42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change

This is the devastating question few surveyors are willing to ask. Survey teams usually use mindless motherhood questions instead, like whether we “believe” in climate change. (Who doesn’t?) Or they ask if we want clean energy… (doh, like I want my energy dirty?) But the  Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research actually did a nationally representative poll of 1097 adults.

Everyone wants a nice climate, but hardly anyone wants to pay for it:

When asked whether they would support a monthly fee on their electric bill to combat climate change, 42 percent of respondents are unwilling to pay even $1. Twenty-nine percent would pay $20, an amount roughly equivalent to what the federal government estimates the damages from climate change would be on each household. And, 20 percent indicate they are willing to pay $50 per month. Party affiliation is the main determinant of how much people are willing to pay, not education, income, or geographic location. Democrats are consistently willing to pay more than Republicans.

The answer has flummoxed  people. Sam Ori in the Wall St Journal can’t make sense of it:

This is despite the fact that  a whopping 77% said they think climate change is happening and 65% think it is a problem the government should do something about.

This is an upside-down result. The best available science tells us that Americans should be willing to pay considerably more, because the damages from climate change are so great…

He thinks that people don’t see this as a threat to themselves personally. But the answer is mostly within the survey, at Q20 which basically asks if people are confident that greenhouse gas obligations will be met. Fully 31% of people don’t think the US will reduce emissions, and two thirds don’t think India or China will.  So who wants to pay for something that is likely to fail?

They didn’t go on to ask how many people thought that windmills or carbon markets would cool the planet. The answer to that would scare the pants of the lobbyists, and blow the whole charade. The real story is that everyone wants a nicer climate, but most people know it’s a waste of money. That’s why this is a dead topic in the election.

INFO: Energy and Climate Change in the 2016 Election

Press Release

Key findings from the survey include:
  • Sixty-five percent of Americans say climate change is a problem the U.S. government should address. Another 12 percent say climate change is happening, but the government should not be involved in fixing it; 1 in 10 Americans say climate change is not happening; and 13 percent of Americans remain unsure if climate change is happening or not.
  • When asked whether they would support a monthly fee on their electric bill to combat climate change, 42 percent of respondents are unwilling to pay even $1. Twenty-nine percent would pay $20, an amount roughly equivalent to what the federal government estimates the damages from climate change would be on each household. And, 20 percent indicate they are willing to pay $50 per month. Party affiliation is the main determinant of how much people are willing to pay, not education, income, or geographic location. Democrats are consistently willing to pay more than Republicans.
  • Energy issues and climate change are important issues for about half of likely voters as they cast their ballot.
  • A majority of Americans underestimate how much of the country’s natural gas supply comes from fracking, and many don’t hold strong attitudes about the practice. Among those who do have an opinion, twice as many oppose its use than support it.
  • Only a quarter of Americans are confident that the U.S. will fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Americans have even less confidence in China and India meeting their obligations. But even if these countries don’t, 8 in 10 Americans say the U.S. should continue making progress to meet its own obligations

h/t to David Middleton at WUWT

9 out of 10 based on 56 ratings

119 comments to 42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change

  • #

    That’s much the same here. Hardly anyone chooses the expensive ‘Green’ energy option; hardly anyone chooses to pay extra for their air fares to save the planet and so on.

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      OriginalSteve

      There has to be a problem for action to be taken….why woudl I pay more money for a mitigating a non existent problem….

      We have a local election here…waiting for someone to start putting the communist hammer and sickle stickers on all the left wing candidnates posters….

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    handjive

    We’re already paying enough, and still the climate changes.
    ~ ~ ~
    Speaking today at the State Department at the “2016 Our Ocean Conference” …

    Obama: We Have Conversations About Climate Change in the Situation Room
    . . .
    Obama can’t be talking about Sydney Harbour:

    Harold Cazneaux photography exhibition to bring Sydneysiders back to the past

    “EXTRAORDINARY images of Sydney Harbour captured by Australian photographer Harold Cazneaux over 100 years ago offer a rare insight into life on the water in an exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum.”

    Can anyone spot the 97% Doomsday Sea Level Rise over the century?

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  • #
    ROM

    Sixty-five percent of Americans say climate change is a problem the U.S. government should address.

    Yeh! The guvinmint should fix it.
    If the guvinmint thinks its that bad, get the guvinmint off its backside to do something about it if the guvinmint thinks its such a big problum!

    Just don’t bother me with it any more.
    —–
    Ask for a sizeable amount of money from each survey participant personally to “fix it” and, in the interests of carrying on with very precise percentages provided, no doubt derived from a phone survey somewhere, sometime, I would “predict” that 65% of that 65% of the “guvinmint should fix it” school of thought, would give the opposite answer in any following survey.
    .
    Which it seems is what they did when asked to put their dollars where their mouth was!

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    RossP

    But the public rank AGW dead last on the UN list of major concerns in their survey ( I think there was about 15 issues on the list) so it isn’t surprising they would not offer to pay much towards a solution of this perceived problem.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Ahem….. No one gives a hoot what the UN thinks about anything…..

      The UN is anti Christian, anti Israel, occult and thoroughly Communist

      Ironically it can’t exist without sovereign govts paying for it, so it tells you a lot about your own govts, if birds of a feather….

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      • #
        Leonard Lane

        OriginalSteve. Nice summary of the UN. I think it is time for the US to re-examine the cost/benefit ratio of its contribution to the UN.

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        delcon2

        Sorry this is a bit long.
        Rep.Mike Rogers from Alabama,pointed to a wide range of reasons why the U.S. should dump the UN. “Although the United States makes up almost a quarter of the U.N.’s annual budget, the U.N. has attempted a number of actions that attack our rights as U.S. citizens,” he explained. “To name a few, these initiatives include actions like the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would subject our country to internationally-based environmental mandates, costing American businesses more money, or the U.N.’s work to re-establish an international regulation regime on global warming which would heavily target our fossil fuels.”

        Indeed, especially in recent years, the UN has become increasingly brazen in attacking the rights of Americans, and even the U.S. Constitution that enshrines those unalienable rights. From attacks on free speech and gun rights to assaults on America’s federalist system of government and states’ rights, the UN and its member regimes have become increasingly aggressive. Now, the UN is working on a series of major schemes that would undermine even the principles upon which the United States was founded, much of it under the guise of promoting pseudo-human rights and pseudo-environmentalism.

        Rep. Rogers took special aim at a UN gun treaty that has become a lightning rod for bipartisan opposition across America. “The U.N. has also offered a potential Arms Trade Treaty which would threaten our Second Amendment rights and impose regulations on our gun manufacturers, who are already facing regulations and pressure from the Obama Administration,” Rogers explained. That treaty, ATT for short, would purport to require gun registration and eventually strict controls, with the ultimate aim of disarming civilians.

        The UN’s perceived anti-Israel bias, which some critics have even dubbed systemic anti-Semitism, also attracted criticism from Rep. Rogers. “Lastly, the U.N. does not support Israel and voted to grant the Palestinian Authority ‘non-member state’ permanent observer status,” he argued. “Anyone who is not a friend to our ally Israel, is not a friend to the United States.” Even some globalist neo-con senators such as Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have threatened the UN over its apparent hostility to Israel, and the outrage continues to grow.

        While anti-UN sentiment is fierce and growing across much of America, in Alabama, where the legislation’s lead sponsor comes from, that animosity is especially pronounced. In 2012, for example, both houses of the state legislature voted unanimously to ban the deeply controversial UN “sustainable development” program known as Agenda 21 in what was hailed as a major victory for property rights and sovereignty. Since then, UN meddling in American affairs has accelerated dramatically, sparking even more outrage about the global organization across Alabama and beyond.

        As efforts to fully restore U.S. sovereignty proceed, though, the Republican Congress should completely de-fund the UN in the meantime. Without action, the increasingly powerful and lawless UN will continue seeking to further empower itself at American expense — trampling on liberty and sovereignty in the process.

