Readers replied to our two-part series about Project 2025 and its impact on climate mitigation and the environment. Here are the links to parts 1 and 2:
“Climate Change, Markets, Economics – Part 1, https://kotokreport.com/climate-change-markets-economics-part-1/
“Climate Change, Markets, Economics – Part 2,” https://kotokreport.com/climate-change-markets-economics-part-2/
Not a single reader emailed with a positive statement about the Heritage Foundation or about Project 2025. None defended this radicalized version from what used to be a conservative think tank.
Here’s a list which we hope you find interesting.
__________
Kotok discussed the issue of HFCs and heat with Bob Bunting, CEO of the Climate Adaptation Center. Bob has invited me to give the opening comments at the CAC conference in Sarasota on November 14-15. Here’s the link to the CAC website for information and ticketing: https://theclimateadaptationcenter.networkforgood.com/events/74937-2024-annual-florida-climate-conference
I also discussed with Bob a new report in Wired magazine that details the findings on the way in which carbon dioxide converts sunlight into atmospheric heat and why there is an acceleration of heating as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increases. (See “The Quantum Mechanics of the Greenhouse Effect ,” https://www.wired.com/story/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect/.) Simplified greatly, Wired reported that the carbon atom in CO2 is tied to the two oxygen atoms in such a way that the molecule oscillates, and the movement broadens the interception of the light spectrum so that it converts more sunlight to heat than originally thought. Wired describes the mechanism, which was only discovered in 2023. This is absolute proof that the manmade increase in carbon dioxide causes more extreme heat. It explains why are in the hottest period in 125,000 years and why the rate of heat increase is accelerating. Note that Project 2025 is silent on this factor and disregards the absolute scientific and mathematical proof about carbon dioxide and global warming.
Bob said, “Yes, this is the perfect example of scale. Looking into a test tube and then being able to look at a huge volume. Atmospheric scientists have inferred this for nearly 100 years, but these quantum details now make the A to Z a complete story.”
__________
Another colleague sent me this opinion piece from the Wall St. Journal: “U.N. Climate-Change Alarms Cast Little Light on Heat,” https://www.wsj.com/opinion/united-nations-cast-little-light-on-heat-climate-change-false-alarm-4cf88a8e
Here’s my reply:
Please note that the writer Bjorn Lomborg agrees with me, even though the headline suggests otherwise. He admits that the damage from heat is serious, but he argues that the damage from cold is greater. That is a debate. He is in Scandinavia (Denmark), where the weakening of the northerly flow of warm water in the Atlantic Ocean is altering the circulation pattern that warms Northern Europe. (This is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation [AMOC]. See “Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation,” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w, and “How Soon Might the Atlantic Ocean Break? Two Sibling Scientists Found an Answer—and Shook the World,” https://www.wired.com/story/amoc-collapse-atlantic-ocean/.)
Lomborg wants mitigation and favors it over prevention of more atmospheric heat. I want both. Mitigate now because of the damage that is already done and is worsening. And stop the damage from worsening. Lomborg agrees with me but favors mitigation over prevention. I favor both. Nothing he wrote in WSJ supports the Project 2025 position on HFCs.
Fred P. contributed:
I appreciate your efforts in trying to educate climate change deniers, as well as those that accept it but don’t fully realize the urgency of our problem. And, the politics – ARGH!
Anyway, as you know, the IPCC is conservative in its reports. Hansen is more on the cutting edge. I thought you might be interested in his Nov-2023 paper, “Global warming in the pipeline.” To get a good understanding of the paper without reading all 33 pages, I suggest the following: Read the 1st page and 3/4 of the 2nd page. Then skip to the Summary section, which starts on the bottom of page 19 and goes for about 3 pages (i.e. up to the Policy section). In any case, Hansen expected the average global surface air temp last year (2023) to be above the 1.5ºC limit (from pre-industrial times) – it was 1.45ºC (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C). This year (2024 per Hansen), we should drop below it (switching off of El Nino). However, Hansen says that the average for our current decade will be above the +1.5º limit, and by 2050, above +2.0ºC. So, we should know in 4-5 years (i.e. likely before 2030) whether Hansen is more right (than the IPCC).
