Trump about Climate Change in the New York Times

On November 25, 2016November 25, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, TrumpLeave a comment

You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.

My uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.

And you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I have some great, great, very successful golf courses. I’ve received so many environmental awards for the way I’ve done, you know. I’ve done a tremendous amount of work where I’ve received tremendous numbers. Sometimes I’ll say I’m actually an environmentalist and people will smile in some cases and other people that know me understand that’s true. Open mind.

— Donald Trump – New York Times interview, Nov 23, 2016

Well, I am relieved that Trump’s uncle had feelings on the subject 35 years ago. It must be all good then.

I am also relieved that Trump received environmental awards for his golf courses. He understands climate science. It must be all good then.

Clean air and clean water are vitally important.

And he has an open mind.

I think I can now stop worrying about climate change. We have a good captain at the help.

Consensus on Climate Science and Trump’s Appointee

On November 20, 2016November 19, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, Science, Trump3 Comments

climate-science-consensus — Source: Skeptical Science

The worldwide consensus that the current global warming is anthropogenic approaches 100% as the expertise in climate science rises.

In English: The more a person knows about climate science, the more they believe it’s man-made.

Trump’s assignee to transition the EPA to the new administration is Myron Ebell, a climate change denier. Ebell has no scientific experience at all. He graduated from Colorado College with a B.A. in philosophy and obtained an M.Sc. in political theory from the London School of Economics. This makes him a politician by education, and that’s what he has done all his life.

I put a dot for him on this chart. He has no professional experience with climate science. Not surprisingly, and consistent with the graph, knowing nothing about climate science, he ends up on the bottom as a denier. There is nothing wrong with that. Most people don’t.

However, this is the “best and brightest” President-elect Trump came up with to head the transition of the EPA, a highly science-heavy organization. That’s like making the clerk in the butcher shop in your local supermarket the Surgeon General. After all, he knows what a T-bone steak is. Meat.

I wonder what kind of respect Ebell will garner from the staff in the EPA?

This appointment does not make Trump look like he is serious. During the campaign, he signaled that actual expertise does not really matter, as long as you have good advisers. But if the advisers themselves do not have any expertise, things will not end well.

The emperor has no clothes.

John Kerry on Climate Change

On November 17, 2016November 16, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, Political2 Comments

No one has a right to make decisions for billions of people based solely on ideology. Climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It isn’t a partisan issue for our military. It isn’t a partisan issue for our intelligence community.

— John Kerry

Here is a good article in Bloomberg titled “China Tells Trump That Climate Change Is No Hoax It Invented.”

But What If We Are Wrong?

On November 16, 2016November 16, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn China, Climate Change, Commentaries, Nature, Science2 Comments

The Religious Argument

I have been fortunate that I was able to cast off the shackles and blinders of religion very early in life. I am not religious or spiritual in any way. I have always called myself a non-combative atheist, and I am convinced that mindset has served me well.

According to Wikipedia:

The Pew Religious Landscape survey reported that as of 2014, 22.8% of the U.S. population is religiously unaffiliated, atheists made up 3.1% and agnostics made up 4% of the U.S. population. The 2014 General Social Survey reported that 21% of American had no religion with 3% being atheist and 5% being agnostic.

So being part of only 3% of solid atheists mean that 29 out of 30 of my friends, associates and people I run into on a daily basis are more or much more religious than I.

As a result, I have a lot of religious friends. Some very old, good friends. I have friends who are pastors, youth pastors, and even a Catholic priest. In serious late-night discussions with religious friends, one of the most common points that eventually comes up is:

What if you are wrong?

They argue that their belief in a God protects them from eternal hellfire. While I, who does not have such an insurance policy, am exposed. Let’s say with both die. If there is a God, the priest presumably goes to heaven. If there isn’t, he’s just dead and nothing mattered anyway. But on the off-chance that there is a God, he has an insurance policy. He is covered.

But I don’t have that coverage. If there is a God, he says I’ll go to eternal hell. If there is no God, I’ll be just as dead and nothing mattered anyway.

I know that is why many religious people hang on to religion. Just in case.