        The effort to de-fund and exit the UN comes amid growing scrutiny of the global organization, often ridiculed as the “dictators club,” and myriad mega-scandals swirling around it.
        Trump for President…Hillary for prison,2016.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I think if I was in the UN, I’d be worried I was an officially endangered species in the USA after reading that…. no wonder the UN wants to globally disarm people – they are just another bunch of aggressive leftists who want to enslave everyone.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        The UN is anti Christian, anti Israel, occult and thoroughly Communist

        Yes, yes … but apart from all that, don’t you think that those nice well-paid UN folks are are really just concerned about our welfare, you know, deep down?

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          SPOTTY

          Perhaps the US should reconsider it’s financial and operational support for the UN and suggest it relocate to a more suitable climate such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Zimbabwe or Moscow (choose your own from other suitable countries).
          I’m sure that delegates would be falling over themselves to fill vacancies for the plum posts in these countries which seem to appreciate their concepts – and also to get up close and personal with genuine climate change. That’s if they weren’t to scared to leave the building.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/africa/united-nations-peacekeepers-sexual-abuse/

          Nuff said…..the UN….”saving” the world….yep…

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      • #
        Dennis

        “Can’t exist without foreign governments (read taxpayers in sovereign nations) paying for it.”

        And used by leftists to manoeuvre into a position of controlling the world and its assets, and people.

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  • #
    Manfred

    42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change

    No prob.

    The Globalists complain that they not making headway because globalisation (a meme fundamentally underpinned by the climate scam and its sequelae like energy prices) has most adversely affected low and middle income sections of the community. On Radio NZ this afternoon the following answer was proffered by one of the goose-steppers: “We just need to redistribute more money to these groups.”

    Doubtless, the recalcitrant 42% can be adjusted away by ‘redistribution’, but social or economic ‘adjustment’ will never ever disabuse any but the most severely disconnected that money may fix the weather, the climate, and the distant future. It is upon this unassailable rock of sanity that the Church of Climatology inevitably founders.

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  • #
    pat

    call me cynical, but i dismiss any poll asking people if they believe in “climate change” as being political.

    jo’s WSJ link is written by Sam Ori, Executive Director at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), who references his colleague, Michael Greenstone, who writes the NYT spin, & admits his Institute ****DESIGNED the poll:

    15 Sept: NYT: Michael Greenstone: Americans Appear Willing to Pay for a Carbon Tax Policy
    But now, there is some evidence of a quiet undercurrent of support for a carbon policy, whether it be a tax, cap-and-trade or regulations.
    The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) — which, in full disclosure, I direct — and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a poll Wednesday on how Americans feel about various issues related to climate and energy…
    But buried in the polling data is a striking revelation: Many people are willing to pay real money for a carbon policy. In fact, on average, Americans appear willing to pay more than a robust climate policy is projected to cost…
    ***The foundation for paying for such a climate policy appears quite strong — much stronger than I thought when we designed the survey…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/upshot/americans-appear-willing-to-pay-for-a-carbon-tax-policy.html?_r=0

    Dec 2013: Uni of Chicago: Economist Michael Greenstone appointed to lead Energy Policy Institute at Chicago
    In addition to his academic achievements, Greenstone has extensive policy experience. He served as the chief economist for the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors from 2009 to 2010, playing a leading role on energy and environmental policies…
    He is currently engaged in a large-scale project to estimate the costs of climate change around the world. In recent years, his research has increasingly focused on energy and environmental questions in developing countries, including a widely acclaimed paper that showed high levels of particulates air pollution are causing the 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion years of life expectancy.
    “Greenstone is one of the very few best environmental economists, brimming with creativity and imagination,” said Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and a former faculty member of the University of Chicago Law School…
    EPIC also contributes to the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, an Argonne National Laboratory-led partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop new breakthrough energy storage technology.
    https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/12/02/economist-michael-greenstone-appointed-lead-energy-policy-institute-chicago

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    • #
      tom0mason

      People may ‘believe’ in anthropological climate change™ but that does not make it real. Foolish people may believe that paying more tax, giving more money to the UN will change the climate, but that does not make it real.

      But lurking elsewhere is reality.
      But elsewhere the pressure is building.
      Growing pressure that heralds a change with the unsubtle messages it sends.
      Soon it will explosively release and wreak havoc across the planet, ensuring the best laid plans of UN and men will go awry.

      And one day that volcano will blow and all the UN’s NGOs and all the bureaucrats can not put it back together again.
      How will $12 per year prevent that.

      As preventable as solar variations.
      As preventable as an earth-bound solar flare.
      As preventable as the movement of the magnetic poles.
      As preventable as…

      Like all weather and climate, these Natural variations we are powerless prevent or control.

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    • #
      Mari C

      Quite a few US taxpayers are already footing the bill for a carbon policy – an unstated, vague or mandated one, depending on the utility, location, etc. It’s in our gas and electric bills, in the property tax bills, and a chunk of our income tax – local, state and federal – is also earmarked for carbon reduction and alternative fuel/power research and development. Very few pay attention to this sort of thing, and some of the few that do say “It’s only a small amount!” Those small amounts add up over the year, and once all the small amounts everyone is paying get added up, it’s a huge bit of change. And no, I do not have a link to a study or a spreadsheet showing this – there are 50 states, several territories, and all the counties, parishes, cities, towns, utilities, etc. within each, and I, personally, am not taking the time to come up with a nation-wide annual total.

      What some US citizens may be waking up to is that this “carbon policy” we are being asked to pay for/into is in addition to the above items. Add in the EPA mandating a slew of things not yet in effect, even more taxes at the gas pump and on the utility bills, which will make the costs of basics go even higher, the desire to shuffle even a few dollars off to the feds (or anyone else) for any carbon reduction policy loses appeal, and may cause quite a few politicians to lose their next election bid once the reality sets in.

      Even the greenies may be dismayed if they knew how much they are really paying now, and will be paying, on top of this wonderful way to suck more money out of our pockets. Those fancy lattes could double in price, oh my!

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    If Americans used irony I would say that the vast majority fobbed the interviewer off with “let the government do it” feeling that wasting money should be done by the experts. As it is I suspect they just fed the interviewer with what he wanted and went back to watching Trump.

    O/T but an interesting post on E.M. Smith re vitamin B12 and Hilary that will rile all the trolls. (And I’m not giving a link so they have to look it up).

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Breaking News: A whopping 77% said they think climate change is happening for fear of looking bad to the imagined majority of believers portrayed by the MSM.

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    • #
      Dennis

      They are right in believing that climate changes, and weather changes, but they would also be right to believe that it is natural Earth Cycles at work, with minimal impact from human activities.

      73

    • #
      Manfred

      Virtue-signalling.
      What a wonderful euphemism. Not quite as immediately obvious as a phylactery, but it gets there.

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  • #
    Planning Enginner

    I’m afraid the sad truth is that many people want to do something about “climate change”, but they are deluded in thinking it won’t cost much or worse think that someone else should pay for it. I see many people who think considerable sums should be spent on mitigating feared environmental damage – they just think others should pay for it (as with universal health care, etc. etc.).

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    • #
      Planning Enginner

      in the US 45% pay no federal income tax. Many within that group think that is appropriate and that the Federal government should provide them and others with increasing benefits through programs they consider worthwhile and necessary. While the survey results seem to show people don’t want to do much about climate, it may be as much or more about the tendency to want to do everything with others money.

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘in the US 45% pay no federal income tax.’

        That’s the Greek Method.

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        • #
          delcon2

          And guess why the “Greeks”don’t want to pay.Because the “Banksters”put them in the mess they are in.With the IMF and the World Banksters advising them,what could go wrong?

          23

      • #

        this is why democracy is doomed. Introduce vote system for people that pay taxes and don,t work for the government. The reason with hard work will win every time.
        How stupid of me professing to die on the barricades of democracy before. I will be dying for the lazy and entitled.
        I am sorry to all that dead on the Omaha beach or Japanese held islands during the 2ns WW.

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        • #
          Vlad the Impaler

          You could check out “Alexander Tyler” (any search engine should return his famous analysis of the life cycle of democracies). You two are on the same wavelength!

