This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Jeremy Grantham Urges "Easily Manipulated" Americans To "Become More Realistic" About World's Demise
Authored by Jeremy Grantham via GMO,
Give Me Only Good News!
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
(Attributed to Mark Twain)
It takes little experience in the investment business to realize that investors prefer good news. As a bear in the bull market of 1999 I was banned from an institution’s building as being “dangerously persuasive and totally wrong!” The investment industry also has a great incentive to encourage this optimistic bias, for little money would be made if the market ticked slowly upwards. Five steps forward and two back are far more profitable.
Similarly, we environmentalists were shocked to realize how profoundly the general public preferred to believe good news on our climate, even if it meant disregarding the National Academies of the world. The fossil fuel industry, not surprisingly, encouraged this positive attitude. They had billions of dollars to protect. If the realistic information were to be widely believed, most of their assets would be stranded.
When dealing with realistic limits to growth it is also obvious how reluctant everyone is to accept the natural mathematical limits: There simply cannot be compound growth in a finite world. A modest 1% growth compounded for the 3,000 years of Ancient Egypt’s population would have multiplied its economic output by nine trillion times!1 Yet, the improbability of feeding ten billion or so global inhabitants in 50 years is shrugged off with ease. And the entire economic and political system appears eager to encourage optimism on resources for it is completely wedded to the virtues of quantitative growth forever.
Hard realities in these three fields are inconvenient for vested interests and because the day of reckoning can always be seen as “later,” politicians can always find a way to postpone necessary actions, as can we all: “Because markets are efficient, these high prices must be reflecting the remarkable potential of the internet”; “the U.S. housing market largely reflects a strong U.S. economy”; “the climate has always changed”; “how could mere mortals change something as immense as the weather”; “we have nearly infinite resources, it is only a question of price”; “the infinite capacity of the human brain will always solve our problems.”
Having realized the seriousness of this bias over the last few decades, I have noticed how hard it is to effectively pass on a warning for the same reason: No one wants to hear this bad news. So a while ago I came up with a list of propositions that are widely accepted by an educated business audience. They are widely accepted but totally wrong. It is my attempt to bring home how extreme is our preference for good news over accurate news. When you have run through this list you may be a little more aware of how dangerous our wishful thinking can be in investing and in the much more important fields of resource (especially food) limitations and the potentially life-threatening risks of climate damage. Wishful thinking and denial of unpleasant facts are simply not survival characteristics.
Let me start with one of my favorites. For the 50 years I have been in America, Business Week and The Wall Street Journal have been telling us how incompetent at business the French are and how persistently we have been kicking their bottoms. If only they could get over their state socialism and their acute Eurosclerosis. And as far as I can tell we have generally accepted this thesis. Yet Exhibit 1 shows what has actually happened to France’s median hourly wage. It has gone from 100 to 280. Up 180% in 45 years! Japan is up 140% and even the often sluggish Brits are up 60%. But the killer is the U.S. median wage. Dead flat for 45 years! These are the uncontestable facts. So, all I can say is that it is just as well the French have not been kicking our bottoms. But how is it that we can believe so firmly in something that just ain’t so, and by such a convincing amount?
Exhibit 2 examines the proposition that although our wages may have done poorly, we are still the place that creates jobs. The left-hand panel certainly seems to confirm that with our modest official unemployment rate for 25- to 54-year-olds of below 5% compared to 9% for the E.U. The righthand panel, though, shows the true picture. It looks at the unemployment rate adjusted for the nonparticipation rate, the percentage of all 25- to 54-year-olds who are not actually working (i.e., it includes those discouraged, uninterested, or even sitting in jail). There are now 21% not employed in the U.S. compared to 20.5% for the E.U., and our long-suggested job creating skills are looking a little thin.
The problem lies in the so-called participation rate, as shown in Exhibit 3. The U.S. was one of the leaders in the percentage of women working, and from 1972 to a peak in 1997 the U.S. participation rate rose from 70% to 80%. From 1984 on, the U.S. spent 20 years ahead of most other countries in participation rates, but after 1997 something appears to have gone wrong: While other developed countries continued to increase their participation rate, that of the U.S. declined from first to last in fairly rapid order.
What a far cry this reality is from the view generally accepted by our business world.
Exhibit 4 examines our belief that we have the best health care system in the world. And why shouldn’t we, given the money we put in (left-hand bar chart), over twice the average cost paid by the E.U. But the right-hand bar chart shows what we get back. Two years less life than the median. And watch out for when the Turks, Poles, and Czechs cut back on smoking, for then we may find our way to the bottom of the list.
But if you really want to be worried about our comparative health you should take a look at Exhibit 5, which comes hot off the press from the guy who was just awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics (wait a minute, must be some mistake, this work seems perfectly useful). The data shows the death rate for U.S. whites between the ages of 45 and 54, which happily these days is when very few people drop off. Since 1990 there has been a quite remarkable decline for other developed countries, about a one-third reduction, as you can see, including for U.S. Hispanics. But for U.S. whites there is a slight increase! Further analysis for that group reveals that the general increase is caused by quite severe increases in deaths related to alcoholism, drug use, and suicides. Had the rate for U.S. whites declined in line with the others there would have been about 50,000 fewer deaths a year! (For scale, this is nearly twice the yearly number of traffic deaths in the U.S.)
You have to be careful these days when you suggest connections. For example, people have been told off for proposing that dramatic increases in population can help destabilize societies. Syria had two and a half million people when I was born and has 29 million people now. You can guess how much worse the situation is because of this but you should not talk about it. Similarly, Prince Charles has been extensively criticized by professors in The Guardian for suggesting that a several-year drought in Syria exacerbated social tensions by ruining many farmers. As if! (You cannot prove precisely what effect climate damage had, but you certainly cannot prove that it did not have a large effect. It certainly had a contributory effect.)
