I’ve pretty much given up on reading the rest of the Nierenberg report (1983). It’s long on words, and I’m short on time. After about 2/3 of the way through the synthesis, it gets pretty wishy-washy. I skimmed chapter 2, which was written by an economist, and it too seems wishy-washy. Although with the predictions of CO2 rise that they give for a “stringent tax” on CO2 starting in 2000 still resulting in CO2 concentration of 660 ppm in 2100, which is still in the “we’re all f—ed” range.

The “stringent tax” is described two ways in the text. In the caption to table 2.18, it is described as a “gradually increasing tax rising linearly from zero to $8 per ton [coal equivalent] between 2000 and 2020, from $8 to $68 per ton between 2020 and 2040, from $68 to $90 per ton between 2040 and 2060, and remaining at $90 per ton thereafter.” In the text, it describes the tax as “plac[ing] 60% surcharges on the prices of fossil fuels”. The “stringent tax” results in a reduced atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 120 ppm from the business as usual scenario over about 120 years.
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A quick break from the usual topic to comment on the news. Unless you’ve been recently dead for a few years, and miraculously brought back to life in the last few seconds, and even more miraculously decided after all that miracling to read this blog, you’ve probably heard about the “housing crisis”. They were talking about it on NPR this morning as I drove to work. For what it’s worth, I don’t particularly like NPR, but it’s the only radio station that doesn’t yell at me before my morning joe - and that’s a requirement. So NPR it is.

Anyway, there really isn’t a “housing crisis” of course. Nor is there a “financial crisis”. Sure, people are losing their homes because they can’t pay their mortgages. And financial institutions are failing left and right. The latest being Lehman Brothers. That doesn’t mean there’s a “financial crisis”. There is a crisis, although I’m not sure what to call it. I originally was going to call it the “stupidity crisis”, but that sounded too mean. The “greed crisis” might be a better descriptor. Although capitalism is motivated pretty much solely by greed, so it could also be called the “capitalism crisis”.
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From here

[Regarding Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment(CMS),] the 12,500-ton detector’s different layers (weighing, according to CERN, as much as 30 jumbo jets or 2,500 African elephants) stop and measure the different particles, and use this data to form a picture of events at the heart of the collision. Scientists plan to use the info to help answer questions about what the university is really made of and what forces act within it.

I don’t know… but I have a good idea.

In From Chicken Little to Dr. Pangloss: William Nierenberg, Global Warming, and the Social Deconstruction of Scientific Knowledge, Oreskes et al, “quote” Dr. Revelle as saying the following in Chapter 8 of “Changing Climate”:

“Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would have … far-reaching consequence,” Revelle concluded

What did Revelle actually write?

Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would have such far-reaching consequences that both the possibility of its occurrence and the rate at which disintegration might proceed should be carefully researched. [emphasis added]

Talk about changing someone’s conclusion by selective quoting.
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