A meta review of the no-longer-new DOE report

I still haven't read the bloody thing, and at this rate I never will, but happily CarbonBrief have read it for me. I'm going to assume that they've put their two best criticisms up front - you'd be mad to do anything else - and those are:

The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.

It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.

Sadly, Stefan Rahmstorf was foolish enough to believe that CarbonBrief make sense. 

But "CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed" is true; and "excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial" is also true. I mean FFS, "excessively aggressive" is almost by definition detrimental. These people are clowns. Of course, that doesn't actually make the report itself good; it just shows you how uselessly debased the "discussion" is.

Update

DOE Climate Working Group RIP says RP Jr and this appears to be true. With just a little luck, I may never have to read the thing; the virtues of prevarication. RP says "Based on my connecting the dots, the disbanding is the direct result of a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists arguing that the empanelment of the CWG violated the bureaucracy in triplicate act" which might be true; though if it is, it displays a considerably greater respect for the niceties of the law than the Trump administration has shown elsewhere. Perhaps, having got their headlines, and the test of the report, they just don't really care that much? Andy Revkin also comments. And Gavin says DOE CWG Report “Moot”? Perhaps interestingly, there's nothing on Curry's ClimateEtc. Tamino suggests they pulled the rug so as to avoid having to revise the report in light of the numerous substantive comments; it is a nice idea but not fully convincing. Ars says Feds try to dodge lawsuit against their bogus climate report but I'm not sure that adds much.

Refs

* If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

A week in the lakes

Once again I'm briefly back. This time my excuse was a week - or thereabouts - canoeing around Stora La, a large lake in Sweden; bookended by stays in Oslo, Goteborg and Stockholm. All very pleasant and civilised, there were even composting toilets. 428 photos are available.

Refs

* Europe's crusade against air conditioning is insane.

* Retail goods prices were on a stable trend until Liberation Day. Tariffs upended that.

* Contra the UK government, please don't delete your old photos and emails to save water (see-also Study shows shocking impact of 'photo-hoarding' on carbon footprint?).

* A rare eruption of  scientific commonsense in the  WSJ's news pages has interrupted the Ed Board's long campaign to obscure the ongoing climatic consequences of the Industrial Revolution (RS).

* Terence Tao, signing an open letter in 2020: "We are enraged at the everyday operations of a white supremacist society... apparently The “Mozart of Math” tried to stay out of politics.

* A disappointing article from Veronique de Rugy in Reason on the new DOE report. The comments ref my old If it isn’t catastrophic we’ve got nothing to worry about, have we? as did ATTP recently.

* The Ideology Is Not The Movement (SSC).

* Convenience vs. Social Desirability Bias.

* The decarbonization of the U.S. economy from 1992 to 2025 (RP Jr).

* Tropical Cyclones - "Doing the Lord's Work" v Reality (SoD).

Briefly...

In the ever-decreasing intervals between me having to be elsewhere, I find time to write a few words.

First, if you've wondered where I've been, the answer has been France, and to a lesser extent Italy; see pix here if you really want to. Here's the summary page I wrote, though you may fail to read it.  Would suit fans of cathedrals or mountains mostly. My featured image is in the cloisters of St Jean Baptiste, in St Jean de Maurienne¹.

Available Strava traces include the Col du Galibier from the north, very slowly; and the Gran Paradisio from the Emma Vittorio II hut, a lovely climb.

But what of the new DOE Climate report, I hear you cry? Well, ATTP has written a more sensible and well considered version of what I might have written, had I had time to read the thing. I did write The East is Red in 2017; do I need to change anything? I guess the question is what will come of it; I'd be more immeadiately worried about various other Trumpian madnesses, like cancelling a pile of mRNA research.

I leave you with me sleeping by the Loire by moonlight.

Refs

* Phil was kind enough to link to the DOE report.

* Suddenly, Trait-Based Embryo Selection.

* Rethinking Economics Is Really Economics Denial.

* Why are UK electricity prices so high?

* The only thing worse than sweatshops is no sweatshops.

* Capitalism Isn't Why You're Unhappy.

Notes

1. And not in Chalon-sur-Saone.