With that caveat, let me seriously suggest a connection between Exhibit 1, which shows no increase in the U.S. median wage for over 40 years following a wonderful prior 30 years of a rise of over 3% a year, and Exhibit 5, which shows the uptick in unnecessary deaths among U.S. non-Hispanic whites aged 45 to 54. This is precisely the age group that was led to expect better for themselves and much better for their children. But those aspirations have not been generously fulfilled. The U.S. Hispanics, in contrast, mostly arrived later and had different expectations. All in all, this data is quite bleak. The point here is that it bears absolutely no similarity to the more optimistic belief set that is generally accepted.
The data presented in Exhibit 6 examines the proposition that “more and more goes to the government and soon they will have everything.” You have heard that many times recently in the political debate. Sorry, “bull sessions.” You can see that the U.S. share going to the government in taxes is about the least in the developed world and that it has barely twitched for 50 years. Yet, apparently we have been steadily going to hell. How is it possible that such a view is given such credence in the face of the data, which is, after all, official and simple, not ingeniously manipulated by some perfidious Brit. (Yes, I admit it, I consider myself American or British depending on whether the context is favorable or not.)
“At least we live in a fair society” is the proposition examined in Exhibit 7. The Gini Ratio is a measure of income inequality. Low is good. Only Turkey and Mexico outflank the U.S. as more unequal amongst the richer countries. I was a bit surprised to see how high the U.S. already was in 1980 (I had been drinking from the same culture dissemination trough after all), but it was at least importantly lower.
“We have a democracy where people really count” is an idea that is built into the background cultural noise. Exhibit 8 (also covered last quarter) on the left shows how the probability of a bill passing through Congress is affected by the general public’s enthusiasm or horror. In a nutshell, not at all! The financial elite, on the other hand, can double the chance of a bill passing or, much more disturbingly, can completely block passage. Clearly these facts are totally incompatible with the concept of participatory democracy and equally entirely at odds with the much more favorable and optimistic beliefs we share about our democracy. We really, really want to believe good news and to believe that we have a superior system that only needs fine-tuning. But, it ain’t necessarily so.
“We have the best education system in the world” is a proposition that goes without saying in Boston, with Harvard, MIT, and literally dozens of other universities. But Exhibit 9 shows the more downto-earth fact: mediocrity.
Less than mediocre, though, is the data in Exhibit 10, which shows the percentage of 3- to 4-year-olds enrolled in school. This is an area of emphasis where the returns on investment are said to be particularly high – six for one – although I would not like to guarantee such returns myself. However, our relatively low ranking at the start of the process is not heartwarming.
Exhibit 11 moves on to our production of CO2, which per capita is the largest in the world, just ahead of Australia. The two of us also worry the least, except for one Middle Eastern oil producer. There is a nice, i.e., interesting, negative correlation here of -0.54. Not bad at all. The greater your fossil fuel intensity, the more ingenious your fossil fuel propaganda is to create doubt and the more we are encouraged to think beautiful optimistic thoughts: clean coal and clean oil. And even as more people can see the climate damage, the richer countries can convince themselves that the damage is not that serious. Poorer countries, meanwhile, do not have that luxury and about 20% more are actively concerned (about 80% vs. 60%) than are the richer countries.
And this brings me to the last and my absolute favorite of these false propositions, which I label, “I wish the U.S. government wouldn’t give so much to foreign countries (especially when times are bad)!” Now, I do not think I have met a single American who does not believe that the U.S. government is generous in its foreign aid. Yet, it just ain’t so, and by a remarkable degree. Exhibit 12 shows what other developed countries give, with the usual goody-goody Sweden leading the way with 1.4% of their GDP and the U.K. having quite recently shot up to 0.8%, for once ahead of Japan and Germany. Dead last is the U.S. at 0.2% of GDP, which it has averaged forever. This is the item with the biggest and most permanent gap between reality and perception. And, as always, the misperception is in favor of the favorable, the data that we would wish to be true.
Conclusion
This is more or less the best I can do to prove the point. We in the U.S. have a broad and heavy bias away from unpleasant data. We are ready to be manipulated by vested interests in finance, economics, and climate change, whose interests might be better served by our believing optimistic stuff “that just ain’t so.” We are dealing today with important issues, one so important that it may affect the long-term viability of our global society and perhaps our species. It may well be necessary to our survival that we become more realistic, more willing to process the unpleasant, and, above all, less easily manipulated through our need for good news.
- 103 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -














You can ignore reality,
But you can't escape the consequences of ignoring reality.
I always seem to be searching for bad news rather than good news! Am I a bad person?
USA USA USA!!!11111!! MURICA
Exceptional, indeed
You can lead a whore to culture but you cant make her think
Sheep will be sheep!
Similarly, we environmentalists were shocked to realize how profoundly the general public preferred to believe good news on our climate, even if it meant disregarding the National Academies of the world. The fossil fuel industry, not surprisingly, encouraged this positive attitude. They had billions of dollars to protect. If the realistic information were to be widely believed, most of their assets would be stranded.
Sorry, the rest of your point was totally undermined by your lack of critical thought w.r.t. human-induced climate change. It seems you're just as humanly stubborn against examining your own premises with a critical eye as the people you intend on lecturing. Have a nice day.
I had to log in just to pan this lastest drivel from JG. He is giving his book some fresh globalist meat to chew on, most of his new client focus over the last ten years has been on the "Environmentalist, global warming, de-populate the planet" group of crazies. Well JG you go first and start the de-population, slit your throat for the planet and make sure to do it in your garden because we would not want you to go to waste.
Know your enemy
AD
I stopped reading this bullshit when he praised France for it's high wages. This article is just a bunch of shit about global warming (is that still the prevailing meme?) and some other bullshit this guy is pushing
And you know the fastest way to fix that problem? You let them do it.
The exact process is as follows: You sit back get the popcorn and watch finagles law, murphy's law and sod's law break their 'good idea' and shatter their misplaced assumptions of the given situation. Then you laugh your ass off while they hang themselves with a dumb idea that's been repeated so often under different names it borders on comedy everytime they do it. To keep busy you go do something more interesting than watching the nth failure collapse into a predictable poorly planned shitheap.
