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Vitter: Carbon Tax Discussions Should Be Done Openly
Metamars has recently expressed his conviction that Republicans will eventually support a carbon tax. Oh, not ALL Republicans, but rather ENOUGH Republicans. And, of course, I’m talking about Republicans in Congress, not rank-and-file Republicans, who (wisely) show no sign of supporting a tax that will help degrade their own freedoms – including the freedoms that come from being a citizen of a sovereign country, so that you are at least subject to beauraucrats who are your countrymen.
While writing a whole diary on that subject should wait until I write a whole diary on the Exxon Mobil Dog That Didn’t Bark (i.e., Exxon-Mobil not doing what it could easily afford to do, which is educate the public about non-catastrophic and anti-catastrophic climate science; e.g., can you picture the uproar of Exxon Mobil blasting this recent story about the
, all across America, during prime-time?? The uproar would attract more eyeballs via youtube than the boobtube!), metamars now offers this intriguing sign of things to come:
There’s a lot of talk in Washington about raising taxes, including by finding “revenues” in creative ways, to avoid driving off the fiscal cliff.
But there’s one tax that is purposefully not being discussed openly — a carbon tax. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that the Obama administration and their allies aren’t actively working toward this goal. There is a lot of evidence that there’s a lot of discussion toward this ultimate end, including within the Treasury Department.
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I believe Congress must assert its constitutional responsibility in this important matter. If President Barack Obama and his administration are considering a carbon tax, a revised cap and trade plan, or anything similar, then they must work through Congress to achieve it. We cannot allow them to legislate by administrative fiat, withhold information and circumvent the law.
Now, let’s just think about this, boys and girls. The last I heard, the President cannot declare a tax by fiat. I can’t think of any reason why a carbon tax would be an exception, can you?
So, what is Vitter really afraid of?
Well, I’d say that he’s afraid of a carbon tax, alright, but what this letter hides is a more realistic fear- viz., that Obama will negotiate something in secret (gee, where have I heard him doing things like that, recently?), and then ROLL ENOUGH REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO PASS CARBON TAX LEGISLATION THAT OBAMA WILL GLADLY SIGN Oh, and you KNOW what the headlines will say: “Obama praises the bipartisan Republican who made the carbon tax a reality, showing patriotic concern, and concern about future generations, above and beyond their ideology, blah, blah.”
Earth to Vitter: Obama doesn’t care about your op ed! If you want to mobilize the public against a carbon tax, you need to get the public educated as to the state of climate science, Australia’s wonderful carbon tax ($2,500/year for a family of four), etc. The Republican base also needs to issue credible electoral threats, which they have some capability of doing, thanks to Tea Party aggressiveness. (Compare to the sad state of progressive wimpiness and the Democratic Party. Not a pretty picture.)
Obama’s no dummy. Or, as Glenn Ford, of Black Agenda Report simply put it: “Fake debt crisis shows Obama is smarter than you are “. Apparently, he’s not going to allow Congress into a public, blow by blow of a carbon tax bill, which risks enraging and engaging the part of the public (Republican base) that can sink it, if they successfully turn the screws on their Republican Representatives. If he’s as smart as I think he is, he will, instead, cut enough backroom deals with Republicans until he’s sure he can gets what he wants.
Oh, yeah, Senator Vitter: Don’t expect any help from Exxon-Mobil. If they were going to use their ample cash to educate Americans on the true state of climate science, they surely would have done so, already. Indeed, a carbon tax might help Exxon Mobil, as it would likely speed the retirement of coal fired plants. (So yes, a more realistic source of funding for a large education program is the coal industry. Can’t say that excites me, but it is what it is.)
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Update: While the President can’t declare a carbon tax by fiat, according to Senator Inhofe, a carbon cap and trade scheme could be mandated via regulation, if there is an “endangerment finding”. See also the link by Cal222, which talks about “the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were legal.”
