Here's some background on the legal shenanigans being used to push climate hysteria forward. The winning tactics used against big tobacco are in play:
https://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/rico-teering/
This entire blog post seems very poorly reasoned. This guy starts with the premise that the merits of the XOM RICO case are non-existent, figures that the very idea itself is unimaginable, and so it must have been dreamed up by some malevolent actor who then formed a conspiracy that culminated in some state AGs bringing suit. Since getting AGs to bring a baseless suit is presumably difficult, this conspiracy must have some powerful players.
It is clear that this is the overall opinion of the suit by bloggers on the far right, and aligns with the stated positions of some elected official like Lamar Smith and Ted Cruz.
I don't feel the need to respond to it in detail, but this reasoning is (i) a lengthy logical deduction/speculation from a flawed starting point: "Assume that there is no AGW, XOM understands this, and there is nothing to cover up to its share-holders, then how does this RICO suit come to be..." and (ii) represents folks being played (IMO) by said elected officials (who actually
are on the public record as receiving large payments from big oil) as 'useful idiots'.
Again, scientists are on a short leash these days because they won't get the big foundation money from george soros unless they play along.
http://netrightdaily.com/2010/11/ge...n-climate-change-shakedown-aimed-against-u-s/
This thing is rather dated....being
6 years old. Indeed, as discussed upthread, the stalemate in global solutions to AGW at that time was the idea in undeveloped countries that our CO2 pollution was denying them the means of developing. IF only x amount of CO2 could be put into the atmosphere, and we have already put 0.9x into the atmosphere building our economy, then they are shut out. The only solution would be for the undeveloped countries to build out clean energy systems, which at the time were seen as prohibitively expensive, and so we (the US and EU) would need to foot the bill.
Aside: the $100B number is laughable...like Dr. Evil asking for "$1 meelion dollars." Building out the energy infrastructure for the developing world will likely cost many **trillions** of dollars. By the same token, if paid over time a $100B hypothetical payment would be negligible to the $35T per year EU/US GDP (0.3% of one years GDP, 0.03% if spread over a decade).
But, good news....all that thinking is
OBSOLETE. The developing world now understands that clean energy is cheaper (especially when factoring in health costs and living standards) than fossil energy. China switched gears from the above tactic (asking the US/EU for cash) to becoming leaders in clean energy manufacturing and production in
2013. This sea change is the basis of the US's current agreement with China re CO2 emissions and the COP21. The premise of COP21 is a breakthrough precisely because it ends the above 'shakedown' logic.
Meanwhile, the world is heading toward another "tipping point" that could send the world spinning out of control. What a joke.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/04...n-first-issued-10-year-tipping-point-in-1989/
I hate 'tipping points'. There do exist physical systems whose non-linear response makes them have multiple steady states with tipping points between them. IMO, the magnitudes of the non-linearities on the climate system have not been shown to lead to such instabilities...in other words, I do not think there is a point where the system suddenly 'snaps' to a dramatically different state.
Still, an article cherry-picking headlines from decades past to form a narrative is not well reasoned. The looser usage of the 'tipping point' language is probably correct...that if our goal is to avoid, say, 2°C warming, every day that passes at current emission levels means that the future changes necessary to meet/avoid the goal become that much more difficult or expensive.
In 2000 we had a bit more time to avoid 2°C warming, but reasonable people could be skeptical regarding the affordability of changing to clean energy. In 2015, the tech appears to be in place (with storage still in its infancy), but we have 15 fewer years to make the switch. In 2025 I expect all the tech will be out there at scale (solar, wind, EVs, mass storage) and growing exponentially, with global oil demand and CO2 emission peaks in the rearview mirror, but a future 2°C increase will probably already be baked in.
So, am I despondent? Not at all. The coming clean energy revolution, even if it 'fails' and we get 2.5 or 3°C warming is WAY better than the business as usual outcome with a biosphere destroying 4, 6 or 8°C warming by 2100.