Then you laugh some more, except you point then thank them for the entertainment if they are still alive after wrecking themselves.
Ah, the climate deniers of ZH are on display again. If I ever need to get a good, deep sniff of the fecal mental anus of the right wing Amurkan, this is the place to come. Here at ZH you can wallow in the brainless shit of the libertardians, obsessed with their freedumbs and heedless of what scientists are saying. Whoopppeeee!
Says the guy with the pejorative NAZI on the image of a known pro-Israel and Jewish supporter.
another tick for - stopped reading at "Similarly, we environmentalists were shocked to realize how profoundly the general public preferred to believe good news on our climate,"
and is it just me, or does this guy's name fit right next to Jeremy Bentham, originator of the idea of the Panopticon, which is ubiquitious invisible surveillance? i mean come on, we're talking about truth here, right? WHOSE?
Anyone who attempts to address climate change without discussing the spraying in the sky is either mentally challenged or working for the forces intent upon imposing a singular world governing force in plain view. www.geoengineeringwatch.org
I could make a very solid case that the same could be said for model falsification and data manipulation, but carry on.
If Grantham were "here," reading the comments, he would simply say: Q.E.D.
Yes, he would say that - simply.
You must have a really strong argument to hide behind name-calling, or maybe your ability to see a rational argument hasn't made it past pre-school. Either way, you're demonstrating your humanity here.
And the hatred, antagonism, arrogance and ignorance of a typical climate change freak is on full display here. Look, asshole, not everyone is convinced that your little religion is right. Too bad so sad.
Yeah, this Nuubee below guy is really a piece of work...
Claims to have an MSc in physics and yet thinks that the earth can lose heat via conduction and convection into the vacuum of space...
Wow! So well put. I guess we know where to put the blame for America's poor scores on education.
So Jeremy, you want all Americans to face reality. Well whether we've faced it or not, most of us are certainly living it anyway.
What are you proposing? More austerity? For who?
There are parts of the country that have been living with austerity for at least 15 years. There are other parts that have been getting more resources.
I'm talking about the empire.
Time to trim back the empire, if for no other reason, that's where the money is. That's the low hanging fruit that offers a return of 0.0%.
Also, along with facing reality, I'd like a new "system". Actually I want the old constitutional system. Pre-1913.
Grantham the globalist thinks he can BS better than anyone else. Good news or bad news, lies are lies Jeremy.
Exhibit 12 - lol.... I used Japan as they are the closest in GDP size:
Japan ~$18 billion (.4% of 2014 GDP in US Dollars).
United States ~$34 billion (.2% of 2014 GDP in US Dollars).
I'd like a slice of that ~$16 billion difference.
http://statisticstimes.com/economy/world-gdp-ranking.php
It is a fact that carbon emissions have been only increasing over the past 60 years, it is a fact that CO2 levels are higher today than they have been in hundreds of thousands of years, and it is a fact that CO2 has the properties the produce a greenhouse effect. It is also a fact that the global climate has increasingly been getting hotter, and that global levels of ice sheet coverage has been decreasing.
So, you mentioned "lack of critical thought." Can you produce more factual data to refute the data I've just presented?
"...it is a fact that CO2 has the properties the produce a greenhouse effect..."
Nope, you are entirely wrong. A "Greenhouse Effect" is the effect of surrounding a section of atmosphere such that convection is isolated and heat generated through infrared capture cannot be expelled to the atmosphere. CO2 does not have this effect. All CO2 can do is absorb specific infrared wavelengths, and it does so with decreasing effectiveness the higher the concentration. This means the CO2 contribution to global temperature tails off logarithmically, it does not increase at all linearly with increased CO2 concentration. In short, you are just plain wrong. CO2 does not prevent convection into the upper atmosphere where heat can be released into space, nor does it create linear temperature changes with changes in CO2 concentration. You are just entirely wrong.
"...It is also a fact that the global climate has increasingly been getting hotter, and that global levels of ice sheet coverage has been decreasing...."
Again, entirely wrong. The global average temperature has had no statistically meaningful increase in 17 years. None of this was predicted by any of the global-warming models presented in the 1990s or 2000s. They all predicted increases, those increases have failed to manifest. Also, Ice loss in the arctic has flatlined and partially recovered, while the ice sheets in the Antarctic have been increasing for nearly 10 years now. Frankly, you've got it entirely backwards. If anything the Earth is GAINING sea ice, not losing it.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_201...
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current_new.png
The American Chemical Society would strongly disagree with your assertion that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/propert...
Yes, land-ocean temperatures have been increasing.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
I have a PhD in chemistry. Carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse gas. However, it ranks well behind many other gases (such as water vapor and methane) in the contribution to atmospheric warming.
Global warming is a farce, starting with Mann at PSU. The "statistics" used are on the level of the unemployment numbers generated by the BLS.
The American Chemical Society is a political animal. I got out years ago as science gave way to political pandering for $$$.
Hey BandGap
So for shits and giggles, what would happen to global temperatures if you removed all non-condensing GHGs from the atmosphere and roughly how long would it take to reach equilbrium?
For bonus points, what fracton of non-condensing GHG does C02 represent?
I am eager for you to demonstrate that you have no fucking idea what you are talking about....
Nothing would happen.
Wrong...
Who's next?
Edit:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/
The term "Greenhouse gas" is a politically loaded term. I gave you a physical explanation as to why CO2 cannot act as a greenhouse, and your response is to point towards a political organization and how it "classifies" things. Your rebuttal is meaningless drivel.
I gave you raw satellite data on global average lower tropospheric temperature, and you give me a NASA web-page. NASA is an organization filled with civil servants whose careers are threatened by not towing the "party line"
Again, I give you actual scientific rationale for why fear of CAGW is bullshit, and you give me claims by politicized organizations that are supposed to be truth. At some point you're going to have to make a choice between faith in those you want to believe, and reality. I hope you survive that day.
You are exactly what JG is talking about...
You have truly mastered the art of lying to yourself...
