Paris Climate Conference

I am not “defending” him vigorously. I stated in my reply that I disagreed with a large chunk of what he says and confirmed that yes, he is a contrarian. That is not defending him vigorously, nor even “taking his side”.

I am not suggesting that consensus requires 100% agreement. What I am suggesting is that you are implying that he is a quack or crank, or corrupt shitty scientist. If you do that you have to hold the same concern for things that Drew mentioned by pro-alarmist (note that I do NOT use the term AGW here because I believe in AGW) scientists.

The last error you are making is that you are putting “consensus” on the alarmist position rather than “humans have warmed the climate through their activity”. It is not–nor is the reality of AGW what the majority of skeptic scientists arguing against.

I am an MD/PhD, with a reasonable number of publications (a kajillion conference proceedings, a fair number of peer-reviewed journal articles, a few book chapters, and one textbook) to my credit. I also have a modest background (no degrees, but a fair amount of coursework) in the philosophy and sociology of science. I am employed by a major university system. This ain’t my first rodeo.

The claim that I objected to–and that you are apparently defending–was that “when any evidence points to the contrary the fact that they are shouted down as a “denier” unless they get in line doesn’t help.” I respectfully suggest you read it again, and decide if that’s really the hill you want to die on. Are there politics in science? Yes. Is it subject to intellectual inertia? Of course. Is science an inherently conservative institution that demands of its heterodox/disruptive ideas that they clear more hurdles than, in retrospect, should have been necessary? Sure. But the statement I objected to paints a picture of science as being imbued with irrational intransigence to a degree that goes far beyond that which occurs in any academic circles with which I have been associated.

You are speaking of the way science is presented in the popular press. That is not germane to the discussion here.

No offense, but sez you. Can you back up this claim?

Likewise, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of EXCELLENT scientists who disagree with them. So why are you focusing on these two?

Given the shenanigans of the fossil-fuel industry and its water-carriers throughout academia, think-tanks and the media–in light of the fact that THEY were the ones who cynically and avariciously politicized AGW, ‘poisoning the well’ with regards to the trust and credulity of the lay-public–that you could write this is simply mind-boggling to me. You have completely lost sight of the forest on account of what you perceive to be the shoddy treatment of a couple of trees.

That reading is on you, not me, so I will not refute it.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth to suit your narrative. The truth is, as a non-expert I am highly deferential concerning what counts as the consensus position is re AGW. In that regard, it seems to me that the IPCC probably represents the best distillation of scientific opinion on the subject, so fine by me to defer to them re the current scientific consensus. And let the chips fall where they may.

You are absolutely correct. I don’t know wtf happened, brain fart.

I’m following the giant voltage drop fusor they are building in europe that they believe will be the first net power fusion that didn’t take place in a thermonuclear bomb. Hobbyists as young as 13 have created fusion in their basement, but it aint net power or anywhere near it.

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@Aragorn @EyeDentist since you both agree in AGW (I do as well, I believe the bigger problem will ultimately be acidification of the ocean and warming of the ocean) How can scientists better convey their message to the lay person? Especially when they have several politicians saying the complete opposite. Also, since you agree what are some of your solutions to the problem (carbon tax, increased funding to research battery tech, etc.).

Climate science aside, we’re seeing some fall out from energy policy changes.
Focused on the economics of the thing here. From the WSJ

Germany and Angela Merkel -
• "After the Japanese tsunami and earthquake, she precipitously ordered the closure of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants. Never mind that not a single death, among the 18,000 in the Japanese earthquake and its aftermath, was caused by radiation exposure—though 1,600 deaths are estimated to have resulted indirectly from the unnecessary evacuation of 300,000 Fukushima prefecture residents.

• With her Energiewende, she ordained Germany’s forced march toward renewable power, which recently collided with stable high-pressure systems that left Germany cloudy and windless for three weeks. Now Germans learn, at catastrophic expense, they must maintain duplicate power systems, one running on coal. Germany’s CO 2 emissions are higher than when Mrs. Merkel started."

The economics of Dieselgate. We can expect a lot more of this sort of thing.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dieselgate-is-a-political-disaster-1487116586
Partial Text -
"Contrary to usual practice, we’ll begin with the punch-line: less than 4/1,000ths of a degree Celsius. That’s how much warming might be spared half a century from now thanks to Europe’s decision, starting after the Kyoto treaty in the late 1990s, to switch more than 50% of its passenger cars to diesel.