          Vlad

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        • #
          el gordo

          ‘This is why democracy is doomed.’

          Not quite, China and the US are both oligarchies, there maybe a third way, a hybrid model.

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          • #
            Manfred

            I’m beginning to wonder whether there is a difference between democracy and a consensus and whether in the political mindset the two have become synonymous? Political consensus appears all too often the counterpoint of leadership.
            It’s clearly time for more democracy and less consensus.

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            • #
              el gordo

              Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have political consensus and needs to make this democracy work.

              If donations to political parties is restricted to people in the electorate (crowd funding) the majors would dissipate and perhaps give us a fairer democracy.

              22

      • #
        Mari C

        Not entirely true.

        “Only about 7.9 percent of households are not paying any federal taxes at all. That’s usually because they’re either unemployed or on disability or students or are very poor.”

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/18/who-doesnt-pay-taxes-in-charts/

        Using 2011 numbers, when even fewer were paying due to the “recession”

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        • #
          Planning Engineer

          The article cited notes that, “About 30 percent of workers had a negative income tax”. Perhaps the 7.9% figure is the more misleading.

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        • #
          Planning Engineer

          It’s staggering to think that as many as 7.9% of Americans are not paying any federal taxes at all. If you buy a pack of cigarettes you pay federal taxes. Flying involves federal taxes. As noted you can get a big negative “income tax” and buy a carton of cigarette and then you are in the tax paying category described here.

          10

  • #
    ScotsmaninUtah

    Everyone wants a nice climate

    I meet many people in Europe who think that they can affect the climate, However few people in the USA who think that they have this level of influence.

    perhaps this is a Socialistic mind set, but is not very strange as one might think as the peoples in Europe no longer do their thinking anymore.
    It is left to up to their Governments.

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Hmmm…. Will climate change be the market equivalent of a dead cat bounce? Could well be…..

    Whacko…. Deck chairs and popcorn all round….

    53

  • #

    Typical of the left. As long somebody else pays for climate crappola and I can still feel good and morally superior. Appearances, saving face, caring for everything and hence nothing. Is it about the size of appendage again, just like with our socialist capitalist too big to fail?

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  • #
    gnome

    Deplorable!
    (sarc)

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  • #
    el gordo

    A strong El Nino year, coral bleaching and rising world temperatures, gave the propagandists free reign to sew catastrophe among the electorate.

    ‘Among those disclosing party support, Coalition backers have shown the most notable shift, with 62 per cent saying they were either very or partly concerned about a warming world, up from 41 per cent in 2013 – at the height of the carbon tax debate.’

    SMH/June

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  • #
    AndyG55

    Totally OT

    Just for the record..

    I claim a new measurement of Arctic sea ice area.

    1 Wadham = 1 million km²

    This year bottomed out at about 4.3 Wadhams.

    Please try to use this new unit of measurement in all discussions of Arctic sea ice area.. 🙂

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    Don

    Unfortunately for me, I am already paying about $1000/year. An to make it worse, not one Tesla driver has thanked me for helping to pay for their luxury vehicle.

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    tom0mason

    The UN offering everyone $12 per year would be a better move!

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  • #
    ROM

    And another off topic!

    When the Brits pulled the plug on the EU with Brexit and left that big political hole behind for the EU elite to plug, they apparently took the plug home with them. Thats judging by the increasing volume of lamentations emanating from the European political and bureaucratic Brussel’s based elite as they try to plug that very leaky public confidence sapping hole with what seems to be little more than a damp and very leaky political sponge that the various right wing nationalistic European political rats are no longer very shy or backward at trying to take the odd lump out of.

    The big problem the EU political elite in Brussels now face is that they are at least five years too late to re-do and correct and radically tone down their Orwell’s “1984” levels of leftist domination and their overweening arrogance and their blatant condescension towards the European public and the rest of the world.

    And it is all entirely their own work.
    And now they are facing the consequences and have to try and correct and remove the rot the EU elite themselves in their overweening arrogance have created in the EU’s structures over the decades!
    ————–
    Via and posted by the BBC with a very considerable and obvious BBC smirk;

    Bratislava EU meeting: Merkel says bloc in ‘critical situation’

    The European Union is in a “critical situation”, the German chancellor has said, as leaders meet in Slovakia to discuss ways to regain trust after the UK’s vote to leave the bloc.

    Strange indeed about the EU being in a “critical situation”!

    I was always led to believe the EU was the future of mankind and the EU was the prototype for the way in which the UN was going to to rule the Earth and its peoples.
    Or at least rule the Earth’s peoples as soon as those peoples could be scammed, connived and forced into bowing the knee to the [sarc] mighty UN.

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    graphicconception

    Every time I hear about the results of a survey I always remember the definitive guide to surveys as demonstrated by the good Sir Humphrey:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

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  • #

    Frankly, this makes me even more skeptical of the value of polls.

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    • #
      delcon2

      Never conduct a poll,unless you know what the result will be!

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        Then of course, there is the story of the EU agency that needed to conduct some market research, so the person responsible asked if they could run a survey.

        “Good idea, said the CEO, let’s get a poll”. So they did.

        But semantics are not always your friend. They got their survey all right, but it was written in Polish.

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    pat

    then there is the $5 billion plus Elon Musk has collected in the government/taxpayer support!

    15 Sept: LA Times: Tesla says jealousy, not Autopilot safety concerns, caused breakup with Mobileye
    by Samantha Masunaga and Russ Mitchell
    Safety was the issue, according to Mobileye, which makes cameras and video processors for Tesla’s driver-assist system, called Autopilot.
    Tesla was “pushing the envelope in terms of safety with Autopilot’s design, Mobileye Chairman Amnon Shashua told Reuters in a story published Wednesday. Autopilot is “not designed to cover all possible crash situations in a safe manner,” he said…
    A spokeswoman for the automaker told The Times on Thursday afternoon that the reason Mobileye was mad is because Tesla was developing a video-processing system of its own. When Mobileye found out, it “attempted to force Tesla to discontinue this development, pay them more, and use their products in future hardware,” the spokeswoman said…
    When Tesla refused, she said, Mobileye “discontinued hardware support for future platforms and released public statements implying that this discontinuance was motivated by safety concerns.” At the time, Mobileye said it would end its relationship with Tesla when its current contract ran out.
    Dan Galves, Mobileye’s chief communications officer, said Thursday evening that each company holds a different philosophy on safety…
    On Sunday, Tesla said it would upgrade Autopilot, and would beef up its radar systems to better augment the video system, even taking over for the camera in some situations. Musk also said the radar would become the “primary” sensor system on its automobiles, but a company insider told the Times Thursday that was not the word he would have used. “The camera and the radar will work together,” he said…
    Bill Selesky, senior research analyst at Argus Research, said Shashua’s comments raise questions as to “whether this technology is ready for the public at this point.”…
    Also this week, Tesla is facing new scrutiny in China about Autopilot after a state television broadcaster said a man killed in a fatal crash in January had activated the driver-assist feature…
    CCTV reported that Gao’s family has sued Tesla in a Beijing court, though the lawsuit was not available in online court records.
    Tesla told the Associated Press that the car was too damaged in the wreck to transmit data to company servers and that Gao’s family had not cooperated with the company’s investigation
    http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-mobileye-tesla-20160915-snap-story.html

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      delcon2

      Pat,you only have to ask an “Insurance”company about coverage and then you will know what the chances of you getting “Coverage”for one of these so called “Driver-less”cars.The answer will be a definate NO.