So, maybe Obama will line up his EPA ducks, sit some House Republicans down, tell them what is going to happen, but give them an opportunity to share in some boodle for their districts if they sign up for legislation towards the same end. This way, the Dems and Repubs will share the blame glory.
43 Comments
Diaper Dave Vitter. Make your own jokes. Recommended.
I have two or three comments.
*One, there might be regulatory/court matters that could make something like cap and trade happen, because of the Clean Air Act. I’m not sure, though.
*Two, it was the Democratic Senate as I recall that stopped cap and trade the last time, after it was passed by the Democratic controlled House. I personally believe the House shenanigans were part of why Democrats lost control of the House, since cap and trade schemes are hated by Republican groups. Republicans worked very hard in 2010 to defeat Democrats because of cap and trade, animal rights initiatives, and other liberal excesses.
*Just FYI, conservative Democrats in the House helped to water down the last cap and trade bill before they would vote for it, but thankfully it didn’t pass the Senate even in that form.
Business groups understand, as you do metamars, that any cap and trade bill would be destructive, but even ExxonMobil isn’t as powerful as the media, most of whom can barely conceal their love of things like the Kyoto Protocol, cap and trade, and Copenhagen.
Okay, this article helped to fill in some of the blanks for me:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-emissions-court-idUSBRE85R0C120120628
Well, when you say “destructive”, I would agree in terms of national sovereignty. In terms of economic prosperity, I’m less concerned. Also, while progressives don’t seem interested in discussing how regressive such a tax is likely to be, this actually seems like a necessary and logical ‘regression’, if you take CO2 climate catastrophism seriously.
If you take CO2 climate catastrophism seriously, and decide to use economic incentives and disincentives to achieve CO2 mitigation, you need to make a big carbon footprint sufficiently painful, economically, for not just upper and middle classes, such that at least the middle and lower classes avoid those pathways.
I used to be for carbon taxes, when I believed that human CO2 production was killing our planet. If the choice is between a lower standard of living, and no standard of living, for future generations, is this really a moral dilemma?
Like Anthony Watts, who started the website wattsupwiththat.com, and like many others, such as geologist Luning (coauthor of The Cold Sun, which will soon be translated from German to English, along with its 800 or so scientific references), I changed my mind when I started looking at the data. I was probably exposed to some of the data when, years ago, I used to read Lubos Motls blog, but for discussions of superstring theory and particle physics, mostly. I can’t remember a single definite fact about climate that I learned from his blog, from that long-ago reading period, though I suspect that I first read about climategate, there.
Anyway, looking at the data and reading about warped ‘analyses’ and claims of the true believers, forced me to change my mind. I was stung into doing so by some dummy at OpenLeft who asked that I be banned, when, at the time, I assumed that Freeman Dyson, et.al., were simply wrong. My sin was posting about a dissident physicist (nowadays called a “climate change denier”). I had uncritically accepted the 97% consensus meme (partly due to the influence of Michio Kaku, who is a very smart guy, would interview climate catastrophists, and go on about their “most advanced models”).
Regarding Exxon Mobil and the media, I think you have a point, in that: Just like Ross Perot couldn’t use his megabucks to buy all the major media advertising space that he wanted, during his Presidential run, it’s very likely that an Exxon Mobil educational campaign, during prime time, would be rejected by the major media. That’s because climate catastrophism serves the financial oligarchy very well.
However, where there’s a will, there’s a way. With Exxon-Mobil’s deep pockets, they could hire people to stand on street corners. Hell, they could demand (or else ‘bribe’, via preferential pricing) Exxon-Mobil gas stations to hand out flyers, dvd’s, etc., with every fillup. They could bake a chance to win one of 20 different $1 million prizes (chump change, for them) into their DVD’s, to make sure people watched the DVD’s. They could hire attractive girls to walk around in bikinis, and pass out flyers. That would certainly get the attention of the male part of the population.