The Climate Change Argument

The American public has been led to believe that “climate change is a hoax.” Our populace has just elected a government that officially, and in all levels of the executive and legislative branches, supports this argument.

The vast majority of all climate scientists in the world disagree with this reasoning. Our CO2 levels at 400 PPM in the Antarctic are now higher than they have been in 4 million years. In a hundred and fifty years of burning coal and oil we have created a hockey stick of CO2 levels in the atmosphere in the blink of an eye from a planet’s perspective. But this argument I am making here is not about the science. I’ll leave that to the thousands of scientist much better qualified than I am. I just need to state that I am utterly convinced that we’re seriously messing with the balances of chemistry in our atmosphere, and we will need to pay a dear price for that in the not too distant future.

Our illustrious American politicians tell us that it’s all a hoax. Never mind that we are the largest polluters in the world as a country. Never mind that the second and third largest polluters, China and India respectively, basically agree with the seriousness of climate change. Never mind that China is now cleaning up their act as rapidly as they can (which requires another post eventually to discuss). Never mind that 195 nations all came together and agreed that this is a serious problem and crafted the Paris climate agreement.

Our government, empowered by the electorate, is now preparing to get out of the Paris climate agreement. Trump’s position is: We’re not allowing UN bureaucrats to have the power to spend American tax dollars. By itself, that argument makes sense. UN bureaucrats should not get to spend American tax dollars. However, the consequences of just tearing up the agreement are severe.

What if they are wrong?

Say for the sake of argument that climate change really were a hoax. These CO2 levels of 400 and more in our air are just a natural spike, and humanity has nothing to do with it, and can do nothing to change it. The weather will change whether we like it or not.

In a hundred years, no matter what we do, we’ll still be here, with our Manhattan real estate, with our Miami beaches, happily ever after.

Then it will not have mattered.

But on the other side, if human activity actually does affect the climate adversely, and the hockey stick graphs are going to get worse, we will have serious consequences to deal with as a species. The human food chain in the oceans will be disrupted. Agriculture will be severely hindered. Real estate will disappear and many of the lowlands around the country will be under water.

Seriously, we’re willing to play this game – for MONEY?

Ignoring climate change now is like killing the last rooster and chicken, who have been laying eggs for us every day, so we can have ONE LUNCH.

We’re risking our children’s welfare and taking away their right to the pursuit of happiness so we can burn some more oil and coal, so some people can have jobs? Seriously?

What if we are wrong?

54 Statements by Trump on Climate Change

On September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change1 Comment

Did I just hear Trump say that he never said Climate Change was a Chinese Hoax?

Here are 54 statement by Trump related to Climate Change.

The Climate has Always Been Changing

On September 13, 2016September 13, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, VisualizingLeave a comment

Well, yes, it has.

Now review this chart.

It will scare you.

Aha! – the “Real” Motive Behind the Global Warming Scare

On April 3, 2016April 3, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate ChangeLeave a comment

Here is a site with some batshit statements and no foundation:

“Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare,” reads the headline in Investor’s Business Daily.

When it comes to man-made global warming, scientists, politicians and activists say “their concern is only about caring for our planet and its inhabitants,” says this editorial . “This is simply not true.”

If they were honest, the climate alarmists “would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.”

— Ice Age Now

Blaming the U.N. for a global redistribution conspiracy is definitely conspiracy theory stuff of the First Kind. I don’t have much love for the U.N. and if it were me, I’d cut off United States funding too, which would starve it out. But I don’t think it has the slightest thing to do with the global warming controversy. It’s too dysfunctional to make anything this consequential happen.

Marco Rubio on Climate Change

On March 11, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, Political1 Comment

During the GOP debate on March 10, 2016, Marco Rubio made several statements about the subject of climate change that show all too much how inept and how much of a puppet he really is.

First, he said that of course the climate changes, it changes all the time, and it’s changed throughout history. This is, of course, an insinuation that climate change is happening all by itself, and that humans have nothing to do with it. The vast scientific consensus is that what he said is nonsense. Yes, the climate changes slowly, over millennia. What we have seen in the last 40 years is a hockey stick change in temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere that is unprecedented. The facts do not support Rubio’s bold-faced ignorant statement.

