The Origins of This Investigation
For the past few years I've been reading the work of a trader named Martin Armstrong and find his economic analysis to be second to none. He specializes in a discipline called "Wave Theory" and the program he has developed based on his research seems capable of making downright spooky predictions about major economic events like when he predicted the collapse of 1987 to the day, the Nikkei Crash of 1989 (and it's subsequent rally), and the fall of the USSR. But when he said this same program was predicting a Global Cooling phase (not Global Warming) I generally ignored it because it seemed outside the realm of his expertise.
However, as of late he has been writing about this issue more and more, so I decided to investigate his claim that the dominant global warming narrative is fatally flawed due to the fact that it ignores variability in the energy output of the Sun. After all, such a glaring omission is difficult to imagine and seems easy to prove or disprove. What I discovered was quite surprising.
Methodology
While it is tempting when analyzing such scenarios to imagine that one can learn the science as they go, this would provide a very reasonable counter to any finding I make: I am not a climate scientist. For that reason I have decided to start from the position of assuming that the climate scientists are right about their science. This might seem to be shooting the analysis in the foot from the start, however, just because I am assuming that the science is right doesn't mean that I am assuming their logic is right.
Modern science is good at generating data, but when it comes to applying that data to political action or institutions one should use logic, though this is rarely the case. While it is reasonable to assume that a scientist is good at their science, it is less reasonable to assume that a scientist is good at logic.
In short, my goal is to look at what the climate scientists themselves (not politicians or scientific celebrities) are saying, assume their science is sound, add together their findings, analyze the logic being employed and then form a reasonable conclusion and see how closely that conclusion resembles the popular narratives
My goal is neither to agree or disagree with a certain political opinion, but to be as objective as possible and then see how closely my own conclusion comes to any other arguments. For example, there is a chance that after performing this exercise I will find that, "Global warming is man made, and so the government must be used to modify human behaviors so as to prevent Global Warming from occurring." While it's not likely that my conclusion will match this exactly, it is very possible that it will be close enough. That being said the fact that it is unlikely that my conclusion will match that narrative exactly raises the interesting question of, "How will it differ?"
[By the end of this investigation I do discover that the difference is substantial, important, and ignoring it could be literally catastrophic.]
My Bias
That being said, my suspicion is that my conclusion will be more along the lines of, "There is a serious risk human activities are increasing the temperature of Earth, that this increase could be catastrophic, and so we should be coming up with solutions to this problem before it is too late." The reason I am sharing this is because I would like you to know my bias going in. I am an investor in Tesla Motors as well, so there's that too. I think that transitioning to sustainable energy is an important step for humanity and that seriously altering our environment increases the odds of climate-related Black Swan events (which are an even worse type than economic Black Swans) something the popularizer of the term "Black Swan" (Naseem Nicholas Taleb) agrees with. But the beauty of logic is that it is immune to bias, at least if applied correctly and so if my assumption is wrong it should be revealed to me by the end of my analysis. [Spoiler Alert: it is] Applying a purely logical analysis enables anyone to disprove my analysis by disproving my premises or pointing out the logical flaws or inconsistencies. One need not learn an entire scientific discipline.
Openness and Transparency
In the interest of openness, transparency, and freedom from bias, not only will I be taking the climate scientists' arguments as scientifically sound, I will include the arguments in quotes as well as a link to the source material. Since the main issue is whether or not climate Scientists are ignoring the energy output of the Sun in their models, that was what I confined my search to. I used mainly (I think exclusively) the first results on google that came from seemingly legitimate and mainstream sources.
Climate Change Argument #1
"In the past four decades at least - we've measured the Sun's brightness since 1978, using very precise space-based instruments and the overall trend has been downwards by a few tenths of a percent."
Yet at the same time, the global surface temperature has increased by about 1.1 F (0.5 C). If the Sun's irradiance were the dominant force driving changes to our climate, the planet would be experiencing a slight cooling.
