Michael Mann Wants to Give Capitalism a Chance to Solve Climate Change

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

If we behave we won’t have to accept a full command economy to save the planet.

On climate change, it’s time to start panicking

The crisis over global warming warrants an unparalleled response

AUGUST 5, 2018 11:30PM (UTC)





Read more: https://www.salon.com/2018/08/05/on-climate-change-its-time-to-start-panicking

Capitalism and Democracy still has an opportunity to prove itself worthy. Mann is happy for the people’s representatives to decide the exact form of the carbon burden Mann and his friends have demanded we accept.

181 thoughts on “Michael Mann Wants to Give Capitalism a Chance to Solve Climate Change

      • I like the picture of Mr. Mann in what appears to be his house kitchen area.
        Coffee maker on the counter…
        Fireplace in the family room (probably with a Gas Insert)…
        Sliding glass door to the backyard…
        Light streaming in from outside…
        And EVERY light in the vicinity is turned on!!!

          • Manniacal’s main living area is dedicated as his worship Mann room: i.e.
            * A big altar with cheap paraffin candles,
            * walls covered by cheap inkjet pseudo awards from fellow disciples,
            * including the false nobel prize peaces removed from public places,
            * scraps of fake interviews manny gave to newspapers,
            * self adulation puff fictions manny sent to newspapers and cooperative publications,
            * and copious manniacal doom predictions that manny read from cherry picked tree rings of suffering mutant deformed trees,
            * and a very dusty dingy corner where manniacal keeps his same tired old presentation that he has given for over a decade

            Now, manniacal pretends to know economies, politics, Government enforced mandates that allegedly control weather and reveerse climate on demand…

            Yeah, right…

            Mann’s utter failure to actually live the life, he demands of the world, proves just how vacuous Manniacal’s claims are.

    • David !
      I HOPE SO !!!
      Every time I see this HONORIFIC being used :
      “….. Michael E. Mann, a Distinguished Professor
      of Atmospheric Science at Penn State…”
      I KEEP HOPING that the next time I see it
      it WILL READ….. ” State Pen “……….. INSTEAD !!!

    • I wonder if it just dawned upon him that a socialist economic system would be after his money too?

  1. Every time I replace a part on my bike, whether it’s a seat post, crankarm, new forks or new pedals, I pay a price for carbon. Campagnolo stuff is expensive!

    • I noticed that, too. He says, ““I would place a price on carbon,…” while he is claiming it is carbon dioxide emissions that is the problem.

      Further, he isn’t talking about real “climate change” which always happens but is talking about that arguably extremely small portion of the change in climate, primarily the possible atmospheric warming, that he believes may be caused by human carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

      His statement, “…what the science has to say about the reality and threat of climate change.” implies something entirely different from what the science seems to say. Using “certainty” when we aren’t certain, is a major weakness of the Gore/Mann belief system.

      • “…what the science has to say about the reality…”

        of CO2 induced warming is it’s small. The manmade contribution to atmospheric CO2 lies within the sum of the margins of error of all atmospheric CO2 sources, in other words manmade CO2 contributions to atmospheric CO2 levels are negligible. The science is still so uncertain with regard to all the follow-on effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels that a negative warming cannot be ruled out, i.e., increasing CO2 in the atmosphere may even produce overall cooling. Regardless, it’s still small.

        But let’s take the Warmunists at their word: The Science is Settled!™ and cancel ALL funding for “Climate Change” research. I mean, if it’s settled there’s nothing more to research anyway! Let’s start with Mikey’s grants first. In fact, let’s demand a refund!


    Margaret Thatcher.

    • Maggie said that before QE, 1,2,& 3 with the the ECB and the FED pumping liquidity into the system. They dare not even ease off – it would detonate all of it. Of course ECB and FED are above the State. They will demand taxpayers savings as well in the next so-called bail-in.
      The only way to preempt that lurch into our pockets is by immediately splitting off the speculative rot, with Glass-Steagall that Clinton removed in 1999.
      Maggie being of an Austrian School leaning , after all, did do the Big Bang of the stock exchanges.
      So von Hayek aside, and national credit (not central banks) for real economic development as Trump promised, and China does. Never mind the London School of Economics von Hayek-Keynes dancing duet.
      Of course no credit whatsoever for Mann’s utterly crazy CO2 nuttiness. Let him ask hedge-funds, without the bail-in backup. Bloomberg and DiCaprio might give him a few million.

      • “QE, 1,2,& 3 with the the ECB and the FED pumping liquidity into the system. They dare not even ease off.”

        Hmmm, that’s an odd comment. They are more than easing off, at least the Federal Reserve are. An open Quantitative Tightening regime is in progress. They’re removing Treasury and Agency securities from the Fed’s balance sheet, and returning the obligations to the open market, thereby increasing supply. This is scheduled to increase to a $600B annual rate in October, and could well accelerate.

    • Dr. Mann doesn’t understand the American people, either.

      Americans are not going to sign off on a new Carbon Tax. It’s not going to happen. It’s wishful thinking on the part of Dr. Mann.

      • Dr Mann also does not seem to understand the Carbon Cycle or the minisicule fraction of C in the sinks of the top soil (1600 GT), atmosphere (800 GT), oceans (40,000 GT), fossil fuel deposits (4000 GT), biosphere (600 GT), compared to the sedimentary rock like limestone (100,000,000 GT). The total C tonnage of six former C sinks comprise 0.47% of the total mass of Earthly C compared to the proportion stored in the geologic sink of limestone alone (99.53%); the amount of C in other sedimentary rock is uncertain but likely massive as well. Robinson and Robinson. Global Warming. Alarmists, Skeptics, and Deniers. 2012. P26. One can deduce that even should man burn the entirety of fossil fuels and release the C stored into the atmosphere by combustion during the coming century, the incremental increase to the atmosphere will be minimal over time compared to the absorption by the other C sinks which are still the major players in the C cycle. Freeman Dyson has also made this point rather eloquently in an invited lecture seen on YouTube about the ability to store CO2 released by emissions by relatively small annual increase in topsoil through minor alterations in farming methods.