IF THEY REALLY WANTED TO GET THE WORD OUT, THEY WOULD. BUT THAT’S ONE OF MY POINTS – THEY OBVIOUSLY DON’T WANT TO LIFT A FINGER TOWARDS THIS END.
A more realistic option are the Koch brothers, who I believe are partly driven by ideology (as opposed to nothing but bottom line profits) but think about this: though they funded much of the Tea Party movement (after the initial, purer phase), they haven’t already asked the Tea Parties to conduct such an educational mission, themselves.
I suspect the fix is in with the Koch Brothers, also.
It seems that, according to Senator Inhofe, if there’s an “endangerment finding”, cap and trade could be passed via regulation.
See 2 minutes, 46 seconds into this interview of Inhofe.
I’ll check out that interview, but yes, that’s my understanding as well. A court decision empowered the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Republican House passed something that denies any funding to enforce it, but I guess that never made it through the Senate.
Yes, if you really believe that we’re all going to be flooded out in a couple hundred years, then of course such draconian measures would be appropriate, for sure. I wonder if the people who claim to believe this so unequivocally really do, though. I used to believe it, too, but I think I was always sort of aware there was a political subtext to it, as well.
I would agree there’s people that want to make a lot of money off global warming. I don’t quite follow the part about the Koch brothers, aside from their being conservative Republicans.
What is the name of Al Gore’s mentor on global warming? He’s a billionaire, and I read somewhere that he lives in China. I could believe that T. Boone Pickens wanted to make a lot of money off it, because at one point he was trying to make a big investment in wind mills. For some reason he gave it up, though, but I don’t remember the details.
I think the Koch brothers are better described as libertarian than conservative. Not that I know all that much about them.
I did recently watch a pbs program that interviewed the doorman where one of the Koch’s lives, in NYC. He said that Koch gives him a Christmas present of $50.
So, he’s a cheapskate libertarian….
And a former weatherman whose works have been debunked repeatedly, including by the NOAA itself.
Meanwhile, in contrast to Watts, we have the example of Richard A. Muller, someone who is an honest climate-change skeptic has now joined the reality-based community as a result of his own research:
You can read Muller’s research at http://berkeleyearth.org/
Both Watts and Muller received money, directly or through front groups like Heartland, from the dirty-energy industry. Watts sings the songs the dirty-energy people want him to sing; Muller, on the other hand, actually possesses integrity and goes where the evidence leads him, not where the money tells him.
Meanwhile, there is this:
http://firedoglake.com/2012/12/01/no-rain-is-apparently-not-news/
I just watched the interview. It was good. I am going to have to order that book through my library.
Oh, and speaking of singing the songs the dirty-energy industry wants one to sing: Guess which industry’s money most strongly backs Vitter’s political career?
From the diary above:
Ah, I see that metamars is now referring to himself in 3rd person, interesting. I had a feeling that something like this was coming.
Anyway, perhaps the description above should instead read: “Climate Change Denier recently displayed desperation by basing arguments on faulty translations.”
What do you base these statements about “widespread brainwashing” on?
Could it be the fact that Global Warming was not mentioned once during the Presidential Debates?
President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, sparred over American policy in Libya and Iran. They traded generalities on trade with China and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and made brief mentions of renewable technology and “energy independence.”
Or maybe it is based on the extreme amount of attention that Obama has been giving to the topic?
by Jack A. Smith / November 14th, 2011
The Obama Administration has largely remained passive about the critical imperative to reduce greenhouse gases to limit catastrophic global warming.
Washington continues to insist upon exercising world leadership in all key global endeavors, including the environment, but has failed dramatically in terms of climate change.
In fact, the White House is greatly expanding U.S. access to fossil fuel energy sources even as scientific and environmental organizations are intensifying their warnings about the need to immediately reduce greenhouse gas carbon emissions that are warming the planet.
Watts communicated with Muller about the affect of using higher quality US surface temperature stations, and was ignored (judging by his work). The result was not insignificant. In fact, it sure doesn’t support Muller.
