"Buffett said the supposed increase in extreme weather "hasn't been true so far, Joe. We always think it's cold. We always think it's cold in Omaha. But, it was cold in Omaha 50 years ago." CNBC's Becky Quick asked Buffett on March 3's "Squawk Box" if extreme weather events have increased, affecting insurance markets. Buffett responded that "the effects of climate change, if any, have not affected our - they have not affected the insurance market." Read more
CNSNEWS.COM (video at the link)
ADDED: Instapundit DRUDGETAPOSITION: at the jump
48 comments:
Electricity prices have suddenly increased by 1/3 to 1/2 in the Northeast.
Appears to me that Obama's policies of suppressing oil, gas and coal production are finally kicking in. Won't be long until seniors are going without heat for the greater glory of... whatever...
I'm guessing this won't be among the Buffett quotes prominently featured on Democratic websites.
The left want to destroy fossil fuels but they don't have much to offer as an alternative. We are still waiting for their blessed "new energy economy" -- wind and solar to power our cars and heat our homes.
Still. Waiting.
In the meantime, as ST notes, energy prices are sky-rocketing again and will make our weak economy hurt a little more.
A lot more for many.
No worries, the left have private jets and mcMansions and the wealth needed to remain comfortable.
Buffett's a great scientist. He recently came up with a spectacular advancement in the treatment of cancer, but apparently it wasn't covered in the news or in the academic journals. Pity. It's sort of like the time he invented cold fusion and endless sources of energy from sea waves. Why won't people pay more attention to his scientific genius? So many inventions and discoveries of his have benefitted humanity so greatly that it's such a shame that this sage of Newtonian thought and scientific wonderment isn't given his due.
The left want to destroy fossil fuels but they don't have much to offer as an alternative.
It's such a shame that the doctors who spoke out against the widespread use of lead and mercury-based medicines in medieval times didn't have good alternatives then. How irresponsible it was of them to do so. Maybe they could have just bled their patients more. Quacks.
That's a pretty typical Ritmo statement.
Outside of snark, it's empty.
What's the motivation behind the snark?
Reductio ad absurdum schmederick strikes again. Perhaps we can run our automobiles with sea waves? Try it sometime, schmedie.
OK, I'm equally nonplussed by your second statement.
You evidently regard "green energy" as progress.
In fact, solar, water and wind were humans' primary energy sources prior to the Industrial Revolution.
Solar, water and wind power were discarded in a hurry once fossil fuels came onto the scene.
So, you've reversed your "progress by technology" thing here, haven't you?
Sometimes I wonder if a certain faction of Americans were around in 15th century Florence they would have clamored for the Medici to strangle Bruneschelli and used the funds for the Duomo to instead build a nice big tarp. They were more tested and true.
What's the motivation behind the snark?
Complete contempt for vaingloriously pessimistic ignorance.
Once again, Ritmo, you might address what other people actually say.
I could actually find you an agreeable and interesting correspondent if you'd cease saying:
1) My opponents are stupid heads who've never read a book
2) My views represent progress and people who disagree with me want to return to the 15th century
As I said, fossil fuels are the fuels of human industrial and technical progress. Wind, solar and water are the old, failed fuels of the pre-industrial era.
I've got the oddest feeling that I'm better educated in science than you, Ritmo.
I'm pretty certain that I worked in various scientific fields for several decades.
Of course, I'm sure you know better.
You evidently regard "green energy" as progress.
In fact, solar, water and wind were humans' primary energy sources prior to the Industrial Revolution.
Solar, water and wind power were discarded in a hurry once fossil fuels came onto the scene.
So, you've reversed your "progress by technology" thing here, haven't you?
The point of industry was to make things more efficient, not to promote the pollution and toxic byproducts that led, say, for instance to Cleveland's water sources turning into fire. Progress comes with a price, and the point is to make the prices less costly - not to extol the prices as the progress itself. That's confusing things. All energy sources are becoming more efficient. The price of renewables continues to drop. It will cross that of carbon. The only question is why you will continue to prefer carbon irrationally once that happens? Is it just a love of stagnancy and an "institutionalization" of soft black rocks, tar and gas that can't be extracted without polluting the ground table? Is it because you love dead dinosaur remains, feel connected to them moreso than you do the sun? What, exactly?
