TinyCO2, your list resembles a catalogue of your preoccupations rather than questions, although the Hill's top pedants will note that each ends in a question mark. For what it is worth, here are my answers:

1) Affluence is not a human right.
2) See 1
3) Yes
4) I don't support the individual qutoas you propose so this question is not applicable
5) See 4
6) Though there are individuals who are evil, all but a tiny minority are not. This has no bearing on CO₂
7) Such justifications are a personal issue. See also 4.
8) Individual action is just tokenism. The problem is societal and must be tackled on that basis.

Do people get to choose their rights? No. Air is fundamental to life. iPads and 4x4s are not.

Do people choose to live in London despite its pollution? Yes. Is the level of pollution central or even peripheral to their choice of home? No. Are they generally aware that high levels of pollution are a health risk? Probably not. Should these undeserving wretches nevertheless have a right to clean air? Yes.

On getting rid of coal, I seem to remember that the reason these generators are being closed is that they don't meet environmental standards, not CO₂ emissions. Is that wrong (could be, I have not searched for references)? I agree it would make sense to keep a stock of coal and a few generators in mothballs for a rainy day. But as I said, fossil plants, especially those that cannot cycle efficiently like coal plants, are going to be marginalised by the coming wave of renewables. Nobody is going to want to build or operate them.

Well BB,

If all this has an economic and historic inevitablity, why are you bothering to argue?

I see this interest in renewables as offered now, as a serious waste of time and resources, and in fact plain evil, wrapping itself in the clothes of a moral cause. That's why I argue against it.

"Affluence is not a right" – you’re right and communism tried to eradicate it and that worked really well for those people who lived under it.

You define affluence as 4x4s and iPads, what a limited view of prosperity you have. What about a hot shower every day? A pet or two? Children? TV for the elderly? Computers for children to do their homework on? How warm can they keep their homes? How many clothes can they have? Do they have to mend them? How long do those clothes have to be worn before they are they allowed to wash them? Can they plant imported shrubs in their gardens or do they have to grow vegetables or wood? Is a wood fire acceptable or is the pollution a no, no? What toys can their kids have, after all we had to make do with our imaginations, a hand me down bike and a hula hoop? If the problem with London air is not the cars but the buses and trains do they have to all walk? Are they allowed holidays or should they be made to go work of a farm to appreciate their sorry little lives in the big city? Should we forget the bedroom tax for people on benefits and make sure no bed room is left unoccupied, not even if you’re the Queen?

The rest of your answers are clap trap based on your inability to commit yourself. If you don't know the reason the coal is not being replaced, you aren't paying attention.

Cosmic, because I like an argument. Evil? Is this more sceptic-speak; you and Tiny are in the process of reinventing English to mean what you want it to mean. You boys have fun now....

TinyCO2, well what a little rant my answers provoked. If you want to argue about communism, perhaps you should find someone on the left - there are some on the Hill of that persuasion, although how they bear it puzzles me. Your little mini-novel on affluence is irrelevant - I already told you I have no interest in personal emissions quota or controlling peoples' activity. Controlling air quality is very different from all of your petty examples; if you are from the right you should be aware that your liberty goes only as far as another person's fence.

"Clap trap based on an inability to commit myself"** - what the rubber-duck does that mean? If you don't like the answers perhaps you should ask better questions.

And the reason coal is not being replaced is not necessarily the same as the reason existing plants are being closed. Not in normal English anyway - how about up there on the Hill?

So now I've answered your quiz, why not give us your justification for all of the harms placed on oil's doorstep. You know like the deaths; and the corruption of countries' political systems; and the subjugation; and the environmental despoliation; and the health problems; and the wars. You tell us that these all count for less than the ruinous cost of renewables, so how do you put a value on those things anyway? You or your friends must have done this as you believe so strongly that despite all of that, fossils are still so much cheaper. Come on give it your best shot...

