Great passion in this video---a passion for truth is refreshing. The UN website is a go to for many school aged children looking to learn more about the world. This fact alone makes their obligation to be clear on facts v. advocacy is critical. It's fine to have sections that discuss why we should care about the Climate, environment, bio diversity and things we can do to minimize our personal and societal footprint. However, using misleading or outright inaccurate representations to steer readers toward a specific policy objective is just wrong, regardless of their intent.
Great video, Arjun. I chuckled when you said at the beginning you’d try not to get angry reading the 16 facts! I agree it is insulting to you and intelligent viewers to tag your video with “facts,” some of which are clearly wrong or a matter of opinion.
Arjun, I don't think you posted on this, but I have seen some pretty detailed work showing that peak oil has actually happened a decade ago, and now the shales are rolling over. If this is true, oil / gas prices could start a steady ascent for next decade+. Is this just the same old drum being beaten or is this something that makes sense? or something that more rigs will solve should they be needed? Thanks for your posts!
Hi medstudent, Yes, I am not a believer in "peak oil supply" any more than I am on "peak oil demand". Neither I think is true. That said, efforts to get oil out of the ground are needed and quite possible we have an oil price upcycle to motivate that.
Who do you think is the most knowledgeable, non-partisan and thoughtful climate-centred environmental figure? Is there anyone you would recommend for a more climate-centric viewpoint?
On another note: I think you're correct to take the non-partisan and open-minded path. I've found in any profession the very best people are willing to put in the sweat to continue learning, questioning, and evolving their views, and are very careful to avoid dogmatic thinking. That's the hard, but rewarding approach.
Unfortunately most people just learn to a certain point, then arrange their limited knowledge in a way that is psychologically most comfortable for them, and continue on cruise control from then on. That's the lazy, comfortable, approach.
Investor, What a great question. I would say Dr Vaclav Smil is the person I find the most objective and analytical on the subject. Another person is Michael Cembalest of J.P. Morgan, though he is a market strategist and not strictly an energy/climate person. I am appreciative of the work at places like CGEP (Columbia) and OIES (Oxford), but none of the universities from what I can see are neutral....they are of course left-of-center in perspective. Hard to come up with a long list of truly objective.
I should add I like and trust Roger Pielke, jt as objective and analytical. Steve Koonin as well.z
Definitely going to make a list of those books and podcasts. I guess it goes without saying the IPCC Summary for Policymakers too? I've read it every time a new one comes out.
I started looking at the climate issue some time ago with two key ideas: (1) I wanted to be as open minded as possible, and (2) I wanted to be as practical as possible, meaning I wanted to find out what the best science could tell me about what was going to happen to my hometown of Toronto, CA over the coming decades (as opposed to a high-level, more theoretical, global climate change discussion).
From reading the Summary and the material on specific regions, my layman's understanding is that the IPCC projects, for southern Ontario, for the most likely SSPs, for 2050, hotter summers by a few degrees and somewhat colder winters by a few degrees. On a practical basis, I'll be shoveling snow a few days a year at -15 in 2050, instead of those few days being -13 in 2024. That might be an enormous change, but I haven't really been able to tell in layman's terms how to get a sense of that.
well, if you read successive IPCC reports going back 2 decades, you can see they progressively more alarmist, despite the fact that the models have done a poor job at being predictive... the summary for policy makers is a pure propaganda piece, whereas when you dig deeper they are more cautious in their language, albeit less so recently
one surprising study that came out was this one... I expected it to be like the IPCC, but instead it was surprisingly balanced,
key points: temps are rising but not evenly, we are just back to dust bowl temps at worst, annual heat wave index is flat for decades, droughts and hurricanes basically unchanged ("Despite the apparent increases in tropical cyclone activity in recent years, [...] changes in observation methods over time make it difficult to know whether tropical storm activity has actually shown an increase over time.”)
Thank you, great link I just read it now. As investors we spend a huge amount of time looking at complicated datasets and trying to predict future trends, it's essentially our job. Every time I read these reports I feel basically uncertain, the data and relationships are so complicated that I am also sceptical anyone can really make meaningful predictions. That said, I think reasonable people can agree we need to continue to study the problem if there is even a small chance that we could be doing serious damage to a delicate system. I never want to be a person who refuses to see what is against his personal interest.
Roger Pielke's post today about the gap between the IPCC's position (probably excluding the Summary) and the public's perception of the IPCC's position:
I would argue for Bjorn Lomberg, Steve Koonin, or Mike Shellenberger. All have writing books and post regularly, with data. I find Cembalist far too alarmist. He has good data but his conclusions are iffy, IMO.
