If an interview starts with “Energy Transition and Climate Crisis, and both of those are things that don’t exist”, then you lose my attention on the spot.
What else will you say in the 45 minutes that unless I carefully “investigate” it, will turn out to be as convoluted?
I’m 100% behind the fact that renewables cannot solve the electrical needs 100% 100% of the time.
En-mass EVs are not an option with the grids as of today.
That guy from Edison Motors hits the nail on the head in that one case sample he used. Pure EV is NOT the magic answer. Diesel-Electric - me say - make it Biodielsel-Electric.
(… allow some authors freedom …)
Biodiesel - then one has the “other side” screaming about food production.
Clean burning coal - corners cut to not clean the emissions cause profits above all.
Nuclear - and we have the alternative views fighting it tooth and nail.
Wind turbines - and the birds are going die.
Batteries - and then we have the mining fiascos.
… it is a fight no matter which tech is proposed.
Common sense has left the building.
Hybrid … till the nirvana of electricity generation is found. Do it wisely, clean as it can be cause going back to “burning wood for cooking” and “traveling by horse” is over, as is the current electrical gird technology, that has not been kept up to date for decades now, due to costs.
Time for new clever ideas … that do not start with “Energy Transition and Climate Crisis, and both of those are things that don’t exist”.
Climate should not be a religion. I did listen to the philosophical points this guy is making, yes the all of it. Does not mean we agree. Mr Plonk is for ever giving this angle of view, so thought it may help me in better listening and understanding. But then, that is just me….
I think your view on climate may well be informed by your religion though. If you take the whole “stewardship” thing that flows from the West’s Judaeo-Christian history seriously, you may well see this in religious terms.
I am reminded of that old movie, which I always forget which one it was, where this line shows up: Doing the right thing isn’t hard. Knowing the right thing is hard. Once you know, it becomes hard not to do it.
We never talk about the good things we get from fossil fuels.
His philosophical views seems to be that “human flourishing” is the highest virtue.
Cost effective is more important than how much we heat the place.
Only fossil fuels are cost-effective, and it will remain so.
Solar and wind are failing.
We can manage climate, fossil fuels can power air conditioning, heating, or watering of crops.
A changed climate might not be a bad thing (we always assume it is going to be catastrophic). He seems to argue that nature isn’t so sensitive that we need to coddle it.
Impact isn’t always bad. Not all impact is bad. A slightly warmer planet is actually a good thing.
Indefinite use of fossil fuels. We want to be able to do the same things over and over, hence sustainable/renewable is popular. But we’re not going to do the same things over and over. He seems to argue that at certain times, using something non-sustainable as a stepping stone is okay.
When he says “fossil fuel future”, he doesn’t mean “let’s continue doing this another 800 years”.
Fossil fuel is crucial at this point in our evolution
Greening. Old argument that CO2 is actually good for us.
Logarithmic effect of CO2. Doubling the CO2 will only cause a small amount of extra heating.
There is no reason to be afraid…
That’s 25 minutes in. That is about as much as I can handle.
Points 9 and 10 are sensible. At least he’s not leaning so far to the right that he falls off the horse.
Point 8, also makes some sense. I’ve often said in the past that us humans are a part of nature. Again, based on your religious views, you will have a certain way you see yourself as part of the whole. A purely secular view would say that we are a part of nature, and therefore just as plants once evolved and oxygenated the place so badly that the temperature dropped, humans are now carbonising the place and going the other way. Though it makes sense, I think he goes to far, and that is because if I had to hazard his religious views… he is probably atheist. The “stewardship” part is missing in his views. For someone who is into philosophy, he seems disconnected from the role his own philosophy plays.
This is also reflected in points 2 and 3. Whatever yardstick you use to measure good and bad, is a product of your philosophical view. A orthodox Christian would not consider human flourishing to be the highest virtue, for example. Soli Deo Gloria, right?
Point 11, I can almost agree, but some past tense needs to be applied: Fossil fuels WAS crucial to how we got here. Now we need to start moving on.
Jumping back to point 1: We do talk about the good things we get from fossil fuels. On this forum, we’ve often mentioned that the main issue is that we take 75% of it and simply burn it and stick it into the atmosphere. That’s our main worry.
If that is a belief, yes. Point I am making is climate can be measured, it is just data, not a belief nor consensus, that is either a belief (religion) or pseudoscience. Nothing wrong with believing nor religion, each has a place.
When we are discussing climate, and more specifically if the climate is changing, data shows it is changing, then whatever you believe should be backed by facts, and not dogma nor a religious belief.