There are at least 3 things that are not well appreciated (by those who accept the science –- i.e. that our global warming problem is human induced):
– Various projections indicate we will not hit peak of fossil fuel production until 2030. The major problem is the emerging-market countries.
– The complexity of switching off of fossil fuels (e.g. the supply-chain problem) is totally underestimated.
– Human Nature, e.g. Tribalism, Fanatical Religious Beliefs (anti-Science), Short-term thinking (i.e. majority of people are living day-to-day, paycheck to paycheck), etc.
I completely agree with your concluding remark: “I’m not sanguine about this outcome. I believe it will take catastrophe after catastrophe before citizens (voters) will connect the dots between climate events and the governance that brought us there.”
Lindsey had this to say:
David, I’m not at all arguing against climate change. I’m actually in the camp of, you’re pissing into the wind. What isn’t being discussed is the activities of humans have far exceeded the capacity of mitigating pollution generated by humans. IMO, unless people start doing a lot less in consuming resources, you’re not even going to come close to curbing the warming of the climate. During the pandemic when the world basically came to a halt, you saw the positive effects on the world atmosphere. Take EVs for example. If you take the total life cycle cost of EVs to the equivalent combustion fired auto, the EV don’t significantly reduce the impact on global warming. Throw in the energy consumption of AI, crypto, and data centers, and you’re compounding the problem. Sorry but I don’t see it getting better in my lifetime.
Ray wrote:
David, thank you for your posting. It boggles my mind that people can stick their heads in the sand in the face of such an alarming issue. I really can not begin to understand how such wishful (non)thinking and imagined self-interest can override taking serious problems seriously. I appreciate your trying to remain non-political and even-handed. As with Trump, after a few years of such, one begins to feel that it is necessary to take the gloves off and call it for what it is. But I suppose that would be counter-productive and feed into their political rants.
Marc sent this:
I worked for the EPA in its early years and had the privilege of personally interacting with its first National Administrator, William Ruckleshaus, and National General Counsel, John Quarles. One way to describe the EPA’s mission: implementing Congress’s restricting companies from externalizing their cost of production by disposing of their waste products into the atmosphere and the water (to be strained out by people’s lungs and stomachs) – individual health and expense and public expense be damned.
Fred F. wrote:
The advantage of climate change investments over war is that the former creates investments that, on balance, are intended to be “value-adding”. By design, investments in war are intended to blow up, destroying both themselves and the enemy. War is designed “economic waste” to increase power of a governing entity by the waste of value-adding investments. Only the Marshall Plan sought to unwind the loss.
Brad contributed:
David:
The question should not be one of “Climate Change”, but rather is any change in the climate natural, manmade, or man assisted, and is it a positive or negative change. Like you, it appears, I have read numerous books, articles, studies, etc. and have come to the conclusion the problem is “Climate Change” was turned into an economic and political topic early on, by folks like Al Gore who had the science absolutely wrong, the timing wrong, and tried to use scare tactics. The result was, he discredited himself, and the topic. All the while making himself super wealthy on false “science” and BS. The people now know this, as NOT ONE of his predictions have basically come true.
The economics of the costs of “Green Energy” are also lost in the discussion by climate activists. Along with the idea you can destroy the west’s economies trying to go green, while letting the developing world continue to exacerbate the problems. Rational people are starting to figure out this is crazy. If one is concerned about peoples health, the first thing we should focus on is a strong economy. It also takes a strong economy to fund the climate initiatives and pay for the changes the propose. Lost in the discussion seems to be the earth’s history of climate changes, from warming spells, to cooling spells, to higher CO2 numbers to lower numbers, etc. Also lost is the fact the earth has “shifted” and “tilted” on its access. We never see the climate activists discuss this as being a cause of climate change, but it certainly is the single largest contributor. I suspect it is because it is something we cannot control, so it robs them of power and influence over our lives.