Muller’s dataset is supposed to be very good, overall (the BEST, you might say, for US temperatures), but the quality is not uniform.
After 5 years of work with collaborators, Watts released a draft version of his work for “pre-peer review”. Here is the link.
Since you accuse Watts of being dishonest, why don’t you write up a paper whatever dishonest data manipulations you find in his work? Better yet, since you likely have no qualifications for assessing his work, whatsoever, why don’t you try and get a Ph.D. level scientist to critique the Watts, et.al., work on surface stations? After all, you wouldn’t want more objective people to conclude that Watts was correct, after all, and the @#%@%#$ climate establishment couldn’t even get recent historical data correct (which adds extra doubt to their ability to forecast the future, ya know?).
From your NOAA link:
BWA-HA-HA! This is from 2009. Though it’s still premature to pass final judgement, as the Watt’s collaborative draft was only posted this past summer, my money is on Watts, et.al. making NOAA eat those words.
(BTW, Muller’s take on Michael Mann’s integrity (along the lines of “don’t even read his papers”) is worth noting. Also, I don’t think any of the BEST reports have passed peer review, yet.)
Although not an expert, by any means, I’ve seen presentations of graphs of the urban heat island effect, so when I heard Muller say something like “we found no evidence of the UHIE”, I took him to mean that the effect was insignificant, and already being ‘averaged out’ in a way that doesn’t skew the analysis.
Perhaps somebody can produce a statement by Muller about what results he finds when he uses the higher quality data, as strongly suggested by Watts? My impression is that Muller simply ducks the issue.
Meanwhile, there is this. Why don’t you honestly tell us what this graph tells us? Do you even understand what this graph tells us?
Please explain to us how cap and trade in the US will hurt oil and gas profits. (Preferably in another diary. You’re spamming this one up.)
I can see it hurting coal profits (because utilities will switch to oil and gas) – unless, of course, the coal is exported, which is an easy sale to make:
My money is on domestic coal producers simply shipping more of their coal overseas.
In general, carbon taxes will be passed on to consumers. Assuming they’re even applied to industries in the same line of business in the US, why would they NOT pass them on?
Well, actually, for energy intense manufacturing, there might indeed be a strong incentive to eat the tax, if there’s lots of foreign competition from competitors that aren’t paying the carbon tax.
But, that’s only until the domestic industry moves their production overseas. Problem solved! Bye, bye, American middle class! Hello, Chinese and Indian CO2!
I think that book is on the top of my “climate change denial” list, also.
It’s the vast number of scientific references that intrigue me. I hope they get into a discussion of the climate models. Most of the skeptic references (edit: that I’ve seen, which are blog posts and videos, not books) don’t really go into a lot of detail. In particular, what I’d like to know is: what happens when you try to make the models more realistic? Both in terms of solar/magnetic variability, but also sea level rise. If sea level rise is 3 mm/yr, and your best model says it should be 2 mm/year, then you’ve got an accounting problem that could point to a big clue about inadequate modeling. While 1 mm may seem like a trivial amount, recall that the #1 greenhouse gas is water vapor. A recent paper shows that only a fraction of the sea level rise is due to polar melting. So, water must be coming from land and freshwater bodies, through the atmosphere, and deposited into rivers and oceans via rain. What does that imply? My guess would be it implies something about agriculture, and/or the rate of depletion of fossil water reserves. Of course, I’m sure climate scientists have thought of these things, but maybe their estimates are way off.
BTW, Heartland is going to have their next climate conference in Germany. Maybe big trouble is brewing for the climate catastrophists in Europe. Maybe not.
I’m sort of fascinated by the psychology of the sinking scientific paradigm. Because this is a political/’religious’ issue, there’s a lot of nastiness (on both sides, but the side with the mega-bucks certainly seems proportionately nastier).
Unfortunately, this also distracts me from more rewarding endeavors…
Meta whoever is paying you to play this game is certainly getting their money’s worth. Enjoy your blood money asshole.
