Also, a pox upon all of you for not summoning me to the discussion of tariffs in free-market societies. Especially you, @Thalassokrator !
@clousems Yes, I am quite familiar with this argument and POV - this is what Milton Friedman would say. I understand that tariffs are bad for consumers, and we are all consumers, and blah blah blah.
The flaw in this otherwise compelling and logical argument is that there is more to life and having a healthy nation than economics alone.
When you allow your domestic workers to get screwed from offshoring because they make more expensive products, since they enjoy worker protections, environmental protections, pensions, health care, etc. - this is very corrosive of national pride and identity.
People can start to detest their own government and that can be destabilizing.
The flaw in this otherwise compelling and logical argument is that there is more to life and having a healthy nation than economics alone.
When you allow your domestic workers to get screwed from offshoring because they make more expensive products, since they enjoy worker protections, environmental protections, pensions, health care, etc. - this is very corrosive of national pride and identity.
People can start to detest their own government and that can be destabilizing.
The point is that the workers don't have to get screwed in the first place. Struggling to compete in offshoring? Develop the technology infrastructure, and reap the benefits.
Workers don't like qualitative industrial change, but they are also averse to higher prices and lower realized earnings.
Workers don't like qualitative industrial change, but they are also averse to higher prices and lower realized earnings.
@clousems
"The point is that the workers don't have to get screwed in the first place"
Come on now - I just explained that if customers can buy a cheap product from a place with no worker protections or an expensive identical product domestically - we all know what's gonna happen.
You can see the results in hundreds of destroyed Rust Belt cities, shattered lives, fentanyl addicts, etc. There is a big negative cost for the society, even if it does make some Wall Street guys richer.
Looks what you are doing to me. I started off defending free markets, and now you are forcing me to sound like a socialist. Or at least a MAGA guy - which I actually am, come to think of it.
"The point is that the workers don't have to get screwed in the first place"
Come on now - I just explained that if customers can buy a cheap product from a place with no worker protections or an expensive identical product domestically - we all know what's gonna happen.
You can see the results in hundreds of destroyed Rust Belt cities, shattered lives, fentanyl addicts, etc. There is a big negative cost for the society, even if it does make some Wall Street guys richer.
Looks what you are doing to me. I started off defending free markets, and now you are forcing me to sound like a socialist. Or at least a MAGA guy - which I actually am, come to think of it.
That, my friend, is because I am trained in the ancient art of Austrian Economics style Kung Fu
@ambrooks said in #26:
> heartland org/OPINION/the-hockey-stick-curve-obscures-earths-co2-history/
Emphasis added by me. That's an opinion piece. Not a scientific paper, not a report. A personal opinion.
Assuming that you are not aware of this yet, I'd like to point out that the Heartland institute is hardly an impartial or reliable source on climate science: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute#Funding
The term 'institute' is not well regulated and any private club can adopt it in its name if they so desire. It doesn't guarantee that the source is associated with serious science.
Instead the Heartland institute is a think tank founded in the 1980s by the tobacco company Philip Morris with the explicit purpose of derailing the public conversation about the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke, lobbying against smoking bans and promoting misinformation about the emerging evidence that tobacco products cause all sorts of cancers (due to their toxic and radioactive contents). That is, science denial.
It did this for decades. In the early 2000s the tobacco industry had successfully delayed public health efforts against smoking (thus ensuring continuing high profits), but had not been able to entirely prevent the truth from coming out eventually (nor did it make efforts to reduce their product's harmfulness instead opting to make it even more addictive).
So the Heartland institute instead shifted its focus towards oil and gas companies like ExxonMobile and others. The very same methods of denying emerging scientific evidence, spreading misinformation and influencing the public's perception in favour of delaying action could also be applied to climate change and the fossil fuel industry's major role in it. And in large parts the very same people carried on this work at the Heartland institute and other such thinktanks. Just like the tobacco industry before, the fossil fuel industry had known for decades that their product is a threat to human wellbeing:
[1] news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
[2] www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research
The similarity shouldn't come as a surprise as both products are harmful in the long term and highly addictive.
