Canada’s ‘Climate Barbie’ Catherine McKenna Mistakes CO2 for Air Pollution


She gives blondes a bad name

The Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change has justified the nation’s new carbon tax by suggesting that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

In a tweet Tuesday, Catherine McKenna, confused the issue of air pollution with the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2.

“Canadians know that pollution isn’t free,” the minister wrote. “We see the costs in storms, floods, and wildfires — that’s why we’ve announced we’re putting a price on pollution. It’s good for the environment and it’s good for the economy.”

In May 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a comprehensive report documenting the severe health risks caused by air pollution.

According to the WHO report, “around 7 million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in the polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system, causing diseases including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia.”

The report made no mention of climate change and spoke only of the adverse health effects of polluted air, a different phenomenon.

All of the potentially fatal pathologies referenced in the report are caused by “exposure to fine particles in polluted air” and not by global warming, much less exposure to carbon dioxide.

In its infographic on the causes of air pollution, the WHO lists six sources of dangerous fine particulate matter, none of which is related to climate change.

The six sources of air pollution are industry and energy supply, dust, agricultural practices, transport, waste management, and household energy.

Among the six solutions proposed by WHO for combatting air pollution, not one of them touches on carbon dioxide emissions, for the simple reason that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not harmful to human health.

Unlike pollutants, carbon dioxide is odorless, colorless, and most importantly, non-toxic. Human beings expel carbon dioxide with every breath they take (without polluting), and breathe it in with every lungful of air they inhale — to no ill effect. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen.

The WHO database collects annual mean concentrations of fine particulate matter. Those that pose “the greatest risks to human health” are sulfate, nitrates, and black carbon, they state.

The WHO report further noted that deaths relating to air pollution occur overwhelmingly in third-world countries where large segments of the population “still do not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies in their homes.”

Ms. McKenna — affectionately known as “Climate Barbie” — is not alone in erroneously confusing carbon dioxide with air pollution.

Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau has made the same mistake, referring to CO2 emissions as “carbon pollution.”

Carbon pollution [soot] does indeed exist in certain parts of the world, but it should not be confused with carbon dioxide, which is a normal component of air, and not a foreign pollutant.

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Three Surprises About Nobel Laureate Nordhaus’s Model of Climate Change

Yale University professor William Nordhaus was named a co-recipient of this year’s Nobel (Memorial) Prize in Economic Science for his work on climate change. The award was of particular interest to me because back in 2009 I published an article in The Independent Review offering a thorough analysis and critique of his Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE). At the Institute for Energy Research website, I have explained that Nordhaus’s latest version of his model does not support the United Nations’ current push for aggressive measures to limit global warming. In the present post, I will revisit my 2009 article to showcase three surprising facts about Nordhaus’s DICE model, all of which are very relevant for the climate change policy debate.

Surprise #1: Overly Aggressive Policies Are a Cure Worse Than the Disease

The most important table in my paper was taken directly from A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options of Global Warming Policies, Nordhaus’s 2008 book treatment of the 2007 version of his model. The table shows the costs and benefits of various policy goals for dealing with climate change:

For example, in the baseline case of no controls from the government, the long-run cost of environmental damages is estimated to be $22.55 trillion, expressed as a present-value sum (in 2005 dollars). However, Nordhaus’s baseline includes virtually no “abatement costs,” which measure the harm to the economy from complying with onerous climate regulations and emission taxes.

In the second scenario, Nordhaus shows the cost that his model yields when all the governments of the world implement a carbon tax at the optimal rate (which increases over time, although this isn’t shown in the table). Because greenhouse gas emissions are lower in this scenario, the present-value of environmental damages drops to $17.31 trillion.

Note that this estimate is $5.24 trillion lower than the estimated environmental damages in the baseline scenario. However, those gross benefits of the optimal carbon tax are not the actual net value of implementing the policy. Being a good economist, Nordhaus also acknowledges the cost of implementing his ideal carbon tax, in the form of forfeited economic output. As Table 4 indicates, the present value of the total abatement costs from Nordhaus’s optimal carbon tax is $2.2 trillion. Thus, the net benefits of the optimal carbon tax—relative to the “no controls baseline”—is only $3.07 trillion, shown in the first column of the table.