** - pedants and nitpickers, almost a quote

So we see BB as he really is. He doesn’t care about CO2 at all, he’s just a renewables salesman. He knows he can’t argue the justification for cutting CO2 so he sticks to the old favourite air pollution… even for those not suffering from it.

TinyCO2,

He isn't even a renewables salesman.

I draw your attention to, "Cosmic, because I like an argument.", much like Zed, he plays with words, shifts the goal posts and then goes so far as accuse others of reinventing the language.

As for the looney prattle about 'storage', which will magically appear because engineers have been told to do it, it shows how seriously he should be taken.

No Tiny, I know that any argument that includes any reference to CO₂ reduction is dead in the water here. But the argument that reliance on fossils should be reduced is strong enough not to need such support. Whereas your argument that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables is an argument that seemingly cannot bear to be heard. You can't give it the light of day, maybe because you fear it will wilt when exposed to the glare of public view.

Shrub, oh dearie me, you don't like my references to pedants and nitpickers. Trouble is there's a lot of them about on the Hill (and elsewhere in the sceptic world). I dare not use quotes to indicate something someone might have said or might say etc, because someone will demand proof that it is a quote. And when someone can infer the wrong meaning in a sentence because it starts with "Well ...", what am I to think. You guys just treat language differently. So if I feel the need, I'll add a footnote. Sorry and all that... Oh and Bishop Hill is immediately recognisable as The Hill for short, so if you don't like it, get AM to change the name.

If you object to the Lancet article because it has, "A Model", then find another. Here's one and I'm sure there are others. Do you seriously think there are no health effects from breathing in noxious fumes? Are researchers into such things who estimate large costs from pollution now also part of the grand global AWG conspiracy to do-down oil? What's your position? You work in life-sciences I believe, so perhaps you know something about it.

And since TinyCO2 is so bashful about justifying the costs of fossil fuels, why not give us your justification for all of the harms placed on oil's doorstep. You know like the deaths; and the corruption of countries' political systems; and the subjugation; and the environmental despoliation; and the health problems; and the wars. How do you put a value on those things and how do the sums come out?

shub: "Mature adults..." Don't tell me you've only just noticed shub?

There are no industries or activities without hidden costs BB and that includes renewables. Look at the mess recycling is in and you already know about biofuels. Often the fantastic idea turns out to not be so fantastic after all. Everything that people buy has effects on some political or well being situation somewhere. Sometimes bad, sometimes good. If we discuss fossil fuels, you shy away from coal because apart from CO2, the pollution emissions are much more easily controlled from large power stations and the major coal producers don’t have political mileage – yeah but what about those poor Australians and Americans? Coal is the cheapest form of energy. If we discuss fossil fuels we have to discuss all the problems with renewables and that would take forever. If the world wanted to pay the renewables costs and save themselves the hidden costs of fossil fuels, they’d be doing it. Germany has tried and is now paying the price. It only manages to balance its electricity grid by importing energy from France and exporting excess to its neighbours, such that at least two countries are threatening the Germans with cut off because the practice is making the grid unstable.

There may come a point when people or societies naturally make the decision to fully adopt renewables or electric cars but that point is not here. They are not fit for a society that uses large amounts of reliable energy and wants reliable transportation. Note the word reliability. Repeat it.

As for the cost, you seem to think that money is a meaningless measurement of success. Money is opportunity. Waste money on one thing and it’s not available for another. Spend too much on air pollution and something else suffers. I could list dozens of causes that would save far more lives than converting all London’s cars electric. Say we blow trillions on windmills and their attendant infrastructure and then ten years down the line they solve the problem of fusion. All of a sudden the windmills, the metal, the concrete and the money are all wasted. Worse, you haven’t got those trillions to spend on the new fusion power stations. If they want to cut carbon now they should be investing in nuclear, which is expensive but reliable. A good nuclear site would also be suitable for a fusion power station.