        • You left out the margin of error. Once you put the margin of error onto natural CO2 sources and sinks, the manmade contribution is insignificant. I used to give facetious cost estimates of $50,000, +/- $1 million. The manmade contribution is the $50,000, all the natural sinks and sources uncertainties and margins of error sum to the $1 million.

    • One more item to add to the list: Dr. Mann does not have a firm grip on science — Physics in particular.

      • BS Physics and Applied Math from Berkeley. MS in Physics and a PhD in Geophysics, Yale.

        Sounds like he knows a good bit about physics. Is there a paper in particular you can reference that proves your point?

        • The problem is; there is no paper that proves the mechanism of global warming through increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Only such stupid conjecture as back radiation from a non blackbody atmosphere to a warmer surface. Which goes against the laws of physics. Any pyrgemometers that profess to measure it are assuming emissivity of 1 of CO2 which it most definitely is NOT a blackbody. If there was back radiation, all the energy budget charts should have to include an equal amount of upward emission from the GHG’s because water vapor and CO2 are isotropic molecules. They don’t .

          • Take a 1 storey building with no windows and than take the roof off. Put thermometers inside the building that are measuring the air temperature. The air temperature will always be the same as the outdoor temperature. Then have a powerful infrared heater pointed to the sky exactly in the middle of it attached to the floor of the building with an electrical switch to turn it on. Turn on the infrared heater. The air temperature inside that building will never increase above the outside air temperature. The reason is you cannot heat the air with an infrared heater. So how would CO2 and H2O heat the lower troposphere? They won’t. If back radiation could fight its way back to the surface , that would mean that you have a positive reinforcement of runaway increased surface warming. WE HAVE NOT HAD RUNAWAY SURFACE WARMING despite increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

            The physics of global warming is nonsense.

          • Alan, an illustrative thought experiment, however CO2 does absorb infrared and remit it. When you turn on the infrared heater, the air in the building will warm up. However at 4 molecules in 10,000 and an emissivity of about 0.15, if I recall my flue gas charts, and a short beam length of one building height compared to the height of the atmosphere, the answer will likely be in the order of a fraction of a degree.

          • I agree with everything you said except the location of that last decimal. 🙂 A fraction of a millionth of a degree.

        • I believe there are roughly 1,000 papers published in the last couple of years that proves the point. Maybe open your eyes and look for them. You won’t, of course because that is what people who look for the truth actually do.

          • Joey, you realize that the majority of scientific papers from all sciences cant be replicated and climate science because of gov and UN influence on what gets accepted to support their agenda is among the worst. This is a serious concern that even Nature has reported on. Amorality and support for giv policy has destroyed objectivity and integrity. “The Right Stuff” is highly rewarded.

          • Gary Pearse

            His fingers are in his ears. Listen……can you hear it?


          • Papers ASSUMING.

            No papers actually measuring CO2 warming.

            You have a funny idea of “proof”

          • Aha! The Fallacy Of Authority rears its ugly head! You really should move out of your mum’s basement and learn to think for yourself. “Papers”. That’s rich.

          • So, Joey, lad, dear boy, if they’re so plentiful, surely you would have no problem referencing at least one? Just one “…paper that proves the mechanism of global warming through increased CO2 in the atmosphere…”. Do not give us any papers that start with the assumption that increased CO2 warms the atmosphere. It must only “…[prove] the mechanism of global warming through increased CO2 in the atmosphere…” That’s not too much to ask, is it? Hmm?

        • Today’s physics lite is part of the reason science is so degraded and the majoriy of peer reviewed science can’t be replicated. As you know, Alley this has become a serious problem across science. Pre-university education has degenerated into a designer brain exercise and universities have had to let standards slip for the uneducated hordes that political xorrectness admits each year.

          Send your children to China or Russia for science education and send them for electrician or bricklaying instead of the social(ist) sciences. New institutions will be created for the more demanding requirements and such as Harvard, etc will be left in their backwaters.


            Yes, we all believe that people without any physics degrees know more about physics than people with multiple physics degrees. I believe you’re onto something.

          • Actually, you can pretty much buy as many degrees as you want these days, even from so called “prestigious institutions.” I believe the sequence was always described as BS – Bull S—, MS – More S—, and PHD as piled higher and deeper. And with some, Mann being one, the sequence seems to apply. But I will give you this, I actually DO believe that Mann is educated, but he has chosen to ignore it in principle.

          • Tom O
            “..I actually DO believe that Mann is educated,..”

            There is also the reality that it is not only possible but increasingly evident that one can be educated beyond one’s capacity for understanding.

        • Having degrees does not prove that one knows what they are talking about.
          Especially when their paycheck depends on them not knowing.

          • Yes, I believe you. I have am a new convert to the “people with several physics degrees know very little about physics.” The original post was spot on. I’m heading to a doctor who never went to med school now.


          • The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

            Degrees don’t make one knowledgeable. Having a degree doesn’t guarantee that the degree holder is very good at the subject of the degree. A degree is just a piece of paper. The proof of how good they are can only be demonstrated by how well they use their abilities in the field of their degree *not* by their having that degree.

            That doesn’t mean any random non-degree holder knows better than any random degree holder (the strawman you’ve been attacking with gusto). But it does mean that someone with a degree who appears to not know what they are talking about (either through sheer incompetence or because their paycheck depends on it) could well be outshown by someone without a degree who nonetheless appears to know what they are talking about (because they actually studied up on the subject even if they never went through a formal degree program).

            You do realize that it is possible for people to learn and become knowledgeable about a subject without ever getting a degree in that subject?

