennedy had this to say about global warming skeptics; "They are contemptible human beings.”…Wow!..tolerant bunch, aren’t they?

Peace, Mark

 

[sps49]

Yes, but don’t you see. Once AGW really kicks in at, say 6C, which could happen end of this century and very likely by the end of the next, most of the world’s population will be killed off, and the beleaguered remnant will easily be able to fit in various areas around the Arctic and maybe even farm them, assuming they are not busy fighting each other over what life-sustaining resources are left.

Do you write a lot of dystopian science fiction?

 

[Mark121359]

Yes, but don’t you see. Once AGW really kicks in at, say 6C, which could happen end of this century and very likely by the end of the next, most of the world’s population will be killed off, and the beleaguered remnant will easily be able to fit in various areas around the Arctic and maybe even farm them, assuming they are not busy fighting each other over what life-sustaining resources are left.

Do you write a lot of dystopian science fiction?

That post reminds me of Ted Danson. In 1988 he predicted that we only had ten years to live because the oceans were going to die, and if the oceans died, then we would soon follow. Well it’s been 26 years since that prediction, and we’re still kicking…

Peace, Mark

 

[lynnvinc]

Do you write a lot of dystopian science fiction?

I like sci fi, but reality is so much worse…

 

[lynnvinc]

That post reminds me of Ted Danson. In 1988 he predicted that we only had ten years to live because the oceans were going to die, and if the oceans died, then we would soon follow. Well it’s been 26 years since that prediction, and we’re still kicking…

Peace, Mark

Actually the oceans are in process of a big die off, but not bec of AGW so much as pollution, over-fishing, acidification, eutrophication in many places, etc.

 

[sps49]

I like sci fi, but reality is so much worse…

We as Catholics live within God’s Ultimate Reality, and you now insist that is a bad thing? I am thankful that I do not share your dark, hopeless perception. When I slip into this kind of thinking I find that speaking with my spiritual director does wonders to challenge my skewed perception.

 

[weller2]

It is ludicrous for anyone to focus on the ‘high warming scenarios’
They only exist in the climate activists’ wet dreams, and unsupported IPCC projections for encouraging policy change.

More and more research is pegging CO2 sensitivity between 1.5 to 2.5, meaning we can’t change the climate and must deal with natural variation…

Assuming sensitivity of 2C per CO2 doubling, and pre-industrial CO2 at 200ppm…

400ppm → +2C
800ppm → +4C
1600ppm → +6C
3200ppm → +8C

Earth’s total stock of fossil carbon is estimated at 5000ppm equivalent. So even under 2C sensitivity, a 6C warming requires only burning 1/3rd of carbon reserves.

 

[weller2]

With all due respect, you’re mistaken in projecting the number of people to be engaged in farming in Canada. Farming is one of those things in which scale matters a lot. You don’t increase farm labor ten-fold by increasing farm land ten-fold. You do a little, but not by very much. One farmer can go from farming 500 acres to 2,000 acres by upgrading his equipment and not hiring anybody.

Well, that was of course assuming that the current allocation of labor is optimal. If you can increase farming area without increasing employment, it means that your business is run in a sub-optimal way, because you could as well decrease employment and cut costs. Saying that you could increase farming area 10-fold without increasing employment is the same as saying that the farming sector is overstaffed by the factor of 10. While it probably is indeed overstafffed (i.e. one farmer runs a farm which only takes 0.5 farmers to run) it is unlikely that it is overstaffed at such proportions you assert.

There’s also a “small” problem that global warming will cause the price of arable land to increase. Arguably, this is already happening, with e.g. China purchasing large amounts of land abroad.

Labor aside, the point about increasing share of agriculture in Canadian’s GDP still stands though. If your agriculture is now responsible for 50% of GDP, then you are no longer an industrialized country.