Another example of this type of argument is exemplified by how Wikipedia addresses this topic:
Another line of evidence against solar variations having caused recent climate change comes from looking at how temperatures at different levels in the Earth's atmosphere have changed.[106] Models and observations show that greenhouse warming results in warming of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) but cooling of the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere).[107][108] Depletion of the ozone layer by chemical refrigerants has also resulted in a strong cooling effect in the stratosphere. If solar variations were responsible for observed warming, warming of both the troposphere and stratosphere would be expected.[109]
Argument Structure
- Premise 1: The Sun's brightness is going down
- Premise 2: The Earth's temperature is going up
- Conclusion: The Sun's brightness cannot be the cause of the temperature change (i.e. The Sun is not the dominant force exerted on our global temperature
What this argument does not say:
- That the Sun's brightness has no effect on global temperatures
- That the relationship between the Sun's brightness and Earth's temperature is not exponential
- That a 50 year time frame is the ideal time frame to examine
Climate Change Argument #2
Over the last 35 years the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. However global temperatures have been increasing. Since the sun and climate are going in opposite directions scientists conclude the sun cannot be the cause of recent global warming.
The only way to blame the sun for the current rise in temperatures is by cherry picking the data. This is done by showing only past periods when sun and climate move together and ignoring the last few decades when the two are moving in opposite directions.
Argument Structure
- Premise #1: The Sun has been cooling for 35 years
- Premise #2: Global temperatures have been increasing
- Conclusion: The Sun cannot be causing global warming
- Assumption: The opponent is manipulating the data to show that the Sun causes global warming
What this argument does not say:
- That the Sun's temperature has no effect on global temperatures
- That the relationship between the Sun's temperature and our own is not exponential (it assumes it's linear)
- That a 35 year time frame is the ideal time frame to examine
What these arguments DO say:
- The Sun's brightness and temperature (presumably they are directly proportional) have been going down over time
- That the change in the Sun's state COULD impact Earth's climate
- That currently we appear to be in a state where human activity on Earth is counteracting whatever impact the Sun's changing state would have on Earth's climate
Representative Arguments?
I want to be clear that I am not saying this is necessarily the argument that every climate scientist is making. I don't have the time or resources to perform that analysis. If anyone wants to bring more representative arguments to my attention please use the comments to do so. That being said, there are several serious problems with these specific arguments that are perfectly reasonable given the nature of the analysts. This is an important point.
One should assume that the scientists making these arguments are highly intelligent. If there is a fault it therefore must be a fault that only a highly intelligent person would make. Such faults are present.
The Problems
Problem #1: The Timeframe
35-50 years is not an objectively long period of time. It is a period of time. However, if that is the only data the scientist has in mind, and if the scientist has reasons for believing that this is a "long" period of time, he/she might not consider that it is not. This does not make their determination wrong, however, assuming they WERE wrong, they would be completely blind to it. Similar mistakes have been made in other fields of academia such as economics where a few decades of relative stability led mainstream and orthodox economists to "believe" in a so-called "Great Moderation" which meant we would no longer suffer from economic events like the Great Depression, a delusion which was shattered in 2008.
Problem #2: Cause v. Impact
These arguments only prove that the state of the Sun is not directly and proportionately responsible for the state of the Earth. They do not prove that the state of the Sun has no impact on the state of the Earth.
Super Problem #1
Before going on to the Super Problem I have to properly disclaim my point. My point is not that the scenario in the Super Problem exists. I am also making no claims, as of now, regarding the probability that the scenario described exists. That probability could be anywhere from 100% to 0% at this point in the thought experiment.
The Super-Problem: Timeframe + Exponentiality
IF a half-century is not sufficient time to gauge the impact of the changing state of the Sun on Earth, and IF the impact of the Sun's state on Earth's climate is non-linear (e.g. exponential), then it is possible that the Sun's decreasing brightness/temperature could outpace the global warming occurring on Earth, man-made or not. Even if global warming is man-made, that does not mean that it is incapable of being outpaced by natural factors. History is replete with the casualties of mortals who underestimated the power of Mother Nature.
The Blind Spot
All of that being said it seems there is a bit of a blind spot in the climate scientist's argument. Hopefully a small hole through which nothing can fit, but a hole nonetheless. That hole is that there is a chance that the separation between Earth-based climate change and Sun-based climate change could be a source of problems rather than merely the answer to ONE argument: that the Sun is not causing climate change. The fact that the Sun does not cause one phenomena is not sufficient reason to not study how the Sun effects global temperatures, especially in light of the fact that the energy on Earth does originate from the Sun and that by the climate scientist's own admission (again I am assuming the climate scientist's are right) the Sun's energy output is decreasing.
