The Economics of Climate Change
online.wsj.com
The Economics of Climate Change
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#2"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot up to £11.8 million,"
Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that much money legally.
Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy for that. Oh wait...
But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#3Reading that article I was actually shocked at how little money was being spent studying climate change.
Meanwhile, being a "skeptic" is good money these days:
(not spam, all links relevant in terms of providing some balance)
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#4Reading that article I was actually shocked at how little money was being spent studying climate change. Meanwhile, being a "skeptic" is good money these days: http://tinyurl.com/22go3n http://tinyurl.com/yzgojux http://tinyurl.com/2kzqd7 http://tinyurl.com/2ozbrc http://tinyurl.com/yhealhs http://tinyurl.com/mrmb9j http://tinyurl.com/yfq5tam http://tinyurl.com/yhuhceh http://tinyurl.com/yf8pekp (not spam, all links…
There's no need for URL shorteners here
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#5I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change.
My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money.
But that there's some sort of malicious conspiracy to fool then entire world that everything is going to hell? For what's practically pocket change that pays the salaries of a large group of scientists? No, that makes no sense.
And what have they spent the research money on? Hookers and blow? Of course not, it's been spent on climate research and taking us closer to understanding what's happening and what, if anything, we can do about it. Spin-off effects of this is that money has been going into research projects for cleaner energy, more efficient energy use, alternatives to fossil fuel, and all these things are undeniably good.
The media hype, that I could live without, and the Copenhagen Climate Conference is becoming I don't know what, but I hope that cooler heads prevail and that actual non-fudged data and science is used there, because there is of course a lot of that, just because the leak showed one instance of bad data, it doesn't mean that the entire thing is bad.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#6I get the feeling that the entire purpose of the CRU email leak is to create FUD leading up to Copenhagen. What exactly was the motive of this anonymous whistleblower? If the person who leaked these emails had the best interest of climate research in mind why were they conveniently leaked right before Copenhagen? I do not believe this leak was done in the interests of clarity because I believe the timing of this leak was significant to the whistleblower. I do hope this leak leads to more openness in climate research. But I don't think openness was the motive of the leaker.
I also doubt any analysis of these emails and their conclusions so close after the leak. It will take time and analysis to understand how the supposed infractions and rigged data actually affected the dialogue surrounding climate change. It's not enough to say someone fudged data. What we need to see is how that fudged data affected the actual debate over the climate's change. And that analysis should take longer than a week.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#7"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot up to £11.8 million," Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that much money legally. Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy for that. Oh wait... But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.
If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results they wanted.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#8I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change. My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make i…
> ...think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money.
This is precisely the kind of thinking that got the United States into the War in Iraq.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#9"For the world's economy, of course, trillions of dollars are now at stake in pursuit of emissions reductions based on the flawed science that these leaked emails have helped lay bare."
From what I've read about them the emails lay little bare about the science - more about the politics of trying to keep down the FUD-slingers and easily-publicized, some-what contrary findings.
Further, a huge increase in funding does not constitute evidence that it is being used for "flawed science".
The future of powerful data and analysis of climate changes is in sad shape if (unsigned) articles in WSJ.com by persons of unknown scientific credentials become the guides for world policy.
Re: The Economics of Climate Change
#10"But in this decade, according to one of the leaked documents, the total shot up to £11.8 million," Holy shit, ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS??? They must be criminals. Nobody makes that much money legally. Just think how many weather stations, researchers and assistents you could buy for that. Oh wait... But yeah, research involves a lot of politics.
If only there was some organization on the other side that could afford that sort of money. They'd easily be able to get scientists to produce the results they wanted.
Is that sarcasm or what? During the George W Bush's tenure as president, the US government (backed by the massive oil companies) WAS that organisation. Why did they not prevail? Cause the science doesn't work. This is likely to be the very reason why some climate change scientists have such a hard nosed attitude
Even if you don't believe that is what happened then you must admit that the existing energy companies have a huge incentive to stop this and easily have the funds to compete with the current spending. Please explain why they haven't managed to do this successfully.
The most likely answer is that the science doesn't work and the scientific community has eventually rejected their money. So the energy companies have moved on to funding sceptic groups instead.