After a Fox News interview with 2 key Senators on sunday, The Washington Post asked if the GOP is edging toward the exit of the anti-science asylum. Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota’s carefully worded answer to a question contained an admission that climate change is happening, and that humans bear at least some responsibility. The Post’s headline was ““Top Republican Bows to Science on Climate Change”
Stephen Stromberg in the Washington Post:
Asked about the overwhelming agreement among experts on the cause and trajectory of global warming, Thune began with a familiar GOP climate-change dodge: “Climate change is occurring, it’s always occurring.” But then he said this: “There are a number of factors that contribute to that, including human activity. The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”
In three sentences, the number-three Republican in the Senate admitted that human activity is affecting the climate and that this concern demands a policy response.
This is progress for Thune, who said this in 2010: “Obviously, I think the question you have to ask yourself, one, is it occurring? And even if you say ‘yes’ to that, two, is human activity contributing to it? And even if you say ‘yes’ to that, then three is what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”
But once you get to “yes” on the first two, as Thune apparently has, the answer to the last question should be relatively simple for honest conservatives: The efficient, market-friendly approach to cutting dependence on greenhouse gases is pricing carbon dioxide emissions and allowing market forces to adapt the economy.
After hearing the exchange, Post’s headline, seemed to me a little off. Thune’s micro-adjustment was so small he could easily claim a slip of the tongue if he gets heat from his science denying base.
What’s more interesting to me is Fox News’ Chris Wallace challenged Senator Thune with the mainstream scientific view of the problem.
WALLACE: Senator Thune, briefly, because I want to move on to immigration. But if you can in about 30 seconds or so, when 97 percent of scientific papers say that human activity does add to climate change, without getting into all the details, don’t we have to do something?
THUNE: Well, look, climate change is occurring, it’s always occurring, Chris. There are a number of factors that contribute to that, including human activity. The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?
As impacts continue to mount, and even the Fox News audience increasingly notices direct effects of weather extremes, sea level rise, etc, even Fox is going to have to make some kind of adjustment, to retain at least of pretense of a reality-based orientation. Stay tuned.
The larger conversation revolved around the Keystone Pipeline vote, which was held this week, and the potential jobs that might be created by that project.
On ABC’s “This Week”, Martha Raddatz pressed the jobs issue in questions to CEO of Keystone builder TransCanada, Bill Girling, thusly:
RADDATZ: There are others who say the jobs will not be so great, going as low as 4,000 jobs. And that the jobs will only be here for a couple of years. The State Department, you mentioned the State Department, says that once the proposed project enters service, operations will require approximately 50 total employees in the U.S.
GIRLING: Yeah, the State Department report details every type of job. And, yes, the actual operating jobs are about 50. But that doesn’t include all the other jobs that come with it.
see video here.
Key point here is that any jobs created in pipeline building, or in extractive industries in general, are often temporary “boomer” type jobs, that, while they may pay big money for transient laborers with the right skills, the communities most affected by the projects often are burdened with greatly increased costs for law enforecement, courts, and social infrastructure that come with a pig-in-the-python growth curve, and then left holding high and dry when the short term boom is over.
Back at Fox News, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, interviewed as a counter-weight to Sen. Thune, had this worthwhile observation on the pipelline/jobs issue:
WALLACE: Senator Whitehouse, oil markets are global. If you put more supply into any part of the system, it’s going to lower prices at least marginally everywhere. The president is wrong at a bunch of these points.
WHITEHOUSE: Well, the different is that the tar sands is probably the filthiest fuel on the planet, and when you add that into the equation, you dramatically increase the effect of carbon pollution and of greenhouse gases. Now, our friends on the other side won’t agree that any of this is real. They will never treat climate change seriously. And so, they just look at the one side of the ledger, which is a bunch of jobs.
And I think it’s 4,000 direct jobs, which is good. I mean, I’m not going to under — you know, to try to deprecate that. But we’re growing at 200,000 jobs a month in this economy. And the last environment and public works bills for the highways would have been 1.8 million jobs.
The contrast between the shrinking minority of hard core climate deniers that are the GOP base, and the public at large, will only grow, and both politicians, and news outlets, that refuse to recognize the change will increasingly marginalize themselves. President Obama’s recent aggressive stance on climate change is well grounded in the polling data.