No, I have a masters in Physics. I know what a solid scientific argument is, and I will tell you the government-approved global warming message is full of lies.
Don't believe me if you feel you must. Believe NASA and other politically-motivated organizations if you feel you must. But until you read, understand and learn the physical reality of your world, you're just a man acting on faith, not knowledge. Between the two of us, I know which one of us has studied actual physical data and actual physical arguments on this topic, and I know scientific bullshit when I see it.
I just popped some corn. I think you just released a full-frontal berating from the Flakster. She's pretty militant in her defense of mythology, and gives no quarter when it comes to ad hominem. Should be good.
For the record, I do not have a cunt...
Edit:
And I almost forgot...
Go fuck yourself...
No. You have a pussy. That is the furry patch between your legs. The cunt is what transports the pussy, FlakFRAU.
Don't you have to go beat your wife?
Or was it get ready for a Trump rally?
what ensued was a total Physics bitch fight...
Could you explain the TdS equations for us? Why the Clausius-Clayperon equation matters in a warming world?
Can you from first principles write the down the Euler-Lagrange equation for a simple pendulum?
Could you comment on the measured diffrence in OLWR between 1969 and present and how it matches with the known C02 absorption spectra?
If you cant, quit playing posuer and STFU...
Actually, I can. Do you want to sit through this and learn, or are you content in your ignorance? Regardless, you are playing what most global warming believers do from the beginning, which is little different from the crybabies at college campuses now demanding "safe spaces".... you are shifting the burden of proof. You insist that global-warming is occuring, and that mankind is the only explanation, and then you demand that other people proof you wrong. This is anti-scientific cunt behavior, because if you are going to make an assertion, the burden of proof IS ON YOU to demonstrate your assertions. Someone who actually understand science would know this, so I can clearly deduce that you have no scientific training. Human-Induced Global Warming was never proven, it was ASSUMED.
Thermodynamics I last took any classes on approximately 8 years ago. I have my textbook at home and I could easily write down a nice lecture for you later.
The Clausius-Clayperon equations describe the vapor pressure of liquids (and solids), those are important with respect to determining the contribution of water vapor to the heat engine of the earth. Unfortunately, for idiot CAGW believers like yourself, you always use the equations when it comes to evaporation of earth's oceans, but you never consider the tremendous amounts of heat lost to space through the condensation of water vapor in the upper atmosphere. This makes you look like idiots because you just presume that a hotter earth makes for more water vapor because the water vapor somehow never leaves the earth once it is created. It never occurs to you that water vapor actually moves into the upper atmosphere and transmits tremendous amounts of heat away from the earth (as well as reflecting incoming IR) well above the higher CO2 concentrations.
You bring up the measured differences in OLWR between 1969 and now, and it's hilarious. So are you saying that because the OLWR spectra matches the inverse of the known CO2 absorption, that this is proof of anything? Did it never occur to you that there were other methods by which captured heat might make its way out of the earths atmosphere? Nah, Convection and conduction, those things don't exist right? The only way for heat to leave the earth is by infrared, right? That shows a lot about your ability to conceive of the physical world.
You are a obvious fucking blow hard poseur...
Your diatribe above would be classified as "fractally wrong"....
---
Here is a gimme, write down the Lagrangian for a simple pendulum, one of the most basic things in a Junior level Classical Mechanics textbook...
Hell, can you even state Gauss's Law? That's from sophomore physics...
How about the defintion of kinetic energy?? that is from high school physics...
Now that we have shown that you do not have a M.Sc. in Physics let's move on.
Explain to us how conduction and convection works in a vacuum. This is what you you just claimed in your last paragraph....
Oh, I made no claims that conduction or convection work in a vacuum. But in order to get above the CO2 concentrations in the troposphere, all you need is a little water vapor convection, and bingo-bango-bongo, you have a heat path out of the CO2 "Greenhouse" that morons like yourself believe in. This, of course, never occurs to you people. You just presume that there's this "barrier" of CO2 that cannot let heat escape, and will be amplified by other gasses. None of this is remotely proven, much less experimentally verifiable on a global scale.
It is interesting, is it not, that the as-measured-by-satellites "heat" of the atmosphere is increasing more at night than as measured during the day, isn't it? For a while, this was used by people like yourself to "prove" that the sun wasn't the cause of global warming, but rather, heat retention in the atmosphere was the cause. Not metioned, or considered in this argument, is the fact that if the atmosphere *is* in absorbing more infrared during the day (consistent with an unargued increase in CO2 concentration), then by definition nighttime IR emissions will be greater than before regardless of the cause. It is almost as if all that water vapor is transporting more heat at night away from the Earth... The world is interesting when you consider it from a perspective grounded in reality, isn't it?
Why do you keep asking answers to questions that any fool could answer with wikipedia?
Do you have *ANY* physical arguments to make as to why the earth should be heating up that aren't filled with bullshit? Or are you just going to keep asking me to teach you things you could easily learn with a google search?
I could easily be vomiting physics questions at you, it would prove just as much about your intelligence.
Multiple times in this thread I have made PHYSICAL ARGUMENTS from first principles as best I can in a space where equations don't work well.. I suggest you do the same for your side of the argument or concede that you're just another ignorant fuck who believes what he is told by "Experts" and chooses not to learn how to think on his own.
You certainly did claim as such or are you too stupid to realize what you wrote?
Go hang out at WUWT with all the other morons, I can even provide a letter of reference for you...
You sure can Flack. You're the king of the morons....right?
Anthropogenic climate change is akin to the king fighting the tide. Even if he sprays shit in the sky all day long...every day..the tides going to win.
Pollution bad, breathing....good. Gasses that support photosynthesis and phytoplancton...good.
Another tax for pillagers to plunder for our safety....bad.
UNderstand yet?
Great posts Nubee
RIPS
Your reading comprehension is worse than his physics...
Yes, I know, it is hard to imagine...