          • That’s twice you trotted out that same tired strawman: a person with NO degree must know everything about subject X, if a particular person, cited by examples, with multiple degrees knows nothing about subject Y. Logical fallacy. *bzzzt* No pudding for you! (to steal and mangle a line from Willis E.)

        • If, as a physicist, Dr. Mann believes any substance exists that will form an adiabatic barrier (in part a barrier through which heat cannot pass) between two objects at different temperatures, then Dr. Mann goes against the current understanding of the physics community. Not only that, he could make a fortune selling such a substance to the “insulation industry.” If, as believed by most physicists, an adiabatic substance doesn’t exist in the real world, then from a physics perspective it logically follows that “heat cannot trapped”–at least not in the common-man’s meaning of the word “trapped.” And if heat cannot be trapped, then again from a physics perspective it is erroneous to say “Substance ‘X” is a heat-trapping substance.” And if it is erroneous to say “Substance ‘X” is a heat-trapping substance,” then it is equally erroneous to say “CO2 gas is a heat-trapping gas.” So if to hawk CAGW and/or to bring fame and fortune to himself, it is eminently understandable why Dr. Mann might say “CO2 is a heat-trapping gas.” But to make such as statement as a physicist attempting to describe nature, well Alley, you can believe whatever you want, but in my opinion Dr. Mann ain’t much of a physicist.

          • I’m reminded of the Wizard of Oz. Where all you need to be intelligent is a degree (Piece of paper that says so). Some of the dumbest people I have ever met had a PHD. By the way a Doctor of medicine practices it and thereby admits that they don’t know everything and going to a doctor that never went to med school isn’t the same thing as one who did but is still a quack.

          • Alley, now you’re catching on. As far as alerting Penn State, that would be a waste of time. Penn State is notorious for ignoring problems (e.g., their football team) as long as the money keeps arriving. I predict that when Dr. Mann’s money flow is stopped, Penn State will “see the light.”

            And as far as your comparison of statements made by people with physics degrees versus statements made by people without physics degrees, I have BS and PhD degrees in physics–so in your mind, I must be right. I give you a homework problem. Go to the physics department of any university and get a consensus answer to the following question: Will any substance known to man “trap heat” within the confines of the substance–i.e., will any substance known to man when surrounding an object hotter than the environment keep the heat of that object within the confines of the “heat trapping substance?” You might just learn something.

          • Penn State, Harvard, Berkeley… all of then are terrible. I guess Trump U is our of the question. What’s left? Maybe no degree is the way to go if you’re going to be an expert on climate science.

          • You are all clones, yall sound the same, the same dumb basket with a million heads.

            We all could very be replying to a bot, a code, either way these ice cold atmosphere makes warm surface warmer still guys are the dumbest of the dumb.

            If micky mann told this Alley guy snow was gonna be hot in the future, he would mock those that said it would be called rain silly.

        • So he hasn’t got a BSc nor an MSc. He’s highly qualified in Bulli Sh! t and Morbid Speculation?

        • Is there a paper in particular you can reference that proves your point?

          Not one of Mann’s proxy paleo-temperature reconstructions includes any physics. But he represents them as having physical meaning.

          Is he incompetent or lying? Which do you think? Those are the only choices.

          Every single one of his papers on climate modeling includes the physics within the climate model. But not one of those papers conveys any physical meaning because they include no physically valid errors bars.

          Nevertheless, Mann represents them as having physical meaning.


        • Alley sez:

          Berkeley? Yale? LOL. Putrid, festering nests of US cultural marxism and corruption. Says it all.

          • Berkeley and Yale? OMG the worst. They don’t have any great scientists teaching there.

            Oh wait, strike that. Rational people know about Berkeley.

    • Nothing “free” about a market where half the people in it are only there because there’s a government gun pointed at their head.

    • He actually hasn’t demonstrated any meaningful understanding of climate – and that’s theoretically his field.

      • Mann’s credentials are on a par with the evidence of Climate Change–both are severely lacking.

  3. “The problem is the moral and ethical rot that now lies at the very center of the republican Democratic establishment, the lack of good faith and the total sellout to special interests and plutocrats.”
    There, fixed.

    • The real problem, Dr. Mann, is that the climate science is definitely NOT settled and your declarations that CAGW is here and now and going to get worse is just that: A declaration, unsupported by the facts.

    • Bruce Cobb, correct you are … but I would change that to Democrats and RINOs … where there are, aside from the Freedom Caucus [and their counterparts in the Senate], very few true Republicans. Further, and more specifically:

      [1] Mann’s notion of capitalism is simplistically broad and incorrect [and, IMO, most likely, purposefully deceptive]; where his is based solely on some assumed, often antagonistic, generic exchange of product/service for payment;

      [2] Unlike Mann’s definition, true capitalism is a “win-win” — as was intended, by our USA Founders, to be the practice —where, in a free and open competition, there is the free and open exchange of a quality product at a fair and competitive price;

      [3] what we have, instead, even in most western markets, is what Mann should recognize and distinguish as “crony profiteering” which is “win-lose” situation; where, in some non-competitive setting, a profiteer sells a product, regardless of quality, to a duped buyer [think: in the extreme case, the drug pusher and the junkie];

      [4] crony profiteering — btw, there is no such thing as “crony capitalism” — is what we have in our DC Swamp where annually, there is spent BILLIONS of lobbying dollars; where, as a result, there is legislated anything but a free and open competitive market; where big corporations — and ALL sorts of unelected govt bureaus and special interest groups, including big dollar greenie whacko organizations — lobby/bribe/buy our elected Judas representatives in order to “tip the laws” in the favor of the crony profiteer; where, in this snake pit it soon develops across the board that any player — true capitalist or crony profiteer — MUST either “play this game with the stacked deck” — IOW, submit, sell your soul and give big dollars to your local Congressman —or perish.