So, to sum up: In the world of the DICE model, as of its 2007 calibration, the theoretically optimal carbon tax made humanity about $3 trillion richer (in present-value terms) compared to a laissez-faire scenario, in which businesses and households emitted more than the socially optimal amount of carbon dioxide. Hence William Nordhaus in real life supported a carbon tax, because—done right—it had the ability to make humanity up to $3 trillion richer.

Yet notice something very interesting. Table 4 also shows the gross benefits and costs from other possible climate policies. And the worst shown alternatives—especially Al Gore’s proposal to cut emissions by 90 percent—would not only yield worse outcomes than “doing nothing” (i.e. the no-controls baseline), but the absolute value of the net harms would be several times larger than the net benefits of the optimal policy. For example, Gore’s recommendation would hurt conventional economic output so much that humanity would be $21 trillion poorer than under the baseline scenario. (This is a net figure, taking into account the large reduction in future climate change damages due to Gore’s aggressive limit on emissions.) Thus, Gore’s proposal would cause seven times as much net damage as the net benefits accruing from Nordhaus’s theoretical optimal policy.

Before moving on, consider in Table 4 the policy goal of “Limit temp. to 1.5°C.” This policy, although not as disastrous as Gore’s proposal, is still quite bad: It makes humanity $14 trillion poorer than doing nothing about climate change, and here again the net damages from this bad policy are more than four times the magnitude of the net benefits from the best possible policy.

Why am I focusing on this scenario? Astute readers will recognize that limiting global warming to 1.5°C is the UN’s latest announced goal, released on the same day as the announcement of Nordhaus’s Nobel Prize. Although I and other free-market analysts have pointed out the irony, the lion’s share of the media coverage treats Nordhaus’s award as complementary to the latest UN calls for drastic government intervention in the energy and transportation sectors.

(To be clear, Nordhaus’s more recent model calibrations are more pessimistic about the harms of climate change, and so the UN’s target wouldn’t be as ludicrous as it seemed in his 2007 model runs. However, as I explain at the Institute for Energy Research, it’s still the case that Nordhaus’s DICE model recommends far more warming than the UN’s preferred ceiling.)

Surprise #2: “Optimal” Carbon Tax Almost Triples within a Decade

It’s interesting to look back at Nordhaus’s estimates for the optimal carbon tax, based on his 2007 model runs and compare them to his most recent (2016) update. As I showed in Table 3 of my article, back then Nordhaus estimated the optimal tax in the year 2025 at $53.39 per ton of carbon (not carbon dioxide), measured in 2005 dollars.

However, before we compare the figure to his most recent estimate, we should make two adjustments. First, we need to convert the 2005 dollars to 2010 dollars, because the latter is what Nordhaus uses in his recent update. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator, the relevant figure in 2010 dollars should be $59.83.

The second adjustment is to convert the figure from a tax per ton of carbon to a tax per ton of carbon dioxide (which is now the standard unit in this literature). So we need to divide our figure by 3.67 in order to reach the warranted conclusion: Back in 2007, Nordhaus’s DICE model estimated the optimal carbon tax in the year 2025 would be $16 per ton of carbon dioxide (in 2010 dollars).

Yet according to Nordhaus’s 2016 calibration, the optimal carbon tax in the year 2025 would be $44 per ton—meaning the estimate has almost tripled in under a decade.

Now to be sure, proponents of aggressive government intervention would exclaim, “You see?! We told you the situation was dire! The evolution of Nordhaus’s estimate shows that we need a stiff carbon tax right now.”

However, opponents of aggressive government intervention could review this history and respond, with just as much justification, “This is clearly a very fluid area full of speculation. If the recommended dosage of a certain dietary supplement almost tripled in nine years, many people would understandably conclude that medical science was still grappling with the issue, and would be less confident in heeding their doctor’s advice.”