Because it is cheaper. Fuck the future. We didn't build this country by worrying about the future. We built it by stealing shit from the Indians and burning coal and oil. Now the same areas that we stole can be fracked so we should steal it again.
And the casinos. Those dirty injun's are making too much from the casinos. That should be the next industry Obama nationalizes.
Yeah, yeah yeah I know you're better than me and all that but I'm addressing your argument objectively. The ancients had some great advances, many that surpass what we've come up with since or that were shown to be better than something that became a fad that was all the rage until people realized that they were reacting to novelty rather than to efficacy. Maggots, for instance, are great at cleaning up wounds but we find that distasteful. You can use fecal matter to cure infectious diarrhea but antibiotics seem better, even when they fail. Sometimes effective things aren't the newer thing and sometimes people improve on older things in ways that surpass the use of the newer thing.
Even the Chinese know this, and they seem to never go unlauded by a conservative looking at their horrifyingly polluted skies and rivers and economic growth (population-based, not innovation-based, of course).
To show you how well read I actually am, Ritmo...
I'm quite well versed in European and Russian literature and history, so I know from that literature and history that environmental pollution during the pre-Industrial era was exponential worse than during the era of fossil fuels.
The cities of Europe were toxic cesspools.
So, what in the hell are you talking about? Fossil fuel use improved the environment exponentially.
You tend to get too emotionally involved in your panting desire to win arguments. It causes you to say unbelievably stupid things.
Now, I'm going to do other things for the night. You spent all last night in a foolish repetition of the racism bullshit. I don't know why you spend your time this way. Nor do I really want to know.
I'm interested in actual science. Perhaps Warren Buffet is as well?
This is interesting.
300 billion polluting automobiles can't light a fire to the power of the giant gas giant that tans Schmedrick's skin. Since the left have co-opted CO2 driven climate change and use it for progressive $$$ purposes and call people names if they dare to question the left's religion (no it's not science, it's religion, schmedrick) it is fun to look at what non-politicized science has to offer. If you dare.
Eeek a raving denier - cover your ears!
So, let me be blunt.
Green energy isn't green and it never was.
(God help me, I will not waste my time on Ritmo!)
Green energy isn't.
That's a great point Ritmo. Those chinamen are really eco friendly mofro's. Good thing they are not polluting when the manufacture every single item you can find on the shelves of the United States.
London, at the time of Shakespeare, was a floating heap of shit.
And, it was a very small city.
Probably less than 200,000.
Ritmo, as usual, doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, but he's panting like a dog for a fight.
Hard to understand.
Good night!
Green energy is just a scam.
It is affirmative action for your gas tank. No wonder Obama loves it. Just sayn'
Perhaps we can run our automobiles with sea waves?
Energy is energy, the only issue is whether people are, er, industrious enough to build the infrastructure for channeling it. You can run your automobile on french fry oil freely given to you by a local drive-through, if you wanted to. But of course, you won't. You're not innovative and can't be bothered to do an unconventional thing, no matter how much it saves you (and the restaurant in disposal costs). Sometimes mutually beneficial things are good, though.
If you want your Solyndra you can keep your Solyndra.
Of course they get to keep all the money and the taxpayer gets reamed.
Elon Musk is building recharging stations every 200 miles from LA to NY but somehow his infrastructure isn't Rockefelleran enough! What a lazy, unprincipled, un-visionary man!
So, let me be blunt.
Green energy isn't green and it never was.
(God help me, I will not waste my time on Ritmo!)
Translation: I feel small when debating people who actually know things so I'll just yell out a loony baseless assertion and call it a night! Good night!
I'm quite well versed in European and Russian literature and history,
Disregard. Irrelevant chest-beating. Boring. Yawn. Ad hominem superiority displays from someone claiming to resent when things get personal.
so I know from that literature and history that environmental pollution during the pre-Industrial era was exponential worse than during the era of fossil fuels.
Sanitation infrastructure stopped a lot of infectious disease but it did nothing for the cancer and other diseases (and your city's river bursting into flames) that's required of modern industry. To say that sanitation cured European disease therefore toxic byproducts are good is the dumbest argument anyone's ever made. But then, you don't really know how to make arguments. You just chest-beat. Well, beat away, ape-man! Beat away!
