Goodness, a rational approach to the topic from someone who buys into AGW. Betcha the more adamant AGWers will decry the comments within 5 posts. I applaud Patrick Michaels for his interview. No hysteria, no hype just factual stuff. Darryl Hannah should take note. The Goreacle can't, he makes too much money to start using anything close to logic in his "forum".

Michaels has authored "several books" over the last fifteen years. Apparently the advocacy of AGW "alarmists" is far more dangerous than his own advocacy against AGW. His three titles, highlighted in the piece, are "Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming", "The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming", and "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media". None of these are technical or scientific publications.

In fact, the technical or scientific offerings of Dr. Michaels are rather meager, and I found none in the last decade.

When we strip away the multiple negatives, Michaels seems to assert that warming is taking place and that it has an anthropogenic component.

"So it is very very hard for people to go around saying that
a) There is no such thing as warming, or
b) Human beings don't have anything to do with it.

So he at least admits that AGW is real. Now, it's the "alarmism" that he argues with.

In his wrapup, Michaels says he is concerned about a "policy response" that could be "disastrous" in that it would:

A. Do nothing substantive about warming, and
B. Destroy the capital that could.

Since our government is already relentlessly implementing a policy that will do nothing substantive about warming, apparently his first concern is moot.

In other words, what seems to really concern Dr. Michaels is the risk of monetary loss to the very wealthy. Not surprising, since both Dr. Michaels and the Cato Institute have a long and venerable history of advocating on behalf of the wealthy.

Can someone enlighten me as to the policies, if any, that Dr. Michaels proposes that we should pursue?

BT,

Seems Dr. PM is not the least proactive on AGW because he perceives the problem trifling. That sentence was meant to be contradictory. AGW is in its infancy, but, I agree with your assessment of the Dr. Great post.

I find the presentation by Professor Michaels to be very balanced and sensible. He does not dispute a possible human component to warming, feels the amount portrayed by many scientists, and of course the media and Hollywood, is overblown and dangerous. I recently heard a presentation he made where it was correctly noted that we humans only have a finite supply of fossil fuels to burn. Coal and gas is already getting more difficult and costly to extract. Accordingly, prices are going up; call it a natural �free market� carbon tax.

So why is Professor Michaels constantly attacked by the media and radical environmentalists? The answer is these attackers are agenda driven, and their agenda is to control each of our lives. Of course, an old standby argument for more control is to pull out the �wealth� card. Blame big oil for all our problems and attack their profits, never mind they pay more taxes than earn in profits, so our government has more to do with high energy prices than shareholder earnings. Somebody defends free markets? Well just pull out that wealth card again and claim that the defenders of the most successful country in the world are only out to protect the wealthy. Never mind that ALL of the most oppressed societies in this world are NOT free, and their governments only protects those in charge!

The issue with fossil fuels will take care of itself over time. We should conserve and invest in alternative energy such as nuclear for baseload electric generation for future growth needs. World population growth will be far more dangerous to our environment than responsible extraction and use of fossil fuels, it is distressing this is not addressed more.

... never mind they pay more taxes than earn in profits, ...

I wonder if Randy realizes that this doesn't pass even the most basic smell-test.

Surely dialog and discussion must be premised on simple truth in order to be constructive. The most courteous and reasonable thing to do with howlers such as the above is to ignore them -- along with the remainder of an argument based on them.

The Cato Institute is political action group who's goal is to minimize government intervention and protect wealthy individuals from taxes and loss of profits. Hardly an unbiased source of information.

So, while he claims that the loss of ice in Greenland is inconsequential, I'll take that with a grain of salt. He makes up numbers to prove his point, but offers no actual proof.

The best way to measure the amount of ice in Greenland is from satellite maps.
If anybody wishes, I can provide a link that will show the extent of the loss. However, it's already clear to most un-biased individuals that losses have been occurring and are far from in-consequential.

Perhaps Randy was referring to the US, where for example oil giant ExxonMobil paid $59.9B in taxes in 2002-2006, as compared to US profits of $39.5B.

With all due respect to Dr. Michaels, one way to view him is as a convenient foil for those disagreeing with him. The more wrong an adversary is, the easier it is to win the debate in the public forum, especially if ones own arguments are more complex than those of the adversary.

BT

Regarding basic smell tests on taxes and profits on your scathing response, here is some information for those who care about the facts:

Everyone in the media loves to hate Exxon, so I will refer to their 2006 annual report for this outline. Anyone who cares to verify this can look it up on their web site and refer to their Summary Statement of Income.

2006 revenues were $378 billion

2006 net income, which of course is shareholder profits, was just under $40 billion, or a little over 10% of sales.