For this negligible result, Europe got significantly dirtier air. Paris, on some days, suffers worse smog than Beijing. Though his methodology may be questionable, a U.K. government scientist estimates that thousands of citizens die each year because of increased nitrogen oxide and soot emissions.

The word “microcosm” was invented for Europe’s diesel snafu—a microcosm of the governance failures that are breeding political revolt in much of the advanced industrial world. Europe has gone overnight from pushing and subsidizing citizens to adopt diesel vehicles, to punishing them with taxes and excluding them from downtown areas. Britain is contemplating a scheme to pay owners to scrap their diesel cars.

Europe’s entire auto industry was led down the primrose lane of adopting a technology that now appears to be a commercial and regulatory dead-end. More than 70% of BMW and Daimler cars made for the European market last year were diesel. When honestly tested, one study shows the latest “Euro 6 Standard” vehicles miss their pollution targets by a whopping 400%.

Virtually everyone agrees Europe’s “dash for diesel” was a monstrous policy error, not to mention the proximate cause of the emissions-cheating scandal that has engulfed Volkswagen and other auto makers. Yet the overarching imperative today is to vilify the car companies and insist they do better at achieving meaningless reductions in CO 2 emissions, now by forcing them to build electric cars that customers must be bribed and pressured into buying. Not to be questioned, though, is the green agenda or the competence of Europe’s political class.

When a government conceit goes pop in such a disastrous way, we usually get reform. That won’t be the case here.

But at least, in this maelstrom, Volkswagen’s outside shareholders and German corporate-governance reformers saw a chance to solve one real problem—the excessive influence of government and labor appointees on Volkswagen’s supervisory board, where they work together to inflate employment. It takes VW twice as many workers to build a car as it does Toyota.

And VW reformers looked set to prevail at this past summer’s annual meeting until, at the last minute, the company’s ruling families, the Porsches and the Piëchs, caved to a jigged-up rescue of the status quo.

In place of depoliticizing the company and improving efficiency, Volkswagen adopted a set of faddish promises to invest in electric cars, ride-sharing and the new “mobility economy.” All this was cover for the real agenda—a big pay hike and fresh promises of job security for unionized workers despite the $25 billion (and growing) cost of the diesel cheating scandal.

As a lengthy Reuters report frankly summarized, Volkswagen’s new “strategy” is chiefly a political kludge designed to create a simulacrum of change so real change doesn’t have to happen.

We have here an emblem of the Western world’s infirmity. Multiple irrationality loops have taken over. Climate policy is the primary example—a pure traffic in costly gestures that create no real benefits for the public. In the U.S., the totality of Obama climate policies—his fuel mileage targets, his coal regulations, his wind and solar subsidies—would not make a detectable difference in the earth’s climate even if given a century to work their nonmagic. Yet the cost will be hundreds of billions."

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I will retract that statement then. I was not aware that you had research experience and–not to put too fine a point on it–I have found that the vast majority of ophthalmologists and other clinical practice doctors don’t have a strong grasp of academic research practices (by which I mean university settings, not necessarily reading papers in journals). Apologies.

The rest I will try to get to in time. I am not particularly fond of discussing the climate issue due specifically to the amount of work it takes and the aggravation that ensues–that is one of the reasons that this thread lay dormant for so long after my previous posts. One of the problems I wished to point out is that it is no longer a purely “scientific” issue. It is now pop-culture, media, politics, and social activism combining with a very contentious scientific issue–(the catastrophic version of AGW specifically, along with the suggested remedies such as carbon tax, NOT the concept of AGW itself or pollution/carbon dioxide/etc). That is the point to which I refer when I am quoting hypothetical media headlines–the popular view of “science” in the lay public is quite undeservedly monolithic, and this distorts any understanding of the intricacies and feuds within. However, the monolithic view also provides pressure in many ways back upon scientists, and I believe this is quite under-recognized.

So government subsidies and policiea caused the opposite of what they were going for promoting diesel. And they abandoned nuclear in order to burn coal… Go figure?

Pittsburghers will remember this gem:
Quinn’s 1st Law: Liberalism always generates the opposite of its stated intent.

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No prob, and you’re correct that most non-academic (and even many academic) clinicians have only a rudimentary grasp of the nuances involved in scientific research.

