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Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

reuters.com

51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#51
post #45

Ah, hyperbolic climate doom - literal doom - the religion of the wealthy and paranoid. The left keeps pushing the narrative of never-ending and accelerating misery, while everything keeps getting better. There are lots of poison peddlers these days, the climate doom-and-gloomers are just one flavor.

My standard measure for such claims is to ask myself whether I would believe someone from 1900 making the same predictions about present day.

Anything larger than a time scale of 5 to 10 years (maybe 20 at the very high end) is just people making predictions that they aren't going to be around to collect on.

Reminds me of the original 7th day adventists, who were sure they knew the day Jesus was coming back. They sold everything and lo and behold, Jesus didn't come back. So what did they do? Back to the drawing board and re-run the calculations.

Instead of following the data and seeing what the conclusion should be, people get caught up on picking their conclusion and doing their damnedest to make the data support it.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#52
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely don't! I also don't attribute that to fiat currency. I attribute that at least within the United States to "trickle-down economics," reduction of the top federal income tax rate in the US from 92% in the 1940s (and 72% in the 1970s) to 37% this year [1], and the estate tax from the high 70% range [2] in the 1970s to 0% moving forward. The reduction in the social safety net and the government services aff…

> I attribute that at least within the United States to "trickle-down economics Trickle-down economics has never been a policy promoted by any economist (left or right) in history nor a policy of the US or any western country. It was originally a political invention. And quite an effective one at that because the media/pundits have used it for decades as a strawman to endlessly attack. Of course it's far easier to wi…

I actually read the entirety of the longer treatise you posted before following up now.

I think it's important to consider that Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, was quoted in the Atlantic as saying "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."

IMO the goal of taxation as a system is not just to maximize tax revenue -- although that's an important component -- and lowering marginal rates may do that. It's also about ensuring fairness and mitigating some amount of wealth inequality. Just because a tax policy increases revenues by lowering marginal rates doesn't mean that "trickle down/supply-side economics is working" -- compared to, for instance, a wealth tax. The treatise focuses on the A vs. B of lowering vs. not lowering top taxes as the defining factor of trickle-down, but it misses the forest for the trees. Other solutions exist which may yield better outcomes for all.

The component I found particularly weak in the treatise was "if we don't lower their tax rate the rich will keep hiding money in tax-free muni bonds" and left it at that, and threw their hand up. Great, tax those. Or all holdings. Then we can pick up where we left off.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#53
post #46
post #45

Ah, hyperbolic climate doom - literal doom - the religion of the wealthy and paranoid. The left keeps pushing the narrative of never-ending and accelerating misery, while everything keeps getting better. There are lots of poison peddlers these days, the climate doom-and-gloomers are just one flavor.

>while everything keeps getting better. Are out of control wildfires, intense tropical storms, prolonged heat waves and rising sea levels a part of your analysis there?

To be fair, the chances of those events increasing in that way are pretty slim, even according to climate science.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#54
post #46
post #45

Ah, hyperbolic climate doom - literal doom - the religion of the wealthy and paranoid. The left keeps pushing the narrative of never-ending and accelerating misery, while everything keeps getting better. There are lots of poison peddlers these days, the climate doom-and-gloomers are just one flavor.

>while everything keeps getting better. Are out of control wildfires, intense tropical storms, prolonged heat waves and rising sea levels a part of your analysis there?

Wildfires are getting worse because we've completely messed up forest management.

Tropical storms are getting worse because we keep building in vulnerable areas and destroying all the swampland that can actually buffer the storm.

We haven't had accurate weather measurements long enough to know what is and isn't an abnormal heat wave.

Sea levels move around quite a bit in the long term, which is why they always find remnants of fishing villages under water or up away from shore.

The world isn't static, and pretending that it is often causes more harm than good.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientific fraud is not a thing of the past. It's not even rare. Sure, but even accusations of scientific fraud require evidence to back them up. Can you provide some credible evidence to show that the majority of the scientific community is engaging in fraud?

Who defines credible? If I provide you PhDs and studies, what ingredient is necessary to override your confirmation bias? How do you even know what the majority of the scientific community believes? Do you know any scientists? If I mocked someone for using a linear regression on cyclical data, do you know why that's bad?

> Who defines credible?

If you want to convince others, you can provide a direct argument with data/popularly cited paper that a significant proportion the science in the field is bad. There are always reasonable people, not necessarily the ones you are replying to, that you may yet convince.

Alternatively, you can also provide an example for illustration and good reasons why it should generalize.

> If I mocked someone for using a linear regression on cyclical data, do you know why that's bad?

