I don’t see hypocrisy as much as I see China flexing their muscle and following the examples of other global hegemons. Hypocrisy is frequently exercised by those with the clout to do it. As for the US, an aging fighter had better learn a bit of diplomacy. Aging fighters need a sympathetic referee. Our hypocrisy is more costly to us than China’s is. Though their well of good will is not unlimited, no one’s is.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 6 2012 15:40 utc | 4

Well the not a mess in my backyard is a staple of US policy since forever.
One of the reasons that manufacturing moved from the US, in some degree, to China, also > VietNam, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico etc. – for the EU, other places -, was the laxity of enviro regulations.
Inhabitants blasted with toxic chemicals, polluted water, water shortages, with dire effects on local agri, not to mention cancer and birth defects, have no recourse, there is no-one to apply to, protest to.
Wage arbitrage looks puny by comparison. The cost of a clean plant / factory, with no negative or even deemed ‘positive’ ecological impact, is so incredibly high that it would make the biz non-profitable.
That potential cost is far higher than paying ‘proper’ salaries. The ‘salary’ post is extremely malleable and adjustable, in function of the country’s pol structure, its culture, expectations, re-distribution payments, family solidarity, etc.
China is in a frenzy of development, resource extraction, thrashing everything, to be in the triumphant top league, dominate.
China has a surplus of people and astounding energy needs.
Whatever they spew about pollution / emissions / destruction of nature / and more, is BS.

Posted by: Noirette | Feb 6 2012 17:36 utc | 6

Agreed, CO2, like everything else, needs to be in proper balance in the atmosphere to provide for life, and quality of life, but it’s still improper to label it a pollutant.
Also, I don’t trust carbon trading, nor carbon taxation. Governmental Institutions have proven, the world over, that they are corrupt and venal and only serve the very privileged few in our global society. As such, they cannot be trusted to administer such a carbon levy equitably and justly. Knowing them, they will find a way to play reverse Robin Hood once again, and steal from the poor and give to the rich, using this wonderful new tax to pay off all that vig and principal to the Plutocrats. Look what they’ve done with Social Security. It’s stuffed full of IOU’s. Yeah, it’s a surplus on paper only. From a cash standpoint, it’s empty….and it always will be from here on out.
And yes, the Chinese are liars like all the rest.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 6 2012 18:03 utc | 8

OK, CO2 is not a traditional “pollutant”, but significantly increasing its concentration in can have – has had – a measureable effect on the net energy balance of our atmosphere & hydrosphere. The scientific basis (CO2’s absorbtion spectrum – like glass, it’s transparent to visible light but opaque at Infrared – Heat – wavelengths) has been known for over 100 years. The details – feedbacks in a very complex system – are still being worked out.
For people who actually want to understand the science behind prediction & measurement of “Global Warming”, the website scepticalscience.com is a great place to start. Click the “Big Picture” box in the middle of the first page for a good beginner’s overview.
Or, if you think you already know “why CAGW is bunk”, check out the rebuttals of various common denialist memes, on the left side of the page where it says “Most Used Climate Myths… and what the science really says”.
Most Denialists seem to be rabid right-wingers – Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist “Christians” – so I’m somewhat amused (though still mostly exasperated) to find commenters here who don’t get it.

Posted by: elkern | Feb 6 2012 23:08 utc | 10

How do you guys say that the western countries have polluted the earth for centuries?