Super Problem #2: Unbiased application of the Climate Scientist's Logic
As I stated earlier, one form that the climate scientist's logic takes is as follows:
Argument Structure
- Premise #1: The Sun has been cooling for 35 years
- Premise #2: Global temperatures have been increasing
- Conclusion: The Sun cannot be causing global warming
- Assumption: The opponent is manipulating the data to show that the Sun causes global warming
However, during the course of my research I came across a specific instance where the typical climate scientist's response to a valid scientific claim which applied the same logic as they did was one of dismissal. That instance is the mainstream scientific consensus that:
"There is significant evidence that CO2 spikes in the past lagged global temperature increases."
That article in Scientific American referenced three scientific studies. One which used Antarctic ice cores to estimate the lag at 1,400 years, another which reduced the gap to as little as 200 years and just one new study which uses a different methodology which reduced the lag farther.
The article included one researcher's response to climate skeptics:
“The idea that there was a lag of CO2 behind temperature is something climate change skeptics pick on,” says Edward Brook of Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. “They say, ‘How could CO2 levels affect global temperature when you are telling me the temperature changed first?’"
Logical Analysis of "CO2 Lag" Argument
These climate scientists (not all climate scientists) argue that the fact that a change in state of Ecosystem S (the Sun) is disconnected from the change in state of Ecosystem E (Earth), proves that the change in state in E is not caused by S. If we apply their own logic to the issue of changing CO2 levels then the fact that a change in state of ecosystem C (CO2 levels on Earth) is disconnected from the change in state of ecosystem E (because it precedes it), proves that the the change in state of E is not caused by the change in state of C.
The climate scientist's response, at least in the relevant article is not logical or scientific. There is still currently no evidence that CO2 spikes do not predate temperature increases, and that being the case, if we employ the same logic as the climate scientist, then we must arrive at the conclusion that CO2 increases do not cause temperature increases.
Note: I am not saying I believe this, in fact, I believe that the scientific evidence indicates that CO2 increases are correlated with temperature increases. That only makes it an even bigger problem that the climate scientist's logic is so faulty. They are catering their analysis to the scenario. They are demonstrating bias because bad logic is fine for them, but unacceptable for their opponents.
A Clear Trend
One could argue that there is a clear "trend" which indicates that in the future we will find that CO2 spikes actually predated global temperature spikes contrary to our prior discoveries. This is objectively bad science which is evidenced by the fact that the argument is never made. But it is implied. Since it isn't made, and it isn't scientific, the fact that there "appears" (appearance is not a valid statistical analysis) that the gap between CO2 spikes and temperature increases is shrinking is irrelevant. We have a scientific consensus of multiple studies which indicate that CO2 spikes predated temperature increases.
That being said I do want to explore a bit deeper whether the assumption they seem to be making (that we will eventually learn that CO2 spikes trail temperature increases) might be justified. The trend could be explained in at least two ways.
Better Measurements: It could be that temperature increases predate CO2 increases and the better our measurements get the more the truth will be revealed. This does not explain why the initial measurements were so dramatic. There has been no proof that the methodology used to make either the 1,400 year estimate or the 200 year estimate was faulty, or even the new, smaller, but still lagging estimate for that matter. But it is important to remember that the issue is not how big the gap is but whether CO2 predates temperature increase. Even if temperature starts rising 1 day before CO2 that still disproves the idea that CO2 increases cause temperature increases based on the logic we are employing.
Money influences research. Monsanto. Big tobacco. Big pharma. The Cato Institute. Government grants. If we assume that funding influences the outcome of academic research, and that World governments are giving out more money to those making "pro global warming findings" then there is a risk that the trend in research is evidence of influence more than scientific truth. After all, the scientific evidence is consistently proving a lag. The fact that the lag seems to be moving gradually in the "right" direction could be interpreted as evidence that funding is influencing research.
Evidence of Bias in Climate Science
This is not helped by the fact that the scientists have disclosed their apparent judgment regarding people who "seize" on this data. The people to whom they are referring are people who are applying the same logic the scientists are to an analogous situation. The fact that the scientists react with judgment and not recognition of their own faulty analysis is proof that they are biased. In other words, there are now two data points which indicate that the scientists are being influenced by something other than the data. They are arguing against their own use of logic, and they are demonizing those who employ identical logic to their own because they disagree with them on a political issue. When they employed their own logic they made the assumption that their opponents were manipulating the data. But why can't their opponent make the same claim toward them? The scientist's argument is self-defeating. Its opponents are using the same logic and are therefore entitled to make the same claim: that it is their opponent (the climate scientists) who is manipulating the data.