Then he said that the United States is a country, not a planet. He said that China and India were not doing anything about climate change, which by itself is an incorrect statement. I acknowledge they may be behind Europe and the U.S. in their progress, but they are working hard at it. But what’s worse, after constantly stating that the United States was the “leader of the free world” and that the world looks to the United States for leadership, he breaks with that usual stance out of convenience. Well, China and India aren’t going to do anything, so why would we lead? This is a very inconsistent point of view for a presidential candidate.

He also keeps saying that he is not willing to “destroy the American economy” in the fight against climate change. I wonder what the heck he is talking about. The economy is in so much better a shape today then it was when Bush left office. The DOW was below 7000 when Bush left office and falling. Now it’s at 17000. We had the biggest job growth in modern history since then. Ok, it may not have been enough, but the record shows that under Obama there was more job and economic growth than under Bush, by a long shot. This coincided with a period where our economy transitioned toward renewable energies like never before. So what is Rubio talking about when he says he is not willing to wreck the economy?

Volcanos and CO2 Emissions – Truth or Hoax? – Take Two

On January 6, 2016January 6, 2016 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, Email Hoax, Misleading Statistics9 Comments

In December of 2012, right after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted, I published a post here commenting about people posting nonsense about volcanos and anthropogenic global warming. At the time I said:

The amount of misinformation spewed on the American public, driven by purposeful and targeted campaigns to dumb us down, is alarming.

This seems to be a pattern on Facebook, as I came across this picture in my feed on January 2. I have redacted the name of the poster and recipient, since those are not relevant to my argument.

This poster obviously argued that “one minor eruption on Dec 3, 2015, pumped 10,000 times as much CO₂ into the air as all of mankind has ever produced. He then insulted 97% of all climate scientists in the world by telling them to “get over it” and calling them “panic merchants.”

When I didn’t know what volcano he was talking about, I asked for more details. When the poster never responded, I did a 15 second Google search and realized he must have talked about the Mt. Etna eruption on December 3rd. There is plenty of documentation about that eruption, and another 30 seconds later I had the facts I needed.

Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO₂ budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO₂ is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.

— The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory explained how much CO₂ is generated by volcanoes in a 2007 article

200 million tons of CO₂seems like an extraordinary large amount. However, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) found that the estimated amount of CO₂ generated annually by human activity is 135 times higher.

In addition, volcanos also spew out sulfur dioxide, which can lead to volcanic air pollution. Sulfur dioxide gas reacts chemically with sunlight, oxygen, dust particles, and water to form volcanic smog known as vog. This actually offsets some of the CO₂ greenhouse effect by doing the opposite: Inducing cooling by injection of pollution into the atmosphere. So volcanos are often actually balanced out.

It is easy to post a picture like the above in a Facebook feed and let it trickle down to the uneducated and uncritical masses in order to advance an agenda. If that agenda is well-funded by powerful lobbies like the petroleum industry, it can make a significant difference in public opinion. It looks legit, doesn’t it?

Usually 30 seconds of googling provides the facts, though.

All Major Oil Companies Knew of Climate Change by 1970s

On December 24, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Climate ChangeLeave a comment

From this article:

A new investigation by the Pulitzer Prize-winning outlet InsideClimate News suggests that nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company was aware of the impact of fossil fuels on climate change as early as the late 1970s. Earlier exposés by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times have revealed that Exxon scientists knew about climate change as early as 1977, and for decades Exxon concealed its own findings that the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming, alters the climate and melts the Arctic ice. Now, internal documents obtained by InsideClimate News reveal that the entire oil and gas industry had similar knowledge. From 1979 to 1983, the oil and gas industry trade group American Petroleum Institute ran a task force to monitor and share climate research. The group’s members included senior scientists and engineers from not only Exxon, but also Amoco, Phillips, Mobil, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio and Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil, the predecessors to Chevron. The documents show that as early as 1979, the task force knew carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was rising steadily. The task force even briefly considered researching how to introduce a new energy source into the global market, given the research about fossil fuels’ impact on global warming. But in 1983, the task force was disbanded, and by the late 1990s, the American Petroleum Institute had launched a campaign to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted by many countries to cut fossil fuel emissions but was never ratified by the United States.

