My post the other day on nuclear power prompted a number of comments – most of them hostile. Because the comments offered were fairly standard-issue arguments that one often hears in the debate about nuclear energy, it’s worth surveying them seriously.
Markets Schmarkets
One argument often heard is that market actions are not indicative of economic merit. Rod Adams, for instance, writes:
… Continue ReadingMarkets dominated by people whose only motive is making more money are not the best decision makers – the people making the decisions in that situation will often decide to influence the law of supply and demand by keeping their hands on the levers that they can use to keep supply restrained. If their hands are “invisible” it is because they work at keeping them hidden or because observers and academic study producers do not work very hard to find them.
[The other parts of this series on the activism of Texas A&M climatologists are here: Part I, Part II, and Part III]
“If the models are as flawed as critics say … you have to ask yourself, ‘How come they work?'”
– Gavin Schmidt [NASA], quoted in David Fahrenhold, “Scientists’ Use of Computer Models to Predict Climate Change is Under Attack,” Washington Post, April 6, 2010.
“We do not know much about modeling climate. It is as though we are modeling a human being. Models are in position at last to tell us the creature has two arms and two legs, but we are being asked to cure cancer.”
– Gerald North (Texas A&M) to Rob Bradley (Enron), November 12, 1999
A Washington Post piece last week, “Scientists’ use of computer models to predict climate change is under attack,” has brought attention to the importance of climate modeling in the current debate over climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases (GHGs).…
Continue ReadingLast week whilePresident Obama was touring a factory in Charlotte, N.C., one of the workers asked the President why he didn’t use an electric limousine. According to the LA Times , the President, who had just made his customary speech extolling renewable energy and green jobs, said there’s not much he can do to wring more fuel efficiency from the armored limousines that drive him around. He had asked the Secret Service about converting to hybrid vehicles, the president said, but was told that it’s not possible.
“It’s because the cars that I’m in are like tanks,” Obama said.
But he did emphasize that he ordered a tripling of the number of hybrid vehicles in the federal government’s massive fleet. That’s our proactive president where image, not the cost to taxpayers, is what matters.…
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