I agree, it is important to keep separate the three aspects you identify–the science, the popular-culture coverage thereof, and the ‘engineering’ (ie, the proposals concerning amelioration). Two of these deserve far greater attention and scrutiny than the other. (You can probably guess the two to which I am alluding.)

All that said–and I may be reading too much into your comment, but here goes–if you’re suggesting that the issue has become so infiltrated by non-science factors that it is no longer possible for legit climate scientists to conduct valid, reliable and meaningful research, I do not share your pessimism in this regard.

Again, I agree–science at or near its leading edge is much less settled than how it is portrayed in the popular press. (The reasons for this are myriad, and is a topic worthy of a discussion all its own.) And I wouldn’t dispute your ‘back pressure’ thesis. But I would point out that none of this is unique to climate science. What is rather unique to AGW is the degree to which it has been politicized. (Another subject worthy of its own discussion.)

Agreed of course.

Yes, I think you are reading a bit too much into things here. My contention is not that valid and meaningful research cannot be conducted, rather it is that there is a much higher rate of highly suspect research in this field and–as this interfaces with policy, tax, and power structures–this is a very dangerous development. Analogous to a signal-to-noise ratio if you will. You allude to one of the primary reasons this is happening below. In addition, my other contentions are: 1) suspect research is trumpeted by pop culture, university media liasons, politicians, media, and the rest. This is doubly damaging because it yields both a false picture of outcome (and certainty) as well as spiraling the politicization further, and 2) this is a very young field as sciences go and they are getting rather bad tunnel vision as I see it (that is a long, loooong post)

Yes regarding leading edge, and that is a fascinating topic in its own right. And no–none of it is unique to climate science. What is unique however is the youth of the climate science field, the political pressures associated, and the very wicked nature of the problem, and as a primary key in all of this a very, VERY incomplete data set. Any young field has major issues, and one that is very closely related to political power (make no mistake carbon taxes, cap/trade, etc etc are all very big power levers. It is not just ‘Big Oil’ that is guilty of this here) has a pressing need for much greater transparency.

Politicization is what I am getting at, which you mention. There is very false picture that is painted by media that the only side that is manipulating things is the “Big Oil” side. The picture is that ecological activism organizations are pure as driven snow, as are university research departments. These are both patently false, and it concerns me greatly.

You have even fallen prey to it in various comments made–the implication you’ve made is that AGW and catastrophic disaster are one and the same and they are not. In other words, AGW exists in essentially 4 general quadrants:

Quad 1 is a scenario in which catastrophe by 2100 is imminent but our green energy technology and policy RIGHT NOW is capable of saving us,
Quad 2 is where catastrophe is imminent but our technology is NOT capable of saving us or staving off disaster
Quad 3 is probably best case scenario where catastrophe is not imminent and/or doesn’t exist and our tech can fix things right now
Quad 4 is where AGW is not imminent catastrophe/doesn’t exist and our current engineering levels would be insufficient anyway.

It’s not a binary scenario by any stretch–and yet that is the ONLY thing that is publicized: you’re either a scientist or a denier (which isn’t scientific language anyway). Either we will all die unless we act RIGHT NOW and give our politicians all the power and taxes, and our technology will save us… or you hate science and literacy and shill for oil. It is an incredibly damaging false dichotomy.

Frankly, this binary view is a state where tons of very real problems and potential paths to solution are completely ignored. Ignoring that may lead to a scenario where trillions are wasted, freedom given away, and we still face economic ruin to challenge a warming world because we pushed for transfer to technology that could not meet the demands we put on it.

Incidentally, the fundamental idea here is one that Bill Gates and his Breakthrough Energy consortium of investors believe very much: our current technology is insufficient, and government subsidies have worsened the problem rather than helped by yielding a green pasture for long lasting failures that take too long and suck up too much tax money prior to failing…rather than focusing on innovation. Gates and company are pushing innovation under a different model which I am very relieved to see come to market.

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Much higher than what? And on what basis do you reach this conclusion?

One of your core positions is that the degree of uncertainty within the climate-science community concerning AGW is significantly greater than the degree of uncertainty as reported in the popular media–that the press paints an unrealistically monolithic picture concerning the scientific consensus on the subject. Upon reflection, I simply don’t know if that’s true. You seem to think there is a high level of uniformity in the press regarding AGW. I don’t see that. There’s a great deal of AGW denial/skepticism/disavowal (call it what you like) out there.