> Today, 400 ppm of CO2 is 10 percent of the Earth’s historical levels 500,000,000 years ago when CO2 reached 4,000 ppm that supported the vegetation during the dinosaurs reign.
Yes, within statistical uncertainty. But the dinosaurs should clue you in here, there weren't any humans alive 500,000,000 years ago. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, that's how long anatomically modern humans have been around. That means we have never experienced conditions like this in the entire (largely unrecorded) history of our species.
The fact that CO2 concentrations and temperatures of the atmosphere go hand in hand is not only directly observable, but also based on sound physics:
[3] commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temperature-change-and-carbon-dioxide-change-measured-from-the-EPICA-Dome-C-ice-core-in-Antarctica-v2.jpg
The causal mechanism for this is based in CO2's absorption of infrared radiation (heat radiation or IR for short) from the Earth at various wavelengths, importantly at 4.26 μm [2,347 cm^(−1)] (asymmetric stretching vibrational mode) and 14.99 μm [667 cm^(−1)] (bending vibrational mode). Here's an illustration: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy#Number_of_vibrational_modes
After absorbing it, CO2 reemits the IR radiation (in part) back towards Earth thereby keeping energy in the system that would otherwise have escaped to space quicker. Therefore warming the planet's atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is a bit more complicated and subtle than that, but this simplified picture has to do for now. Along with its long half-life in the atmosphere (and atmospheric turbulence mixing it well) this effect makes CO2 the most important greenhouse gas.
What's more alarming than the absolute value of the CO2 concentration though is the current rate of change, which is unnaturally high right now:
The current rate of change is 2.48±0.25 ppm/yr. A shift of 100 ppm can mean the difference between a glacial period (complete with a kilometre thick ice sheet covering Northern Europe) and preindustrial warm climate. What nature usually does in 20,000 years we currently do in 40 years (100ppm divided by 2.48 ppm/yr ≈ 40 yr). If you're born now and planning on living to the ripe "old" age of 40 years, be ready to experience CO2 concentration changes that are equal to the 100,000 year glacial interglacial cycle. On top of already being in a record warm interglacial.
[4] mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk/carl/words/carbon.html
That's a change 150 times (!) faster than the fasted natural rate in the past 40,000 years. And 550 times (!!!) faster than the typical average rate of change (averaged over 20,000 years) during the transition between glacials and interglacials within the last 800,000 years.
I've written a post providing some more details I've left out here about a year ago (shameless repost of the link):
[5] lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/a-page-called-ask-any-questions-about-climate-change?page=5#44
> [...] While humans try to reduce CO2 emissions, the recent Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption in Iceland spewed volcanic ash. In just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet. Carbon dioxide is also coming out of the recent La Soufriere volcano eruption that has rocked the eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent.
The Heartland institute author quotes this newspaper article in "support" of their claim that a single volcanic eruption negates five years of human emission reduction:
[6] www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/iceland-volcano-climate-sceptics
When I read it I see nothing supporting this baseless assertion at all. It appears as though the Heartland institute author is relying on the fact that his readers are unlikely to actually check the sources.
Further reading on volcanos and CO2:
[7] skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming-basic.htm
> Al Gore’s limited “tunnel vision” correctly reminded us that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere today than there has been for the past 400,000 years.
Actually, more than in the past 800,000+ years. But yeah, humans have only been around for the last 300,000 years of those.
> What he intentionally does not mention is the previous Ice Age that peaked 450,000,000 years ago occurred when CO2 was about 4,000 ppm, more than 10 times its present level.
THE previous ice age? No. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was about 21,000 years ago, not 450 million years. And it featured CO2 concentrations of about 190 ppm (compared to the current value of about 420 ppm): agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL044499
> If both warm and cold climates can develop when there is far more CO2 in the atmosphere than today, as the graph shows, how can we be certain that CO2 is determining the climate now?
This is the climate change denier bingo card.