Posted by: jeffutogo | Feb 7 2012 4:22 utc | 12

A couple of thoughts. We’ve seen in studies that increasing CO2 acts as a fertilizer, and stimulates growth of plants. So, I’d like to know what this will do to mitigate the increases of CO2?
waiting….
waiting….
No, climate studies is not climate science. It’s getting there, but they don’t know how these various factors and variables interact, nor how they’ll be introduced. What would be the global warming benefit if Yellowstone went dormant? What is the cost of another one? If we don’t know these answers, until we understand all the variables, and how they’re introduced, how they grow/change we can’t make predictions to study. So far, not a single climate model has been accurate, so we can’t even craft hypotheses that are proven true. Further, since we can’t replicate Earths, we don’t have the ability to study these things. So, please, let’s retire this discussion and move to what we can do.
Proton objected to taxes on fuels. Well, we have several proposals out there. Carbon trading is, in my mind a horrible idea. It leaves us subject to market manipulation and spikes and swings in price. It would be preferable to simply charge a simple tax on fuels. We do this already, and it works ok. In fact, we haven’t raised the gas tax in the US since Clinton’s time, however, the cost of highway construction has increased, as the cost of fuel increases. The price of gas has tripled since we raise the gas tax, but our tax is per gallon of gas, not per dollar.
To object to taxing fuels ignores the nature of fuel markets. Despite there being many gas stations, oil and fuels are utilities. Utilities are unique markets that don’t have alternatives, nor any real competition. In fact, it would almost impossible to boycott an oil producer, as their identities are not linked to service stations. Further, these markets rely on gov’t in a way unlike the free market. The dept of defense aids their business, special provisions are needed for refineries, pipelines and international ports. Presumably, an efficient market would have taxation that would recoup all the costs of this utility. It would be most appropriate if our gas tax paid for all our roads, the share of the Defense budget they bear, cost of regulation and subsidies. It is also appropriate for gov’t to use taxation to create alternatives to oil use, namely the funding of mass transit. Since all these are costs of oil, doesn’t it make sense to recapture that cost in our tax?

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 7 2012 16:34 utc | 14

“cranking up the CO2 will have diminishing returns”
Sceptics have been saying THAT for years, in relation to CO2’s effect on Temperature over time – hilarious to see the warmists using a similar argument now.
The sceptic argument has been that yes there’s a rise in temp with a rise in CO2 – but only for a while – as CO2 continues up, the correnponding effect on in Temp rapidily drops off – effectively once CO2 rises a certain amount it’s effect on Temp gets weaker and weaker for every unit of rise of CO2
See this graph for instance http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/co2modtransimg2.png/ – The blue-line represents CO2 – The flatter portion of the graph gradually smooths out, as the effect of CO2 forcing becomes saturated with increased concentration.

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:42 utc | 16

“i know science is hard to understand for some people, but try looking at it from another perspective for a minute. ”
– heehee – seriously, could you even possibly be more patronising?

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:46 utc | 18

a good place to start for anyone genuinely interested in the shenanigans of the Climate Scientlogists would be the whole the Hockey-Stick controversy,
Andrew Montfords’s blog-post Caspar and the Jesus paper delves into the whole murky business in a fairly readable manner.
the lenghts the Climate Scientologists are prepared to stoop to, to cover-up/run-interference for each other is quite revealing

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 1:05 utc | 20

A fairly decent expose on the IPCC and it’s apparent, (according to the book anyway) disregard for anything even remotely approaching a sense of ethics, is Donna LaFramboise’s book “The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert”
Here’s a sample chapter or two from the book itself – http://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/delinquentteenager_sample.pdf

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 1:17 utc | 22

Fair enough Proton, it’s just I don’t think being patronising will convince anyone of anything, but I do understand the frustration when trying to have a discussion with a ‘True Believer’ – essentially these people seem to have replace one religion for another – time and time again the so-called ‘evidence’ falls flat on it’s face when examined closely, yet still they believe, no hint of a doubt for the true believer.
and to be fair if I was objecting to ridiculous or offensive crap I really should have highlighted this astoundingly arrogant guff posted by elkern,

“Most Denialists seem to be rabid right-wingers – Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist “Christians” – so I’m somewhat amused (though still mostly exasperated) to find commenters here who don’t get it.”