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    pat

    15 Sept: Motley Fool: John Rosevear: Will Other Suppliers Follow Mobileye and Split With Tesla Motors?
    Mobileye’s co-founder says the electric-auto maker was “pushing the envelope in terms of safety.” Is Tesla’s hyper-aggressive timeline pushing its key suppliers too far?
    Mobileye is a key provider of software, hardware, and expertise critical to many of the self-driving systems in development around the world — and to current versions of Tesla’s much-hyped Autopilot driver-assistance system…
    During Mobileye’s second-quarter earnings call, Shashua surprised investors with the news that Mobileye and Tesla will part ways at the end of the life cycle of Moblieye’s EyeQ3 processor chip. At the time, he didn’t quite spell out the reason for the break, though the strong hint was that Mobileye was unhappy with Tesla’s rush to bring driverless technology to market, and that the May crash brought those concerns to the fore.
    Shashua was more direct in his comments to Reuters. “[Autopilot] is not designed to cover all possible crash situations in a safe manner,” he said. “No matter how you spin it, [Autopilot] is not designed for that. It is a driver assistance system and not a driverless system.” (Emphasis added.)…
    Mobileye is a solidly profitable company with a long list of big-name automaker clients. But here’s the thing: It got those clients because it learned how to play by the auto industry’s rules. Under those rules, any new system going into a production car requires extensive testing, what industry folks call “validation.” Among other things, the supplier has to show that the system is safe, that it passes regulatory and legal muster, and that it’s likely to keep working as it should for the life of the vehicle…
    But Shashua’s unusually blunt public comments this week raise a big question: Are other Tesla suppliers pondering the risks that might be created by the extreme deadline pressure Musk applies?…
    http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/15/mobileye-we-quit-tesla-motors-because-of-safety-co.aspx

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  • #
    Russell Johnson

    Stopping or even “fighting” climate change is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. I wouldn’t even pay $0.01 to join the “battle”. For governments it’s about imposing a tax on humanity because we exist.

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      OriginalSteve

      I think we should encourage all Leftists to listen to every single Margaret Thatcher speech ever made….

      She summed them up perfectly:

      “The problem with Socialism, is that eventually you run out of of other peoples money to spend”.

      Ouch….

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    Ruairi

    Our climate does cyclically change,
    Which for Earth isn’t new, weird or strange,
    But no taxes or pay,
    Can change climate today,
    Or weather worldwide rearrange.

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    TdeF

    “20 percent indicate they are willing to pay $50 per month. Party affiliation is the main determinant of how much people are willing to pay”

    Ha! As Mitt Romney said, it is hard to win an election when half the population are on welfare What that means is that people on welfare vote Democrat regardless. What’s another $600 tax a year to them? They will not pay it anyway.

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      Mari C

      There are a lot of poor people on assistance in the US who don’t vote democrat. Political engines from both sides spew so many false percentages and numbers it is hard to get a real grasp on how many, but they are not few.

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-towns

      “Still, he acknowledged the seeming contradiction of people voting for a party that was so scornful of the government assistance their town survived on.

      “You’re right, Republicans are against that. But that’s not why people around here are registered Republican. It’s because of local candidates or family history. My dad was Republican. I’m raised a Republican and voting Republican. That’s just the way it is,” he said.

      This is routinely, and sometimes sneeringly, characterised by Democrats in other parts of America as poor white people voting against their own interests. It’s a view that exasperates Davis. ”

      More views on why – http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/01/why-poor-locales-vote-for-people-who-promise-to-slash-welfare/

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  • #
    Trigger Warnings

    As the saying goes in my home state of West Virginia (habitat of Clinton’s “Coal People”), “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

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    AndyG55

    “The real story is that everyone wants a nicer climate”

    Most data seems to indicate that we are current living in one of most benign periods of climate history.

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    Gary Meyers

    The climate is just fine like it is. We are in an inter glacial period.(at least for now) Don’t screw it up!!

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    Roy Hogue

    42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change

    It’s not surprising. I wouldn’t be willing to voluntarily pay even $0.12 a year for that (yes, 12 cents, which in 2016 is worthless). And that is certainly why they tax us and get the money through the government’s ability to reach into our wallets without our consent.

    And no matter what the climate does, how can we change that? I watched a commercial yesterday, some outfit I never heard of before saying they were working hard on means to accomplish carbon capture so we could safely increase our generating capacity in California and avoid the risk of climate change. I’m afraid I gave the TV a one finger salute. Too bad the right people couldn’t see it.

    Given the miserable failure of all the panic laden predictions to come true, maybe that doubting percentage will eventually get to 99.999…999…%. But even then they still won’t believe the people. This thing is like the carpool lanes on our freeways. You can take a picture from any overpass during the morning or evening rush hours and see cars in all the non carpool lanes stacked up bumper to bumper and the carpool lane going empty or sparsely used. All those cars parked on the freeway are votes against carpool lanes, not for them. But still we are being stuck with them more and more.

    In both cases, if the evidence their own eyes can see isn’t convincing, what does it take?

    In spite of Donald Trump I’m finding myself hoping he’s elected for another reason than just to avoid Hillary — no matter what else he does I’m going to enjoy watching him upset one apple cart after another.

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    • #
      clive

      You only need one reason to vote for Trump and that’s Hillary.

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        OriginalSteve

        Actually, after reading up on Hillary, the more I research, the more I’m confident that pretty much anyone else would be better than Hillary…..

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      What would happen, if they held a Presidential Election, and nobody voted?

      This is one of the questions that keeps me awake at night. Apathy is a powerful influence – think on it.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        I’d be very surprised. But I want a choice for each office that says, “None of the Above.” I think this year None of the Above could turn out to be the winner. We could then close down the White House and not be nearly as bothered by our government as we are now and maybe even better off all the way around.

        Oh if only…

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          And regarding climate change in the first place, think on this — no one would even think about climate change, much less that there’s any danger in it without an army of sciency types and opportunists telling them the climate is changing, it’s dangerous and it’s their fault. Which information they swallow hook, line and sinker without bothering to fact check in the slightest degree.

          Let’s face it, It won’t matter whether we spend $12 or $12,000 each to fight climate change. The CO2 is going to keep rising, we’re going to keep burning those evil fossil fuels and the climate will change or not as it decides and after it’s all said and done, it will have been wasted time and resources to even talk about it.

          I might give $12 to make it all disappear. Now there’s a good thing to work for, the $12 silence about climate change. I could probably sell thousands of them if I only knew how to make all the hype go away.

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      Mari C

      We HAVE carbon – and real pollutant – capture already. Scrubbers, a technology that uses various means to filter out the stuff we don’t want in our lungs or noses or hair. It works, when used. We don’t need more carbon capture.

      10

  • #
    Gordon

    AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!!!!
    Alberta Canada is going to spend BILLIONS to convert to renewable energy.

    YEEEHAAAHH let the tax increase begin!!!!

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    • #
      TdeF

      As is well established now, renewable energy is not sustainable as in not reliable, not convenient, not available, not long term, not cheap or a permanent solution and at best very intermittent and totally inadequate. In other words something which would be condemned, outlawed and prosecuted is done by private industry. Public servants however with other people’s money seem to think it is fine as you can always raise taxes to pay for fantasies.

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      • #
        TdeF

        As is well established now, renewable energy is not sustainable as in not reliable, not convenient, not available, not long term, not cheap or a permanent solution and at best very intermittent and totally inadequate. In other words something which would be condemned, outlawed and prosecuted if done by private industry. Politicians and public servants however with other people’s money seem to think it is fine as you can always raise taxes to pay for your fantasies.

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    • #
      Manfred

      Alberta Canada is going to spend BILLIONS to convert to renewable energy.

      Of course they are. And they should ask themselves one thing. Where in the future will they get the stupendous sums of money from to maintain the eco-charade? Judging from below, it appears more than unlikely that politically correct new-age preciousness will be able to mount a rescue from the ensuing state of poverty. They’ll be the only fruitscakes left in the asylum.

      A fight over safe spaces and free speech erupted recently on a college campus in Canada, when a student weaing a red “Make America Great Again” hats was immediately attacked by a female student who called the hat “hate speech.”
      The incident, captured on video, occurred at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Student Matt Linder came to school wearing the cap emblazoned with Donald Trump’s slogan. Fellow student Zoe Slusar accosted Linder and told him to remove it.
      “You’re not allowed to share hate language at a University,” Slusar shouted at Linder. “Make America Great Again means Make America all for white people, no immigrants, no people of different sexual orientations.

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      OriginalSteve

      So let me see if this is correct – Canada, a very *cold* place , is to try and run on windmills and some sunlight……and it has very long and cold winters.