Surprise #3: Most of Nordhaus’s Estimated Climate Change Damages Based on Ad Hoc Method

A final takeaway from my 2009 article revolves around its Table 2, which shows the sectoral breakdown of the impacts of a hypothetical 2.5°C warming. According to Nordhaus’s 2007 treatment, this level of warming would cause an expected 1.5 percent hit to global GDP.

However, upon closer inspection, we see that “catastrophic impacts” account for an expected hit to global GDP of 1.02 percent, which works out to 68 percent of the total damages. Now if this figure were derived in a systematic way, it would be one thing. However, as I explain in more detail in my article, it is quite surprising to see how Nordhaus (and his earlier co-author) actually came up with this number. Here’s how I summarized the situation:

Nordhaus in 1994 asked experts to estimate (among other things) the probability of global GDP loss of 25 percent in the event of 3.0°C warming…The surveyed experts gave him their answers, from which he computed the mean. By 1999, further research had made these scenarios seem more plausible or catastrophic. So, Nordhaus and Boyer took the original average of probabilities reported by the experts, doubled it, and then assigned this new figure as the probability for a 30 percent loss of GDP rather than the 25 percent the experts had been told to consider, for a less significant warming of 2.5°C rather than the 3.0°C mentioned in the original survey. (Murphy 2009, italics in original.)

And so we see the crude method by which Nordhaus derived his “expected value” of catastrophic impacts, which was computed by weighting the huge potential loss of 30 percent of global GDP according to the (low) probability of such an outcome occurring. As I indicate in the above block quotation, the numbers he plugged into this calculation were rather arbitrary, only loosely tied to what was even originally merely a survey of experts (as opposed to an actual analysis of concrete scenarios).

It is true that Nordhaus’ model and the other Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the global economy and climate system have continued to improve over the years. Nonetheless, MIT’s Robert Pindyck—who is a proponent of carbon taxes—wrote a scathing peer-reviewed article in 2013 in which he dismissed these models as “close to useless.” Among their faults, the models gave policymakers a false sense of precision, because their damage functions were crude and arbitrary.

Conclusion

William Nordhaus is a pioneer in the economics of climate change, who arguably invented the discipline in its modern form. His so-called DICE model of the global economy and climate system is state-of-the-art, and was one of three selected by the Obama Administration to estimate the “social cost of carbon.” In recognition of his accomplishments, Nordhaus was one of this year’s Nobel laureates in economics.

Despite his prestige, Nordhaus’s model has serious shortcomings, as I documented in The Independent Review in 2009. Looking back, there are three surprising facts about Nordhaus’s model that are relevant to today’s policy debate:

First, Nordhaus shows that aggressive mitigation policies can be a cure worse than the disease, and he specifically included the United Nation’s latest goal in his examples of such misguided goals. Second, Nordhaus’s estimate of the optimal carbon tax (for the year 2025, for example) has almost tripled in less than a decade. Third, far from being tied to specific analyses of particular threats, Nordhaus’ global damage estimate was largely driven by a simple survey of experts, and this figure was furthermore manipulated arbitrarily by Nordhaus in light of new developments. The public would be very surprised to learn just how crude the “settled science” underlying various proposals to limit climate change really is.

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Two Brothers Want to Start a Christmas Tree Farm on Their Own Land. The Township Might Fine Them $450,000

Two brothers might have to cough up $450,000 payable to Canton Township, Michigan. Their infraction: daring to cut down trees on their own private property.

Gary and Matt Percy own and operate two businesses in the state: a trucking company and a tree specialization company. They planned to start a Christmas tree farm on a 16-acre piece of land they own in Canton Township.

But to do that, they needed to cut down more than 1,400 existing trees. And for good reason, their attorney, Michael J. Pattwell, told MLive.com. The property was ravaged by "invasive plants like phragmites, buckthorn and autumn olive," he said.

It's not like the brothers cleared the area without replacing the trees they cut down. They planned to put 2,500 Christmas trees into the ground, about 1,000 of which have already been planted.