Oh, what a joke. You bring up OLWR and CO2 as a greenhouse, then when I demonstrate that water vapor can, through convection, rise above the higher levels of CO2 to emit their heat into the atmosphere (and block incoming IR), you act like I'm talking about conduction in a vacuum. You're just being obtuse you stupid fuck.
You have still provided NO PHYSICAL ARGUMENT for why CO2 should be responsible for CAGW.
I on the other hand, have provided a physical argument for why CO2 CANNOT act as a greenhouse.
Here's a question for you. In order for a scientific theory to be considered science, it must be falsifiable.
WHAT IS THE NULL HYPOTHESIS OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING? Where is the fact, that if true, completely disproves the notion that CO2 in the concentrations that humans can output, can cause more than 1-degree-C of warming?
You have no answer, because I'm not stupid enough to ask questions in a debate that I don't know already the answer to. But that's ok, all that's left for you to do is admit that CAGW is psuedo-science because it has no null hypothesis.
For the record, I got bored with WUWT about 5 years ago when it was pretty clear that the CAGW people had no valid arguments left. Finding someone like you is literalyl like finding someone who still believes what they're told by the catholic church about the earth being flat.
So, once again, explain how the earth loses heat via conduction and convection....
As for how and why C02 is GHG, any one of many books in your library will be able to explain it to you if you were not so intellectually lazy...
Better yet, give it up , you played your hand and revealed that you are moron and a bullshit artist as you certainly don't have a degree in physics...
Let us presume that CO2 DOES in fact "trap heat". This is a laughable claim, but lets presume you are correct and CO2 "traps" heat in the form of infrared radiation within the earths atmosphere.
CO2 is a relatively heavy gas in our atmosphere, certainly heavier than H2O. The troposphere is "well-mixed" according to scientists, so it makes some reasonable hand-wavy sense to consider that CO2 concentrations within the troposphere might constitute the infrared "trap" you warmists are so fond of being afraid of.
The problem with your physical argument in that case is.... through convection, water can rise higher than CO2 in the atmosphere, and it does. Since water vapor can rise higher, then it can get above any "trap" created by CO2 concentrations and re-condense to release heat back out into space in the form of Infrared.
This makes it PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for CO2 alone to cause runaway warming in the atmosphere, and further demonstrates that even if more water vapor is created by additional heat, that heat will simply transport higher (due to it's higher temperature) before re-condensing and releasing it's heat into space.
Still waiting for your physical argument, or is the only form of argument you have some kind of "my dick is still bigger, now show me yours again."?
Still waiting for that null hypothesis, or is that a new word in your vocabulary? Look it up, don't bother me with your childish claims as to my credentials.
The fact that C02 traps heat was discovered in the 1850s...
In fact all tri-atomic molecules (and all those with more than 3 atoms) can trap and re-emit IR...
Go away troll...
The fact that C02 traps heat was discovered in the 1850s..
Wrong. Hah, how you're showing your stupidity. What was demonstrated in the 1850s was that CO2 can ABSORB infrared. "Trapping" heat is a greater burden of proof. It requires that you demonstrate that said heat never leaves the system. This claim has never been proven. In fact the laws of black-body radiation prove you wrong without further physical explanation from the believers such as yourself.
I'm the troll?? lol, you started this bullshit conversation, don't cry when you are demonstrably proven to be full of shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall
Here is his lecture from 1865
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Radiation_(Rede_Lecture)
BTW, no one seriously claims that the C02 is heat sink, only morons like you that get confused about radiative transfer...
Go away troll...
I said nothing about CO2 being a heat sink, is this a new argument you're pissing into the wind to sound smart about?
Are you going to make an argument, or are you going to simply vomit links?
Are you even CAPABLE of making an argument from physical principles? At this point the answer is soundly "No".
And you accuse me of not being a physicist?
Are you going to throw more links at me and accuse me of not being a scientist? Is this what you moron believers call scientific discourse now? You're doing the equivalent of "talk to the hand" like some idiot rather than actually thinking through a thought-experiment.
Are you even capable of thought-experiments?
Yawn...
I ain't gonna flatter your ignorance by arguing text book physics from 60 years ago with a poseur...
Ahhh... dude. I feel sorry for you. You got sucked into a trap - the AGW people always want you to think they are reasonable and will carry on a discussion - but they lie. I went to school with an inDUHvidual who became a head of department of a well known national publication. Under this moron, the paper was full-out AGW! I read a couple of his pieces, and they werre so FOS the crap was splashing off the screen and onto my keyboard.
So I made him an offer I rarely make... I offered to explain to him WHY AGW was pure unadulterated crap. But he had to promise to read it if I was going to take the time to write it. He said he'd read it.
I should have known better.
Ater I filled 5 pages single spaced with the scientific reasons that not only was AGW BS, MORE Co2 would be advantageous for the planet and the carbon based life on it.
I had more to say, but he couldn't keep his word. (One of the hallmarks of AGW people - they not only lie a lot, they make promises and then break them)
So he attacked me, and I counter-attacked - and he gave up admitting that I had a more extensive vocabulary than he did. ;-D
I haven't communicated with him since. (He's not worth the time.)
Why don;t you take those 5 pages and submit a paper to Nature or the PNAS? Let us know how it turns out
\facepalm...
The only trap your idiot friend got sucked into was assuming that that everyone is as a dumb a fuck as he is...
That is a a dangerous gambit in the game of life...
duplicate
one name to back you up:
Judith Curry
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060006489
One out ~2000 scientists...
Who has not published a relevant paper in 15 years...
Pretty weak tea if you ask me...
Solar activity has more to do with our climate than your religious belief in "carbon emissions". Keep believing the dogma that has been literally DRILLED into your head by the high priests of the religion you know as "Science"
You got a source to back that up? Solar activity is at the lowest it's been in over 100 years, and recent solar cycles have been below the long-term trend line. Yet temperatures keep going up...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
MD... you just don't get it, do you? Okay... solar output and "recorded" temperatures don't match. Hummm... Ya think that maybe someone is playing with the thermostat on the Sun? Or is it MORE likely that the humans on the planet are MAKING UP NUMBERS WHEN THEY REPORT THE TEMPERATURES ON EARTH???