1) Always call climate science into question because climatologists dare to earnestly determine the uncertainties of their measurements and statistical model predictions: "See? See the uncertainty? These scientists don't know what they're doing!"
When in fact they of course know exactly what they are doing, knowing your statistical and systematic uncertainties helps interpret your data and gauge your confidence in accordance. If they DIDN'T quantify uncertainties, they would be bad scientists. But they do.
2) Ignore uncertainties entirely when it seems to help your cause (spreading doubt about anthropogenic climate change). Conveniently cite a glaciation event that's about as far back in time (with the associated rising uncertainty) as we know of. Namely the Andean-Saharan glaciation.
3) Ignore all other climatological factors that might have changed in the past 420 MILLION years.
The Andean-Saharan glaciation (460 million years to around 420 million years ago) is so far back in time that climatology is not yet sure of its exact cause. There are several promising, competing hypotheses:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean-Saharan_glaciation#Possible_causes
One factor that likely contributed to a glacial despite initially high CO2 concentrations (they are thought to have dropped significantly between 445.2 ± 1.4 and 443.8 ± 1.5 Million years ago and there are several competing hypotheses as to how) was the lower solar irradiance of Earth: 1312 watt per square-metre compared to 1360.89 watt per square-metre today. Less energy per unit time and unit area intuitively leads to lower atmospheric temperature. Even if you increase greenhouse gasses, a planet which receives less radiation from a weaker sun will not have as much absolute thermal energy to hold in the atmosphere, even when more GHGs lead to a higher relative share of IR-radiation being held in.
So yeah, on a scale of hundreds of millions of years (!) the sun obviously plays a role in the Earth's climate (but it cannot explain the rapid climate change that has been measured in the past 300 or so years).
So: "If both warm and cold climates can develop when there is far more CO2 in the atmosphere than today, as the graph shows, how can we be certain that CO2 is determining the climate now?"
Because of basic physics (thermodynamics of molecular gasses, blackbody radiation, energy conservation) that has been well understood for decades now and recent observations (which have a roughly fixed solar irradiance). In short, there's a strong correlation and a causal mechanism between CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) and atmospheric temperature.
Hope this helps clear things up for anyone still reading! Thanks for your time!
> heartland org/OPINION/the-hockey-stick-curve-obscures-earths-co2-history/
Emphasis added by me. That's an opinion piece. Not a scientific paper, not a report. A personal opinion.
Assuming that you are not aware of this yet, I'd like to point out that the Heartland institute is hardly an impartial or reliable source on climate science: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute#Funding
The term 'institute' is not well regulated and any private club can adopt it in its name if they so desire. It doesn't guarantee that the source is associated with serious science.
Instead the Heartland institute is a think tank founded in the 1980s by the tobacco company Philip Morris with the explicit purpose of derailing the public conversation about the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke, lobbying against smoking bans and promoting misinformation about the emerging evidence that tobacco products cause all sorts of cancers (due to their toxic and radioactive contents). That is, science denial.
It did this for decades. In the early 2000s the tobacco industry had successfully delayed public health efforts against smoking (thus ensuring continuing high profits), but had not been able to entirely prevent the truth from coming out eventually (nor did it make efforts to reduce their product's harmfulness instead opting to make it even more addictive).
So the Heartland institute instead shifted its focus towards oil and gas companies like ExxonMobile and others. The very same methods of denying emerging scientific evidence, spreading misinformation and influencing the public's perception in favour of delaying action could also be applied to climate change and the fossil fuel industry's major role in it. And in large parts the very same people carried on this work at the Heartland institute and other such thinktanks. Just like the tobacco industry before, the fossil fuel industry had known for decades that their product is a threat to human wellbeing:
[1] news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
[2] www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research
The similarity shouldn't come as a surprise as both products are harmful in the long term and highly addictive.
> Today, 400 ppm of CO2 is 10 percent of the Earth’s historical levels 500,000,000 years ago when CO2 reached 4,000 ppm that supported the vegetation during the dinosaurs reign.