Unfortunately for the Percys, a township ordinance prohibits landowners from cutting down trees without the government's permission. Watchdog.org reports:

The township defines a tree as a woody plant with a defined stem of at least three inches in diameter at chest height. Because the township does not know the exact number of trees removed, it hired an arborist to examine the make-up of trees on an adjacent property to estimate what trees were on the Percy brothers' property before they removed them. In a settlement offer, the township proposed fines of about $450,000 for the removal of what it claims is slightly less than 1,500 trees, including 100 landmark or historic trees.

Pattwell told MLive.com that the township's approval "may be obtained by either payment into the township's so-called tree fund or on-site replacement with trees of certain designated trunk diameters." If the brothers do both of those things, their fines can be reduced by about $70,000, he told Watchdog.org.

But Pattwell claims this clients didn't do anything wrong in the first place. For one thing, he says much of what the township defined as trees was actually invasive vegetation. Moreover, the adjacent property examined by the township's arborist has a "different land history and distinguishable characteristics" from the Percy brothers' land, he told MLive.com.

Finally, the brothers believed they were eligible for an exemption under the ordinance. According to that exemption, "agricultural/farming" and "commercial nursery/tree farm operations" don't have to receive government approval before clearing trees on private property.

Township attorney Kristin Kolb, meanwhile, told MLive.com that the brothers were warned "at least twice" they needed a permit, but they "never came and got one."

Pattwell believes the case is an example of "misguided overreach" by the government. "It is unavoidably about whether people who own property are allowed to use it," he told MLive.com.

He's right. Reason's Ronald Bailey has pointed out in the past that locals do a much better job of protecting forests than the government. The Percy brothers may have been cutting down trees, but only so they could plant new ones in their stead. And Pattwell certainly makes it sound like they weren't even in violation of the township ordinance.

But the larger issue at play here is the government infringing on property rights. The land in question doesn't belong to the township; it's private property owned by the Percy brothers. Whatever they decide to do with said land is their choice, not the government's.

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How Do You Debate A Greenhouse Gas Theory ‘Expert’?

Written by Stephen Wells

For the last five years I have been arguing against people who have more academic credentials than me. People who have much more ability at mathematics than me. People who are experts in a scientific field that is relevant to understanding climate.

People who are, quite frankly, more intelligent than I am. I am just a bloke with an above average but not exceptional IQ who stopped formal study of mathematics and Physics at age 16 (achieving O level grade B in both) and who didn’t begin informally studying either again until the age of 44.

Yet I keep arguing. At first, I thought my suspicions must be wrong. Who was I, after all to be challenging people who do this stuff for a living? But the thoughts wouldn’t go away and the more I asked for experts to prove me wrong, the more my doubts grew. After a while I started to think that, maybe, just maybe, I might be right after all. Now I am sure of it! As certain as I can be that the Earth is not flat, I am as certain that there is no such thing as a Radiative Greenhouse Effect.

In the course of my arguments I have been made to look like an idiot on the subject of thermos flasks, space blankets, air conditioners, water syphons, glazing, light bulbs, microwave ovens and even lasers.

My knowledge of all of these different things has improved greatly with each embarrassing encounter, but my opponents can still run rings around me on the finer details of how any of these things work. Then there are opponents who know the ins and outs of Einstein’s theory of Relativity, quantum mechanics or the inner workings of photons, and happily respond to my arguments with four line equations to demonstrate what an idiot I am and encourage me to shut up and accept the judgement of my betters.

After each encounter I learn a little more about all of these things than I knew before and come away even more confident that my assertions about a lack of Greenhouse Effect are correct.

Astrophysicist Joseph Postma (see climateofsophistry) has a word for the tactics of my opponents: Sophistry. That of deliberately adding complexity where it is unnecessary to the understanding of a subject, for the purpose of discrediting opposition to a flawed idea.

People who are cleverer than ourselves can be genuine experts who wish to enlighten us, or they could be people who think they are experts but are mistaken in their assumptions, or they could be con artists who are using their superior knowledge and intelligence to deceive us. How to find out which one they are?

How does one find out who is saying correct things to us and who is wrong, when our own knowledge of a subject is so inferior to the person who is trying to convince us of their views?

We have been bombarded with the message that “97% of scientists believe in climate change”. Should we make our decisions about what the majority of clever people say is true? The majority of clever people in 1000AD said the sun revolves around the Earth.