Ahhh... Never mind. You can't teach a mule to sing opera.
Should be easy prove that the data is fake... Why haven't they?
Yes.
It is a fact that you do not hold a doctorate in anything other than stupidity.
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=3
Hee, hee, hee...
The dumb fucks are on a roll today...
MD - In a word, your post is, in its entirety, bullshit.
Can you provide any evidence that solar output is higher now than in 1950??
Naw, didn't think so...
So what, everyone alive will be gone long before climate change kills them, so what is the worry, the World has been warm, as well as cold, before it will continue to warm and cool as long as it is here, the Human race, like all the species in the fossil record, is only here for a little while, relax and enjoy yourself, I think you will be paying into the 'Carbon Tax' fund to support the Climate Czar and their minions. Wether you like it or not, this will have no effect on the climate but will restrict your activities!
A warmer!!! Love those guys:
Let's all panic shall we?
First, we tax the heck out of everyone to reduce carbon.
Then we spray the chemtrails. Aluminum, barium & strontium.
Then we depopulate the globe by killing off the people.
Genius solution to a nonexistent warmer problem that ends in all of earth owned and controlled by surviving elites.
Yep - I read that same line, & ignored the rest of the article. Likely pushing an agenda. At best, lacks critical thinking skills.
Nuubee is completely correct. Anyone who believes in Glo-Bull warming is a doop. Only the scientifically illiterate or those scientists slurping at the trough of Big Warming funding from the guvvie actually believe. Glo-Bull warming is a complete scam and a power grab. Even worse yet it is a perversion and pimping out of science.
As a kid I used to love to read Scientific American. I would read the newest edition and check out tons of past ones from the library.
A few years ago I bought a copy. I couldnt believe how much the magazine had changed. It was filled with p.c. and agenda driven b.s. A wonderful publication has whored itself out - - like too many in the 'scientific community' today.
Look what you've done injecting reality into Fairyland. Now all the unicorns have diaper rash and the gnomes can't sell their used underwear.......
"You can lead a whore to culture but you cant make her think"
You can make a vitamin, but you can't make a whore moan.
"...but you can't make a whore moan."
You sure can, just kick her in the shin
or don't pay her....
Kick her all you want and she'll take it, but refuse payment and she will cut you man
You believe yourself a representative of "culture" while making remarks such as this?
Name one nations people that weren't "Easily Manipulated" and "Realistic" about thier world's Demise over the last 10,000 years?
> "Easily Manipulated" = RELIGION
> "Realistic" = We can do this! God told me so, and is on our side!
"I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it!" - George "born-again Christian" Bush
'to harm anyone in the name of faith is to diminish our own relationship with God.' 'Our concern should not be whether God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side,' - Barack Obama
Why quote either imbocile?
"Why quote either imbocile?"
Because they are both imbociles with "God on thier side".
Religion is a tool of men to Manipulate other men to do Unrealistic things.
Bush and Obama BOTH "have God on their side" which makes the manipulation of "God's Children" to butcher a few million other "Gods Children" an easy/realistic task.
"Drone their children. Bomb Doctors Without Borders." -barak obama
God doesn't tell anyone what to do. The gift we have is called free will. He observes and provides signs for guidance. It is up to the individual to first recognize and then decide what to do in regards to the signs.
Science has proven there is no free will.
That's news to and my PhD.
Stephen Hawking adresses this topic in "The Grand Design". Recommended literature.
I belive that.Free will would require something outside the organism and its biological make up, history etc.. to exercise a choice and act upon said organism. No such dual being exists.
"Science has proven there is no free will."
That's a Bertram Scudder statement if I ever saw one.
"It is up to the individual"...lol...priceless.
"God" can create an entire universe...he specifically creates man and gives him the universe...but God cannot stop his children from butchering each other...nor can he even show ALL OF HIS children that he is their God..."leaving it up to us" to find him....with the "help" of "spiritual leaders" that lead us to war and death....what a joke!
Sit down.
Google "Cult".
Read.
Accept that you are in a cult and seek help.
It behooves me that any lucid, freethinking ZH'er can still believe in a sky-crane. Zerohedge represents people that won't be manipulated by the power constructs that seek control of not only resources and human muscle but of our minds. Bernays/Freud have proven that our minds are fragile and easily manipulated by shiny objects dangling on a string. Religion is one of those shiny objects. The powers that be have learned long ago the power of religion dogma over an ignorant and susceptible populace. They carry a bag of flour in one hand and a religious fairy tale in the other.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei, In Religio
Zerohedge represents people that won't be manipulated by the power constructs that seek control of not only resources and human muscle but of our minds.
Zerohedge is littered with people who believe that no one was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on 12/14/12, and that no airplanes were used on 9/11/01.
Religious dogma is a real threat, but the truth is not. Faithful people seek truth and discernment of false doctrine.
Building 7 fell out of sympathy
but God cannot stop his children from butchering each other...
Sure He can. And in time, He will. In the meantime, man's nature prevails on earth. People "butchering" one another is not an indication of God's non-existence. It's an indication of man's state.
The world denies God, kicks Him out of schools, the state, and seemingly everywhere else. Then as man's nature takes over unrestrained, the world points to evil acts as evidence of a non-existent God. Just as predicted 2000 years ago.
I respect everything deeply, but " allowing us free will" tests out exactly the same as no one being there.
'Course, given this god given free will many among us choose to do great evil and many of those run the show.
I respect everything deeply, but " allowing us free will" tests out exactly the same as no one being there.
You won't know for sure while you are still alive on earth.
No, that is normal human behavior. That is ingrained in all species and it serves to help us protect ourselves.
What I find absolutely fascinating is that when you look for it, it is far too easy to find. And the lies being told openly only make it worse. The flip side is what are the "happy" people not seeing or refusing to look at? My inner circle understands what is happening and the consequences.
I need more ammo.
WTF you find any good news?
I'll paraphrase with a quote
The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.
Which is why their has been an astronomical increase in the number of those receiving welfare in the last 5 years.