      [5] such, so unfortunately, is almost completely the case in international trade; where, again, our Judas elected politicians, have sold down the river, the American taxpayer; where the main reason places like our Rust Belt have emerged is because a very large portion of our business-factories-jobs were ALL SOLD overseas; yes, where this “selling” was bought and paid for by international lobbyists — many tyrants, dictators, oligarchs and the like — who bought and paid our politicians to initiate, much more favorable to the interests of these scoundrels, USA international trade legislation. Specifically, our Judas politicians ignored, because the “purse of silver” was not enough for them, the “giant sucking sound” — the loss of so many factories and jobs — as predicted by R. Perot. [Note: yes, of course, labor cost differences are/were huge, but, not when they have been compounded with massive tariff difference by which the USA consumers, and employees, for decades have been on the losing side of this trade war.]

      [6] all of the above is compounded grossly by the situation — IMO, it is a fact — that our govt schools brainwash and dupe our younger citizens — and many not-so-young — into some bastardized understanding of the meaning, significance and even the moral viability of true capitalism; mostly because true capitalism depends on the motivation of the individual citizen, whereas, profiteering relies on the centralized powers of the state; and, where even more importantly, true capitalism relies on the role of the individual citizen in doing their part to ensure that such prevails. Further, our Founders intended, this active role of the citizenry where there was to be a govt of, by and for the people where the law was to be of the people; not, instead, a law of the big dollar lobbyist and special interest groups; where, the overall intention, very much, was to not have the massive centralized command and control Fed govt state which is currently so dominant.

      So, any such proposal, by Mann [or whoever else], which challenges capitalism — that is, capitalism as defined by their warped definition — is just playing a word game while trying to deceive the public. Be aware: Mann’s notion of capitalism is not pretty at all; where it is characterized more properly as crony profiteering … where the “big guy” screws the “little guy”.

      Simply, based on the above: at best, as almost all things from Mann, his proposal is a con game — a big lie — to make the promoters of true liberty and freedom look bad [read: evil]; where the ultimate objective of Mann, and his many globalist minions, is to CONTROL worldwide each and every aspect of humanity.

      IOW: Mann is again promoting the same old “conquer the world” game — where, of course, this time, he and his like will be in charge — by which they will operate under some form of anti-humanity centralized command and control. [Basically: screw individual unalienable rights; where, instead, the “needs” of the State, by far, are prioritized.]

      By now, based on our many global experiences with such charlatans, we freedom-loving citizens should all recognize and see through this blatant and all-too-anticipated Mann-scam.

      • They weren’t your businesses. They belonged to the owners.
        They weren’t sold, for the most part they were driven offshore because the American government makes it very difficult to do business in the US while also making a profit.

        R. Perot’s giant sucking sound existed only between his ears.

        • Sorry, MarkW, you are only partly right. No, they weren’t sold, I agree, they were “facilitated” by the government to leave the country. Perot’s sucking sounds weren’t between his ears, but definitely were heard by those ears of those that were listening.

          Not that it mattered, really, as technology would have eventually put nearly as many people out of work anyway, just like it is now overseas, when the “cheap labor” started to realize that they, too, should get a better piece of the pie.

          In truth, the off shoring of industry was the desired end result of those that wanted to create a giant social state with centralized power. As soon as you can collapse a legitimate economy, you can then install the form of government that was being pushed by the last administration. One that would gladly sell every American into bondage to a world centralized government.

          • Yeah the 20 yr plan to destroy America,…….
            And she [hillary] would have completed the globalist vision of a subservient border-less America under the Chinese boot if it wasn’t for a billionaire out-sider with 150 million of his own dough to burn.

  4. Look at Mann’s nice house with all of those electric lights turned on, appliances. heating, maybe AC too. Think of the resources used to build that house. I invite Mann to give up his house and all the conveniences he enjoys thanks to “carbon” resources. Please Mann go live in a tent, don’t drive a car, hunt and gather your own food, make your own clothing and set a moral example for the rest of us to follow. Until then shut your big hypocritical mouth.

    • As Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) says “When those who claim there is a crisis start acting like they actually believe themselves, I’ll start taking them seriously.”

      • When those who claim there is a crisis start acting like they actually believe themselves, I’ll mock them moar!

  5. The planet is greening. Global air temperatures are falling from the last super El Nino, but ocean temperatures are falling even more dramatically, promising future air temperature drops in the months and possibly years ahead. The food supply is at its peak and growing. If oceans are rising, they are doing it at the same rate that has been going on for the last 200 years or more. Severe weather is not increasing and today’s extremes are just like the extremes of the past.

    Nothing Michael Mann has ever predicted has come to pass. Nothing is happening like he said it would.

    So now, simply because we have had some heat waves where lots of liberal people live this summer, we are told that we should be panicking? I don’t think so Michael. You should be panicking. Your career as a very bad scientist and only marginally better activist, is just about over.

  6. The only ones in a state of panic of course, are the Warmunists, as they see their cherished, anti-human, pseudoscience-laden ideology continue to fall apart at the seams.

    • You’re right. If we don’t panic, then people will wake up and realize that it was all a castle build in the clouds and just as ephemeral …


    No, the problem is your climate change scare stories are not making an impression on the American people anymore. You have yelled “Wolf” too many times, when there was no wolf, and now you are yelling wolf again and expecting people to come running. CAGW is just about last on the list of priorities for Americans and it’s not because they are blind to reality, it’s because they are on to your false alarms.

    You are going to be very dissappointed with the reaction of the American people. And hopefully, in the future, you will be shamed for this CAGW scam you and others have tried to perpetrate on the world.

    • What does Pluto have to do with it Mikey? Leave poor Pluto and its plutocrats out of it. The poor, marginalized planets always suffer the most.

      So what this means is that Mann has a scheme in mind to cash in on subsidies I suppose.

      • If Pluto had not kidnapped and raped Persephone there would not be any winter or summer seasons, just constant good growing weather neither too hot nor too cold. Pluto has everything to do with climate change.

        p.s. do I need to add ?