Yes, within statistical uncertainty. But the dinosaurs should clue you in here, there weren't any humans alive 500,000,000 years ago. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, that's how long anatomically modern humans have been around. That means we have never experienced conditions like this in the entire (largely unrecorded) history of our species.
The fact that CO2 concentrations and temperatures of the atmosphere go hand in hand is not only directly observable, but also based on sound physics:
[3] commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temperature-change-and-carbon-dioxide-change-measured-from-the-EPICA-Dome-C-ice-core-in-Antarctica-v2.jpg
The causal mechanism for this is based in CO2's absorption of infrared radiation (heat radiation or IR for short) from the Earth at various wavelengths, importantly at 4.26 μm [2,347 cm^(−1)] (asymmetric stretching vibrational mode) and 14.99 μm [667 cm^(−1)] (bending vibrational mode). Here's an illustration: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy#Number_of_vibrational_modes
After absorbing it, CO2 reemits the IR radiation (in part) back towards Earth thereby keeping energy in the system that would otherwise have escaped to space quicker. Therefore warming the planet's atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is a bit more complicated and subtle than that, but this simplified picture has to do for now. Along with its long half-life in the atmosphere (and atmospheric turbulence mixing it well) this effect makes CO2 the most important greenhouse gas.
What's more alarming than the absolute value of the CO2 concentration though is the current rate of change, which is unnaturally high right now:
The current rate of change is 2.48±0.25 ppm/yr. A shift of 100 ppm can mean the difference between a glacial period (complete with a kilometre thick ice sheet covering Northern Europe) and preindustrial warm climate. What nature usually does in 20,000 years we currently do in 40 years (100ppm divided by 2.48 ppm/yr ≈ 40 yr). If you're born now and planning on living to the ripe "old" age of 40 years, be ready to experience CO2 concentration changes that are equal to the 100,000 year glacial interglacial cycle. On top of already being in a record warm interglacial.
[4] mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk/carl/words/carbon.html
That's a change 150 times (!) faster than the fasted natural rate in the past 40,000 years. And 550 times (!!!) faster than the typical average rate of change (averaged over 20,000 years) during the transition between glacials and interglacials within the last 800,000 years.
I've written a post providing some more details I've left out here about a year ago (shameless repost of the link):
[5] lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/a-page-called-ask-any-questions-about-climate-change?page=5#44
> [...] While humans try to reduce CO2 emissions, the recent Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption in Iceland spewed volcanic ash. In just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet. Carbon dioxide is also coming out of the recent La Soufriere volcano eruption that has rocked the eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent.
The Heartland institute author quotes this newspaper article in "support" of their claim that a single volcanic eruption negates five years of human emission reduction:
[6] www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/iceland-volcano-climate-sceptics
When I read it I see nothing supporting this baseless assertion at all. It appears as though the Heartland institute author is relying on the fact that his readers are unlikely to actually check the sources.
Further reading on volcanos and CO2:
[7] skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming-basic.htm
> Al Gore’s limited “tunnel vision” correctly reminded us that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere today than there has been for the past 400,000 years.
Actually, more than in the past 800,000+ years. But yeah, humans have only been around for the last 300,000 years of those.
> What he intentionally does not mention is the previous Ice Age that peaked 450,000,000 years ago occurred when CO2 was about 4,000 ppm, more than 10 times its present level.
THE previous ice age? No. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was about 21,000 years ago, not 450 million years. And it featured CO2 concentrations of about 190 ppm (compared to the current value of about 420 ppm): agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL044499
> If both warm and cold climates can develop when there is far more CO2 in the atmosphere than today, as the graph shows, how can we be certain that CO2 is determining the climate now?
This is the climate change denier bingo card.
1) Always call climate science into question because climatologists dare to earnestly determine the uncertainties of their measurements and statistical model predictions: "See? See the uncertainty? These scientists don't know what they're doing!"