Nothing free in this world.
Try to escape the truth... the untruth is waiting for you.
when I was living in extreme Northern Idaho, I saw drinkable fresh water FREELY running in streams and rivers. All one had to do is just drink it.! Can you believe that?
Not a plastic bottle anywhere.
Never say that nothing is free.
Any chance, just up stream and out of sight, was a moose taking a shit in your drinking water?
NEVER drink "freely running" water without boiling it first.
PS. I get your point, but nature isn't as pure as we'd like to wish...
Hell yes the moose shit in it, and the fish were fucking in it too. I lived there for 42 years and drank freely out of streams and rivers and never got sick. Mind you the people from the cities who drank chlorinated tap water all their lives would get sick and labeled it beaver fever.
Parasites have their purpose.
More Ammo!!!!
thats what I Need for Christmas Santa!!!!
Yet you see people rally around Trump's desire to stop Muslim immigration. As if America and its acquiescence to zionism is not the cause for Muslim "extremism".
By admitting he believes in global warming, Jeremy Grantham is a proven moron.
As for the content of this article...Yes , Yes and Yes.
It´s time America (american citizens) starts flexing it´s strong arm and finally begin striking those mighty blows for freedom that it is capable of.
After all - how hard can it? You did free the slaves and abolished slavery. Pulverizing the enemy within and abroad should really not be a problem for the sleeping giant once he awakens.
Begin by turning off MSM and observe reality as is.
To quote Adm. Yamamoto - an intelligent observer with good knowledge of the US after not least having spent time there "I fear we have only accomplished one thing. Awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with terrible resolve".
That was after Pearl Harbour. Modern day media and the current administration would have spun that into support for the Emperor and Japan , instead.
Such is the perfidity of those folks in the Obama administration.
I am constantly amazed...this is NOT the US I know from personal experience. These are NOT the Americans I have come to know and appreciate.
It´s time to get angry. Really mad. And stop taking it up the ass.
I prefer bad news over good news, gives me hope.
A total indictment of the greatest country in the history of this world. What you forgot was the fluoridated water, poisoned GMO foods, militarized police, largest prison population, declining liberties, infinite spying by the NSA, endless wars and a droner-in-chief as president.
Maybe massive immigration from 3rd world countries has contributed to some of this... such as education. Of course you'll rank low if 90% of the school population can't read or write the language.
WTF is this socialist shit?
I know. He's crying because 3 & 4 year school enrollment is "low" in the US. Yes, we must start the brainwashing at age ZERO! Forward Soviet!
"Similarly, we environmentalists were shocked to realize how profoundly the general public preferred to believe good news on our climate, even if it meant disregarding the National Academies of the world. The fossil fuel industry, not surprisingly, encouraged this positive attitude. They had billions of dollars to protect. If the realistic information were to be widely believed, most of their assets would be stranded."
The Farce is strong with this one, mixing lots of truth with one huge pile of bullshit, not bad Jeremy, not bad at all but trust me if Mobile Exxon, BP et al were not going to profit from the mindless clap trap of made up "science" there would be a hell of a lot more push back from them but for some strange reason I don't see any of what you call "encouraged positive attitude". What? are the fossile fuel companies slipping into my bedroom at night whispering in my ear? cause other than that it is about a total statist power grab over lifestyle and money. so, yea, fuck you, we're are heading for a disaster I get it, but you sir are a fucking shill for the global power structure.
Care to elaborate? Or does it just hurt your feelings to see that America isn't #1 in some pretty important and objective metrics?
The USA is the new USSR. The bulk of Americans will never accept any single part of reality willingly - reality will ultimately force itself upon them.
Reality is that which remains even when you stop believing in it.
Ah, Philip K. Dick... one of the bare handful of humane, funny, and intelligent theologians the Christian religion ever produced.
It's a weird new version of the old soviet style brainwashing. Where the old soviets were fed propaganda from Pravda and basically starved of information, Americans are fed an orgy of meaningless entertainment. For most people they don't even have to bother with the disinformation. Today's Americans are content to drug themselves with cat videos and the Facebook.
Bad news is bad for marketing and the US is the best at marketing on the planet. That basically there is the problem, marketing.
Well, I don't know. Are we still going to get to hang some people?
Realistic expectation may not cover what the cental banking cartel is about to do to all of us. They have set the stage for a global financial catastophe while at the same time setting the stage for global conflict.
Apparently we are fighting ourselves in Mexico now too. https://www.rt.com/news/325468-mexican-cartel-threatens-isis/
no escape from what needs to be done and that is why donald trump is flying in the polls. deep-down, republican voters are completely sickened with congressional leadership. we sent them there to stop this guy obama from running our debt thru the roof. they've controlled BOTH houses for over a year & how come no balanced budget & simpson-bowles passage? id AT LEAST have that thru the house & on the senate floor for a vote. if u can't get it out of there, u make the case u need more seats & the presidency to get it thru BUT THEY'VE DONE NOTHING. goal should have been 1 year ago to get it passed both houses & on his desk FORCING him NOT to sign it.
moreover, my wettest dream is that on day 1 of being inagurated, president trump gives all treasury holders 1 week to comply with a massive restructure. when that fails, id default on the debt, completely restructure treasury, shut down the fed, balanced budget ammendment to the constitution --- bottom line, if we don't got it, we don't spend it. PERIOD. i don't care how bad it gets out there - if calvin coolidge can go from 7 course meals to turkey & ham sandwiches every night in the white house, we can stop spending $1 trillion WE DON'T HAVE EVERY YEAR.
this is going to be a messy process no matter how you cut it. problem is, nobody wants to be the bad guy because once u turn off the spigots, everything is gonna crash and your gonna get blammed. can't keep living off debt forever as we have been & someone with a real set of balls has to put an end to this ridiculousness. im not sure anyone but trump has the set to do it - possibly cruz but outside of that, i think the rest of the field is a bunch of pussies when push comes to shove.
