August, 2008

Common Ground

by Jim Manzi
The Conversation
August 29th, 2008

I’d like to thank Cato Unbound for convening such an extended exchange of views on how to deal with climate change, and for giving me a platform for expressing my views on this subject.  I’d also like to thank Joseph Romm, Indur Goklany, Michael Shellenberger, and Ted Nordhaus for their extensive efforts in considering and [...]

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Romm’s Factually Challenged Smear of Conservatives

by Indur Goklany
The Conversation
August 29th, 2008

Joseph Romm asserts:
Goklany’s core point: the classic disingenuous conservative argument that there are better things to spend money on than climate mitigation. This argument assumes 1) there isn’t enough money to do everything whose benefits exceed their cost and 2) conservatives would actually support things like government-funded efforts to deal with “hunger, malaria, unsafe water, [...]

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The Earth is Okay with a 400-Foot Sea-Level Rise

by Indur Goklany
The Conversation
August 29th, 2008

Whether or not Goklany is OK with a 250-foot sea level rise (SLR) — thank you, Mr. Romm, for putting words in my mouth! — the earth is OK despite a 400-foot rise since the last ice age. This translates into an average SLR of 22 feet per 1,000 years. The peak rate of SLR [...]

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Only Inaction Is Costly

by Joseph Romm
The Conversation
August 29th, 2008

I think there is no point in further debunking the myth that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions leads to tolerable impacts (or even a more optimal world). Even the incredibly centrist Brookings Institution now recognizes that:
The Earth is on a trajectory to warm more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit by around mid-century. Exceeding that threshold could trigger [...]

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