Further, if it was the case that the MSM was overhyping AGW, where is the pushback from scientists and/or scientific organizations telling them to slow their roll? I can’t buy the ‘mercenary scientist’ contention that they’re all staying mum because they want to keep those fat stacks of research cash rolling in. Likewise, it would strain credulity to contend that essentially the entire community of climate-scientists has been ‘blinded by the hype’ to the point where they’ve lost the ability to rationally evaluate the research.

In short, it seems to me Occam’s razor cuts strongly in favor of the assumption that the scientific consensus is what it is because it reflects a rational accounting of the data at hand.

Ah, this takes me back. I taught Signal Detection Theory in my Psychophysics course for years. #geekout #goodtimes #studentsHATEDit

When someone who is not a climate scientist makes comments such as this, a little bell goes off in my head. On what basis do you feel you are qualified to make this statement? Seems to me that only an expert in the field could make such a judgment.

I don’t agree with your quadrants model, because it’s unnecessarily and misleadingly static. For example: Suppose it was demonstrated to your satisfaction that Quad 2 was correct–that catastrophe by 2100 was imminent, but that our current technology was not up to the task of intervening. Would you say ‘Oh well,’ then invest in oceanfront property in Tennessee and waders? Or would you get behind a massive engineering/technology ‘Manhattan Project’ to change our state to Quad 1–that is, to invent technology that was up to the task? I hope you would say the latter–I know I would.

No sane person would object to an initiative such as this, and more power to Gates et al (if you’ll pardon the expression). But again, at the risk of reading too much into what you’re saying: If you’re suggesting we should take a ‘free market’ approach to AGW, I have to disagree. AGW represents the ultimate ‘tragedy of the commons.’ Its scale is too massive, its implications too dire, to be addressed by hoping the private sector will find a way to either 1) monetize it, or 2) beat fossil fuels on price fast enough to stave it off.

Only partially correct–yes the press paints an unrealistically monolithic picture concerning…concerning ALL science everywhere, not just climate science, although I hold that the media paints climate science as more monolithic even than the rest. I am including not just press (foxnews, cnn, etc) but pop culture, movies, books, etc. That’s why I said “media”, although I can see how that would be misleading considering the way the term “media” is typically used on these boards. I am looking at long reach as well, not the climate equivalent of the birthers or the stormfront gang or the 9/11 insiders, which are all small.

If you are suggesting that I believe there is more uncertainty about the reality of AGW itself within the community, I am not–at least not in the way you seem to be thinking. I am specifically speaking of CATASTROPHIC AGW, or the ‘alarmist’ position here when I speak about uncertainty within the academic literature. I am not speaking about the presence or absence of human induced warming.

The lack of push back as you call it is part of a reaction to the “back pressure” thesis you identified earlier. Also, push back that is published is not nearly, not NEARLY so publicized. Consider that Cook et al. (the 97% study) has been downloaded over 600,000 times, crashed the server at ERL briefly, quoted ad nauseam by all manner of celebs both politial and non(or rather misquoted ad nauseam), and has become its own meme. This is an exaggerated version of what a lot of media gets.

Now look at the backlash: several peer reviewed submissions in retort, and practically an entire issue of an academics statistics journal devoted to flaws (currently searching my hard drives for it–I had saved it to my old computer and not sure it survived the transition to my current).

Not a peep across long-reach outlets. A few here and there, but really nothing.

This is the same effect one gets when major headlines in any sphere are made but the retraction is printed on page 30 in sub-type.

I would have eaten that class up. I wish we had had class available.

You were the same person claiming a number of posts before that you felt you had a good handle on this debate because you had done a deep dive (your words) into the fray a few years ago. If I’m not allowed to make a call based on my current readings, why should you be allowed the same confidence in your findings?

I spend a significant amount of time reading the field literature and keeping track of what is going on, and have been for a while now.

The other aspect to my position is another long post on which I don’t have any particular desire to spend typing. I simply have too much to do, and my contention is not that AGW doesn’t exist anyway, although you seem to keep implying that’s what I think.

You are conflating throughout this post “AGW” with “Imminent Catastrophic AGW”. One is very likely to be true, the other is a whole lot less certain.