That conventional wisdom of climate change as a dead weight issue is challenged by a Stanford University study based on the 2010 congressional elections, which found Americans voted, at least in part, on candidates’ climate change positions.
In one study, Stanford’s Bo MacInnis, Jon Krosnick and Ana Villar compared what candidates said (and didn’t say) on climate change in every 2010 congressional and Senate election to how much Democrats won or lost by. In short, they found Democrats who took pro-green stances such as “global warming has been happening” increased their vote margin over Republicans by 3 percent compared with those who didn’t. The impact was much larger — a 9 percent vote-margin swing — when a Republican took a position doubting global warming’s existence or opposing action to address the issue. The analysis controlled for the district or state’s partisan lean in the 2008 election, as well as for whether the candidate was an incumbent.
Majorities of residents in every state surveyed said the government should limit greenhouse gas emissions by businesses and, in particular, by power plants, Krosnick said. Majorities also favored a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions; tax breaks to encourage the production of energy from the sun, wind and water; carbon sequestration; and government regulations or tax breaks to require or encourage improvements in the energy efficiency of automobiles, appliances and buildings. No state had a majority of residents opposed to any of those policies.
Two points. Thune will soon find out how much gluttony there is on the greenie side. Statements such as “There are a number of factors that contribute to that, including human activity. The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?” will be seen as NOT ENOUGH and more-more-more will be asked from him.
I know that as a fact because I have been saying the same since 2007 and still even in this blog I have been called a denier a million times.
Secondly we’ve just been through an election cycle where climate change was a dead issue. It’s sad that the hydra-meme keeps coming back, with claims about 2010 that most likely do not apply anyway.
You could have said the same thing about Nazis and what they were doing in Europe in 1938. The isolationists were at the top of their game, but the US ended up in WWII just the same.
Two things will happen. The first is happening now. Oil is getting too expensive to keep up the oil based economy (even with the artificial price levels now being set by the money centered banks and speculators). If we’re now being forced to use tar sand as a source of petroleum, the end is clearly in sight. That’s where the oil business first began in the 1850s.
Second, every major odd weather event will hammer the consciousness of the public, and more are happening every day, whether or not it can legitimately be blamed on climate change. Nothing like experience to change the minds of the average person. More freak events, more attention to climate change.
Gosh, it’s almost as if those questions of “how much and at what cost” (and attribution) didn’t have readily available answers.
A reduction in GHG pollution (CO2e) by ~20% in the near term, ~50% in the medium and ~80 – 90% in the long term. All are highly achievable.
At what cost is 1 or 2% of percent of GDP as a worst case scenario. Likely less (perhaps even positive), but likely more with delay.
The context is very large increased risk to GDP, property and life and limb if you don’t do those things.
IPCC puts best answer for attribution as about 110% of warming since (iirc) 1950s…
Astrologers will understand
“gluttony on the greenie side”?
Besides being in denial of the long term economic benefits of renewable energy and environmental practices ,maurizio is posing a conspiracy among environmentalists for secretly having a false agenda.
A common projection among right/libertarians is that everyone is just like them, and only motivated by self-interest.
Jp please stop these theorism of yours. Greenies are never satisfied because it’s in their nature, as shown by you and many others here. No need of a conspiracy between you and Dumbo for example, you just think alike 8)
Yeah Jpc! Stop with all that never-ending theorismizing you do. It’s a disgusting habit, especially when it’s linked with engaging in perverted practices with pachyderms (like thinking alike). That’s the dreaded PPP sin that leads to eternal damnation, which in your case will mean being confined to a dungeon in hell with Omno. Can you imagine? I can’t.
Pills. More pills. Or any other help you can find.
“The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”
“At what cost”??!?
In the U.S. we spend about $1.5 trillion a year on fossil fuels. We can eliminate that “cost”.
M.I.T. tells us that if we continue with BAU, it will “cost” the world $1240 trillion in adaptation costs by year 2100 alone. The U.S. share of that is probably ~ 1/3 or $400 trillion dollars. That’s the additional “cost” of using fossil fuels, above and beyond the minimum of $100 trillion dollars the fuel itself will cost us by that time.
Republicans arguing “At what cost” is the biggest bullshit argument in the entire history of bullshit arguments.
They are incredibly stupid and vulnerable on that point. Democrats – are you listening?