Income taxes were $28 billion, sales based taxes were $30 billion (included in revenue and passed on to YOU at the pump), and other taxes and duties were $39 billion. So total taxes are about $97 billion, or just over 25% of sales.

Everyone can do their own math at the pump and decide for themselves who is making the most money on each gallon of gas.

Do I need to supply evidence that the world population is growing too?

In my "scathing response", I think it was apparent that I was referring to corporate income tax, in Exxon's case $28B (compared to shareholder profits of $40B). It would seem that ClaudeC looked at the same income statement and came up with $60B, as opposed to $90B. Perhaps a learning is that we should all be more specific about our definitions.

In the meantime, an observation that Exxon pays more in total taxes than it earns in profits has little do with the question at hand. Surely we can agree the tax exposure of Big Tobacco had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not tobacco is dangerous to health, and nothing to do with the question of whether or not they used their substantial resources to manipulate public opinion on the question.

It seems to me that question at hand is whether or not our petroleum-based economy contributes to AGW. As I wrote above, Dr. Michaels seems primarily concerned, instead, about potential monetary loss to the very wealthy.

Finally, I'd like to note that I agree with Randy that nuclear energy appears to be the only viable short-term alternative and one that I think we should pursue. Of course, if the "A" part of AGW is not a problem, then the significant environmental risks associated with nuclear power generation mitigate against its use.

So if AGW is real, then we need nuclear energy and the "agenda" of AGW proponents provides needed impetus to overcome resistance from petroleum industry shills. If AGW is NOT real, then nuclear energy is a dangerous waste of precious capital.

The question, for all sides of the discussion, remains "how real is global climate change, and what can we do about it."

BT - You said in so many words that Randy's oil company taxes vs profits comment was untrue, called him a howler, and lobbied that everyone ignore him and his arguments. Harsh.

I decided to check Randy out, and found out he was at least correct for ExxonMobil in the US during 2002-2006. Randy was more thorough than me, and went to the annual report to show the veracity of his original statement for 2006 on a world-wide basis. The different bases are clearly stated in our posts.

This IS one of the questions at hand because you decided to raise it as a question in a manner that was impugning to Randy. Had Randy been wrong, a simple recitation of the numbers would have sufficed.

I agree that the Exxon paid more in total taxes than they reported in profits for 2006. I jumped too quickly to an assumption that Randy was referring to corporate income taxes. I apologize for that jump. Mea culpa. In addition to my apology, I agree to stipulate that Exxon paid more in total taxes than it reported in net profits for 2006.

Our agreement that Exxon paid more in total taxes than it reported in profits for 2006 does not change:

1. The validity of my observation that Dr. Michaels appears to be concerned primarily about monetary loss to the very wealthy.
2. The argument of Dr. Michaels or its validity.
3. The validity of Randy's claim that the argument of Dr. Michaels is "balanced and sensible."
4. The validity of Randy's claim that Dr. Michaels is attacked because of the "agenda" of the "media" and "radical environmentalists."

Randy's attack on unnamed "media" and "radical environmentalists" because of their "agenda" to "control each of our lives" is surely no more harsh than my overstated response. Randy's response was in apparent reply to my comment that Dr. Michaels appears to be primarily concerned about monetary loss to the very wealthy.

In my comment, I posed a question: "Can someone enlighten me as to the policies, if any, that Dr. Michaels proposes that we should pursue?"

Perhaps you or Randy might respond to my question.

I can't do a better job than Dr. Michaels himself at proposing the policies Dr. Michaels would like to see followed.

I assumed this discussion thread was over so did not see the followup question until now.

If I understand BT correctly, the entire US and World economy engine is in place only for the very wealthy. Sorry, it does not work that way. Of course the rich get richer in a prosperous economy, but so does everyone else.

But there is the followup question as to what policies we should pursue. The interesting twist to this all is whether we should follow any policy strictly to combat AGW. After all, if Dr. Michaels is right that proposed solutions will have no discernable effect, why do anything?

I cannot speak for Dr. Michaels as to what exactly he would suggest. I do know he says that the risks of carbon dioxide buildups are way overblown, and that there has to be a technological breakthrough to find alternative energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases. As stated before, fossil fuels are a finite resource. One way or another, we will stop burning coal and oil, either because they run out, or they become obsolete.

So I come down that we need to conserve, license more nuclear baseload generation, and invest in new technologies. Where does the money come from? From a combination of private enterprise and Government incentives, just like what is used in many other industries. As energy costs go up, and they will, that will create the incentive to find alternatives.