      I guess if you were trying to reduce the population through freezing them to death, they are going the right way about it.

      Once a few peoples elderly parents freeze to death, I predict a political “heads on spikes” will ensue, and the eco-Commies will be banned from political office for a generation.

      If the sale of rope and pitchforks goes up sharply, if I was a Leftiest I’d be worried….oh hang on…hasn’t Canada disarmed its population?

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  • #
    David S

    The irony is that this type of survey will still exaggerate the amount people will pay. Given a hyperthetical question about generosity to a ” worthwhile” cause people will tend to suggest they would be more generous than what an actual circumstance would be . I think you could safely say that the number of people who would actually pay more than $50 for instance would I think at least halve . Human beings are no different from governments who when there is a major crisis such as an earthquake promise hundreds of millions of dollars in aid but when push comes to shove a fraction of that amount is actually delivered. If that is what happens for real disasters imagine the shortfall when the extent of the disaster is less clear.eg .Paris agreement.

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    • #
      TdeF

      It would vanish if they had to pay themselves. There is a portion of society which does not care as they never have to pay for anything.

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  • #
    Peter C

    The real story is that everyone wants a nicer climate, but most people know it’s a waste of money. That’s why this is a dead topic in the election.

    Is it a dead topic in the election? Donald Trump has said he would scrap the Paris agreement and only spend climate money on clean water and air. Hiliary Clinton has said that she will go the whole way on the Paris agreement. So there is a choice to make.

    If the American people start to think that Hiliary will cost them jobs and prosperity then it might become a critical election issue.

    In our recent Federal election we did not have a choice. In the House of Reps, no candidate in my electorate disagreed with the government position on climate change.

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    handjive

    Obama’s Electric Car Fail – Donna Laframboise
    “Only 40% of Obama’s electric cars are on the road. None meet the 150-mile-per gallon standard he promised.”
    ~ ~ ~
    Related:
    – U.S. Gasoline Demand Reaches Record Levels (via forbes)

    – The Double Edge of Cheap Gasoline — and It’s Getting Even Cheaper (via nbcnews)

    – Don’t Count Out the Internal Combustion Engine (via realclearfuture)
    “In fact, the internal combustion engine is a moving target, and if you assume that we’re going to see future advances in the technology for electric cars, you also have to contend with current and future advances in the technology of the internal combustion engine.”

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    pat

    seems Californians are already paying a very high price. all the CAGW stuff is, unfortunately, on page 3 of the article.
    lots of other data, so best to read all:

    3 pages: 15 Sept: Forbes: Joel Kotkin: California’s Boom Is Poised To Go Bust — And Liberals’ Dream Of Scandinavia On The Pacific
    As its economy started to recover in 2010, progressives began to hail California as a kind of Scandinavia on the Pacific — a place where liberal programs also produce prosperity. The state’s recovery has won plaudits from such respected figures as The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson and the New York Times’ Paul Krugman.
    Gov. Jerry Brown, in Bill Maher’s assessment, “took a broken state and fixed it.”…
    But if you take a look at long-term economic trends, or drive around the state with your eyes open, the picture is far less convincing…
    The Cost Of The Climate Jihad
    Relieved over concerns in the short run budget, the rise in revenues has provided a pretext for Brown to push his campaign to fight climate change to extremes. New legislation backed by the governor would impose more stringent regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, mandating a 40% cut from 1990 levels by 2030.
    Brown has no qualms about the economic impact of his policies since he tends to prioritize one sin — greenhouse gas emissions — even above such things as alleviating poverty. Brown’s moves will, by themselves, have no demonstrable impact on climate change given California’s size, temperate climate and loss of industry, as one recent study found. Brown knows this: he’s counting on setting an example that other states and countries will follow. Perhaps less recognized, California’s efforts to reduce emissions may account for naught, since the industry and people who have moved elsewhere have simply taken their carbon footprint elsewhere, usually to places where climate and less stringent regulation allow for greater emissions.
    California’s climate policies, however, are succeeding in further damaging the middle and working class. Environmental regulations, particularly a virtual ban on suburban homes, are driving housing prices up; mandates for renewables are doing the same for energy prices. This hits hardest at traditionally higher-paying blue-collar employment in housing, manufacturing, warehousing and even agriculture.
    California’s climate agenda has accelerated the state’s continued bifurcation — by region, by race and ethnicity, and even by age.
    ***Of course the green non-profit advocacy groups and the media will celebrate California’s comeback as proof that strict regulations and high taxes work. They seem not to recognize that that human societies also need to be sustainable, something that California’s trajectory certainly seems unlikely to accomplish.
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2016/09/15/californias-boom-is-poised-to-go-bust-and-liberals-dream-of-scandinavia-on-the-pacific/#706a657259b1

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Yep…but look on the bright side – you could encourage internal immigration of all the leftists and eco-loons to California, then build a wall around it, fill it full of undesirables and let nature take its course….I predict it would be at medaevil levels of living standards within 10 years.

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    TdeF

    “Sixty-five percent of Americans say climate change is a problem”. Really? Is this true? I find it very hard to believe this number.

    If so what Climate is changing? What part of the world is warming? I know the idea that the planet is warming is inserted into every
    conversation about the environment, water, animals, countries, councils and part of the landscape of the politician but what do people think?

    Does anyone really think that the seas are higher from their own experience, that when they go to the beach there is any noticeable difference in a lifetime?
    Are the people in San Francisco or London or Singapore running from the rising water, or it is all exactly as they remember?
    In fact are the seas any higher in summer or winter in our yearly climate change, when the ice forms and melts across vast landscapes?

    Are the summers hotter or the winters colder and is that any more than a slow cycle like Australia’s land of droughts and flooding rains?
    Are storms so unusual that they must be caused by man. How can you tell a Climate Change storm from any other storm?
    Was that one day heat wave in England a harbinger of things to come? Are record hot days by 0.1C really records when we could not measure to that accuracy 100 years ago?

    No, while we are told endlessly about Climate Change (because Global Warming is clearly not true) how does evil CO2 create storms when it
    cannot even change the temperature? What scientific principle is involved which allows CO2 to heat the oceans without heating the air?

    At what point do people just look at the weather and the beaches and decide this is all just the biggest piece of make believe in human history.
    Does anyone really believe that the cities will be under 100 metres of water by 2100? What Climates have changed? Where?

    I have traveled for a lifetime. There are hot years and cold years and wet years and dry years but I cannot say anything has changed at all.
    Surely something as outrageous as $1,000,000,000,000 to prevent Global Warming should at least have some clear evidence which people could see for themselves?
    Surely Global Warming would require the Globe to actually warm?

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘What Climates have changed? Where?’

      Antarctica, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has gone negative and should remain that way for at least a decade. As a consequence southern Australia will experience increased precipitation and floods.

      Needless to say this has nothing to do with a harmless trace gas.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Yes, but over what period? A decade is nowhere near enough. The shortest elementary cycle in the weather is the year. Then you get the 11 year solar cycle so well known by the Egyptians that they have mapped it for 1600 years. Similar macro oscillations exist in every system. The Federation drought and the Millenium drought might be another 100 year cycle. Droughts and flooding rains is the normal pattern in Australia too since we came, but a drought or a flood does not mean the climate has changed. That is the climate. Droughts and flooding rain cycles over a very long period.

        Given only 2% of humanity live South of the Tropic of Capricorn and no one lives on the 4km high ice plateau the size of South America we call Antarctica, it is hard to know how the climate has changed South of the equator in the last millenium and the tropics are too hot and water moderated to change anyway. So we have virtually no records for the history of mankind for half of the planet. Climate change? How do you distinguish Climate Change from normal long term oscillations in an equilibrium system. With all the models and supercomputers, no one can even predict El Nino, the biggest long term weather event in the Pacific. Certainly the BOM was wrong to announce drought in Southern Australia was the new norm. If anyone knew better than to say such a thing, the BOM did.