It's not necessarily bad to use linear regression on periodic data. If you wish to capture a trend independent of the periodic change, all the data in the periods are uniformly sampled/weighted, and the period is so short v. the timeframe of the data/the data for the regression is a whole integer.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#56
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I attribute that at least within the United States to "trickle-down economics Trickle-down economics has never been a policy promoted by any economist (left or right) in history nor a policy of the US or any western country. It was originally a political invention. And quite an effective one at that because the media/pundits have used it for decades as a strawman to endlessly attack. Of course it's far easier to wi…

I actually read the entirety of the longer treatise you posted before following up now. I think it's important to consider that Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, was quoted in the Atlantic as saying "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory." IMO the goal of taxation as a syste…

I'm not seeking to defend Reagan's policies but I'm curious when did David Stockman said Trickle Down in the Atlantic? Was it their policy during the administration as trickle down is characterized?

He is a political pundit who was trying to rebut a (now) common political myth. The fact he parroted it back in an article a decade or two later doesn't mean it was the policy of the executive branch or any economist.

Which is entirely the point.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#57
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually read the entirety of the longer treatise you posted before following up now. I think it's important to consider that Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, was quoted in the Atlantic as saying "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory." IMO the goal of taxation as a syste…

I'm not seeking to defend Reagan's policies but I'm curious when did David Stockman said Trickle Down in the Atlantic? Was it their policy during the administration as trickle down is characterized? He is a political pundit who was trying to rebut a (now) common political myth. The fact he parroted it back in an article a decade or two later doesn't mean it was the policy of the executive branch or any economist. Whi…

By the way, thank you for posting the article, it was a great write-up and an enjoyable read. I found the Stockman quote in a November 1981 WaPo/Atlantic article [1] which would have been, if I'm not mistaken, in his first year in office as OMB director? Sorry I'm not more familiar with this, I'll have to do some more reading too.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1981/11/22/w...

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition away from the gold standard and years of living in a post-gold-standard world show that fiat is a totally reasonable system of money. I'd love to see you support or justify your claims, so we can at least debate from a basis of shared understanding and fact instead of hyperbole. Your statement is completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

You can read his comments in a cryptocurrency thread from last week for his specific positions. I did, don't even bother attempting to argue, you aren't going to change his mind.

Glad to hear someone knows me so well

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider the sharp upturn in divide between the rich and the poor since 1972 to be "totally reasonable".

I definitely don't! I also don't attribute that to fiat currency. I attribute that at least within the United States to "trickle-down economics," reduction of the top federal income tax rate in the US from 92% in the 1940s (and 72% in the 1970s) to 37% this year [1], and the estate tax from the high 70% range [2] in the 1970s to 0% moving forward. The reduction in the social safety net and the government services aff…

> I also don't attribute that to fiat currency

That's unfortunate, because inflation is a social policy, that, by design steals from the poor to give to the government, which generally gives to the politically connected (read: wealthy). Even when it gives to the poor, it's filtered through the wealthy, I once was on a volunteer route and found solyndra panels on top of section 9 housing, which undoubtedly increased the cost-plus of the construction project.

Why do I say it steals by design from the poor? Don't take my word for it, take Paul Krugman's:

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi...

> It goes like this: even in the long run, it’s really, really hard to cut nominal wages. Yet when you have very low inflation, getting relative wages right would require that a significant number of workers take wage cuts. So having a somewhat higher inflation rate would lead to lower unemployment, not just temporarily, but on a sustained basis.

Let me reframe this in cruder terms: "The proles are dumb and management is too lazy to negotiate correctly so it's better for society if we put workers on a rolling treadmill"

No way that can go wrong.

As for correcting income inequality by fiddling with upper tax rates or providing social services. They won't work. Those effects are linear. The effects of inflation are compounding.

Re: Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard'

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines credible? If I provide you PhDs and studies, what ingredient is necessary to override your confirmation bias? How do you even know what the majority of the scientific community believes? Do you know any scientists? If I mocked someone for using a linear regression on cyclical data, do you know why that's bad?

> Who defines credible? If you want to convince others, you can provide a direct argument with data/popularly cited paper that a significant proportion the science in the field is bad. There are always reasonable people, not necessarily the ones you are replying to, that you may yet convince. Alternatively, you can also provide an example for illustration and good reasons why it should generalize. > If I mocked someo…

jhan -

If you calculate a linear trend from subsets and get largely different results, a linear trend though the entire data set is only meaningful if you have several cycles of data. I would argue we do not have several cycles of data.

Allow me to point you to a climate scientist (who does not deny global warming). Her site is quite comprehensive. Avoid the comments section.

www.judithcurry.com

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