Ultimately it’s not about what you or I can justify or even what we are prepared to spend. It’s the public’s decision and they are backing off from the green agenda. Politics is not far behind. Remember the Democrats refusing to sign up the EU flight tax because it was unconstitutional? Since when did a constitution matter more than 'saving the planet'? Like many warmists you fall for the idea that large CO2 changes can be done by society rather than individuals, but society is individuals. You can’t use a democracy to force through the unacceptable.

Shub, everyone knows that pollution is bad, but you all refuse to consider putting a price on it. Just like you refuse to put a price on all of the other externalities: fatalities during production, supply and use, the overthrow of governments, corruption of political systems, the subjugation of peoples, environmental despoliation (the bill for Deepwater Horizon was what, $40bn, and that is just one case where the victims did get compensated - think of all those cases where they didn't), and wars all count for exactly zero on your balance sheet against fossil fuels. The discussion started sometime back because E17 wanted sceptics to be "whiter than white". Yet how can you be, when collectively you cannot bring yourselves to point out the warts on your best friends face. The closest anyone has come is TinyCO2 with his, "everyone else is just as bad"**, which is clearly untrue.

Tiny, by the way, I don't shy away from discussion coal. I already said it would be a good idea to keep a stock of coal and some coal stations as an emergency backup. But coal is dead or soon will be in Europe. Nobody is going to want to build inflexible coal plants when there's a flood of solar that eats their lunch. And is the German experience so bad? There may be occasional problems, but there is a flexible market in electricity and it will no doubt develop further. France is a net importer of electricity from Germany; it exports electricity to the UK - there's a market, which unless you are a socialist, I'd have thought you'd like. Is cost unimportant? No of course not, but as I've been trying to get across to you, the real costs of fossils is higher than you want to believe - the only cost you care about measuring is that of the alternatives. And think how many windmills BP could have bought with that $40bn...

And lest we forget, there it is, the first mention of the Holocaust on the thread goes to MartinA. Gold star to you Martin, well done! BTW, correlation is not causation, as you know. And note that the life expectancy in Nigeria is around 50 - not such a great number for a country with so much oil. Is it all oil's fault? No, to claim that would be stupid. However, it would be equally stupid to claim that the rise in life expectancy in the west is solely due to fossil fuels. Even more stupid would be to equate the amount of fuel used to longevity - Japan and many European countries have higher life expectancy than the US but most have far lower energy intensities.

Another thing, if all that weren't enough. If you all care so much about poor countries who rely upon using oil, how is it that you are so against the one thing most likely to reduce their oil prices - reducing western demand?

** pedants note, not a direct quote.

If Bitso wanted to do something for the lungs (and life expectancy) of Africans, he'd campaign for East Africans to have access to cheap electricity and not have to do their cooking on a wood fire in the middle of the living area.

Martin, insults aside, what did I say that was crazy or wrong?

Martin, having followed the arguments throughout this thread I can only agree with you. His rocker is off.

What is this, the Ask Bucket quiz show or something. First we had Tiny with a list of his preoccupations turned into a quiz and now we have Martin's Holocaust quiz...

Smoking is a huge health problem. So are bowel cancer and diabetes. Prostate cancer kills too many people and even Measles can be pretty nasty. But you know why I didn't mention any of them? Because they have frack all to do with the externalities of fossil fuel use.

Now, you had plenty of time to write your little quiz, so why don't do some elucidating of misconceptions. David Porter can perhaps help you, since he's clearly been following closely, perhaps even closely enough to start elucidating too.

BB - "what did I say that was crazy or wrong?"

Here's one:

"Nobody is going to want to build inflexible coal plants when there's a flood of solar that eats their lunch."

Now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eastpole/3064004004/

Future:

http://www.powermag.com/coal/China-Leads-the-Global-Race-to-Cleaner-Coal_5192.html

BB.

Since I have been invited and you clearly enjoy answering questions I’d like to ask, if you would, to postulate what today's life expectancy would be if we had never found fossil fuels?