  8. Is there anyone who isn’t hopelessly conflicted or completely irrational who still cares one bit about what Michael Mann wants or thinks?

  9. Michael Mann Wants to Give Capitalism a Chance to Solve Climate Change

    [solve – sälv – verb – find an answer to, explanation for, or means of dealing with a problem.]

    There is nothing to be solved. CO2 is Not a Problem.

    • “Solving” climate change as Mann uses the word (if he could for once be honest) relates not to the imaginary problem of CO2’s effect on the climate but rather the very real problem of Republicans standing in the way of the left’s capitalizing on the near unimaginable opportunity to garner political power through the regulation of carbon.

      Statements like: “the problem is the moral and ethical rot that now lies at the very center of the republican establishment, the lack of good faith and the total sellout to special interests and plutocrats” are the left’s primary tactic: accuse your adversary of being exactly who you are and doing exactly what you are doing yourself.

  10. We used to joke that the government could put a tax on breathing, as they are so desperate for more tax revenue.
    In a talk by Dr Ivar Giaevar (genuine Nobel prizewinner for physics) he gave an estimate of the amount of CO2 emitted by humans in a day at 800g CO2 where the daily energy used in living was 2000 Kcals.
    An adult male is more likely to need 2500 Kcals per day equivalent to 1 kg per day of CO2.
    I am assuming that the carbon tax proposed is actually for CO2 at the Canadian proposed level of $50 per tonne from 2022, this gives a potential tax of $18.25 per person per year just for breathing.
    (In the UK with a population of 70m it would give a total tax of approximately (in Canadian dollars) of $1bn per year.)
    Dr Giaevar gave an estimate that breathing produced about 4% of a person’s total CO2 emmissions, so if the tax is applied evenly it could be as much as $456 per person per year.

    Question: How can one produce steel without using carbon?

    • Some of the carbon gets sequestered in the steel so it should get carbon credits?. If you build a three billion dollar reflective solar array (colloquially known as a bird zapper), taking up a few square kilometers of the desert, you may be able to make some low quality steel at a cost that is mere dollars on the penny compared to conventional processes. Then with subsidies you can cut the price down to make it cheaper than the old ways.

  11. Capitalism and Democracy still has [have?] an opportunity to prove itself worthy.

    Let me give a one-word solution that most won’t understand and that a few others will lambaste:

    . . . SunCell ™ . . . .

    • Not only is it worse than we thought in the past, it’s worse than we’re going to think in the future. It’s as “worse” as it needs to be to keep the gravy train flowing.

  12. Have just read most of the comments on the salon link on this. A bevy of headless chickens methinks.
    Perhaps we should ask these people to explain the following:
    1) Why, at sea level does your kettle boil at a boringly constant 100C no matter how you turn the heat up?
    2) Why is the temperature of all our oceans consistently around or below 30C apart from some isolated areas where there are specific conditions. OK you may argue about that but generally 30C is at the top end of the measurements say at +/- 1.5% on the kelvin scale.
    3) Is it coincidence that at 30C the vapour pressure of water equals the saturated Partial Pressure , at sea level.
    4) Is 3) above significant? If so why?

    • Do you have a point to make? I read this as atmospheric water vapour controls the climate, not by any GHE but by forming more clouds to cool things down as ocean surfaces get hotter. The atmosphere is really smart thermostatic lagging between the heat reservoir of the oceans and the near absolute zero of space, nearly a 300 degree temperature gradient.. Plants quickly adapt to mop up our CO2, which anyway has almost no effect on global temperatures as the record shows, and any effect as predicted decreases logarithmically with concentration, as all agree it must of it works as advertised.

      But we can’t even detect the expected CO2 near infra red warming in the troposphere where it is supposed to be. STrange that.

      Either way, no humans are required or influential in maintaining our two state ice age cycle over what is in fact a small range of temperature. It worked that way for 1 millon years of the current ice age cycle.

      Lovelock’s Gaia also adds an effect from the biosphere to modify change to best suit life within the boundary parameters that the dominant solar insolation, the oceanic heat sink, evaporation and clouds impose.
      ACC is so tiny in this it’s factually irrelevant. The predicted heat wasn’t lost, it was never there, not even a mirage, simply a figment of a computer programmer’s assumptions, not real. I think people are catching on …… perhaps reality is AR6 RCP 0.

      The planet controls its own temperature against much larger natural varibilities, on the 100Ka eccentricity cycle amongst others.. Game over. Any thing humans do is tiny, and compensated for immediately by changes to the water in our smart atmosphere. More powerful than the IPCC modellers can possibly imagine for their UN trace gas kangaroo science grants, it appears. Water vapour works to maintain an equilibrium state through heat transfer from the oceans surface, forming clouds to reduce surface insolation and cool the planet if things get too hot. Water vapour in some form has never caused runaway warming on earth as it increased in any historical record we have, same for CO2. Just check out these two parameters through an ice age interglacial warming, that stops dead while CO2 is still rising rapidly and precipitation is increasing rapidly. That would be the clouds. . Yet the IPCC’s models assumptions depend on CO2 effects being amplified by additional water vapour that CO2’s own small effect creates. But we know it doesn’t work like that as warming becomes significant, but rather the cooling cloud opposite. “I suggest this has something to do with our problem”, as Mr Feynman said.

      • Unfortunately the atmospheric water vapour thermostat (operating via the Rankine Cycle) only serves to regulate the maximum temperature of the globe. Minimum temps – ice ages …… not so much!

  13. It appears the Mann is getting desperate as he sees the wheels of never ending free money from climate alarmism drying out. The fact that global temperatures at the moment are only a little above average since the big El Ninos of a few years ago must be concerning him. If this year ends on a lower average what will he do to scare the money tree free of funds?

    • I suspect the threat that the truth represents to his reputation and political power are far more concerning to him.