Maybe you can bang some animal femurs on rocks while dancing around to Also sprach Zarathustra?
I've got some tracks to put down tonight.
One of the amusing sidelights of these discussions is that the vehicle for communicating with one another is a device made predominantly out of plastic, which is a derivative of oil.
Oil is the damned greatest product of modern life. It is the instrument of progress, including environmental progress.
I suspect we've only begun the process of discovering all that oil can do for us.
The attempts of the Luddites to suppress oil extraction and production will fail, no matter how much governmental muscle the Luddites manage to muster.
The black market will take over in the face of Luddite suppression.
Off to record some tracks.
Shorter Thomas: Me, me, me! It's all about me! I have things to do so I don't have time to think! Whatever I believed is always right because having an arbitrary belief is good and any faith in convention is just right. There, I said it. Now I'm going to do something that has nothing to do with this and that no one really cares about. But at least I get to talk about me and what I'm doing.
And that Ritmo is sooo personal!
Lol.
BTW, Elon Musk is still making way more money than you and I bet his life is more interesting too. Same with many energy entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. But your hero is Rockefeller and Exxon because, well, the future sucks. It makes nostalgia less interesting.
Excuse me, but I've really got to quit. Can't help myself.
I've been writing a song for some time titled "God Bless Gasoline!"
I love gasoline and oil. These fine products gave me a life of physical and class mobility. Oil and gas are the backbone of the modern popular music biz. Thank you, God, for making that possible.
Gas and oil helped me out of small town poverty, into a life of adventure and affluence in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.
Seems evident to me that what the Luddites really want to do is to undermine the opportunities that oil and gas gave to me.
I'm gonna get my Honda manual out and see if I can put old French fry oil in there.
Gas and oil helped me out of small town poverty, into a life of adventure and affluence in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.
By investment, employment or just simple transport? One of those (the one I think you're relying on) was not your making.
Seems evident to me that what the Luddites really want to do is to undermine the opportunities that oil and gas gave to me.
Seems that what you want to do is to pretend that the opportunities of yesterday matter to people today. Which is exactly what you accused me of doing.
It would be less flatulent to call the song "God Bless Gas". Less blasphemous too. Do you know what happens if you can't fart? Well, aside from having less to contribute here. I mean, your gut would get bloated and you might die. Thanking God for preventing that eventuality is more important than thanking him for allowing you to scoot around on Rockefeller's profit.
Thomas, if you like cars and big companies so much (and yes, cars and esp. what Ford did were an awesome innovation, and fun) then what about the driverless cars that GOOGLE will make ubiquitous in not too many more decades to come? Be careful watch you wish for when throwing in with convention and corporate momentum.
Thomas, cars are fun when you're young, but what about when you're old. Will you one day write a song called "God Bless Hoverounds"? I'd pay to see a performance of that.
Buffet seems to be saying... 'go ahead cry would all you want... more profit for us... the rich... the people YOU climate alarmists hold responsible for all the calamity?'
Schadenfreude red meat for the right.
Ok, you win. Gasoline is awesome. God bless gasoline.
I just hope you invent a way of breathing 5% CO2 in the next two hundred years.
cry wolf, not would...
We've got good alternatives to fossil fuel but the "doctors" refuse to let us use it.
You know what is going to kill us off? Pinching off the ocean current between South America and Antarctica because of continental drift.
But solving *that* problem has no political use whatsoever.
Because it would take thousands of years Synova whereas connies don't have a problem with us not having found a way to breathe 5% CO2, which should happen much sooner. Even 1% CO2 impacts human consciousness. It's the not caring that's a problem. They're just not serious. A guy found a way to make cars run 100 years ago and therefore it's civilizational scripture to forever do it that way.
No one ever became wealthy by betting against Warren Buffet's wisdom and investing prowess.
The batteries for Elon Musk's cars, by the way, are made overseas because manufacturing batteries for electric cars is a shit-dirty enterprise.
"...connies don't have a problem with us not having found a way to breathe 5% CO2..."
