We Need a Doohickey

warn Al Gore immediately

because he begins to agree

that R&D is key.

1. deny it (your source is not reliable)

2. admit it and say, it won't be so hard

3. admit it and say, it's too late

in case you don't believe it, look at the facts: www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/al-gore-weathers-confrontation-at-economics-summit 

Bernhard:

Sorry that I didn't notice your comment above, but what makes you suppose that Al Gore or anyone who favors cap and trade disagrees with R&D?  It's not an either/or proposition.    

Had I not known better, I would think that you were trying to say that "Al Gore is just now beginning to see the light that Lomborg was right all along in that R&D is key, and that reducing carbon emissions is wrong."

Gore believes that R&D is "a" key, not "the" key.  

The key concern is still mitigation and a ceiling on carbon emissions to prevent a tipping point and catastrophic climate change.  This can be accomplished through a combination of cap and trade and technology, something that Al Gore has always maintained but that Lomborg denies as being necessary.

No one here is in denial except those who deny the importance of international agreements and CO2 emissions standards...

Emissions standards such a cap and trade encourages energy efficiency and results in reduced energy demand at little to no cost to consumers or to taxpayers (this is how the U.S. phased out lead in gas: not by a lead tax, but by a cap and trade policy).  And all without wrecking the economy, driving gas prices up, and without a need for R&D.  Without such a policy in place, industries have no incentive to become more efficient to reduce energy demand on their own.  They are currently being rewarded for being as inefficient and as wasteful as possible to cut corners for a profit.

Industrial CO2 is the biggest pollutant.  Hence the cap and trade to encourage industrial efficiency and to reduce overall energy demands.  Energy efficiency can be done right here, right now, across industries and in agriculture but not until they're forced to cap and reduce their carbon emissions via climate legislation.  Efficiency is already happening on the consumer end in homes, buildings, fuel efficient cars, appliances, energy efficient light-bulbs, and taking mass transportation.  Efficiency alone can cut carbon emissions by 40% without any new R&D or technology.

BTW, the technology for a doohickey, a solar panel or supergrid, is already here; it just requires the political will and fake money to scale it on the level that is required to make an impact.  Even then, energy efficiency is first, replacing the dirty power is second:

Source: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-03-30-myth-cleaner-sources/

Maxi, maybe you live off the grid with your own solar panels and whatnot, and if so more power to you. But what we're talking about here is switching over such a massive amount of energy consumption to a different power source that it will require massive centralized power plants. Large-scale concentrating solar power plants require scraping vast swaths of desert (1000 acres per 100 megawatts). Scraping the desert to power more energy-wasting plasma TVs, to air-condition poorly insulated houses, or to run the dryer all day long just doesn't make sense.

Or, to think about it the way solar consultants do when they meet with homeowners, first you insulate the house, install dual pane windows, and replace the pool pump with an efficient model, THEN you decide how many solar panels you need. Energy efficiency comes first, replacing the dirty power second. . . .

The entire way that Lomborg frames his argument makes it sound as though the technology for a doohickey isn't here yet, which is why we need to invest in R&D.  This is untrue.  From your article link:

But Gore did end on a positive note and in fact a place of agreement with his nemesis Lomborg. R&D is key. Al Gore believes that we do have the technology we need right now to be fossil-free by 2020. But it will take strong political will, something on the order of JFK's initiative to get a man on the moon, to get that technology to scale so that it has the positive impacts we desire.

Even then, energy efficiency is first, replacing the dirty power is second.

This is how you analyze my statement:

I wasn't trying to make fun of the person himself, but suddenly got the idea to write the story above upon having (what I thought to be) a friendly and civil conversation down below.  I apologize if I have offended anyone:

My corrections:

I wasn't trying to make fun of  the person himself--->, , but suddenly got the idea to write the story above upon having (what I thought to be an intelligent and civil conversation down   below.  I apologize if I have offended anyone ----> (= Waaaa!  =  I'm taking my ball and I'm going home!!)

The emoticons are cool.  I am not sure if I understood or emoted what they meant so I offered my corrections.  This is not to say that this is my current mood, but only my impressions whenever I typed the statement above.

Yes, it was a friendly and civil conversation, I really agree. And the story is funny. Still, your ideology behind is opposed to mine. Ayn Rand would perfectly fit into your story. (And notice, I am not confined to Ayn Rand, she is very partial, perhaps more than me).