Merry Christmas!

I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change – by Arnold Schwarzenegger

On December 10, 2015December 9, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Protection3 Comments

I lifted the section below from a Facebook feed by Schwarzenegger. I didn’t want to just share the feed. There were too many idiotic comments by brilliant and successful experts on energy below the feed – I could not stand it. So here it is, sanitized and quarantined, for your reading:

I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change.

Arnold Schwarzenegger· Monday, December 7, 2015

I see your questions.

Each and every time I post on my Facebook page or tweet about my crusade for a clean energy future, I see them.

There are always a few of you, asking why we should care about the temperature rising, or questioning the science of climate change.

I want you to know that I hear you. Even those of you who say renewable energy is a conspiracy. Even those who say climate change is a hoax. Even those of you who use four letter words.

I’ve heard all of your questions, and now I have three questions for you.

Let’s put climate change aside for a minute. In fact, let’s assume you’re right.

First – do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution? That’s more than murders, suicides, and car accidents – combined.

Every day, 19,000 people die from pollution from fossil fuels. Do you accept those deaths? Do you accept that children all over the world have to grow up breathing with inhalers?

Now, my second question: do you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?

Besides the fact that fossil fuels destroy our lungs, everyone agrees that eventually they will run out. What’s your plan then?

I, personally, want a plan. I don’t want to be like the last horse and buggy salesman who was holding out as cars took over the roads. I don’t want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged. That’s exactly what is going to happen to fossil fuels.

A clean energy future is a wise investment, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either wrong, or lying. Either way, I wouldn’t take their investment advice.

Renewable energy is great for the economy, and you don’t have to take my word for it. California has some of the most revolutionary environmental laws in the United States, we get 40% of our power from renewables, and we are 40% more energy efficient than the rest of the country. We were an early-adopter of a clean energy future.

Our economy has not suffered. In fact, our economy in California is growing faster than the U.S. economy. We lead the nation in manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, entertainment, high tech, biotech, and, of course, green tech.

I have a final question, and it will take some imagination.

There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.

I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I’m guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice – who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

This is the choice the world is making right now.

To use one of the four-letter words all of you commenters love, I don’t give a damn if you believe in climate change. I couldn’t care less if you’re concerned about temperatures rising or melting glaciers. It doesn’t matter to me which of us is right about the science.

I just hope that you’ll join me in opening Door Number Two, to a smarter, cleaner, healthier, more profitable energy future.

NASA versus Climate Deniers

On December 5, 2015December 5, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Climate Change, PoliticalLeave a comment

The earth has warmed by 1.4 degrees since 1880. Climate deniers claim that natural sources, like solar activity, volcanos, and orbital changes have caused the earth to warm. The data published by NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies shows otherwise. Reviewing this clearly and graphically indicates that the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere tracks closely with the observed increase in temperature.

The question now is: how do we reduce human-caused greenhouse gas emissions?

Marco Rubio says that the United States is not a planet, so whatever we do here is not going to fix things. So we might as well do nothing.

I say the United States should show leadership, and other countries will follow. We have always led in the past, and we should lead now.

But then, I am not running for president.

Worldwide Fossil Fuel Energy Subsidies $5.3 Trillion in 2015

On November 8, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Bad Product, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Protection, Political2 Comments

Here is a study by the International Monetary Fund analyzing how large global energy subsidies are. This includes coal, oil and gas. The number is staggering: $5.3 trillion in 2015. That amounts to about 6.5% of the global GDP. About half of that is in emerging Asia, which includes China, and is boosted by the heavy use of coal in that part of the world. In the United States alone, the amount estimated for 2015 is $700 billion.

Subsidies are money that our governments take away from citizens in form of taxes and give to private and nationalized large corporations to do with as they please. Those corporations exist to make money by selling their products. They don’t exist to worry about what air our children breathe in 20 years and our grandchildren in 50. They don’t exist to worry about Pacific islands sinking under the sea. They don’t exist to worry about Miami, New York, and Tokyo being under water by 2100. There is no incentive for them to keep the environment clean, the rivers pristine, and wildlife alive. By definition, corporate organizations exist to make money and worry about nothing else. Yet, we give them the people’s money, every day.