I would obviously get behind a tech rush. But that wasn’t the point of the quadrants model. The point was to very GENERALLY show that climate opinions exist on a spectrum, and only a few of them entail actual denial. The point was that there are many more possibilities than are presented popularly…

No, I am not saying a solely free market solution is the right choice. I am completely on board with Gates’ initiative though, and for precisely the reasons he presents: Government subsidy takes too long for companies to fail. It is not a good enough filter for viable solutions, and it is slow.

What you miss though, I think anyway, is that renewables MUST beat fossil fuels on price to gain popular use. This is one thing that Gates admits openly. They must at least be competitive on price. Handing fantastic power of the purse strings (ala cap/trade, etc. what effectively amount to taxes) to Senators that can’t even control their own lives is not my idea of a great policy. Moreover these policies would be predicated on the idea that our technology is sufficient to meet the challenge at hand and all we need is to get rid of the evil Big Oil. I do not share this view–we do not have what we need technologically to support a complete switchover to renewables right now, and no amount of taxation will change the engineering facts. There is no world in which taxation on fossil fuels can magic up a new tech revolution to get what we need. It’s terrible policy for that reason alone.

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The idea of marketing or “messaging” is something I dislike entirely as a scientist. There is too much “messaging” already and that is one of the big reasons for the current FUBAR politicization and fracas. Scientists should stick to science, be absolutely transparent, and quit trying to be activists.

As for solutions I am a huge fan of Gates’ initiative to bring more research into energy. Nuclear energy is a partial solution–though strangely not one environmentalists like. It never recovered from the PR blows of 3 mile island and the rest. It is our best CURRENT source of energy and the amount of waste it generates is a fraction of what we currently do.

I support a phase transition rather than a binary on/off transition to renewables. Clean coal is a potential placeholder and puts out significantly less pollution that standard–my position is essentially that an incremental improvement is still a significant improvement and is practically feasible. Practicality is the king where engineering is concerned and I do not see that we have practical solutions for a completely green economy at present.

I am not a fan of carbon taxes/ or cap/trade, because economies of scale matter and Exxon et al have already maintained a small standing army of analysts and lawyers to figure out how they can make profit off of these ideas. It is the rest of us who will get screwed. Climate change is a global issue and the only way to fix it is with 100% participation. If China, Russia, and assorted other countries do not play ball then much of our voluntary economic hamstringing will be wasted and we will also be at a severe disadvantage in geopolitical position then. And I mean actually play ball, not give lip service to the issue. China is all about talking a game on climate change and then ignoring everything because they care about growth. Realistically speaking, you can’t have one of the world’s biggest economies essentially fucking off and be successful with a political solution.

Research into engineering technology and material science as well as chemistry will give us new solutions to clean things up. They need to be pursued but the government is very inefficient at doing this with companies (Solyndra, cough cough). Research is best pursued with funding but not the current pattern of corporate subsidy that keeps bad ideas afloat too long. Rapid failure/rapid filtering of good ideas and bad is key in my opinion.

I think a combination of nuclear, clean coal, and basic chemistry/materials research is a good start to our technology shortages. Materials will certainly be needed to overcome current shortcomings in solar/wind.

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There was an article I read many months ago that I really wished I would have saved. It talked of one proposed cap/trade scheme that would have been a windfall for the likes of Goldman Sachs. But that particular piece of it was not mentioned in the MSM.

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Exactly. Similar policy will hamstring smaller entities while the big conglomerates will be able to find ways to profit. Economies of scale are a thing and very real (also powerful lol). One would have to be a fool to believe otherwise. There’s a saying–I am poorly going to paraphrase it–that the straight A students go to Wall Street and the C students go to government. Perhaps not rigorously true, but if I tell you you’ll get a 2-10 million for solving a problem vs a gov’t salary of 100-200K, I am pretty sure I know who is going to have the upper hand in drive and resourcefulness.

In addition to this, we will hand more power over to politicians. They are the least deserving of this power IMHO.

As an aside, IMHO the best way is to get research into renewables to prosper, as opposed to punitive measures. This is one of the ideas behind Gates’ fund. Exxon, BP and the rest all know that eventually the economy will change–Exxon has been researching renewables for a very long time now (though it has just recently made publicity as an ad push “and you thought we just made gas”). They all want to own a piece of the next frontier.

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Op Ed about how the Paris Climate agreements may play out in the courts.