When in fact they of course know exactly what they are doing, knowing your statistical and systematic uncertainties helps interpret your data and gauge your confidence in accordance. If they DIDN'T quantify uncertainties, they would be bad scientists. But they do.
2) Ignore uncertainties entirely when it seems to help your cause (spreading doubt about anthropogenic climate change). Conveniently cite a glaciation event that's about as far back in time (with the associated rising uncertainty) as we know of. Namely the Andean-Saharan glaciation.
3) Ignore all other climatological factors that might have changed in the past 420 MILLION years.
The Andean-Saharan glaciation (460 million years to around 420 million years ago) is so far back in time that climatology is not yet sure of its exact cause. There are several promising, competing hypotheses:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean-Saharan_glaciation#Possible_causes
One factor that likely contributed to a glacial despite initially high CO2 concentrations (they are thought to have dropped significantly between 445.2 ± 1.4 and 443.8 ± 1.5 Million years ago and there are several competing hypotheses as to how) was the lower solar irradiance of Earth: 1312 watt per square-metre compared to 1360.89 watt per square-metre today. Less energy per unit time and unit area intuitively leads to lower atmospheric temperature. Even if you increase greenhouse gasses, a planet which receives less radiation from a weaker sun will not have as much absolute thermal energy to hold in the atmosphere, even when more GHGs lead to a higher relative share of IR-radiation being held in.
So yeah, on a scale of hundreds of millions of years (!) the sun obviously plays a role in the Earth's climate (but it cannot explain the rapid climate change that has been measured in the past 300 or so years).
So: "If both warm and cold climates can develop when there is far more CO2 in the atmosphere than today, as the graph shows, how can we be certain that CO2 is determining the climate now?"
Because of basic physics (thermodynamics of molecular gasses, blackbody radiation, energy conservation) that has been well understood for decades now and recent observations (which have a roughly fixed solar irradiance). In short, there's a strong correlation and a causal mechanism between CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) and atmospheric temperature.
Hope this helps clear things up for anyone still reading! Thanks for your time!
@ambrooks said in #62:
> Thalassokrator OK - I'll try to explain economics to you one last time, and then I give up.
> In a socialist society [...] Most people get no shoes at all.
I'm well aware of the supply shortages communist/socialist societies have faced in the past. And I wasn't arguing for socialism anywhere in this thread. Perhaps you have me confused? I was merely pointing out the flaws in your dogma that greed leads to high quality products (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence and Fast fashion) and benefits for all (see: sweat shops, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion, environmental impacts of waste and water consumption, contributions to anthropogenic climate change ...).
These were your claims in #51 and I disputed them. So far without any on topic rebuttal on your part. Instead you explain the woes of communist Russia to me as if I were advocating for that ideology. Which I am not.
> In the capitalist society, the shoemaker is greedy for profit - so he makes good shoes because the customer is his boss, not the state. The price is set perfectly by the supply and demand curves. Everybody is greedy everybody wins.
You must have a strange definition of the word 'everybody'.
> Thalassokrator OK - I'll try to explain economics to you one last time, and then I give up.
> In a socialist society [...] Most people get no shoes at all.
I'm well aware of the supply shortages communist/socialist societies have faced in the past. And I wasn't arguing for socialism anywhere in this thread. Perhaps you have me confused? I was merely pointing out the flaws in your dogma that greed leads to high quality products (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence and Fast fashion) and benefits for all (see: sweat shops, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion, environmental impacts of waste and water consumption, contributions to anthropogenic climate change ...).
These were your claims in #51 and I disputed them. So far without any on topic rebuttal on your part. Instead you explain the woes of communist Russia to me as if I were advocating for that ideology. Which I am not.
> In the capitalist society, the shoemaker is greedy for profit - so he makes good shoes because the customer is his boss, not the state. The price is set perfectly by the supply and demand curves. Everybody is greedy everybody wins.
You must have a strange definition of the word 'everybody'.
@ambrooks said in #36:
> Why would any rational person oppose solar, wind and nuclear? I am in favor of these sources being used in the free market - but NOT in favor of the government subsidizing these inefficient energy sources ( wind and solar - nuclear is totally efficient ).