I’m a bit more loose in that respect. I think what you belief should at least be justified. Some false beliefs can be justifiable (they may follow logically from something else you are perfectly reasonable in believing). For example, my belief in my wife’s fidelity is justified, based on the wedding promises we made. If she cheats on me, that means my belief was false, but it was still justified.
Given the data, a belief in an impending climate crunch (if I can call it that) is entirely justified.
And the difference here is we all have to believe our spouses are faithful, or no spouse. There is nothing to believe about climate, we have data, from hundreds of thousands of years. We understand at least mostly the Sun, and data from Ice cores, and precession and Milankovic(spelling) cycles etc.
We have data on tree rings, thermometer data for about 100 years, tide gauges for longer, historic records on ice and glaciers etc. we now have satellites to measure ocean data, temp data, co2 data etc. This is what I am referring to.
There is reality, and then data models. Reality is what we can measure, weather we predict, badly and that is just a few days. Climate, well who knows. Models frequently do not work correctly predicting the past accurately either, so there is that, and we have data to compare those predictions to.
Like you said, some things we have to believe, other things are a bit more logical and we can look at data.
Everything you think you know… is a belief. Beliefs can coincide with reality, or not. But every thought you hold in your brain, is a belief. I’m probably nitpicking terminology, but your brain doesn’t hold facts. Facts are external. Your brain holds beliefs about those facts.
Going down this path eventually lands you in a discussion about ontology vs epistemology
Data, differently from belief, does not change. You can choose to believe the data or not. Choice is still yours. Yesterdays data for temperature, is data, you can chose to not believe that, doesn’t change the data, as an example.
But enough of that, thought is was good to look at all this ev stuff from a different perspective ;), maybe I learn something….
Epistemology is the study of how human beings form beliefs. In epistemology, the term “belief” is used in its archaic sense, it doesn’t refer to the subset of beliefs that are normally identified as “religious”. It encompasses everything humans claim to know.
For anything you think you know, keep asking why until you run out of answers (like a 4-year old), and see how you always eventually end up with something you take on faith (in yourself, often).
How do I know, for example, that the facts I’m presented with on any particular topic is true? In the case of the climate debate, a LOT of what we believe is taken on authority. Someone told us, someone whom we find trustworthy. The information seems to fit with other information we already know. Tick enough boxes, and your brain accepts the “fact” and forms a new belief.
Thus you end up with beliefs that may be true (they correspond with reality), you have beliefs that may not be true, but they are justifiable (more specifically, philosophers say they are “properly basic”). And then you get the rest…
Make no mistake, I think… ahem… I BELIEVE people who reject the climate findings are unjustified in doing so.
Hmmmm, so what does the data say, not models, but concrete measured data that is not modified. You know humans are great at two things, lying about stuff and to themselves as well (believe) and recognizing patterns in raw data, well some humans for the second point.
So here is a thing, I (others) may not believe that your belief is based in fact. Nobody knows, just intuition. This is not now about climate ne
This was an edit but I figured it needs its own reply.
Something to add about authority. It is, in some cases, a fallacy to appeal to authority. But this is an informal fallacy, and it is only fallacious if the person you are appealing to isn’t an agreed authority.
The big balls-up with the climate debate… is that a sizeable proportion of people, without any possible justification, have decided that scientists are in fact not authorities when it comes to science.
(Who the heck else should we ask then? You, Mr denier?)
A quote from my brother, in his personal capacity (he was a lead author on the last IPCC report, but obviously does not represent the IPCC in any way):
…the 6th assessment report went through the rounds of open/public review, received hundreds of thousands of comments/criticisms (across the three working groups), each of which had to be addressed in writing, with adjustments to the text to match. Essentially, it’s the single most robust scientific document in the history of humanity. It concluded that anthropogenic warming is incontrovertible. If some idiot thinks they can do better, they should publish their paper and sit back, waiting for the Nobel committee to call.
TL;DR There is no published evidence that challenges our understanding of the existence or cause of climate change in any serious way. But there is a mountain of evidence in support. If folks want to ignore the mountain, there’s little point in trying to convince them of anything.
Every single comment received in the drafting process - from the absolute crackpots to genuine scientific challenges was tested, evaluated, and responded to in writing.
When it comes to ‘authority’, this is one of the best researched and most thoroughly reviewed documents ever created.
Writing off their conclusions with a simple ‘because I think it will not be a problem’ as Mr Epstein effectively does in this video, just does not cut the mustard.
There is really no data for Africa, me thinks at this time it is due to not enough sales volumes across the whole of Africa, so not much reporting anywhere.