Sorry for the long block of Text. Paywall.
Don’t Wimp Out on Climate, Feb 16, 2017 Kimberly Strassel WSJ
If Trump doesn’t dump the Paris accord, his economic agenda is in jeopardy.

President Trump will soon turn his attention to another major campaign promise—rolling back the Obama climate agenda—and according to one quoted administration source his executive orders on that topic will “suck the air out of the room.” That’s good, but only if Team Trump finishes the job by casting into that vacuum the Paris climate accord.

That’s no longer a certainty, which ought to alarm anyone who voted for Mr. Trump in hopes of economic change. Candidate Trump correctly noted that the accord gave “foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use,” and he seemed to understand it risked undermining all his other plans. He unequivocally promised to “cancel” the deal, which the international community rushed to put into effect before the election. The Trump transition even went to work on plans to short-circuit the supposed four-year process for getting out.

That was three months ago—or approximately 93 years in Trump time. Word is that some in the White House are now aggressively pushing a wimpier approach. A pro-Paris contingent claims that quick withdrawal would cause too much international uproar. Some say leaving isn’t even necessary because the accord isn’t “binding.”

Then there’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who in his confirmation hearing said: “I think it’s important that the United States maintain its seat at the table on the conversations around how to address threats of climate change, which do require a global response.” Those are not the words of an official intent on bold action, but of a harassed oil CEO who succumbed years ago to the left’s climate protests.

Here’s the terrible risk of the wimpy approach: If the environmental left has learned anything over the past 20 years, it’s that the judicial branch is full of reliable friends. Republicans don’t share the green agenda, and the Democratic administrations that do are hampered by laws and procedures. But judges get things done. Need a snail added to the endangered species list? Want to shut down a dam? File a lawsuit with a friendly court and get immediate, binding results.

Lawsuits are already proving the main tool of the anti-Trump “resistance.” CNN reported that 11 days into his tenure, Mr. Trump had already been named in 42 new federal lawsuits. John Walke, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told NPR that his group will litigate any Trump efforts to roll back environmental regulations. He boasted about green groups’ winning track record at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which Mr. Obama and Harry Reid packed with liberal judges.

It is certain that among the lawsuits will be one aimed at making the Paris accord enforceable. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell says judges could instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the deal. “If President Trump doesn’t withdraw Obama’s signature, and Congress doesn’t challenge it,” he says, “then the environmentalists stand a good chance of getting a court to rule that our Paris commitments are binding and direct EPA to make it happen.”

Think that’s impossible? Instead, think Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in 2007 cast the deciding vote to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant, and who in September defended his habit of looking for guidance to international law. And consider that a few years back, CEI’s Chris Horner unearthed a legal memo from the New York attorney general’s office that laid out a strategy to get courts to force C0 2 cuts under international treaties.

Even with the Obama administration’s economy-crushing climate program, the U.S. is about 45% short of meeting its Paris obligations. If Mr. Trump rolls back the Obama regulations, the U.S. would fall about 70% short. If Mr. Trump would like to see short work made of his economic agenda, let Paris stand, and let a court decree the proper way to implement it. Bye-bye fracking. Bye-bye offshore drilling. Bye-bye Continental Resources and Keystone.

Paris was the capstone of a unilateral Obama climate agenda that ignored the law, the will of Congress, and the people. Mr. Trump ought to shred it on those grounds alone. There’s also the point that he made a rock-solid campaign pledge to both end the Paris accord and completely defund United Nations climate programs—promises that rallied many blue-collar workers to his cause.

A withdrawal from Paris is a perfect way to reset—overnight—the international climate debate, and to position Mr. Tillerson’s State Department to lead on economic growth and international security. Paris is a distraction from—if not an outright hindrance to—both. If Mr. Trump cares to succeed with the rest of his pro-growth agenda, he needs to follow through: Au revoir, Paris.

Write to kim@wsj.com.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here, but this much I can assure you–I have never, on this board or anywhere else, offered an opinion regarding climate science qua science. If I gave that impression, it was simply a matter of inartful writing on my part. I know nothing–nothing–about the science of AGW, and thus would not presume to offer an opinion regarding it.

If you claim to have the knowledge and experience needed to qualify as a bona fide climate scientist, I certainly am not going to tell you you’re wrong. But as a scientist yourself, you realize the incredible amount of time and energy it takes to truly become an expert in a field, and that this level of expertise is very, very difficult for even the brightest, most dedicated amateur to achieve.