Most of the non-Chicken-little people I have interacted with are people with a fair understanding of statistics, a pretty fair understanding of systems-theory. Many are programmers, engineers and a few Mathameticians as well. Although I know, from perusing the web, that “rabid right-wingers – Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist “Christians”” exist within the rather large Climate Realist camp, I’ve NEVER met any of them, the ones I’ve met are smart well-educated people that actually DO understand the theories as stated by the Climate Scientologists, and HAVE examined the evidence put forward by the High-Priests of Climate Scientology, and have seen that it’s all a bit of a sham.
People like elkern want to portray anyone not a ‘True Believer’ like themselves, as totally loons – it feels comfortable to them as they ignore the fact that their theories can’t survive close scrutiny, as more and more of the ‘predicitions’ of the Chicken-Littles, made in the early days of The Rise of the Church of Scientology, are, as time progresses, proven false by empirical observation. That Reality is slowly falisifying their heroes pronouncments, just doesn’t seem to leek into their vision at all.
The truth is that when interacting with the True Belivers many of them in fact don’t aseem to understand the theories themselves, mainly because they have never actually examined them, they have recieved all their info on this subject from the Media or from ‘Activist’ organisations (people that have a active interest in covering-up data and info that might contradict the Warmistas). Many True Believers have NEVER examined the evidence at all.
I used to be a believer too, and often argued with Sceptics. While doing so, I realised that the sceptics actually appeared to know more far more about the subject than I did myself, so if I were to argue against them sucessfully I needed to better understand the theories and have at the ready evidence to disprove those sceptics.
That’s where my problems REALLY started 🙂
Once I got a good grasp on the theories I went on to examine the evidence – and shockingly enough I found that “There’s no THERE there” – the evidence was not up-to-scratch in many cases, and in others it simply was complety non-existant and even in a few cases completly fabricated – Manns Hockey Stick being a fine example of the latter.

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 16:14 utc | 24

elkern: – “Can you site peer-reviewed studies – real science – which indicate that this one negative feedback pathway will stabilize things quickly?
how about

Aboveground inventory of sour orange trees exposed to different atmospheric CO2 concentrations for 3 full years – (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Volume 60, Issues 1-2, pp. 145-151, August 1992) Sherwood B. Idso, Bruce A. Kimball

“You don’t really think that climate scientists have ignored such an obvious effect, do you?”
given the depths I’ve seen Climate Scientologists sink to, nothing would surprise me concerning those guys at this stage. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if they were in fact fully aware of such studies but willfully chose to had in fact deliberately ignore them
and then there’s

Atmospheric CO2 enrichment enhances survival of Azolla at high temperatures
(Environmental and Experimental Botany, Volume 29, Issue 3, pp. 337-341, July 1989)
– Sherwood B. Idso, S.G. Allen, M.G. Anderson, Bruce A. Kimball

I got lots more if you want em – you just ask, mKay?
I just pulled those two out from the first 10 I found listed under ‘A’ 😉

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 18:03 utc | 26

Wow, Hu, ten posts? Are you getting paid for this?
I actually checked out some of your links, but it was wasted time. The graph was pretty, but it’s a picture with no supporting info, and the axes make it hard to tell how much of a difference a doubling of CO2 will make.
And you really think Bishophill gives good science?
The links about the effect of increased CO2 concentration on plants (One didn’t work; I just read the abstract of the other) are nice, but they missed my point: I agree that increased plant respiration could be a mitigating factor, but it’s not likely to completely offset the extra carbon we’re pumping into the atmosphere. More importantly, I ended the sentence with the word “QUICKLY”; I’d probably agree that plants will EVENTUALLY absorb whatever we burn, but I’m concerned about the next century or so.
…and you berate another commenter for “patronizing”, then write of “Climate Scientologists”? Ah, yes, you chose a good moniker. Have I been Poe’d?
Proton Soup – Have you run the numbers? It’s fun.
1. How much does the atmosphere weigh? (proxy for mass, close enuf): 14 lbs/sqin * surface area.
2. Total CO2 = (Atmos Wt) * 390 ppm
3. How much CO2 do we add? Calc how many gallons of gas you burn each year, multiply by a few hundred million for all the other drivers, then double it for trucks, and multiply by 3 (or more?) because transpo is only a fraction of the carbon source.
When I run this, it looks like we add a few percent per year to the atmosphere. Or do you dispute even the measurement of CO2 concentration (390 ppm)?
If you want to brush up on your stats & learn about AGW at the same time, check out Tamino at tamino.wordpress.com (sorry, I’m html-challenged). He’s got a pretty sharp-tongue, but that happens on both “sides” of this issue (see Hu Bris, above, and most Denialist sites).
BTW, I call Godwin on your mis-interpretation “Crypto-Libertarian”. I mean people who imagine that there’s a conspiracy among thousand of scientists around the planet to impose World Communism through the IPCC & tax their hard-earned capital gains. Lookup David Brin’s take on Randian Libertarianism; that’s what I mean. Most of the comments I’ve read here are politically to my Left, in traditional terms at least; I find that refreshing (thanks again, b).