        As so much of Australia drowns, the dams are full or filling, the races at Birdsville are nearly washed out, the Murray overflows and the Darling runs, what can you do when your thousand professional weather men are utterly wrong after years and years of study? It is one thing for a studen of dead kangaroos to be utterly wrong, another for the head of meteorology. When did the weather become politically correct? Answer? With the UN and the IPCC. Climate Change was invented. Does it really concern 65% of Americans?

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          el gordo

          ‘So we have virtually no records for the history of mankind for half of the planet. Climate change? How do you distinguish Climate Change from normal long term oscillations in an equilibrium system.’

          Paleo history gives insight and the oscillations are natural climate change, nothing unusual is happening.

          We need to focus on global warming or cooling and search for the signals amid the noise, its important for our farmers and graziers to have a reliable forecast up to three years in advance.

          Its time to build those dams.

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          • #
            TdeF

            Paleo records must be a very coarse tool for temperature, rainfall, weather. Only huge changes can easily be distinguished and continental drift, subsidence of plates and evolution of plants, animals and insects are also on this scale. Gases change greatly too.

            The whole Global Warming scare is about +1.8 Degrees in 120 years. That is not rapid Climate Change except on a geological scale but it may not even be true because the early records are so suspect, so limited in area and with such great changes in instrumentation over the period. In terms of climate such a tiny change in an average is probably not even significant and utterly undetectable on a paleo scale.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “Does it really concern 65% of Americans?”

          Not climate change per say…

          It is the political situation behind the climate change agenda that should really concern ALL Americans, and in fact all people all over the world.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Mass delusion is a serious problem, but only a sharp change in the weather will snap everyone out of it. We need to come up with a more credible story than AGW.

            Warwick Hughes spends time poking holes in BoM, this is useful work.

            http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=4694

            By the way, the best yarn on the North Atlantic blob is that its a D-O mechanism, sort of redundant during interglacials.

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          • #
            TdeF

            Yes, it is all science free politics. Climate Change is a science free zone, undefined, undocumented and inexplicable. Many of the lifelong proponents are utterly ignorant of science, like Nobel Prize winning politician Al Gore, economists and Australian of the Year, seriously worried kangaroo student Flim Flannery. Others who really should know better like James Hansen of GISS/NASA have made a life’s work promoting this and could not back down now if they wanted to do so. Even with scientists, it is one thing to be a scientist with the ability to objectively assess the work of others but quite another to put yourself forward as an expert in the field, like geneticist Sir Paul Nurse or industrial chemist Will Steffen. It is all politics which is the only reason it is an issue in the US election. You will roast in hell fire if you vote Republican.

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            • #
              el gordo

              We can rail against this [snip] here, but under real world conditions most would not take you seriously. Temperatures have to fall below the line and stay there if we are to convince people that CO2 does not cause global warming.

              http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_August_2016_v6.jpg

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              • #
                Manfred

                You mean these ‘real World’ conditions?

                AN ESTIMATE OF THE CENTENNIAL VARIABILITY OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURES
                Lloyd PJ. Energy & Environment · Vol. 26, No. 3, 2015.

                (Edited from article)

                While there has been an examination of short-term noise in the global temperature record, there has been little work on centennial noise, which is surprising, given that the global temperature records derived from direct measurement only extend back about 150 years. The Holocene records up to 8000 years before present, from several ice cores were examined. The differences in temperatures between all records which are approximately a century apart were determined, after any trends in the data had been removed. The differences were close to normally distributed.

                The best estimate of the centennial standard deviation of temperature during the Holocene is 0.98 ± 0.27C. During the 20th century, thermometers recorded an increase of about 0.7C. This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases but it seems difficult to estimate the magnitude of this warming in the face of a likely natural variation of the order of 1C. The signal of anthropogenic global warming may not yet have emerged from the natural background.

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              • #
                el gordo

                We have to contend with mass delusion, where humans have supposedly caused the warming of last century.

                All of us here know this is hubris, but there is little we can actually do to convince those brainwashed masses unless temperatures fall below the line for at least five years. That is, apart from a dramatic and unseasonable change in the weather.

                12

              • #
                Manfred

                there is little we can actually do to convince those brainwashed masses unless temperatures fall below the line for at least five years.

                EG, I usually find it both entertaining and helpful to refer to the unpredicted, “trendless interval of 19 years duration at the end of the HadCRUT4 surface temperature series, and of 16 – 26 years in the lower troposphere.”

                McKitrick, R.R. (2014) HAC-Robust Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a
                Global Climate Time Series. Open Journal of Statistics, 4, 527-535. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojs.2014.47050

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  • #
    pat

    15 Sept: Washington Times: Guy Taylor: Ban Ki-moon declares climate change debate ‘over,’ calls Paris deal his greatest achievement
    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that his greatest achievement at the helm of the world’s biggest international organization was last year’s climate change accord in Paris, and he expressed open frustration that Republicans in the U.S. continue to obstruct President Obama and to politicize the subject.
    “The debate on science and the debate on politics as far as climate change is concerned is over,” Mr. Ban told The Washington Times in an exclusive interview. “Still, the Republican Party, they are not convinced.
    “There should be no political consideration on this,” he said. “There should be no room for politics to get involved.”…
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/15/ban-ki-moon-declares-climate-change-debate-over-ca/

    16 Sept: Bloomberg: EU Leaders Pledge Quick Ratification of Paris Climate Accord
    by Ewa Krukowska & Helene Fouquet
    “Not only will the European Parliament vote in October; now all members of the European Union stand ready to ratify the accord as soon as possible,” French President Francois Hollande said Friday after an informal summit of 27 leaders from the bloc in Bratislava. The U.K. didn’t participate in the summit…
    The most ambitious scenario sketched by the Slovak presidency of the EU assumes the approval procedure at the union level can be finished by Oct. 7, said Jos Delbeke, director general for climate at the European Commission, the bloc’s executive. The fast-track route would need formal backing by the bloc’s 28 national environment ministers, with Slovakia calling an extraordinary gathering for Sept. 30. The EU Parliament’s next plenary session is scheduled for Oct. 3-6 in Strasbourg, France…
    “The EU will probably trigger the entry of the agreement into force” should the ratification procedure be finished within the next three weeks, Delbeke said…
    The climate deal will be enacted 30 days after the ratification thresholds have been reached. If they’re triggered by Oct. 7, the first meeting of the parties to the agreement, known in the climate jargon as CMA, could take place during the nearest annual United Nations climate conference, scheduled to start in Morocco on Nov. 7…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-16/eu-targets-october-ratification-of-paris-climate-accord

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  • #
    pat

    16 Sept: CNS News: (John) Kerry: Climate Change Skeptics Believe ‘Extra Water is Just Going to Spill Over the Sides of a Flat Earth’
    by Eric Scheiner
    Secretary of State John Kerry says, climate change skeptics believe that with “the melting of the ice and the rise of sea level, all that extra water is just going to spill over the sides of a flat Earth.”
    Kerry made the comments Wednesday at the Global Fishing Watch reception in Washington, D.C…
    “We now have the highest rate of increase of acidity in the ocean in 50 million years,” Kerry said. “And believe it or not scientists have the ability to measure that.”
    “And that acidity changes the capacity of particularly crustaceans to be able to grow. I’ve seen tests that show what happens with clams when they’re exposed to higher levels of pH, and you see the diminished size of the clams.”
    “So, lobsters could conceivably lose the hard shell – I mean, you can run the list of these challenges – and none of them exaggerated, except perhaps to that small group of people in America who still block things from happening because they somehow believe that with global climate change and the melting of the ice and the rise of sea level, all that extra water is just going to spill over the sides of a flat Earth,” Kerry said.
    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/eric-scheiner/kerry-climate-change-skeptics-believe-extra-water-just-going-spill-over

    16 Sept: Daily Caller: Jim Treacher: Al Gore May Bring Raw Animal Magnetism To Hillary’s Campaign
    I don’t want to say Hillary is panicking, because who knows if she’s even conscious right now. But it sounds like her campaign is trying to regain the lead by bringing in some star power. Somebody the American people cherish.
    Somebody like President of the Environment Al Gore. (LINKS TO NYT BELOW)…

    15 Sept: NYT: Hillary Clinton Takes Aim at Voters Drifting Toward Third Party
    By JONATHAN MARTIN and AMY CHOZICK
    Mrs. Clinton may also get an assist from one Democrat who has been largely quiet about the race, but can testify to the importance of resisting the third-party temptation: former Vice President Al Gore. Her staff has had conversations with aides to Mr. Gore about bringing him onto the campaign trail to emphasize the importance of supporting Mrs. Clinton if they want to make progress on combating climate change.
    “I can assure you from personal experience that every vote counts,” Mr. Gore wrote in an email to The New York Times on Thursday, after a new CBS/New York Times poll showed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump virtually tied. “The stakes are high for so many Americans. So I will vote for Hillary Clinton and I strongly encourage others to vote for her as well.”
    Some Clinton supporters expressed frustration that an interview Mr. Gore gave last month to a liberal website warning about the perils of straying from the major party candidates did not draw more attention.
    “I would also urge them to look carefully, as I know they have, at the consequences of going in another direction for the third or fourth alternative,” Mr. Gore told ThinkProgress.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-race.html?_r=0

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    • #
      Annie

      And Kerry tries to imply that we skeptics are the nutters!