They were wrong. A majority of doctors twenty years ago said that eating food that is high in cholesterol such as eggs would increase your chance of a heart attack. They were wrong.

A majority of mechanics might tell someone who knows nothing about cars that they need to spend $2,000 to prevent their car from breaking down. The majority of mechanics might be con artists! Depends where you live.

No, it’s not good enough to simply “trust the experts”. Regardless of whether it’s a mechanic, a climate scientist or a doctor treating your cancer. So what to do?

First recognise that is incumbent on anyone more knowledgeable than you to prove to you that they are not con artists. It is not incumbent on you to show you are clever enough to rebut their claims. The default position on ANYONE who has superior knowledge of something than you who wishes you to believe them about something, should be that they are con artists until they can prove otherwise to YOUR satisfaction.

That means the person must tailor their language and their knowledge to a level you can understand. More importantly they must overcome your objections and reasoning, with logic and language that fits your level of intelligence. Finally, they must be able to directly respond to your objections and not use vague analogies or bring up examples of things that appear completely unrelated.

So in my own experience with the Greenhouse Effect, I have had many very clever people tell me all kinds of things about everything from lasers to quantum physics. But I’m still waiting for any of them to show me a lab experiment where the basic premise of the diagram below is demonstrated.

This diagram shows the surface of the earth absorbing energy from the sun. Then the earth’s surface emits infrared radiation. The “Greenhouse gasses” absorb some of this energy and send half of what they absorb back to the surface. The surface then re-absorbs this energy as well as new energy from the sun and this results in the surface emitting more energy than the sun alone is providing.

Simple enough. Should be easy enough to show me an example where the same thing occurs in a lab experiment.

I don’t need the sun to provide the energy for the experiment. All I need is a solid object with a constant input of energy which results in the object emitting infrared radiation. An electric bar heater would do just fine. Or a metal plate with an electric current running through it.

Now, if I put enough Carbon Dioxide in the way of the radiation, the CO2 should absorb some of it, send some of the energy back to the bar heater or metal plate, they should increase their infrared energy output and get hotter.

I’m also happy if the person wishes to substitute the Carbon Dioxide for another IR absorbing substance. It doesn’t even need to be a gas! As long as the IR radiation is absorbed and the energy output of the original emitting object is increased above that of the power source, you’ve got me!

Five years of making a complete fool of myself will be shown beyond a reasonable doubt and I will hand over all my money to Al Gore’s beachside property fund! If someone can show me this experiment doing what is proposed in the diagram, I will make a public apology and then shut up forever.

What happens instead is my opponents talk about thermos flasks, space blankets, water syphons, photons, microwave ovens, lasers, or post long equations with Greek symbols instead of numbers.
I am clever enough to be able to engage on these subjects and very often stupid enough to allow myself to be engaged in them! I don’t get as ridiculed as I used to, as I’ve educated myself a little bit along the way, but these people still know a hell of a lot more than me about all of these subjects. Just like every mechanic still knows a hell of a lot more than me about cars.
The funny thing is, is that the better I get at arguing with “expert” scientists about the Greenhouse Effect, the less money I seem to be spending on fixing my car.

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New York AG sues Exxon Mobil, says company downplayed climate change risks

New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Exxon Mobil Corp. of fraudulently downplaying the risks of climate change to its shareholders.

The attorney general's office argued in its suit that Exxon Mobil failed to accurately depict the likely financial risks associated with climate change, thereby deceiving investors.

“Investors put their money and their trust in Exxon — which assured them of the long-term value of their shares, as the company claimed to be factoring the risk of increasing climate change regulation into its business decisions," New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) said in a statement. "Yet as our investigation found, Exxon often did no such thing.”

She added that Exxon Mobil instead “built a facade to deceive investors into believing that the company was managing the risks of climate change regulation to its business when, in fact, it was intentionally and systematically underestimating or ignoring them, contrary to its public representations.”

The suit follows three years of investigation by the New York attorney general's office that looked into whether the company lied to investors and the public over the risks of climate change. It did not address how Exxon might have played a role in exacerbating the effects of climate change, but leaves the door open to additional lawsuits.