  14. I don’t believe the Republican establishment is opposed to a carbon tax. The only reason they don’t follow through with their policy preference is that they know it would be political suicide for them.

    They really don’t like republican voters very much.

    • What they need to do to shut everyone up on the subject is to institute the tax at a permanently fixed rate of 1cent per gigaton and ensure the price can’t be adjusted beyond that and that no other carbon taxation can be levied in the future. 1cent per gigaton is it forever.

      • When the US Senate was debating the amendment that permitted the income tax, one senator put forth an proposed change to add a 5% cap to the amendment.
        He was shouted down by the other senators with the argument that if they put in a cap, some fool would immediately want to raise the tax rate up to the cap. Thus the idea of capping the tax rate died. (The original tax rate was only 1%).

  15. Cap and trade that includes all technically justifiable solutions for CO2 reductions and direct temperature management would probably cause an ice age.

    Geoengineering technologies are extremely inexpensive. Give someone a way to make money from them and you’d better get used to the cold.

  16. “Michael E. Mann, a Distinguished Professor…”
    Kidding, right? The guy knows full well his hockey stick is total BS.

  17. I couldn’t be more thrilled if Dr. Mann had announced a new solution to the unicorn problem.

  18. It is so ironic that Mann should identify the regulations combatting “acid rain” (enacted before the completion of the scientific study demonstrating that most of its so-called effects had natural causes) and the “ozone-saving Montreal Protocol” (passed before the ozone-eating molecule was found to be plain old ocean chlorine) as “market-oriented solutions”. What, in his mind, would be a “political” solution?

  19. Despite extremely high fuel taxes in the EU, Germans still speed the autobahn. I’m at a loss as to how this will have a significant impact CO2 emissions. Does he really think people will turn off the heat and AC? It has the potential to cause sky rocketing wage inflation. Also has he tabled his demands to the Chinese communist party?

      • And fuel efficiency increases at higher speeds, so they’re consuming less fuel to pay taxes on anyway.

        • drednicolson

          Sorry mate, but fuel efficiency decreases the faster one goes in a car. An ICE may theoretically operate more efficiently at a given speed, but a vehicle has to displace an enormous volume of air to make progress. That’s the killer.

          Launch a rocket through the atmosphere into space and burn up enormous amounts of fuel, because of the atmosphere (and gravity of course) but once free of both, a fart would see one off into space because there is no atmosphere and therefore no resistance.

          Of course CO2 represents only 0.04% of that resistance but the greens would love to convince us it’s much, much more.

  20. The problem is the moral and ethical rot…the lack of good faith and the total sellout to special interests and plutocrats.

    I dunno. Sounds like a huge load of projection to me.

  21. Translation: Michael Mann: “Let’s let capitalism solve climate change, as long as people are forced to pay for it through taxes.”

  22. Will our representatives guarantee to pay us out of tax revenue when the premiums exceed the risk?
    “As they say on the London insurance market, ‘When the premium exceeds the cost of the risk, don’t insure.’” Christopher Lord Monckton
    Why mitigating CO2 emissions is cost ineffective.

  23. “Capitalism and Democracy still has an opportunity to prove itself worthy.”
    Yes, and with Trump as president, they will do so. MAGA.

  24. I always worry when a politician (Mann is a politician in my view) proposes a solution that is “common sense.”

  25. Despite hyping up the ‘coming’ El Nino (NOAA 65%), as Ive argued since the end of the last one, ENSO isn’t behaving in the normal manner. The former large ‘hot SST blobs’ in the temperate zones of rhe Pacific that augmented the effect of the last El Nino changed to cold blobs.

    Much of the cold equatorial water that brought El Nino down so abruptly, did so by slanting equatorward from the cold blobs rather than upwelling strongly in the eastern Pacific. For the expected El Nino, the small volume and modest warmth of the equatorial waters are similarly being ” watered down” by influx from these persistent cold blobs. I think Bob Tisdale’s recent forecast of a new El Nino failed to take this paradigm change into consideration.

    I’m forecasting an Enso neutral, to la Nina conditions over the next couple of years with cooling of the Planet and continued decoupling of global temperatures from the usual ENSO activity. The Dreaded Pause is on its way back, although another of the team may adjust us out of it again and then retire. I hope Marohasy is keeping an eye on the OZZIE BMO.

    • The El Nino forecast is not likely to happen. Already cooling. Probably stay neutral but another weak La Nina is possible.

      • MarkW

        Not in the good ole U of K.

        We agonised over it, wrung our little handsies and bemoaned the damage we were doing to Swedish forest’s.

        The Swede’s on the other hand had a good laugh.

        • It’s like listening to sad music – it gets you depressed even when there’s nothing actually wrong.

    • “…..pH of around 5.7 for rainwater, according to Harvard University.”

      Acid rain is a problem that will NEVER go away.

  26. “The moral and ethical rot” of Republican politics. Aaaaand ….. Mann just said 50% of the US population should be cut from the social body.

    Deplorables, unredeemables, toothless, rotten, immoral, corrupt ….. all because they aren’t Hillary-Democrats.

    Mann et al have a God complex.

    • I called my Hillary-supporting daughter the other day and, in my best Okie slang, confessed I was a toothless Trump supporter that just happened to be her dad.

      She had a good laugh but I hope she sees the irony in the lies being perpetrated by the media.

  27. If all of these corporations committing to going 100% renewable would change that stance and commitment to 100% Carbon Free Energy to include the energy produced by Zero CO2 committing Nuclear Power, the problem would be solved.
    However, me thinks, that is not what the Envirowhacos want. They Know Nuclear Power would solve the problem and they do not want the problem solved. The only people killed by production of electricity by Nuclear Power were in Russia and that was caused by a blatant violation of all rules and regulations. Even considering those deaths, more have died from the use of and implementation of Wind and Solar power.