What blather. The reason the poor countries have climate change concern is they are awaiting their giant pay off. India today said they want $2.5 trillion as their share. There were no takers at that price.
Grantham proves his own thesis by showing the world he isn't educated enough to understand the flaws in climate simulation "models". Blind acceptance is the domain of the poorly educated.
I can't figure why population control and global warming go hand in hand. Must be all the births across the galaxy.
http://www.space.news/2015-10-06-entire-solar-system-is-heating-up-scien...
Now a lack of resources and population I can see.
Since you're so smart to understand the "flaws in the climate simulation models" - care to elaborate on what those flaws are? 97% of climate scientists disagree with what you're saying.
So in other words, kill the messenger.
Second line of defense when you seriously just don't want to hear it.
When he prattled about that in his newsletters, I became disenchanted.
Frankly Jeremy, I don't give a shit what other countries give in foreign aid! I live in the USSA and we give $40 billion in aid and for me that is about $40 billion too much!
The taxes one is bullshit too. I could careless that sweden or Norway or whoever is willing to pay 50% of their income in taxes. I am not willing to pay 1% of my income in taxes because income..the sweat of my labor.... no man has a right to it but me!
Besides being overly long, any analyst who values comparisons of one country to another, disregarding Size, is a full blown idiot.
If you want to compare the U.S. to France, then just got the fuck away with your conclusions.
Find a country similar to ours in at least a dozen metrics, numero uno being population and density. You can't. There are none.
indeed, there is no country that has the same size of the US, but how about the 19-country eurozone? from memory, 300 millions. or the 28-country EU? again, from memory, 500 millions
note that in both cases we are poorer, both in income and wealth. no conclusions possible by such a comparison of averages? just asking
Please elaborate on how population and density affect the metrics. Seriously, provide at least one example how population or density might affect the metrics.
Set the bar impossibly high, the classic first-line defense when you just don't want to hear it.
Go back and read it again, because it's all about you.
Yet Exhibit 1 shows what has actually happened to France’s median hourly wage. It has gone from 100 to 280. Up 180% in 45 years!
Yes because they have become a completely SOCIALIST economy!!! Wages will ALWAYS have to rise to include higher taxes and greater costs to consumers because of all the Government "freebies" (which are not really free)...
Author is a complete idiot...
so France is socialist and has a middle class that isn't shrinking? funny that. particularly if you keep in mind that this "middle class shrinkage" is for all purposes a US-phenomenon... only
I guess from all this that it's socialism that makes a big, healthy middle class? now my head hurts
You're telling this to an audience that has probably never been to France, has probably never lived there, and probably knows no one from those places. They're sitting in their shitty, decaying, soulless American suburbs, trying to justify to themselves why the USA is still #1, despite an abundance of metrics suggesting otherwise.
In case anyone was wondering how this happened:
"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?"
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized."
Edward L. Bernays
1 Wall Street
New York City
Edward L. Bernays
7 Lowell St.
Cambridge, Mass.
He was descended from the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg (late 18th-early 19th century) and was a nephew, both sides, of that quintessence of FILTH, Sigmund Freud.
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/chap4.pdf
We have seen that a common component of Jewish intellectual activity since the Enlightenment has been to criticize gentile culture. Freud’s ideas have often been labeled as subversive. Indeed, “[Freud] was convinced that it was in the very nature of psychoanalytic doctrine to appear shocking and subversive. On board ship to America he did not feel that he was bringing that country a new panacea. With his typically dry wit he told his traveling companions, ‘We are bringing them the plague’ ” (Mannoni 1971, 168).
Mannoni, O. (1971). Freud, trans. R. Belice. New York: Pantheon Books.
I couldn't agree more about Freud, he was a drug addict quack who had serious sexual issues of his own and yet proclaimed that we are all the ones with deep seated issues; women have penis envy, men have womb envy and if you don't suffer from that you must have an anal fixation.. mmmkay?
For some reason his lunacy was catered to and to this day considered a foundation of psychology. His ideas about the unconscious and supression were the only things of value he produced but he was far more concerned on maintaining his authority than he was in discovering the truth and so he clung to anal fixation to the end.
In my opinion his theories on the unconscious were no where near as groundbreaking and relevant as Carl Jung's. Jung wasn't as popular with the mainstream as Freud for some reason, he underwent a great deal of resistance and slander, he was even accused of being a Nazi sympathizer which was completely false.
100 years of Freud and we still can't figure out why young men will sometimes turn around and kill everyone in the room including themselves.
The funny thing with places like ZH. It's practically the cathedral of Preaching to the Choir. The people who need this sort of advice don't understand the value of precious metals, have never touched a weapon in their life, have zero savings and read Huffpo because it makes them feel good. They want to be lied to. They want the fairy tale. Look around. We're a society redlining on denial.
BUT... everyone on these pages knows that. Confirmation bias? Dunno. All I know is that every now and then I go over to Slate or Huffpo and it leaves me feeling like I'm not even from the same country. I literally do not understand them.
So good luck trying to get that across to the hopium crowd. 16 years of lies... and they still believe. Fuck em.
This is because the truth will make you crazy.
In addition to what Jeremy Grantham says I would like to add...
1. eat more vegetables
2. do not smoke
3. do not drink and drive cars
4. wear your seat belts...click it or get ticket
5. love your neighbor..safe sex is important
6. maintain a positive attitude when you are in the midst of alligators
7. began each morning with meditation and yoga
8. if you feel like yelling at someone...don't
9. get your sunshine or get your vitamin D pill
10. exercise your brain and your body
Well..there you have it...some positive lifestyle thoughts..
Preaching to the choir. Everyone here at zerohedge has already been radicalized by anti-establishment bias.
And feels good to call us all radicalized. That separates us from the safe doomists.
Radicalized (instructed to write the word at least three times to fit the narrative).
We would be less "biassed" if government and their many promulgators ever said anything which was not clearly lies and hypocrisy.
There is no premium placed on critical thinking in our educational systems. The premium is on conformity to messaging.
Pure crap - geez ZH have you gone retard......
Pure numbers.