Posted by: elkern | Feb 10 2012 0:02 utc | 28

@High Priest elkern, of the Church of Climate Scientology™© : –
since you deliberately refused to address the Peer-Reviewed SCIENTIFIC papers that YOU personally requested, maybe we all might benefit from perusing an abstract of those SCIENTIFIC peer-reviewed papers that you earlier demanded, . . . . . but for some strange reason YOU rejected, when actually supplied with he information that YOU demanded, eh?
lets see shall we?
BOTH of the papers I linked to earler loaded inMy BROWSER with no problem for at all, so I’m a little surprised at your earlier claims regarding page-loading – perhaps YOUR browser has a problem with loading Non-Church-Of-Scientology related SCIENTIFIC papers?
The abstract from the First SCIENTIFIC Peer-reviewed paper (as you earlier demanded) states:

(useful tip : but For NON-LIARS only!!) : this is always a good way to try and gauge how dishonest your opponent is!)

would that satisfy your esoteric religon-based queries?
why NO, of course not- that is pure HERESY – burn old nasty heretic me, and the Authors, at the stake of Climate-Goodnes™©, for goodness sake!!
seriously -your’re nothing but a cheap pathetic shill for the Church of Climate Scientology™© – ytou ain’t foolin’ no one

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 10 2012 3:05 utc | 30

Soup –
You’re right, “CO2 production is not going down”, at least not yet. I’m afraid you may be right about the next part – “there is nothing we can do about that”, but I’m not ready to give up yet. I root (& vote) for more investment in alt entergy, a carbon tax (there may be better ways), and ending the huge subsidies currently going to the Dinosaurs. Coal scares me the most.
I agree that alt energy isn’t quite at break-even yet, but we’re getting darn close. I’d rather see us use the remaining petrocarbon wisely – building a post-carbon infrastructure – than pissing it away on jet-skis and battleships.
Be careful what you wish for (“a few degrees warmer”). Humans developed agriculture around stable local climates. A warming planet implies destabilization of regional climate patterns. We all eat (except Hu, who just bites). You may well be right about that population crash. The longer we pretend this doesn’t matter, the lower the resulting carrying capacity of the remaining ecology. People get so wrapped up in money that they forget that the economy is a subset of the ecology.
b – Sorry for hijacking. I fear I may have attracted the troll with my mention of scepticalscience.com

Posted by: elkern | Feb 10 2012 22:44 utc | 32

Yes – everyone’s a troll except the sanctimonious pompous twat that can’t fathom how anyone disagreeing with his nonsensical crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap, might do so simply BECAUSE they realise that his crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap is actually just that: a steaming pile of crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap
Unable to process this simple fact, the poor deluded fool has taken to inventing conspiracy theories wherein anyone daring to have a opinion not sanctioned by these Church High Priests, simply must be a paid-agent of Satan, out to sabotage the good-and-pure holier-than-thou crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh message, espoused by these Latter Day saints of the Church of Climate scientology

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 13 2012 2:23 utc | 34