In this regard, I would point out that Freeman Dyson–as brilliant a polymath as has lived in a long time, a man whose mathematical sophistication few can match–is, like you, deeply skeptical of what you call IC AGW. All that said, consider the following excerpt from an The Atlantic piece about him:

“Among intelligent nonexperts who have weighed in on climate change, Freeman Dyson has become, now that Michael Crichton is dead, perhaps our most prominent global-warming skeptic. Charlie Rose began his interview with questions about the climate. Dyson answered that he remained very skeptical about the dangers of global warming. He did not believe the pronouncements of the experts. He did not claim to be an expert himself, so he would not argue the details with anybody; he had not given much time to the issue and did not pretend to know the real answers, but what he knew for sure was that the global-warming experts did not know the answers, either.” [emphasis mine]

So, if you claim to be an expert, so be it. But I would respectfully suggest that if Freeman effing Dyson considers himself ill-prepared to evaluate climate science…

In economic terms, AGW represents the greatest market failure/negative externality in history. I dare say that if its costs were accounted for in the price of fossil fuels, renewables would already beat the pants off of them. It is only by pretending those costs don’t exist that fossil fuels continue to have a favorable price-point.

Further, you seem to be missing that AGW mitigation may involve more than simply not adding further to the atmospheric carbon-load. Even if the energy fairy waved her wand and gave us limitless carbon-free energy going forward starting today, it might still be necessary find a way to remove and sequester a portion of the carbon that’s already been liberated. How do you propose we pay for that?

It seems to me you are putting research concerning renewables and AGW mitigation in something of a Catch-22. We shouldn’t do anything because we don’t have the necessary technology, but why should we develop the necessary technology if we’re not going to do anything?

Don’t think of it as a tax on fossil fuels; rather, think of it as a market correction which will cause the price of fossil fuels to accurately reflect their cost.

It has to be pointed out that, if AGW is real, this editorial is nonsense bordering on lunacy.

Triggered? Sorry, I’ll try to give a warning next time I put up an Op Ed. wink.

You know what sounds like lunacy? The Clean Power Plan, could cost us 50 Billion per year in reduced GDP. If we apply the climate model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research — used by both the United Nations and the EPA —we would reduce global temperatures in 2050 by less than a hundredth of a degree, and less than two-hundredths of a degree by 2100. Those trivial temperature effects are much smaller than the annual variability (11-hundredths of a degree) of the surface temperature record.

I’m not an expert on any of this, but I’m not alone in thinking this might be a little bit crazy. I mean, how much of your savings do you want to throw in with those odds?

I thought it was interesting that we may see US courts enforce some of the CO 2 cuts under the Paris treaty. That environmentalist groups might be able to use lawsuits to effectively get the courts to see the Paris treaty as binding, and make the EPA enforce it, unless we remove ourselves from it.

I see the Trump thread went into the environment…

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Puff:

I indicated in the Trump thread that the issue of Climate Change had become (regrettably) so partisan and politicized…so “Left/Right” that it obscured and blinded people for when there really IS a need for Environmental Regulation.

What you pointed out above would be what I would consider “unreasonable” regulation, (especially if not followed by the largest emitter in the World, China).

Related to China…I also feel pretty safe in saying that while our cities can have “bad-air days”…they are FAR from being the mess that Beijing is…which most likely can be attributed to regulation.

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Triggered bigly. But I’m OK now; my vegan collective helped me get my chakras back in order.

I don’t know anything about the Clean Power Plan, but here’s what Ms. Google had to say when I asked her about it:

“EPA estimates the Clean Power Plan will reduce the pollutants that contribute to smog and soot by 25 percent, and the reduction will lead to net climate and health benefits of an estimated $25 billion to $45 billion per year in 2030. That includes the avoidance of 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks among children and 2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths. EPA projects that the plan will save the average American family $85 per year in energy bills in 2030, and it will save enough energy to power 30 million homes and save consumers $155 billion from 2020-2030. The plan would create 30 percent more renewable energy generation in 2030 and help to lower the costs of renewable energy. It also would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to the NRDC.”

I still don’t know whether the plan makes financial sense, but this info suggests to me that, by focusing solely on trivial projected changes in temperature, the analysis you presented is intentionally misleading. (Note that I didn’t say you are trying to be intentionally misleading.)

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