Comments for Sending me back to think again at http://www.adamsmith.org , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.adamsmith.org Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:58:46 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/environment/sending-me-back-to-think-again-200805051335/#comment-156 Carbon Taxes are just a scam. They are alarmist in nature which suggests that if you don't react as alarmist, then you strike the right balance. However, in this case, its all about red herrings. The politicians want the carbon taxes to be acceptable, and to dismiss the alarmist scenario would seem to be a compromise they can offer. Its like the VAT on heating a few years ago. Politicians demanded a full 17.5%, debate knocked it down to 8% and everyone was happy - except the taxpayer who was now paying 8% more then the day before! We don't need a carbon tax because carbon is not bad for anyone. This is just an excuse for politicians to justify their positions. Climate change seems to have become the religion of our times. - Oli Tue, 06 May 2008 10:59:31 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/environment/sending-me-back-to-think-again-200805051335/#comment-151 It presumes man is the cause. We've been cooling since the latter nineties yet China, Russia, India, South America etc. are pumping more into the atmosphere than ever before. There was a consensus in the mid seventies having the opposite conclusion, only, they didn't have the funding, political and ideological machine. Worldwide we've just had one of the coldest winters on record. Antarctica has been growing in mass. If this weren't a religion of sorts on high we would have a much different discussion trickle down to the common citizen. So for me, the reasonable approach does not accept the popular. - Steevo Mon, 05 May 2008 11:11:48 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/environment/sending-me-back-to-think-again-200805051335/#comment-150 I agree that it is all a horribly complex mess - not least because everyone has a different opinion on climate change since there are so many steps in the argument and each person seems to have a different place at which they stop in the chain. (I mean the chain that goes dsomething like 1. there is a trend of global warming, 2. it will be severe enough to cause problems overall, 3. it is caused mainly by anthropogenic CO2, 4. reducing CO2 production etc. would reverse climate change, 5. humans can achieve this reduction ad control climate via political means or indeed by any other means such as technological, 6, this reduction will make a difference quickly enough to be worth doing, 7, the reduction in C02 needs to be done now and cannot be delayed, 8. The reduction in CO2 will help more than it will harm - and so on...) I fall off this chain quite early becuase I have near-zero faith in climate modelling, since none of the models have been validated - none. I mean validated prospectively - not retrospectively. So I was not surprised that this week's climate story was that 'natural' changes in the climate have somehow reversed (for a few years at least, this week's models predict) the supposedly overwhelming effect of anthropogenic CO2 increases... But mainly I feel that there is no reason to suppose human action of any conceivable sort can control the global climate. Be nice if it could, but this is pure wishful thinking. Very very probably humans can't control the planetary climate, just as we can't control the weather. What we can do is science and technology and technical capability - to deal with whatever climate change happens - deal with it like the US rather than Bangladesh. So - I'd say forget about daydreams of planetary climate control, and get prepared to deal with it - whatever 'it' turns out to be. - BGC Mon, 05 May 2008 10:17:22 +0100