Steamboat Institute is proud to present a compelling debate on the following question: Is ‘Net Zero by 2050’ both achievable and necessary to address climate change? Featuring Roger Pielke Jr., Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of Colorado, Boulder and Steven Koonin, Ph.D., Author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”; Former Undersecretary for Science, U.S. Department of Energy, in the Obama Administration. Moderated by Chris Clemens, Ph.D., Provost, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
November 1, 2023, 5:30 PM-7:00 PMET
Frank Porter Graham Student Union
209 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
You can register to watch here.
How can you have a “debate” between 2 climate “skeptics”? Incidentally, Koonin doesn’t pay much attention to the facts From those well known greenie-communists at Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-book-manages-to-get-climate-science-badly-wrong/
Right. None of them believes in Net Zero by 2050, but Steven Kooning believes climate change should be addressed. At least that is the impression I got from his book.
Since their views are not terribly different- it’s more of a polite discussion rather than a debate.
Actually Pelke believes in Global Warming needing a solution.
Koonin thinks the Earth is warming a wee bit- but no need to panic.
“In a review of Unsettled in Scientific American, Gary Yohe, an emeritus professor at Wesleyan University, gives the impression that he didn’t read past the first few pages. The book has nine chapters filled with examples of exaggerations and outright falsehoods in both scientific and popular accounts. Yohe mentions just four claims taken from the first two pages, plus one from a chapter subtitle, and manages to refute none of them” link.
Yohe says things like “Climate change has increased the length of fire season by 75 days”. Provable falsehoods like that are a dead giveaway you’re dealing with a zealot.
Fire season? ugh.
It increased the fire season by 75 days, but had no impact on the growing season.
If you read the book and look at what he presents objectively, rather than as part of the ‘vested interest’ group, then he does present the facts to do with climate science, which is not what the consensus would have you believe. Koonin is a believer in the AGW hypothesis but not in the ‘Doom and Gloom’ alarmist hysteria that is being peddled, in some cases, by people who should know better.
Roger Pielke, jr is, I think, of a similar opinion – anti-agw hysteria and alarmism, but not totally against the AGW hypothesis.
I expect a discussion of rational science and a rejection of ‘wishful thinking’ policies or the completely unattainable net zero goals.
I’ve been involved in debates where before the debate started, I was told what position I was going to take. It was my responsibility to fully research that position and to support it during the debate. Winning involved who could sway a larger percentage of the audience.
Aren’t liars… er, I mean lawyers suppossed to be able to argue either side depending on who is paying them? 🙂
Same way every debate on the various media is between a panel of alarmists.
We are left hanging as to who is for and who against. My money is on pielke to be for.I would tendto for but only with a 100%nuclear route
I think both are against net zero as it has been framed so far, Koonin maybe for different mitigation strategies and Pielke for nuclear, as you mentioned.
Who knows what the options might be by 2050. 25 years in the future? Comparatively that would make today like 1998. Watch those tech stocks.
There are a few wee impairments for vision splendid-
US offshore wind writedowns seen soaring with Orsted earnings (msn.com)
Just needs some more helicopter money drops to hurry things along.
NetZero is a little different than the false concept that CO2 increases will warm the planet. Reducing usage for energy stretches out the availability of fossil fuels for a longer time in the future. I can see that being a positive.
They should be debating “Is Human-caused Climate Change real?”
while adding that so far cc seems a good thing regardless of cause!
It’s real, the question is how big is it, and what percentage of it is caused by CO2.
Let the market place determine the availability of fossil fuels- not bureaucrats (burros).
Usually I’d agree, but I just wrote a one-liner about the Y2K bust. The US tech stock bubble of 2000 hurt a lot of people in ways that are real 20 years later. I see 70 y/o engineers working past their time – who would have been about 50 when the wipeout transferred their retirement savings to somebody else’s trust fund kids instead of some upper middle class golf country club.
The jaded conclusion that the market is a tool for people who control the market to extract from those who mistakenly think they know the market – that conclusion kept an entire other generation scared. They’l be working past their time too.