How much is $5.3 trillion?

You can read the chart, but the bottom line is the most staggering one: The world’s taxpayers spend $168,000 a second, every second, day and night, year after year, to prop up oil companies. Yes, that’s Shell, Exxon, BP and many others. These are the same companies that make unbelievable profits. Shell’s profit alone in 2012 was $26.8 billion.

We are being brainwashed every day by our very own media and politicians to hate the word “redistribution” since it connotes socialism. The entire food stamps budget in the U.S. for 2015 is $84 billion, and it was cut significantly. Everyone seems to hate food stamps, even though is is an impactful and effective program, and has a surprisingly low fraud rate with more than 99% of benefits going to eligible households. In 2013 alone, it lifted nearly 5 million people above the poverty line, including about 2.1 million children.

We don’t like redistribution of tax dollars of $84 billion to the poor and their children. Yet, we seem to have no problem handing $700 billion to the oil companies in the U.S. alone. That’s almost 10 times as much as the entire food stamp program.

Giving tax money to corporations, any corporations, is wrong. Giving it to oil companies is immoral.

Why don’t we just stop this nonsense? Bernie Sanders has proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which he says would cut $135 billion of U.S. subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade. It doesn’t seem like a big enough cut to me, but it’s a start.

I think I’ll donate another $35 to Bernie Sanders right now.

Measures Against Climate Change

On October 30, 2015October 29, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Climate ChangeLeave a comment

Where does this notion come from that if we take measures against anthropogenic climate change we are destroying the U.S. economy? How exactly is this going to happen?

We’re going to have more fuel-efficient vehicles. We’re going to have cleaner air. Our fossil fuels, which will eventually run out (it’s just a matter of time) will stretch and last longer. We’re going to have lots of new jobs in wind and solar energy production. Batteries are going to become cheaper for everything we use them for. A side-effect will be that we’re going to be able to power our homes off the grid. Where are we destroying the economy?

Just like we destroyed the economy for horses when we started using automobiles? Or like we destroyed the post office when we started using the Internet to pay our bills? Or like we destroyed bayonet companies when we started using rifles? Or like we destroyed tank companies when we started using smart bombs and drones?

Companies that don’t adapt to a new environment and situation eventually die.

Why is there Instagram? Kodak should be king of digital photography.
Why is there Uber? Yellow Cab should have that business.
Why is there Amazon? Sears should be the online retailer.
Why is there Amazon? Borders should be the online book store.
Why is there Google? Yahoo was the leading search engine.
Why is there Apple? Nokia made all the cell phones.
Why is there Apple? DEC and IBM made computers.
Why is there Microsoft? IBM wrote all the code.

The oil and coal companies are not happy that their heyday is in the past. Is that what we’re destroying with the economy? The oil and coal companies?

The Hal Lewis Scam

On October 4, 2015October 4, 2015 By Norbert HauptIn Climate ChangeLeave a comment

So I saw this Facebook post today announcing a “Top U.S. Scientist” resigned over a “global warming scam.”

Here is the link. Please note the ample number of breast links on this “news” site for relevant background.

Note the date of September 29, 2015. If you read carefully into the article, though, you will notice that the original article is from October 2010. This is five-year old news, being passed off on Facebook as current. Hal Lewis died in May 2011.

Then I tried to research who Hal Lewis actually was. Far from being a “top scientist,” nobody in the scientific community of climate research even seems to know who he is. His last significant work in academics (physics) was in the 1970s, and he retired in 1991 from U.C. Santa Barbara. His claim to fame and Wikipedia notice is based on this letter.

Here is another post ruminating about Hal Lewis and his obscurity and credentials in climate science.

But it was posted on Facebook, so it must be true and certainly authentic in 2015. I guess I’ll change my opinion.

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The Religious Argument

What if you are wrong?

The Climate Change Argument

What if they are wrong?

What if we are wrong?

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Well, yes, it has.

It will scare you.

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Merry Christmas!

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I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change.

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