Unfortunately, by trying to make the climate a political, and economic tool for their cause, the climate activists have discreted themselves. First it was Global Warming, Then Global Cooling, then CO2 emissions, etc. As each of their forecasts could not be supported by the facts, they changed them. Finally, it became just “Climate Change”. We live in Montana, as my Grandfather would have said when asked about if he believed in “Climate Change”, he would have said Yes. Followed by “All my life we have had cold winters, warm summers, and weather in between in the Spring and Fall”!! So only a fool would say the weather does not change (gotta love gramps).
Paul sent:
You might add to your definitive sources Jane Mayer’s 2017 book “Dark Money,” which lays out in devastating detail the efforts led by the Koch Bros. & Fellow Extremist Billionaires to brainwash the American public into wanting to cut government, taxes, and regulation. Since the 1970s. As for climate change costs, I would immodestly add the resume that you suggested I write. It is available at: https://www.interdependence.org/blog/how-to-pay-for-climate-change/. The bottom line, confirmed by subsequent expert reports: roughly 10% of global GDP annually. For as long as you and I can see.
Jim encouraged:
David — It is tragic that, although the majority of Americans understand that climate change is real, many of them don’t think doing something is all that urgent. People like you, who insist on continuing to write about it, may be able to change things for the better. So Bravo to you.
Guy thought:
If this is really the issue that will cast one’s vote for Harris, I feel for the nation.
Jack said:
Sadly, my former party has become the anti-science party. Great job!! will forward to my list. Thanks.
Peter shared:
I have an interest in climate change, so thank you for this article. I am almost finished with a fascinating but long book called “The Earth Transformed” by Peter Frankopan, an Oxford professor reputed to be endowed with one the top 25 brains currently in the world. Chapter one is “The world from the dawn of time” – a unique perspective. One of my first conclusions is that nature will win out. That does not mean we give up but it does mean we should allocate our resources to where we can help. For example, I believe if you truly do the work that EV’s are not a net positive despite the funds being expended. The book has some excellent maps from centuries ago where large cities flourished that no longer exist due to nature’s climate change. He is also the author of “The Silk Roads,” which is next on my list. Look forward to your further commentary.
Basil commented:
Thank you again for providing a very critical topic with a very cogent presentation. I can only comment about climate change deniers with a quote from Forrest Gump: “Stupid is what Stupid does.”
Miriam thought:
Project 2025, if implemented, could be the death knell for democracy. While having the Harris/Walz ticket has allowed a ray of sunshine through the dark clouds, if Trump and his cult prevail, we are indeed doomed.
Robert added:
The HFCs banned by the Montreal Protocol were from a special kind of HFC sold mostly in Africa and it was a stratospheric ozone killer as we found out flying the special spectrometer made by HP Instrument especially for these measurements and confirming our hypothesis. Not only were these banned but the Ozone Hole that allowed the sun’s harmful rays to penetrate and cause heightened skin cancers is largely healed just 30 years later. This is our model for climate warming if we can get folks into innovation, out of the inertia of the past and seeing solving this problem as the biggest economic opportunity of our time.
HFCs have a short half life compared to CO2 that stays in the atmosphere for many lifetimes. It does degrade to 50% of its original potency when it is emitted in 30 years. Another 20% takes about 200 years and the final 30% is there for thousands of years. This is why climate warming is cumulative, and if we are going to get it under control, it will take decades even if we did not emit any more Greenhouse Gases like CO2. However, as soon as we stop emissions, the atmosphere will gradually slow its rate of warming and then begin cooling as the gases deplete. Until then we need to adapt to build the bridge to a future stable climate. Getting to net zero will be a while but if we care about the human race surviving without massive catastrophe then we need to get going.
_________
And finally, here is a Sept. 3 bulletin from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago:
“The Broadening Impact of Rising Wildfire Smoke in the United States,” https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFRBCHICAGO/bulletins/3b1e672