I think you mean .05% (500ppm), not 5%. CO2 is currently pushing 400ppm. Quoth Wikipedia: "The present level appears to be the highest in the past 800,000 years and likely the highest in the past 20 million years, but well below 10% of its 500-million-year peak."
Some people think that very bad things would happen if we hit 500ppm, but being unable to breathe is not one of them.
Fuck you both it's 50% in 79 or 81 years. 50% CO2. 500% by 2300 or 2310 at the latest.
So just piss off.
I made a mistake of tenfold error but nonetheless the idea that fossils are destined to be the always-source goes unchallenged for reasons that don't make sense to me. Things always change. Technology changes. Are fossil-friends going to predict that the world still even exists in 2300? Do they care? (They really don't seem to). Do they think innovation of using oil wasn't itself an anomaly? It was as anomalous as Musk's contributions, and at least as dirty (and dangerous). That's how Edison got electricity to triumph over kerosene in the first place. All innovations are anomalous. The heresy is declaring that any single technology is here to stay forever in the first place.
Hey what's a tenfold error among friends?
When I was a kid I was sure I was going to get around with a jet pack in the year 2014.
So we kinda can't predict the future. Ya know what I mean?
"...whereas connies don't have a problem with us not having found a way to breathe 5% CO2, which should happen much sooner. Even 1% CO2 impacts human consciousness. It's the not caring that's a problem. They're just not serious."
AGW has never ever ever, not once, been presented as a problem of humans having air to breathe. If this is a problem that anyone at all is worried about, show the proof of it. Give us some links. Saying that "connies" don't have a problem with us no breathing is no more relevant than saying that "libbies" have no problem with us not breathing since not a one of *anyone* is focusing on the consequence of CO2 poisoning. No... the choice was made and we're talking about the consequence of a little bit extra greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
Nor are "libbies" the least bit concerned with the earth getting a little bit warmer because it's not about that, and clearly not a crisis in any way other than "don't let it go to waste" because if it WERE then we'd be building nuke plants wholesale... and we're not.
"Connies" are more likely to be willing to do something that works simply because more power is at least as desirable as less CO2, so this ought to be a no-brainer, get everyone aboard the same program issue.
It's not. And not because "connies" don't care if we choke.
And it's millions of years... not thousands. But when it happens, we're screwed.
"Libbies" get all butt hurt when "connies" look at them and see very clearly that not one in a hundred believes what they're saying. Not one in a hundred is interested or willing to make necessary hard choices to solve the problem.
But they sure do like the tribal warfare opportunities when a "connie" fails to believe.
"Connies" are more likely to be willing to do something that works simply because more power is at least as desirable as less CO2, so this ought to be a no-brainer, get everyone aboard the same program issue.
More efficiency also = more power in the aggregate (it's what you can do with it that counts, not how much of it there is), but for some reason connies are totally anti-efficiency when it comes to energy. Why?
Not one in a hundred is interested or willing to make necessary hard choices to solve the problem.
You can extol laziness all you want. You know that, as with rail, roads, and utilities, there is a significant infrastructure investment necessary to really get these things going. But you hate infrastructure and only like investment when it involves speculative gambling with companies and industries. You're rather like the George Soroses of private industry that way.
Who is anti-efficiency? Certainly not anyone who believes in squeezing every dime til it squeaks. Energy drives the economy and modern advancement. Those demanding *regress* are not advocating efficiency, they're demanding we stop growing. Those advocating continued progress and growth are not advocating inefficiency or sloth.
Who speculatively gambles with companies and industries?
(*cough* Solyndra *cough*)
In any case, you move the goalposts rather than admit that your fellow travellers, those deep thinkers who think the right thoughts, you refuse to admit that they obstruct any meaningful solutions to what they so happily parrot as the biggest threat of our time. Maybe your time would be better spent trying to get *them* to take it seriously and start building Bill Gate's nuke plants that burn existing waste and Thorium reactors on a scale that we can plug our toxic electric cars into.
All I can say is, good luck with that. It won't happen.
The bullshit alarmism is in service of one thing and one thing only, which is an ideological insistence on technological and societal contraction... not efficiency... not saving us from CO2... it's anti-growth and anti-human and more than willing to let us all burn if they can't get the converts necessary to do it their way.
Now... you can move the goal posts again.
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