The story takes the Ayn Rand orange ideology to its logical absurdity, true; but it is not fundamentally opposed to free enterprise and individual freedom (cap and trade, after all, is a free market solution that encourages individuality, innovation, and competition in trading pollution and encourages R&D at the market level.  A straight carbon tax allows governments to take full control and responsibility of reducing carbon at the government level and thus denying individual responsibility.  Either way, however, they're both a tax of some form to put a price on carbon, which is necessary in this day and age which Ayn Rand is not adequate to address.  Yet I think that cap and trade policy encourages more flexibility to allow room for individuality so is more in line with Ayn Rand's ideology than a carbon tax.  I still have to study it further to know all of the details, so I'm open to alternative plans.  Lomborg's plan, on which the story is based, was initially considered and then rejected by due scientific process before even entering the phase 2 policy discussion, but is clearly ideologically-driven). 

Insofar as climate change policy, my interest is purely pragmatic.  Agreeing with the scientific consensus is not an ideology.  I frankly don't have an ideology to promote or defend, since ideology refers strictly to political orientation.   Someone who favors climate change legislation for purely ideological reasons would merely follow the herd mentality in opposing nuclear power and favoring cap and trade because they identify with being a leftist or a Democrat.  They would take this stance whether or not these policies work in the best interest of resolving climate change, since the ultimate concern in such a person is ideological.  And remember: earlier in the conversation, I seriously considered James Hansen's suggestion, who is registered politically as an Independent and not as a Democrat.  At the time, his proposal of a straight carbon tax and nuclear power as an alternative to cap and trade seemed more reasonable to me.  Were I truly an ideologue as you maintain, my purist ideology would not permit me to consider other ideas when better ones came along.  This is where I suspect you may be stuck.

I am in favor of whatever works best to resolve climate change, whether in the form of straight carbon tax or cap and trade.  At the current time, I think cap and trade is more pragmatic and realistic.  It's certainly more realistic than a moderate carbon tax as proposed by Lomborg, which is not moderate enough to do anything with and doesn't even consider setting a ceiling on CO2 rise to encourage efficiency and carbon reduction.  His orientation toward the wonders of technology to solve climate change reveals an orange or green fascination with gadgets to magically appear to assume responsibilities that he prefers that humans not to have to deal with.  This is highly irresponsible, and goes against personal responsibility as promoted by political conservatism.

Do you notice we are at red? Not theoretically, but practically.

That was the whole point of my story.  To show how deficient magic still exerts a negative influence in orange and green, the mental-rational structure, which seek to possess space and reactivates deficient magic in the form of technology to exert its magical influence over space.  This magic becomes negative and destructive when humans no longer assume responsibilities or take control of the machines, become possessed by space and materialism, and leave responsibility to the machines. 

Or were you talking instead about this conversation as being practically red?  Please clarify.

I wrote before that Red is my shadow , that I don't want to be red and disown(ed) my red impulses. If others show red impulses, I feel offended sometimes more than adequately because I deny it in myself. (You see, a denier, but I am beginning to believe - slowly). And I am working on it, as you see.

Yet we can no more do away with red than we could with music, emotion, or human bonding without denying an essential aspect of what it means to be human.

There can be a positive form of red, as well (which I discussed briefly in my previous post comment from "Green environmental skepticism" thread.  Telepathy and and magical pars pro toto being among them (when utilized positively).  Efficient (positive) magic, according to Gebser, became deficient in early magic and  then lost its efficacy over human consciousness in late magic, and thus had to be superceded by a new irruption in consciousness, the mythical structure. 

Red impulses include fighting (negative) and joking (positive  or negative, can change suddenly ), narcissism etc.

I do not follow.  Are you referring to human nature in general or to this discussion?  If this discussion, I don't recall ever "fighting" with you, I don't generally get jokes because of Asperger, and I do not see any narcissism anywhere.  But I do enjoy writing political satire or humor every once in a while, which is not the same as sarcasm, cynicism, narcissism, or cracking a "joke." 

While I admit that it was somewhat irreverant, it's really a bore not to be when you are writing satire.  But I hope you didn't take it personally because I was really only writing about Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus and how it would play out in the real world or in the magical world of Willy Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas to get to the basic "point."  Sometimes an intellectual argument can go on and on without addressing the basic point of it all and resulting in a need for more bluntness by telling it in a storybook fashion (mythic) or via emoticons (magic) ----> (= Waaaa!  =  I'm taking my ball and I'm going home!!).