Gavin Wants A Carbon Tax

By Paul Homewood

Gavin claims to be a climate scientist.

Yet as a supposedly objective scientist in charge of GISS, why is he making overtly political interventions.

In this interview with the Vancouver Sun last year, he stated:

We have to have a price on carbon because right now it’s still free to put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So if you put a price on carbon that is commensurate with the damage that carbon-dioxide emissions cause, then people will be smarter. They will say: ‘Well, I can spend that money and damage the planet or I can spend less money and buy an electric car that’s fed by hydro. Vancouver is trying to be a real leader in switching to carbon-neutral energy sources and moving away from oil for transportation. All those things are very positive and the B.C. carbon tax is one of the most progressive and far-reaching ideas — even though in practice it hasn’t made a huge difference yet.

http://climatestate.com/2015/04/24/gavin-schmidt-nasa-explains-the-climate-change-problem-and-solution/

It is surely the job of taxpayer funded scientists to stick to the science, and leave policy making to the politicians.

Not that his scientific credentials are up to much, if his next comment in the interview is anything to go by:

Q: What is the future for waterfront cities like Vancouver?

A: You are going to have to put up with rising sea levels; they are not going to go down. But there’s a huge difference between a foot or two over 100 years and a metre or two metres. There’s a lot of waterfront development going on but is it sea-level-rise smart? I don’t know that it is. So don’t put stuff in the basement, have all your electrical equipment on the second floor or on the roof.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, sea levels at Vancouver have been rising at a rate of just 0.37mm/yr since 1910:

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.htm?stnid=822-071

At this rate, Gavin’s two meters of sea level rise will take 5405 years.