  28. Phil Donahue: Is there a case for the government to do something about pollution?

    Milton Friedman: Yes, there’s a case for the government to do something. There’s always a case for the government to do something about it. Because there’s always a case for the government to some extent when what two people do affects a third party. There’s no case for the government whatsoever to mandate air bags, because air bags protect the people inside the car. That’s my business. If I want to protect myself, I should do it at my expense. But there is a case for the government protecting third parties, protecting people who have not voluntarily agreed to enter. So there’s more of a case, for example, for emissions controls than for airbags. But the question is what’s the best way to do it? And the best way to do it is not to have bureaucrats in Washington write rules and regulations saying a car has to carry this that or the other. The way to do it is to impose a tax on the cost of the pollutants emitted by a car and make an incentive for car manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of pollution.
    [ … ]


    Who sets the price and how the “revenue neutral” part works always worries me.

  29. Reminds me of a lot of liberals who declare their support of democracy, but only so long as their candidate wins.

  30. Ah, economics and politics…is there a subject remaining that Mikey Fraudpants is not an expert in?

  31. As I have written here previously, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Dr. Michael Mann is a classic narcissist. He is “sure” he, and only he, is correct, and everyone else who disagrees with him and his ilk are wrong. He attacks actual and putative critics in an effort to exact retaliation. The lawsuits are a strong tell that Mann is a raving narcissist. In another very telling episode, he called the supervisor of a NWS office to complain about a sarcastic comment about termites and GHG emissions that a meteorologist had written in a weather discussion. (The irony there, of course, is that the supervisor is as big a narcissist as Mann is.) My understanding according to the DSM IV of Psychiatry is that a diagnosis of narcissism would be made after a fairly long period of time by a professional, as narcissists are very clever in concealing their symptoms from them. So, it is often the family, coworkers, and friends of these people who are much more likely to make such a diagnosis if they know what to look for, as they spend much more time around these individuals. Could one speculate that President Trump is a narcissist? He certainly exhibits classic symptoms as well, but at least he doesn’t think CO2 is evil, and he doesn’t want to subvert our economic system in order to bow at the feet of a false god.

  32. Capitalism is fully capable to solve any perceived Global Warming problem. All that is required is for those that believe Global Warming is a problem, is for them to dramatically reduce the CO2 footprint and convince their friends to do so. No Government subsidies or taxes are required.
    Folks like Mann & algore need to set an example by doing such things as telecommuting from any energy neutral location, collecting groceries that their home farm can’t supply by bicycle, investing most of their net worth in projects that would help others to do the same, i.e. put their money where their mouth is.

    • Nay, capitalism would promote fossil fuel utilization as the cheapest energy source with the concomitant benefit of improving the biosphere. From 15-25% of foodstuff production is now attributable to the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 50 years, and trees, depending on the variety, are growing from 30 to 70% faster. CO2 sequestration is equivalent to economic castration!

  33. “Climate” is both a theory, i.e. The Theory of Climate (1983, on Amazon), and an illusion. No one measures “climate” and all that can be measured is not “climate”.

    Ha ha jajajajajajajaja

  34. He has got one thing right – the CFD solvers used by all their models are basically throwing out entropy. He likely is pleading for much more money for better computer simulations, gargantuan centers on the scale of NSA’s. These of course will demand more data. And the solution we all know will be 42.
    Part of the problem is the control theory variation trick/error/subterfuge reported here, but a more serious one is the very CFD maths approach itself.

  35. The market is already solving CO2, if such really needs to be solved – we’ve had record decreases in output by nature of people’s choices and industry changes. The absolutely best way to use Capitalism is to persuade people with facts that their choices matter and to allow competition to offer innovative alternatives.

  36. It’s not capitalism’s job to ‘solve’ climate change.
    It’s not socialism’s job either – they just say it is – apparently, the same way it ‘solves’ everything.

  37. It must be tough going from being the basis of a UN division logo to kitchen commentary. At this rate the guy will become a regular NYT commentary piece alongside Krugman rants.

  38. There is no “climate change to be solved.”

    The climate is just fine. The same as usual, give or take a natural fluctuation. According to the latest research, all human contribution to the claimed warming of 0.8 degree Celsius since 1880 has been a mere 0.02 degree Celsius [1], all the rest, 0.78 degree Celsius, NATURAL.

    According to data for the past 8000 years, extracted from ice cores, the natural centennial variability of global temperatures is 0.98+/-0.27 degree Celsius per century [2]. Over the past century, the observed temperature variation has been LESS (!) not more than the natural variability. Over the past 8000 years, global temperature has been changing by about 1 degree Celsius on average EVERY century, not just the last one.

    “Climate” is the greatest hoax of the 20th and 21st centuries. The whole shebang is a patent lie. The very notion of “climate” is so ill-defined, it is a purposely chosen vehicle of deception and corruption. There is no such a thing really as “climate.” There is “weather.” There is average weather for a given location, there is weather today, there is weather as it was 100 years ago. It changes all the time, from day to day, from season to season, from year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century, from millennium to millennium.

    The question is, do people affect the weather (not much if at all) and do they make it better or worse (it depends on what you like).

    It’s all a heap of leftist nonsense.

    [1] https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/aabac6
    [2] https://doi.org/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.417

  39. The arrogance of climate alarmists knows no bounds. Without a shred of real world data that supports their position, they would have the world embark on a multi-trillion-dollar effort to change the long-term climate of the earth. And all that is needed is a carbon tax. Gimme a break!

    The problem is the analyses of the long-term climate models that are said to justify human intervention to modify the long-term climate of the planet are demonstrably flawed. It would follow that decisions made from theses analyses would be the wrong decisions.

    Probability distributions of possible future earth temperatures have two tails. A correct analysis of the distributions must consider the entire distribution, not just the high value tail. Researchers uniformly ignore the low-probability, high consequence cooling event in their calculations. Temperature databases and GCMs are not sufficiently robust to estimate with high certainty whether, long-term temperatures will be too hot or too cold.