Enjoy your lying. I’m sure it gives you some sort of pleasure.
From metamars’ Diary above:
The idea that there is any sort of “wisdom” in the rank-and-file republicans would in and of itself suggest that this diary entry is quite silly.
Of course, you’ve been down this path before—this is not the first time you’ve suggested that the republican base represent a vigilant group of sentinels standing between us and a “conspiracy of corruption.”
However, as I’ve explained previously, the republican base is composed of mushy-headed simpletons who believe anything they see on FOX news.
They already have changed their opinions about Global Warming (but in the wrong direction) due to the FOX news brain-washing they’ve received. . . .
http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1126
One thing has been proven by Meta so far and that is that a little information combined with even less comprehension is a dangerous thing.
Our friend’s metaemotions seem to revolve around the IllumiNazis, The New World Order and Al Gore’s plans to use the GW Scare to usurp his Freedoms and Sovereignty.
The GW plateau we have seen for the last decade corresponds closely with the increase in aerosols from China’s coal power plants. That and particle polution around the world may be masking as much as one degree F of warming. As China and other countries reduce their particle polution while increasing their CO2 emmisions GW will continue to increase.
The fact that Solar Dimming, caused by particle pollution, is occuring at the same time that GW is happening masks some of its effects. The Pan Evaporation Rate studies around 9/11 verified this phenomenon.
As you have a superior comprehension to mine, please inform me as to what is wrong with the following, from Catastrophe Denied (probably the best intro, for laymen, that I’ve seen about the climate debate).
(emphasis mine)
Al Gore tells us that climate science is “settled science”, so please explain to us how climate scientists know that it’s hunky dory to have “very different cooling rates” from aerosols. Since there’s only one earth, shouldn’t there only be 1 cooling rate from aerosols??
This reference gives radiative forcings due to aerosols that vary by about a factor of 3, between different climate models. That seems like a HUGE disparity for “settled science”.
Which value of radiative forcing do you adhere to? And why? Heck, what value of radiative forcing does Al Gore adhere to? And why?
(sigh) do you ever tire of clutching at straws?
Nobody is saying that there are exact answers here—the Earth is a complex system. What is settled is that pumping HUGE amounts of greenhouse gasses into the Earth’s atmosphere is a very bad idea.
If you need more education on this subject you might check out
Global Warming Denier Myth #13 (Computer models are too inaccurate to accurately predict a system as complex as the Earth’s climate.)
And Global Warming Denier Myth #19 (We don’t have enough climate data to make valid predictions of any kind.)
Hopefully these will help you with some of your confusion over this matter.
In any case, humans need to stop screwing up the Earth. They need to control their population (seven billion humans it too many humans), and chain back the wheels of industry. This needs to be done on a world-wide scale, with no nations exempt. There are no other sensible options.
Your friends, the climate modelers, (who provide the flawed science basis for the climate catastrophist Church) not only have trouble using consistent aerosol radiative forcing values – a clear sign that something is VERY wrong in their joint enterprise, and they are fudge factoring their way to less than completely laughable predictions – they ALSO appear to have a sign error in their climate sensitivities.
The real scientific debate is about climate sensitivity to CO2. CO2, by itself, cannot provide more than about 1 degree C increase per doubling of concentration. (BTW, I’m pretty sure that most of the climate catastrophist lemmings who parrot the catastrophist talking points don’t even know what the non-feedback temperature vs. CO2 concentration graph looks like! Nor where we are on that curve, on planet Earth!)
A sign error in climate sensitivity means that they are basically mis-characterizing the whole issue. By analogy, it’s like the difference between a concave up (positive 2nd derivate) function, and a concave down (negative 2nd derivate) function.
You want to BELIEVE that there’s a scientific issue analogous to a debate about 2nd derivate = +1 vs. 2nd derivative = +1.4, but that’s not the what the data is pointing to.