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      • #
        TdeF

        Personally I am not a skeptic or a nutter. Having looked at the facts, I can safely say that man made global warming is not true and never was.
        It is a fact free wild idea based on the loosest argument that very slight correlation is proof of causality. As Professor Murry Selby said after years of study,
        there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature.

        It is odd that you cannot disagree totally with something as scientifically absurd, unfounded and illogical as man made global warming without being called names.
        That would make me a denier, with the unfortunate connotation that if you deny something it is you who has the problem.
        That is standard Marxist politics, to call your opponent names laden with opprobium.

        So if labels have to be used, perhaps unbeliever? Athiest? Opponent? Rebel? Revolutionary?
        Personally skeptic is the standard description of every scientist. A scientist does not believe something until it is proven.
        Global warming is not true. It does not have to be denied. The emperor has no clothes.

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        Robert Rosicka

        There is obviously no brain in that big fat head , it’s scary that someone in a position of power such as his can make remarks like that which are so false and no media outlet even calls him to account !

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  • #
    Dean from Ohio

    I won’t pay one cent for the urban legend of CAGW. If I want to think about what to do when someone cries wolf, I’ll go back to Aesop’s fables, not the ones made up by Democrats.

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    pat

    16 Sept: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: UN: 20 more countries ready to ratify Paris climate deal
    The UN secretary general’s chief climate adviser Selwin Hart says 20 countries plan to ratify the Paris climate deal in New York on 21 September, raising hopes the treaty could go live this year…
    Leaders from Mexico and Brazil are among those expected to hand Ban Ki-moon their instruments of ratification next Wednesday at a one-hour event at UN headquarters…
    “We are seeing many countries racing towards the finish line,” said Hart. “We have made incredible process to cross those thresholds…it usually takes years, decades and sometimes never to cross these thresholds for entry into force.”…
    Hart also raised hopes the European Union could also join this year. The bloc had said 2017 might be more realistic if it needed all 28 member states to gain domestic approval.
    “We were discussing it this morning – originally they indicated it could be 2017 or 2018 but the fact 2016 is on the table is a remarkable development,” he said. “No-one will ever doubt their leadership on climate change.”…
    “We’re all accelerating our procedures,” Jos Delbeke, director general for climate at the European Commission told Bloomberg.
    “If the leaders could discuss speeding up ratification processes at the national level and if they could agree on a light procedure for the EU ratification, then we could make it by Oct 7. If that happens then the EU will probably trigger the entry of the agreement into force.”…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/09/16/un-20-more-countries-ready-to-ratify-paris-climate-deal/

    reminder:

    29 Aug: LawfareBlog: ***David A. Wirth: Is the Paris Agreement on Climate Change a Legitimate Exercise of the Executive Agreement Power?
    As far as this and other non-binding goals articulated under the Paris Agreement, President Donald Trump, who has voiced scepticism about anthropogenic climate change, need not go through a formal withdrawal process, as required by the Agreement and international law. Instead, he need only say, ***“The United States changed its mind.” …
    (Published by the Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With Brookings)
    https://www.lawfareblog.com/paris-agreement-climate-change-legitimate-exercise-executive-agreement-power

    ***David A. Wirth is Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. He is former Attorney-Adviser for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the State Department, where he had principal responsibility for all international environmental issues. David a graduate of the Yale Law School…& is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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    pat

    globalist Reuters claims globalist this & that claim ICC in “major shift”:

    15 Sept: Reuters: Chris Arsenault: International court to prosecute environmental crimes in major shift
    RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Thursday it would start focusing on crimes linked to environmental destruction, the illegal exploitation of natural resources and unlawful dispossession of land in a move hailed by land rights activists…
    Environmental crimes will now be considered in investigations of cases that fall within the ICC’s existing remit, according to Global Diligence LLP, a London-based human rights law firm said in a statement…
    “The ICC is adapting to modern dynamics of conflict,” Alice Harrison from the UK-based campaign group Global Witness told the Thomson Reuters Foundation…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-landrights-icc-idUSKCN11L2F9

    Gaurdian/ABC love it:

    16 Sept: Guardian: ICC widens remit to include environmental destruction cases
    by John Vidal and Owen Bowcott
    The new ICC focus could also open the door to prosecutions over climate change, Rogers (Global Diligence) said, because a large percentage of CO2 emissions had been caused by deforestation as a result of illegal land-grabbing…

    17 Sept: ABC AM: ICC to turn focus to environmental crimes over human rights abusers
    The International Criminal Court says it’ll turn it’s attention to errant companies rather than focussing on war criminals and human rights abusers.
    The court will now consider environmental crimes which means that company executives and politicians could now be accountable under international law…

    hold on a second:

    16 Sept: jurist.org: Brittany Felder: ICC to focus on environmental crimes
    The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] will work to prosecute environmental crimes, according to a policy paper [text, PDF](LINK) published [press release] Thursday detailing how the court will select and prioritize cases. The court made the paper available to the public in order to increase “transparency” ***but clarified that the paper is an “internal document” that gives rise to no “legal rights” and is “subject to revision” as experience mandates…READ ON
    http://www.jurist.org/paperchase/2016/09/icc-to-focus-on-environmental-crimes.php

    16 Sept: WaPo: Adam Taylor: Is environmental destruction a crime against humanity? The ICC may be about to find out.
    ***However, while some seemed to interpret the announcement as a change in the definition of crimes, experts said that the crimes related to the environment and land had already been spelled out in the Rome Statute and that the policy paper was not binding…
    Some experts doubt that it would be practical for the ICC to pursue cases that involve corporations and businesses. “I wouldn’t say those kind of prosecutions would be likely. They would be very hard to bring,” said David Bosco, an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and author of a book on the ICC, “Rough Justice.” “What intent is required? It is enough to be recklessly negligent? That’s a complicated legal question.”…
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/16/is-environmental-destruction-a-crime-against-humanity-the-icc-may-be-about-to-find-out/

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      Mari C

      They’ve been so efficient thus far in international crimes prosecutions, this spells the end of non-AGW thinking for certain.

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    Dennis

    Good news, $300 million from Australia to the Pacific Islands to assist them with defending their lands from climate change.

    The bad news is that money can’t fix it if it was a problem.

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    handjive

    He said what?
    Kerry: [Doomsday Global Warming] Skeptics Believe ‘Extra Water is Just Going to Spill Over the Sides of a Flat Earth’

    “Secretary of State John Kerry says, [Doomsday Global Warming] skeptics believe that with “the melting of the ice and the rise of sea level, all that extra water is just going to spill over the sides of a flat Earth.”
    . . .
    Will Global Warming Make Fish Stupid?