Great passion in this video---a passion for truth is refreshing. The UN website is a go to for many school aged children looking to learn more about the world. This fact alone makes their obligation to be clear on facts v. advocacy is critical. It's fine to have sections that discuss why we should care about the Climate, environment, bio diversity and things we can do to minimize our personal and societal footprint. However, using misleading or outright inaccurate representations to steer readers toward a specific policy objective is just wrong, regardless of their intent.
thank you Deborah!
Go get em Arjun. The facts are the facts and they don’t get to change them for their propaganda! Give em hell!
Thank you NTX!
Great video, Arjun. I chuckled when you said at the beginning you’d try not to get angry reading the 16 facts! I agree it is insulting to you and intelligent viewers to tag your video with “facts,” some of which are clearly wrong or a matter of opinion.
Thank you Tian!!!
Arjun, I don't think you posted on this, but I have seen some pretty detailed work showing that peak oil has actually happened a decade ago, and now the shales are rolling over. If this is true, oil / gas prices could start a steady ascent for next decade+. Is this just the same old drum being beaten or is this something that makes sense? or something that more rigs will solve should they be needed? Thanks for your posts!
Hi medstudent, Yes, I am not a believer in "peak oil supply" any more than I am on "peak oil demand". Neither I think is true. That said, efforts to get oil out of the ground are needed and quite possible we have an oil price upcycle to motivate that.
Hello Arjun,
Who do you think is the most knowledgeable, non-partisan and thoughtful climate-centred environmental figure? Is there anyone you would recommend for a more climate-centric viewpoint?
On another note: I think you're correct to take the non-partisan and open-minded path. I've found in any profession the very best people are willing to put in the sweat to continue learning, questioning, and evolving their views, and are very careful to avoid dogmatic thinking. That's the hard, but rewarding approach.
Unfortunately most people just learn to a certain point, then arrange their limited knowledge in a way that is psychologically most comfortable for them, and continue on cruise control from then on. That's the lazy, comfortable, approach.
Investor, What a great question. I would say Dr Vaclav Smil is the person I find the most objective and analytical on the subject. Another person is Michael Cembalest of J.P. Morgan, though he is a market strategist and not strictly an energy/climate person. I am appreciative of the work at places like CGEP (Columbia) and OIES (Oxford), but none of the universities from what I can see are neutral....they are of course left-of-center in perspective. Hard to come up with a long list of truly objective.
I should add I like and trust Roger Pielke, jt as objective and analytical. Steve Koonin as well.z
Definitely going to make a list of those books and podcasts. I guess it goes without saying the IPCC Summary for Policymakers too? I've read it every time a new one comes out.
I started looking at the climate issue some time ago with two key ideas: (1) I wanted to be as open minded as possible, and (2) I wanted to be as practical as possible, meaning I wanted to find out what the best science could tell me about what was going to happen to my hometown of Toronto, CA over the coming decades (as opposed to a high-level, more theoretical, global climate change discussion).
From reading the Summary and the material on specific regions, my layman's understanding is that the IPCC projects, for southern Ontario, for the most likely SSPs, for 2050, hotter summers by a few degrees and somewhat colder winters by a few degrees. On a practical basis, I'll be shoveling snow a few days a year at -15 in 2050, instead of those few days being -13 in 2024. That might be an enormous change, but I haven't really been able to tell in layman's terms how to get a sense of that.
well, if you read successive IPCC reports going back 2 decades, you can see they progressively more alarmist, despite the fact that the models have done a poor job at being predictive... the summary for policy makers is a pure propaganda piece, whereas when you dig deeper they are more cautious in their language, albeit less so recently
one surprising study that came out was this one... I expected it to be like the IPCC, but instead it was surprisingly balanced,
https://ourworldindata.org/us-weather-climate
key points: temps are rising but not evenly, we are just back to dust bowl temps at worst, annual heat wave index is flat for decades, droughts and hurricanes basically unchanged ("Despite the apparent increases in tropical cyclone activity in recent years, [...] changes in observation methods over time make it difficult to know whether tropical storm activity has actually shown an increase over time.”)
Thank you, great link I just read it now. As investors we spend a huge amount of time looking at complicated datasets and trying to predict future trends, it's essentially our job. Every time I read these reports I feel basically uncertain, the data and relationships are so complicated that I am also sceptical anyone can really make meaningful predictions. That said, I think reasonable people can agree we need to continue to study the problem if there is even a small chance that we could be doing serious damage to a delicate system. I never want to be a person who refuses to see what is against his personal interest.
Roger Pielke's post today about the gap between the IPCC's position (probably excluding the Summary) and the public's perception of the IPCC's position:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/we-dont-need-no-stinking-science?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=146850881&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=9ftqa&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I would argue for Bjorn Lomberg, Steve Koonin, or Mike Shellenberger. All have writing books and post regularly, with data. I find Cembalist far too alarmist. He has good data but his conclusions are iffy, IMO.
https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/1814623853059916243