My point is that the market place can be correct without being kind. Some might see a photo of “burros” and think: Awwww cute.
No it isn’t. The belief in the false concept has directly led to NetZero. We have thousands of years of fossil fuels available plus nuclear when we get our heads screwed on correctly.
All the bad stems from the one belief.
Incorrect. If your statement was true then fossil fuel use would’ve declined by the same amount that renewables have increased. The fact that they haven’t, that they have increased faster, shows your statement as false.
A really rather ugly thought but:
What if someone, somewhere, has A Really Big Secret?
…..and that there may be: Method in the apparent madness.
Let’s picture Antnonio (oceans boiling) FigureItOutOrNottyNess sucks on an especially strong spliff, or whatever he’s on, then gets to his feet to declare:
“”Sorry folks, we’ve all been trying to sort this out, but we can’t. So we might as well tell you all here and now that there’s only 2 weeks worth of petrol left on this planet and it’s all under SaudiAfgangBangIstan
Question: How much of SaudiAfgangBangIstan will not be a pile of rubble, a huge crater or under a mushroom cloud 7 days from now?
The conspiracy to hide evidence for a situation that big contains too many humans.
Yep. The bigger the conspiracy, the faster it falls apart – it’s the human factor, most of us aren’t really wired up to keep a secret that big, we slip up.
Of course the actual big (not so big as that but still big) secret that Antnonio had, has already slipped out of various people’s mouths. The secret is, it’s got nothing to do with climate change.
Only if the value being saved is greater than the money being spent to “stretch it out”.
The best course from an economic standpoint, is to use fossil fuels to create wealth now, then use that wealth to improve lives and to fund investments in science to help us find what will replace fossil fuels that much faster.
To the extent that restricting fossil fuels destroys wealth, you are doing long term harm to the population.
When assessing goals to achieve, most reasonable people would add 26 years to their age and then decide if achieving “Net Zero” by 2050 affected them or not. Pretending that you are “doing it for the children” that you don’t have is ridiculous.
True. What technology will exist in 2050 that is only in comic books today? I’m dying to know whether Social Security will still exist in USA.
Without major changes, the SS trust fund goes bust in less than 10 years.
Better question is ” Will the USA still exist?”
Yes. I’m still waiting for some of the technology that was in comic books of the 50’s to materialise. Not sure that’s a good metric.
Photosynthesis: Plants/Plankton turning Sunlight/CO2/H2O into Food/O2; neither animal nor blade of grass would exist, absent CO2. More CO2 helps plants resist drought/damage/disease, extends growing seasons, lets plants move higher in altitude & Latitudes, shrinks deserts & reduces the spread of fire, plants using & retaining H2O more efficiently. As CO2 rises, photosynthesis flourishes & plants take in more CO2, sparking more growth, photosynthesis & CO2 uptake. Rising temperatures also extend growing seasons, help babies survive, increase net rainfall & save lives. We are in the short period (glacial interstitial) between long Ice Ages, the norm (where I sit) being a half mile of ice. Warm is good, cold is bad. This Cradle of Life is greener, more fertile & life sustaining than it was 200 years ago. Because adding food to the base of the food-chain supports all of Nature. “It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” R Lindzen
Great quote.
AGW hypothesis
========
There are 2 versions:
1. Co2 warming
2. Water amplification.
In science, precise definition is the key to understanding. In politics imprecise definition is the key to funding.
Explain what caused the LIA, MWP, RWP, etc. Settled science would have an answer.
The glacial records show large swings in temperature 10C+ over periods of 10-20 years. Much, much greater than current warming. Explain this. Prove current warming is not due to the same mechanism.
Until that is done, AGW is nothing more than a poorly correlated hypothesis.
The GHG effect shows that CO2 COULD affect temperature. It does not mean that it MUST affect temperature.
The climate system likely has hundreds of degrees of freedom. Cause and effect can occur along any of these pathways. Often in ways that are totally unexpected, contrary to expectations.
For example heating ice and water both have non linear responses to temperature. Given the vast reserves of water and ice on earth, this should make climate highly unpredictable with respect to temperature.