I suggest that people read about omitted variable fraud, keeping in mind the John von Neumann quote I gave, above. BTW, I just checked, and realclimate.com has absolutely nothing on “Ommited variable fraud”.
Funny, that, huh? You best be careful, lest a high priest of your faith condemn your heretical curiosity. Perhaps your sin of educating yourself about omitted variable fraud will result in your spending eternity in a Hades surrounded by “climate change deniers”. You wouldn’t want THAT to happen, now, would you?
So to protect your soul from eternal damnation, maybe you’d be better off suggesting that “climate change deniers” are analogous to pedophiles, like some of your co-religionists have lately done. Doing so will function like reciting Hail Mary’s.
I guess conflating genuine, honest, qualified skeptics with the Nazi perpetrators of genocide was just too subtle to sufficiently poison the mind of some of the sheeple.
Personally, I find the recent (11/23) appearance of the disgusting pedophile analogy, following within weeks of the HADCRUT4 dataset (10/13) showing no statistically significant warming for 16 years, to be more than a coincidence. While I certainly don’t blame most of the climate catastrophist community for lowlife pedophile analogies, it’s clear that some people are playing for keeps.
“While I certainly don’t blame most of the climate catastrophist community for lowlife pedophile analogies, it’s clear that some people are playing for keeps.”
It certainly shows that Republicans aren’t the only ones that can be nasty.
On a related topic, I thought I would share this. You might be aware of it, but it stood out for me because several years ago Christopher Landsea was on a radio program and told his interviewer, from NPR, that he didn’t believe in global warming. I copied this from Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog. On his blog Pielke explains how he got these emails.
10. Roger Pielke, Jr. said…
Kevin Trenberth on Chris Landsea’s resignation from the IPCC in 2004:
“I understand he has resigned from CA of our chapter. I responded to his earlier message in a fairly low key fashion. I think he has behaved irresponsibly and ought to be fired by NOAA for not have an open enough mind to even consider that climate change might be affecting
hurricanes.”
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=3896
Tue Nov 29, 04:38:00 PM MST
Well, for that we’d first need to see an “honest, qualified skeptic” wouldn’t we? :-D
I personally don’t see the need for the pedophile analogy.
However, speaking about being nasty in a more general sense, when it comes to defending our bio-sphere from corporate greed, perhaps a little nastiness is called for.
I understand that you need to reject data and actual observations that counter your preconceived notions about the GW. You and other obfuscators have been forced to at least admit that the temperature plateau we are on is a higher temperature and not a sign of Global Cooling or do you still parrot that nonsense?
The paradox of GW occuring while the earth should be entering another cooling glacial cycle and observed Solar Dimming just shows how powerful the Greenhouse Effect is.
Have you read the reports about the Pan Evaporation Rate and 9/11? The results of no aircraft producing aerosols and the immediate spike in surface temperature was illuminating, pun intended.
I actually share some of your paranoia about Al Gore and his Trilateral Commission technocrat buddies. They have an agenda just like your friends at Exxon Mobile have theirs. Both of their agendas are about maintaining Capitalist control of the world and limiting solutions to their choices. So long as Capitalists have complete control the destruction will continue.
As long as Amerikans think they are entitled to be the world’s energy consumer gluttons and other countries want to emulate us we are all going to pay the price.
Pray tell, what data would that be?
Huh?
(UPDATE) It’s even worse than we thought. Metamars has showcased the scandals of Climate-gate2.0-gate and Acceleration of Sea-Level-Rising-gate and Diaper-Dave-gate.
And it is even worse than we think. We now have one of the greatest scientific frauds ever, Omitted-Variable-Fraud-gate.
The shutdown of airtraffic after 9/11 was a unique circumstance in the US for climate science. Direct observation of the effects of human caused pollution with a control period will probably never happen again.
Read the account of the PER and 9/11 and let me know what you think it means. I prefer to discuss actual observations not projections which cannot be very accurate, usually they are much too conservative.
Have you considered providing a link?