>
> If you are a good engineer and can make them more efficient without picking my pocket to do so - I applaud you. Let the free market decide. Socialism sucks !
we want humans to be free. but this has boundaries. so, we put bad humans into jail. still, we have freedom.
we want the market to be free. but this has boundaries, so we end businesses, like mining fossil fuels, that are out of planetary boundaries destroying our biosphere. still the market is free.
and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity so guess, why this has not happened yet. its the power and lobbying of the old fossil fuel industry at work. and the real price of fossil fuels would be much higher, if we were factoring in the cost of destruction. and that is, what a carbon tax could do.
> Why would any rational person oppose solar, wind and nuclear? I am in favor of these sources being used in the free market - but NOT in favor of the government subsidizing these inefficient energy sources ( wind and solar - nuclear is totally efficient ).
>
> If you are a good engineer and can make them more efficient without picking my pocket to do so - I applaud you. Let the free market decide. Socialism sucks !
we want humans to be free. but this has boundaries. so, we put bad humans into jail. still, we have freedom.
we want the market to be free. but this has boundaries, so we end businesses, like mining fossil fuels, that are out of planetary boundaries destroying our biosphere. still the market is free.
and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity so guess, why this has not happened yet. its the power and lobbying of the old fossil fuel industry at work. and the real price of fossil fuels would be much higher, if we were factoring in the cost of destruction. and that is, what a carbon tax could do.
@mortmann
"and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity:"
That is a completely nonsensical statement. We do have a more or less free market ( except for heavy government subsidies of wind and solar power). Fossil fuels are the main source of energy in every country in the world.
The free market is responsible for the dominance of fossil fuels. To be more precise - the energy dense, cost effective nature makes it the choice of the free market.
"and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity:"
That is a completely nonsensical statement. We do have a more or less free market ( except for heavy government subsidies of wind and solar power). Fossil fuels are the main source of energy in every country in the world.
The free market is responsible for the dominance of fossil fuels. To be more precise - the energy dense, cost effective nature makes it the choice of the free market.
@ambrooks said in #79:
> @mortmann
> "and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity:"
>
> That is a completely nonsensical statement. We do have a more or less free market ( except for heavy government subsidies of wind and solar power). Fossil fuels are the main source of energy in every country in the world.
>
> The free market is responsible for the dominance of fossil fuels. To be more precise - the energy dense, cost effective nature makes it the choice of the free market.
so, i summarize: even if i reverse all your statements so far, they are false ;) you used Heartland Institute and Nir Shaviv to back your points. Thats the same anyway, because Shaviv has been a speaker for the Heartland Institute. That is at the very core of climate change denial. You mentioned a book "Die Kalte Sonne" (co authored by RWE, a kinda fossil fuel company), thats already refuted. In fact, it refuted itself over the years, because in the years after this publication, global heating could be measured, despite the prediction of the publication. see also: www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record-heat-despite-a-cold-sun/
> @mortmann
> "and, as a side note, a free market would certainly end fossil fuels quite fast, due to it having the lowest cost of electricity:"
>
> That is a completely nonsensical statement. We do have a more or less free market ( except for heavy government subsidies of wind and solar power). Fossil fuels are the main source of energy in every country in the world.
>
> The free market is responsible for the dominance of fossil fuels. To be more precise - the energy dense, cost effective nature makes it the choice of the free market.
so, i summarize: even if i reverse all your statements so far, they are false ;) you used Heartland Institute and Nir Shaviv to back your points. Thats the same anyway, because Shaviv has been a speaker for the Heartland Institute. That is at the very core of climate change denial. You mentioned a book "Die Kalte Sonne" (co authored by RWE, a kinda fossil fuel company), thats already refuted. In fact, it refuted itself over the years, because in the years after this publication, global heating could be measured, despite the prediction of the publication. see also: www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record-heat-despite-a-cold-sun/
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