Argument #3: NASA
From Science.Nasa.Gov
Jan. 8, 2013: In the galactic scheme of things, the Sun is a remarkably constant star. While some stars to exhibit dramatic pulsations, wildly yo-yoing in size and brightness, and sometimes even exploding, the luminosity of our own sun varies a measly 0.1% over the course of the 11-year solar cycle.
There is, however, a dawning realization among researchers that even these apparently tiny variations can have a significant effect on terrestrial climate. A new report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), "The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate," lays out some of the surprisingly complex ways that solar activity can make itself felt on our planet. ...In recent years, researchers have considered the possibility that the sun plays a role in global warming. After all, the sun is the main source of heat for our planet.
Much has been made of the probable connection between the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year deficit of sunspots in the late 17th-early 18th century, and the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. The mechanism for that regional cooling could have been a drop in the sun’s EUV output; this is, however, speculative.
... “Early estimates of grand minimum frequency in solar-type stars ranged from 10% to 30%, implying the sun’s influence could be overpowering. More recent studies using data from Hipparcos (a European Space Agency astrometry satellite) and properly accounting for the metallicity of the stars, place the estimate in the range of less than 3%. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.
...“If the sun really is entering an unfamiliar phase of the solar cycle, then we must redouble our efforts to understand the sun-climate link,” notes Lika Guhathakurta of NASA’s Living with a Star Program, which helped fund the NRC study. “The report offers some good ideas for how to get started.” ...Hal Maring, a climate scientist at NASA headquarters who has studied the report, notes that “lots of interesting possibilities were suggested by the panelists. However, few, if any, have been quantified to the point that we can definitively assess their impact on climate.” Hardening the possibilities into concrete, physically-complete models is a key challenge for the researchers.
... many participants noted the difficulty in deciphering the sun-climate link from paleoclimate records such as tree rings and ice cores. Variations in Earth’s magnetic field and atmospheric circulation can affect the deposition of radioisotopes far more than actual solar activity. A better long-term record of the sun’s irradiance might be encoded in the rocks and sediments of the Moon or Mars.
Argument Structure
Premise #1: Over the course of 11 years the Sun's temperature barely changes
Premise #2: The minor changes that occur are positively correlated with significant effects on Earth's climate
Premise #3: There is a significant risk that the Sun is entering an "unfamiliar phase"
Premise #4: Methods for accurately determining the impact of this unfamiliar phase on Earth's climate do not exist
NASA's conclusion: We need to study how the Sun's changing states impact Earth's climate because they could be "overpowering," this effect has yet to be quantified and the question is so hard to answer we may need to look at ROCKS from SPACE
The Real Problem
The problem I have uncovered, and which I did not expect to find at all, is that Martin Armstrong does appear to be correct. It is the climate scientists who specialize in studying the Sun's impact on Earth's climate who claim that this impact could be "overpowering," NOT climate skeptics who are manipulating their data. Therefore, Climate Scientists who claim that the fact that the Sun has been cooling for decades is an irrelevant fact are themselves the Climate Science denialists as they are disregarding the work of mainstream climate scientists as explained by NASA.
The Importance of Multiple Perspectives
This highlights the importance of encouraging multiple perspectives and analyzing problems from different directions and disciplines. Had I never considered Armstrong's economic analysis I might never have seen what now appears to be a fundamental logical flaw in the Global Warming narrative.
The Blindspot: Revisited
Earlier I said:
There seems to be a bit of a blind spot in the climate scientist's argument. Hopefully a small hole through which nothing can fit, but a hole nonetheless. That hole is that there is a chance that the separation between Earth-based climate change and Sun-based climate change could be a source of problems rather than merely the answer to ONE argument: that the Sun is not causing climate change. The fact that the Sun does not cause one phenomena is not sufficient reason to not study how the Sun affects global temperatures, especially in light of the fact that the energy on Earth DOES originate from the Sun and that by the climate scientist's own admission (again I am assuming the climate scientist's are RIGHT) the Sun's energy output is decreasing.