Anyway, nobody is doubting that aerosols are real, nor that they can provide a cooling effect.
I have pointed out that aerosols in various climate models are inconsistent, and by a factor of 3 ito their radiative forcing, no less. That’s a huge red flag… I did not mean, by using the term “fudge factor”, that there’s no such things as aerosols.
Bonus Factoid:
Aerosols, Climate Change and The Dramatic Failure of Planck’s Law
Physicists show how Planck’s law of black body radiation breaks down for nanoparticles, a discovery that could have huge implications for climate science
HADCRUT4 information from a 2 second google: . We look forward to your thorough explanation of why you reflexively support the misrepresentation of scientific data related to global climate change and then claim it as proof to buttress your pathologic “arguments” in favor of the cult of global climate change denialism. Take your time and be thorough. Create a website perhaps.
Link for above:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/16/daily-mail-global-warming-stopped-wrong
From your link:
Here’s what I wrote:
Yes, you are misrepresenting the HADCRUT4 dataset to supposedly “prove” that global warming is false or not occurring, global climate change is not occurring, and that therefore they will not result in biological and societal catastrophe.
Enjoy your lying. I’m sure it gives you some sort of pleasure.
Lie
Lie
Lie
Full Stop. Since your premises are lies, it’s debatable whether “therefore {ANYTHING}”, itself, constitutes a Lie; or whether it constitutes mere bovine excrement, emanating from a confused mind.
I have argued against CAGW, and make no apologies for doing so. At least I know what the real scientific debate boils down to, and have not had my thinking processes crippled by internalizing the double think of “climate change deniers” who don’t deny that climate changes; nor that most of the scientists so smeared don’t believe that humans are increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that CO2 is, indeed, a greenhouse gas.
Arguing with people like you brings to mind Barney Frank’s comment to a Tea Partier type:
I’ve heard various arguments from various deniers in the past.
(A) The planet is not getting warmer.
or
(B) OK, the planet is getting warmer, but it has nothing to do with humans.
or
(C) OK, humans are causing the warming, but human greenhouse gasses are not going to cause any major problems.
All these denier arguments end at the same place, and serve the same goal. The idea is that we should continue business as usual, rather than taking steps to control the impact humans are having on the planet. That is the mark of the denier.
Meth, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table, except a dining room table doesn’t lie as much as you.
That statement is meant to mock you with your own tactics. It succeeds beautifully.
You will never lose an argument, in your own mind. You will never be proven wrong, in your own mind. You have everything figured out, in your own mind. You are a brilliant amateur scientist who sees better and further than others, in your own mind. You ask the right questions that don’t occur to others, in your own mind. You perceive the true motivations of others, in your own mind. Are you bright enough to recognize the uniting theme of that series of observations?
I do sometimes wonder about whether he genuinely believes what he is telling us. Yet, I’m willing to give metamars the benefit of the doubt in terms of accepting that he actually believes the things that he says.
And, I will go so far as to say he seems to be better informed than many of the other Global Warming Deniers I’ve come into contact with. Although that clearly does not stop him from being wrong about these matters.
However, metamars’ problem is that he has the wrong audience for what he is trying to sell. He is basically trying to sell us on the idea that we need to avoid doing anything about greenhouse gas emissions (at least in terms of regulations or taxes), but this concept isn’t likely to go over too well here at FDL.
“Although that clearly does not stop him from being wrong about these matters.”
Do you have some sort of special qualifications on the subject? Maybe you’re wrong.
Most people on this site seem to have no idea what it would mean to radically cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, I mean what it would imply for the world economy.
Most people here are nothing more than metaphorical throwers of chairs through the windows of a McDonald’s.
Maybe I am wrong. However, we shouldn’t be putting Earth’s biosphere at risk with this dangerous experiment (in case I’m right).
I think most people on this site know that cutting back greenhouse gas emissions is better than the alternative. The economy depends on the ecology, so the health of the planet’s biosphere must come first.