    Not sure about the fish, but, John Kerry is showing signs …

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    pat

    way too tacky to excerpt:

    16 Sept: WaPo: Deniers club: Meet the people clouding the climate change debate
    They’ve stalled action with a campaign of deliberate misinformation.
    By Michael Mann and Tom Toles
    (Michael Mann is a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University. Tom Toles is a Washington Post editorial cartoonist. This feature is adapted from their book, “The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy.”)
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/16/deniers-club-meet-the-people-clouding-the-climate-change-debate/

    15 Sept: Post&Email: Tom Harris: Political Elite Out of Touch on Climate
    MOST PEOPLE WANT LEADERS TO FOCUS ON REAL, IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS
    In his September 8th speech announcing California’s new greenhouse gas emission laws, Governor Jerry Brown said, “If we don’t stop climate change, it’s not going to be 110 [degrees] in Imperial County; it’s going to be 130, 135! Not for a few days or a few weeks, but for months on end!”
    Brown’s statement is ridiculous, no matter what you believe about the causes of climate change…READ ON
    (writer Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition)
    http://www.thepostemail.com/2016/09/15/political-elite-out-of-touch-on-climate-change/

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    pat

    uh-oh! only Xinhua is picking up this story:

    17 Sept: China.org: Xinhua: Roundup: Stronger evidence on climate change impact needed to spur action: experts
    Scientists attending a climate forum in Rwanda called for more concrete evidence of climate change effects on people and environment, with the hope of spurring political action.
    They made the resolution on Friday during the closure of the five-day 12th European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) User Forum in Africa in Rwandan capital Kigali…
    “Lack of political will derails climate change mitigation efforts. With clear evidence of climate change effects on environment, it will push governments into action,” said John Ntaganda Semafara, director-general of Rwanda Meteorology Agency…
    “One of the challenges that Africa is still facing is the capacity to gather necessary information and provide reliable and strengthened evidence of climate change effects on people and environment to governments,” Semafara said…
    The forum, organized by EUMETSAT and Rwanda’s Meteorology Agency brought together about 200 participants from 57 African countries, representing National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, governmental agencies and regional institutions from Africa and Europe…
    Alain Rathier, director general of EUMETSAT, said the satellite exploration in Africa is important, since the majority of the population depend a lot on agriculture.
    “Africa is exposed to a very broad range of high impact weather and climate phenomena, and strengthened evidence of climate change impact is paramount to know the scale of climate change effects on the environment,” he added…
    Dr. Benjamin Lamptey from Monitoring of Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) also called on countries to implement Paris Agreement on climate change…
    “The effects of climate change are being felt all over the world. We however need concrete data on climate change impact on our environment for sustainable action. This will be achieved through development of new applications for monitoring climate change and improving disaster resilience,” Lamptey said.
    http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2016-09/17/content_39311933.htm

    just what the CAGW-forsaken world needs, more carbon footprints from DiCaprio:

    17 Sept: news.com.au: AAP: Jamie McKinnell: Qld extends reef invite to DiCaprio
    DiCaprio this week cited the plight of the reef at the Our Oceans Conference in Washington DC.
    He told the gathering over 600 miles (965km) of reef previously “teeming with life” had been devastated in an unprecedented coral bleaching event.
    “We are seeing this level of impact to coral reefs around the world from Hawaii to the Florida Keys, from Madagascar to Indonesia,” he said.
    Deputy Premier Jackie Trad on Saturday extended an open invitation to the actor to visit the reef.
    “He can come any time he likes, he’s absolutely welcome to come to Australia, to come to Queensland and to come to the Great Barrier Reef,” she said in Brisbane…
    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/qld-extends-reef-invite-to-dicaprio/news-story/ddaed437a25903fde2d0cdd1df13e270

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    pat

    Youtube: 20mins54secs: Nigel Farage fairwell speech UKIP conference 2016
    Key financial backer Arron Banks told BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? show on Friday night that he and Mr Farage had stripped off their clothes and jumped in the sea after a late night drinking session on Thursday…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2Q08VQqzs

    read all the Tele piece, for the surprise ending!

    16 Sept: UK Telegraph: Nicola Harley: Nigel Farage bows out as Ukip leader with skinny dip off Bournemouth Pier
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/16/nigel-farage-bows-out-as-ukip-leader-with-nude-skinny-dip-off-bo/

    16 Sept: New Statesman: Sam Bright: Why Ukip’s new leader Diane James should terrify both Labour and the Tories
    James fired up supporters with swipes at the “Remainiacs”.
    On the afternoon of 16th September, Ukip entered its post-Farage era. After a total of nine years as party leader, and more resurrections than Sherlock Holmes, Ukip messiah Nigel Farage has been replaced by Diane James, who defeated closest rival Lisa Duffy by 47.4 per cent to 25.7 per cent in a one-sided leadership election…
    She secured the tacit backing of Farage, and consequently influential party donor Aaron Banks, after Woolfe dropped out of the race…
    As I have written previously, anger towards the establishment and liberal overreach did not dissipate on 23 June. If other mainstream parties falter in the wake of Brexit and do not listen to the public, Ukip may be more dangerous than ever before…
    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/09/why-ukips-new-leader-diane-james-should-terrify-both-labour-and-tories

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    pat

    14 Sept: Youtube: 3mins29secs: Nigel Farage to the EU Parliament, You act like you want war
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgFdSFBtxo

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    Duke Silver

    You know those commercials where you are assailed with visions of desperate children and convinced that for only $1 a day you can change a childs life forever? Health care, education, food…..

    Well, of that dollar, maybe 5 cents (if that) gets to the child, it doesn’t make any difference in the life of a child, and the adults in charge of the scam make a mint.

    Same deal here. CC was going on before gov’ts were around and it’ll be here long after. It’s just our gov’t running the scam instead of Zimbabwe.

    As an alternative, I suggest you walk to the top of a volcano and deposit your $12 bill straight into the mouth of the raging fire god in hopes of appeasing it’s wrath. Exactly the same likelihood of the expected outcome, but you got some exercise and a little adventure while you’re at it.

    [Found in moderation and I’m approving it but with the note that not all child help organizations are, as you put it, scams to enrich whoever runs them. I’m sure a little research into them will show the difference. I make no editorial comment about climate change.] AZ

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    Will Janoschka says:
    September 17, 2016 at 11:27 PM

    Will Janoschka says: September 16, 2016 at 5:01 AM

    “All most no effect of having folk at home in the fall. HA HA. so much for your forlorn fantasy science Dr. Roy.

    Science and engineering, has potential for much! So far such mostly, accrues for illicit profit, and contempt for most clever earthlings. Nither earthlings nor roaches will ever forget just what some academic Skyintests have tried to pull!!”

    All must be exposed as the Climate Clown AlGoreasta horrific SCAM.
    Dr. Roy you willingly participated. Guilty or not. You will be remembered. Children will piss on your grave!

    Will Janoschka says:
    September 17, 2016 at 9:21 PM

    Ha, only six away from thousand! Dr. Roy how ’bouts hunnrt tousand?
    We can start with ‘polite discourse’ about CAGW. With TV and internet now, we can build a Colosseum where the Lion AlGoreistas can politely debate (discourse) with the skeptic ‘slaves’, ha ha! This must soon get to personal hateful insults in every direction. An opportunity for selling many more tickets. You have my bid for the local Beer and Pretzel concession. -will-

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    Richard

    Funny thing climate change , as it gets warmer the flora and fauna should change.

    Growing across the US until MR John Deere ploughs ploughed up the land in the early 19th century and beyond grew prairie grass, a drought resistant plant that could survive a 30 year drought and even flower during one.

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    gbees

    OK so a whopping 77% think climate change is happening. So what do the other 23% think is happening? Demonstrates the banality of the question.

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    Pete Dee

    We ALL already pay much more than $12 per year – EVERY month in our “electricity prices will naturally skyrocket” electric bills.

    In my area power supplied by coal, natural gas and nuke have been captured by nearly 19%, while power supplied by solar/wind has only increased by 1.3% over the last 6 years.

    I’m doing ok because I bought a generator, but many of my neighbors aren’t as fortunate.

    Aside from that, climate is decided by our sun. Solar activity dictates heat and cold cycles.
    Until the UN or all the other snivelers accept that fact, the only thing $12 per month will do is grow to thousands each month making politicians richer than they already are!

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