Underwood additionally alleged that her office's investigation found that the fraud reached up to Exxon Mobil's highest levels and that the misrepresentation was known by former Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson — who left the company to become President Trump’s first secretary of State. He left that post in March.

An Exxon spokesman told The Hill that there "is no evidence to support these allegations."

"These baseless allegations are a product of closed-door lobbying by special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general’s inability to admit that a three-year investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing," the spokesman said. "The company looks forward to refuting these claims as soon as possible and getting this meritless civil lawsuit dismissed."

Environmental groups reacted positively to news of the lawsuit.

Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, called climate change deception “central to Exxon’s business model.”

“This is the same company that bankrolled a 30-year, multimillion denial campaign, manufacturing doubt about climate science when it knew there was none,” Wiles said. “The New York Attorney General’s office deserves credit for defending the state's investors against Exxon's latest deception.”

An investigation by InsideClimate News published in 2015 said Exxon was aware since at least 1977 of the risks posed by climate change driven, at large, by burning fossil fuels, but sought to downplay the effects despite warnings from the company’s in-house scientists.

Bill McKibben, cofounder of 350.org, said the suit was necessary to stand up to "Exxon’s lies."

“Big oil may finally face some consequences for its role in wrecking the climate,” he said. “The New York Attorney General is standing up for investors who may have been swindled, and indirectly for the 7 billion of us who will suffer from Exxon's lies.”

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Australia: King coal surges 60pc as ministers agree to work on reliable power

Coal has emerged as the nation’s most valuable resource commodity — increasing in value by almost 60 per cent over the past five years — as states and territories agree to a December timeline for a deal to make electricity supply more reliable.

Following a meeting with his state and territory counterparts yesterday, federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said progress had been made on a key element of the now-scrapped national energy guarantee, the “reliability obligation”. The obligation, to be implemented by mid-2019, would help to shore up stability of the ­energy system by requiring retailers to contract ahead to guarantee supply during forecast shortfalls.

State and territory energy ministers used the Council of Australian Governments’ Energy Council meeting in Sydney to agree to consider a draft bill in ­December establishing the new obligation amid concern about the security of supply over summer. “The reliability obligation is absolutely crucial,” Mr Taylor said. “We know this summer we’re facing some real challenges.”

Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Audrey Zibelman briefed the ministers on preparations to buttress the security of supply in the national electricity market over the Christmas holiday period. AEMO warns of the need for “additional measures” to guarantee greater reliability.

Its warning coincided with the release of a new data series from the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday showing that coal mined in Australia in 2017-18 was valued at $65.6 billion, up from $41.4bn in 2013. “This is the first time that statistics for output (by commodity) and intermediate use of inputs have been published for the mining industry,” the ABS said.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the data showed the mining industry added 8.8 per cent of the value of the Australian economy in the past financial year compared with 4.7 per cent in 1994-95.

“In 1994-95, Australian coal production was worth $8.8bn, compared with an incredible $65.6bn in June this year,” he said.

Gas production also increased dramatically over the past five years, rising from $22bn in 2013 to $46.5bn in 2018. In 1994-95, gas production was worth $2.6bn.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan seized on the results, saying it was “another reminder that Australia’s mining industry remains crucial to our nation’s wealth”.

“Fossil fuel exports from ­Australia are helping our economy maintain positive growth and get the budget back into surplus,” he said. “Just in the past two years, coal and gas exports have surged by $50bn — that’s equal to our ­entire exports of agriculture.”

The growth coincides with a debate over a new government plan to shortlist a “pipeline” of ­potential baseload power generation projects, including new clean coal stations, by early next year. The projects would be eligible for government assistance under a scheme being designed. Mr Taylor has signalled the government could potentially indemnify a new coal project against the risk of a ­future carbon price.

A government plan to establish a “default market offer” against which energy retailers would set their prices was also discussed at the Energy Council meeting. The ministers agreed on the “need to develop a reference point/comparison rate against which all ­offers could be measured”, for consideration in December.

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