    The adverse consequences of a radically warming earth are no greater than the adverse consequences of a radically cooling earth. Policies appropriate for the warming case, e.g., reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, would be diametrically opposite to those appropriate for the cooling case, e.g., spread soot on the polar ice sheets. Under this reality, promulgating environmental regulations with too little information is illogical and likely disastrous for humanity. The likely damage from acting on the wrong premise, a warming or a cooling planet, nullifies arguments for either action until the science is right. The goal of climate research should be to successfully predict global mean temperatures within a range of values that is narrow enough to prudently guide public policy decisions. That cannot be done now.

    Climate change researchers have failed to adequately communicate the degree of uncertainty of predicted long-term temperatures and its importance on determining when and how mankind should try to mitigate predicted extreme climate change threats. At best, current technology can only predict future temperatures within a wide range of values that is not sufficient to warrant spending trillions of dollars and go down the wrong road.

  40. Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero, If the future is anything line the past warming and cooling cycles will continue and longer term warm periods and cooler periods will continue as the current interglacial period gradually ends and the new ice age gradually begins to develop. The whole process will take tens of thousands of years and mankind does not have the power to change it. At best all we can do is adapt to the gradually changing climate. This is all a matter of science.

  41. No, Mikee wants to keep ripping off capitalism whilst still spewing the same lies and sh*t he has throughout his entire adult life. Time to necklace this enemy of the human race!

  42. So, Mann’s idea is for the government to create a new saleable commodity literally out of thin air and apply a value to it? Just applying a tax, isn’t a capitalist free market idea. Is there also going to be a CO2 Fort Knox where the country’s CO2 reserves will be stored? The free market has already decided that CO2 is nearly worthless as every carbon market has shown by failing miserably.

  43. Mann demonstrates that his understanding of economics is just as great as his understanding of science. Acting on “acid rain” and “ozone depletion” with legislative mandates is not free market economics.

  44. Yes Steyer, Gore, Soros etc., etc. have sold us out and serk to use deception and fear to enrich themselves and their cronies….
    Oh, Mann wasn’t apoligizing?
    Never mind….

  45. Somebody must advice Micheal Mann to go round the African countries and see the condition of meteorological observatories and then present his hockey stick based on the experience.

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

  46. “It is time for us to panic about global warming” – it certainly is – but only for the fanatics like Mann.

    He says “such that it leads to a reduction in carbon emissions of several percent a year for the next few decades. If we do that, we can avoid a catastrophic destruction of my reputation…er…. I mean a 2C (~3.5 F) warming of the planet”

  47. The question for all these furiously alarmed people is always the same, and its unanswerable (for them).

    China is emitting a good third of global CO2 emissions. The developing world, is emitting about another third.

    That is two thirds of the total being emitted outside the Western industrialized countries. Then we have the US, which is doing about one seventh of the global total.

    So the question is: do you want the US to introduce measures to reduce its emissions?

    Or do you want the countries that are doing two thirds of the global emissions to reduce as well?

    The story the alarmists are trying to tell goes like this.

    We have a resort hotels which is putting raw sewage into a local river, and its causing epidemics of cholera and other illnesses. It accounts for about one third of the discharges. So some of the other hotels, who are altogether also doing about one third of the discharges, get together and agree it has to be stopped, and propose to eliminate their discharges totally. They turn to the hotel as ask what it can do.

    The reply is that we have invested in desalination plants, as our visitor numbers increase we we are going to lower discharges per visitor. And we didn’t discharge as much in the past as you lot. So we are going to keep right on discharging the same tonnage of sewage, in fact we will be increasing.

    Oh good, say the others. Glad to know you are doing your bit.

    Meanwhile the cholera epidemics continue, and when you turn around and ask the negotiators why they are not being tougher on the biggest emitter of all, they tell you these guys are leading the area in the fight against raw sewage discharges, and that their desalination efforts are magnificent. Tonnage? What are you talking tonnage for?

    What about the epidemics? Oh, yes, we were worried about them. But anyway, the important thing is for the rest of us to stop discharging.

    Its totally corrupt.

  48. Very nice of him. Capitalism (and a democratic government of laws) gave him a chance to pursue his career. Unfortunately he blew it. Only in a rich country, fueled by capitalism, can someone with his family background pursue a career in which he contributes nothing positive to civilization, and yet he gets paid handsomely for it.

  49. Capitalism can’t solve “Climate Change” because capitalism deals in facts and Mann’s brand of “Climate Change” is based on falsehoods.

    Perhaps Mann should advocate for communism or socialism to solve “Climate Change” because the two are based on similar factual inexactitudes.

  50. Well, for starters, it appears mr. mann has an incandescent bulb over his table.

    Global warming is caused by government funding of these whack jobs. If mann was cleaning bathrooms at McDonalds global warming would be much less of a problem.

  51. So, if we don’t “voluntarily” submit to government control of our lives, then the government will FORCE us to submit to government control of our lives. Sorry, I don’t see the difference. It’s not voluntary at all if opting out triggers the mandatory clause.

    Mann needs to read up on capitalism. Just because “market forces” are utilized does not mean the policy is consistent with “a free-market capitalist economic system”. Taxes, by definition, are anti-free market. A necessary evil, to be sure, but nevertheless contrary to the very idea of a FREE MARKET. ANY POLICY that results in a different outcome than a free market would result in is, by definition, NOT a free market policy.

    Now depending on one’s world view, a deviation from the free-market capitalist system is not necessarily a bad thing. (In my world view, it IS necessarily a bad thing, but I’m speaking generally.) But intellectual honesty requires that when you DO deviate from the free-market capitalist system, you ACKNOWLEDGE the deviation. You don’t get to pretend you’re a die-hard devotee of Adam Smith while you defecate all over “The Wealth of Nations”.

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