Unfortunately it would appear that the "small hole" I mentioned is in fact quite large. In it we find the fact that according to NASA, even when the Sun's energy output changes only slightly, it has "significant effects" on Earth's climate and this, again according to NASA, necessitates "redoubling" their efforts to understand the "sun-climate" link and not dismissing it out-of-hand simply because a direct causal relationship is not apparent. In addition there is a significant chance that we will be facing a period in the not too distant future where the energy output of the Sun will be dramatically reduced. In short, there is a chance that global cooling is a bigger risk than global warming. How can I say that? Because we just don't know how big the risk of Global Cooling is, and therefore cannot dismiss the possibility that it is higher than that of Global Warming. Does that mean we should ignore the threat of Global Warming? Of course not. However, a flawed argument is going to do far more harm to the Global Warming activists' mission than any skeptic ever could.
How Did This Happen?
As far as how all of this happened, I think that discussion is best left for another post. I would only suggest that people bear in mind how little information the average human is able to keep in mind. Just because someone is a climate scientist does not mean they comprehend all of climate science. In fact, people generally only have a firm understanding of their narrow area of expertise and the more academic and arcane the field, the more narrow the potential range of understanding. Just because someone understands the complicated science of studying arctic ice cores does not mean they understand the complicated science behind how sunspot activity affects Earth.
Nasseem Taleb calls this the "fragilista" problem:
The fragilista falls for the Soviet-Harvard delusion, the (unscientific) overestimation of the reach of scientific knowledge.
Because of such delusion, he is what is called a naive rationalist, a rationalizer, or sometimes just a rationalist, in the sense that he believes that the reasons behind things are automatically accessible to him. And let us not confuse rationalizing with rational— the two are almost always exact opposites. Outside of physics, and generally in complex domains, the reasons behind things have had a tendency to make themselves less obvious to us, and even less to the fragilista. This property of natural things not to advertise themselves in a user’s manual is, alas, not much of a hindrance: some fragilistas will get together to write the user’s manual themselves, thanks to their definition of “science.” So thanks to the fragilista, modern culture has been increasingly building blindness to the mysterious, the impenetrable, what Nietzsche called the Dionysian, in life.
- Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto) (Kindle Locations 431-437). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
If tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, a human being who belongs to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be riven by incompatible values. It's such an essential feature of any culture that it even has a name: cognitive dissonance. - Yuval Harari, Sapiens
The Layer of Noise
Add to this the influence of lobbyists, politicians, career environmentalists, and more, and you have a lot of potentially well-meaning people who are so obsessed with destroying the tiny minority of climate skeptics ("The latest surveys show that 89 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans already believe global warming is happening and is at least partly caused by human actions.") that they are totally ignoring a potential threat that is just as scientific and just as risky.
Scientific Celebrities
Think about who we hear about Global Warming (or Climate Change) from. Is it the climate scientists themselves or is politicians and "scientific celebrities" (people with scientific credentials but are neither practicing scientists or accredited experts in every field they discuss) like Bill Nye the Science Guy (not a climate scientist) and Neil deGrasse Tyson (also not a climate scientist). It is interesting to note that both Nye and Tyson received their degrees (their certificates of expertise if you will) at a time when the theory of Global Cooling was still the consensus due to the work of Charles Keeling whose concentration curves for atmospheric CO2 in Antarctica and Mauna Loa showed a downward movement of global temperatures from the 1940's to the 1970's. While these people may be smart, if the argument is that we should be listening to the experts (i.e. climate scientists) then they do not fit the bill.
That they did not receive their training in that field at that time is not proof that this is an irrelevant detail, if anything it illustrates why it is so important people receive proper training: so that they gain a complete understanding of their field, including it's errors. These people have for various reasons decided that the risk of Global Warming is of primary concern and that maintaining the purity of this narrative is either intellectually (i.e. they believe it is backed by the evidence despite the fact that it is not) or morally (i.e. they understand that the reality is more complicated than the narrative which they believe needs to be simplified for the "ignorant masses") justified, but that does not mean that they are right.
Boiling Science Down to One Talking Point
My point is only that there is a layer of noise between us and the climate scientists. Politicians and scientific celebrities form an opinion based on their interpretation of the aggregate of the data coming out of a field. These people are objectively relying on an aggregated data point (meaning it is the defense raised most frequently by them) which is that most scientists assume man-made global warming exists in their work. The aggregate data point is NOT: that the majority of studies produced by climate scientists find that man-made Global Warming exists. That would be a far superior metric that is simply (and interestingly) not the one being used.