It’s very similar to people who go get a payday loan because last week they spent all their cash in a gambling casino. This week they have to take out a loan-shark loan to pay their heating bill. The heating bill will end up costing hundreds of times what it should have cost, because they couldn’t pay back the ultra-high interest loan either.
Only it ALSO results in many lives lost. And everyone ELSE gets to pay the ever-ballooning interest too.
So he’s saying it’s a foregone conclusion that the oil WILL be produced? Hmm, that sure sounds like putting the cart before the horse to me. It does NOT have to be a foregone conclusion. That’s the whole point of being against it.
He is saying the same thing that the CEO’s of Exxon-Mobil and Shell and all the other fossil fuel companies are saying (although some like BP try to dress it up with PR BS because they are trying to restore their “image”).
Yes, as far as they are concerned, it is a foregone conclusion that they are going to continue to get rich selling fossil fuel, and they have spent a lot of $$$$ buying the politicians that are going to help them achieve that goal.
What is not a foregone conclusion is that they can’t be stopped. The real question is whether that will happen in time to avoid CAGW.
Y’all heard about Enbridge Line 67, aka the “Alberta Clipper”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Clipper_pipeline
I just learned about this today. It seems that all the brouhaha about the northern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline is a mis-direction on the part of 350.org and the other allied anti-KXL crowd.
Why? Because the tars sands oil is already flowing through Line 67 at a rate of 450,000 barrels of bitumen per day. And the public are pretty much unaware of it.
See: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12674
Here’s the YouTube version of the Real News Network item:
Not quite sure what you mean by “…..mis-direction on the part of 350.org and the other allied anti-KXL crowd”. Are you saying the “anti-KXL crowd” is DOING the misdirecting or is being misdirected?.
There is a lot of “sneaky stuff” going on while KXL plays the straw man. The Canadians are busy with east-west pipelines so they can transport bitumen to their own ports for shipping (some to TX and LA for refining before it goes overseas) and with building coal export terminals. The U.S. is quietly building LNG export terminals, expanding coal shipping facilities, and making plans to export more crude.
It’s the old “watch what this hand is doing while I pick your pocket with the other” game, and, with the non-help of the MSM, it seems to be working nicely.
Breaking news! We can tell those climate denial’ing politicians to blow it out their backside with renewed conviction!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bus-fuelled-by-biomethane-from-human-waste-launched-in-u-k-1.2842067
I am unable to resist saying it.
You have GOT to be s**ting us!
I say that not about the concept, but about what is painted on the side of the bus. The UK truly is the land of Monty Python and Benny Hill.
Once you pass the veneer of contextual appropriateness and the first layer of apparent friendship, you learn to beware of UK-originating words of praise, you thoughtful and considerate defender of the environment.
Does anyone know what Omno is really talking about here? I can’t believe he is deluded enough to lecture a native-born American who has studied both American and British history and culture extensively. I wonder when Omno came to the UK from his native land and how, when, and where he became such an “expert”?
BTW, I am now reading a great little book—-“The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th. Century” by William Rosen. It addresses the impact of the Medieval Warm Period on Europe and gives a great look at history in Europe from the time of the Viking expansion up through the 1300’s. It’s lively and well-written—-i recommend it to all.
Of course you don’t understand. The images on the side of the bus appear like a joyful celebration of what it runs on, perhaps even a wish for how it will run in the future, with onboard “fuel production”.
Hardened cynics will see the same pictures as a marketing ploy using toilet humor.
Even more hardened cynics (eg anybody who’s lived in the UK more than 15 years) will see the same pictures as a subtle critique on all the money spent on gimmicks like a poo bus.
I hate to encourage Omno, but he apparently CAN make fairly clear and intelligible statements on occasion. Although he got a bit carried away with “joyful celebration” and “onboard fuel production”, this comment actually makes some sense. Too bad he wasted his short burst of lucidity on something as inconsequential as the joke about “poo bus” that indy222 injected and I riffed on.
A bigger question is—-Are our efforts to help Omno bearing fruit? Is he actually now able to appreciate irony? And one doesn’t have to be a “hardened cynic” to see his last points. Anyone who appreciates British humor will. (And remember, the U.S. may not have developed it to quite the same level as the British, but we have our share of “cynical humor” here, and will have the same range of opinions on the “poo bus”—-I did).