Virality
All of this ignores the influence of virality on how ideas spread. We all know that ideas can spread without being true (being partially true or mostly true can enhance virality) and there is zero evidence that any community is immune to this phenomenon. The vast majority of science is not climate science. The fact that when it comes to issues of the climate, scientists that are not climate scientists assume the modern-climate-science-orthodoxy to be accurate is in no way proof that the orthodoxy is TRUE. This is only proof that those scientists are doing good science.
Some Assumptions ARE Good Science
Yes, it can be good science to adopt an aggregated interpretation of a scientific field when you are not an expert in that field. But that also creates the risk of a negative feedback loop if the fact that non-climate scientists are adopting that position is then used as proof of the veracity of the position, which seems to be precisely the case. In addition, if politicians were to glom on to the issue and repeat it to the public one would expect this effect to be amplified by the Illusion of Truth Effect which "is the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure." The fact that the risk of Global Warming is high ironically amplifies the effect leading people to believe that Global Warming is the only thing climate science indicates to be a problem when in reality there is little evidence which proves that the risk of Global Warming is higher than the risk of Global Cooling and any opinion to the contrary appears to be merely that: an opinion.
Institutional Inertia
It also seems that the manner by which the Global Warming Meme spread throughout the population was also amplified by institutional mechanisms. Once a critical mass of institutions are funded and built based on a certain assumption (e.g. "climate science says that Global Warming is real") the manner by which those institutions pursue their agenda and frame their arguments is largely independent of the underlying science. These institutions exist to serve an agenda, not objectively evaluate the scientific evidence. That many such institutions exist in both the public and private sectors is strong evidence that this could be involved in what appears to be a major flaw in the collective understanding of the issue.
Conclusion: The Good News
The good news appears to be that perhaps the hysteria surrounding this issue is a bit overblown. My personal philosophy of Crowdism holds essentially that Crowds of humans are effectively a super-intelligence when compared to the individuals within it (hence how even seemingly smart people can make relatively obvious mistakes) and the Crowd's behavior over time seems to be quite brilliant. IF there is a risk of catastrophic global climate change then it is critical that we develop technologies that deliver to humanity the ability to control the weather. Period. The fact that we have basically been practicing warming the planet for about 200 years acquires an interesting slant in light of the scientifically verified risk of global cooling and while this also creates a risk of global warming, were we to enter a period of Global Cooling without it we would be completely unprepared and therefore doomed as well. This does, however, mean that we need to gain control over our ability to modulate the amount of greenhouse gases we emit, a process which we are well on our way to achieving.
What people do with this information is up to them, but I would advise them to bear in mind that the more their argument is based on dubious assumptions the more vulnerable it becomes to attack. Those who are dumbfounded by the public's resistance to accepting the Global Warming narrative (even if it has been reframed as the more amorphous "Climate Change") would do well to remember this.
Epilogue: Tesla Motors
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am a shareholder of Tesla Motors and as such I was curious to see how I would come out at the end of the analysis. While it is true that this also make me biased, I would like to point out that a large reason for my investment in Tesla Motors is that I believe Elon Musk to be authentic, brilliant, skeptical and moral. I am of the opinion that this makes his enterprises (and my investment in them) antifragile because these traits limit the degree to which he is likely to get swept up by mainstream hysteria. His fixation on first principles and evidence-based logic guarantees that he should never stray too far from reality.
If you listen to Musk carefully all he says is that Global Warming is a serious threat. That is TRUE. He does not advocate for much governmental involvement outside of reducing or counteracting its support of the fossil fuel industry. Musk only wants a fair marketplace. A fair claim that most who favor governmental intervention conspicuously ignore: no single entity has done more, or is doing more presently, to promote the consumption of fossil fuels than the Federal Government of the United States. If they were to stop today it is entirely possible that the need for a carbon taxing scheme would be eliminated. That, however, would do nothing for tax revenues. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with it ;)
A Flexible Grid
In addition, Musk is open about envisioning a flexible grid, not one built solely on renewables. In light of my research I conclude that this is exactly the right solution. We want to be in a position where we can turn on a massive warming apparatus at will (and of course turn it off to address the risk of warming) and Tesla is currently positioning itself to be at the center of that apparatus. Add to this my view that we are currently transitioning from a Public-Economic Long Wave (one that started with the New Deal and peaked in the 1980s with the peak in US treasury interest rates) to a Private-Economic Long Wave (one where the crowd has more confidence in the private sector than the public sector) and what is revealed is a future that is extremely bullish for Tesla Motors.
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. - Richard Feynman
