The air around the greens turns blue

David in Canada

Decc [Department of the Environment and Climate Change
are you kidding me, what are the cuts to the dept of hurt feelings? britain is more screwed than I thought.

Brian O'Connor

You have to love this . . . it's what happens when a power grab based on the appeal of fashionable boutique idealism collides head-on with reality.

Nicholas

Couldn't happen to a nicer bastard. I'm sick of semi-millionaires and millionaires in parliament pompously pontificating on new taxes to impose on us for our own good.

Frank P

Welcome back Brian O'Connor. What's happening??

Oflife

There is no need for climate change to cost us a penny from a tax payer angle. all people need do is buy solar powered gadgets or chargers and install (free) solar panels. capitalism in action, no strings attached.

follow @lifemachine to be kept in the loop.

Norm

Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke. Now where's Vince.

Ordnance

ROTFL - pity it isn't a 100% cut.
I look forward to a Truth and Reconciliation trial in the years ahead when those guilty of the Clinate Change scam get to apologize for their sins.

Dixon

"Oflife
September 22nd, 2010 9:07pm
There is no need for climate change to cost us a penny from a tax payer angle. all people need do is buy solar powered gadgets or chargers and install (free) solar panels. capitalism in action, no strings attached.

follow @lifemachine to be kept in the loop."

"Free solar panels"...they cost a fortune and dont work. Regadless of the sales blather. I know: Ive tried one.

Meanwhile, all the rare-Earths required by pholtvoltaics come from one open cast mine in China. This is worse than "oil dependence". What do you suppose would happen to the cost of "free" solar panels if their usage(demand) increased?

Baron

Oflife @ 9.07:

If all of us, the near 7bn who keep breathing on the planet were to drop dead, the annual aggregate carbon dioxide discharge would dip by some 4%, I repeat, four lousy per cent.

your solar panels contribution to the cut in the release of the gas would do as much as FA, dear Oflife.

David Alexander

Revenge it seems, is a dish best served (global) warm.

maddy1

Ordnance
September 22nd, 2010 10:26pm
@ROTFL - pity it isn't a 100% cut.
I look forward to a Truth and Reconciliation trial in the years ahead when those guilty of the Clinate Change scam get to apologize for their sins.

No way you cannot pin the climate down and can you imagined our corrupt and overreaching Judges gving a fair verdict? Lets start with the immigration debacle nearer to home and very topical!

Bob

This is the OLDEST SCAM KNOWN TO MANKIND and has existed since prehistoric times

Basically an indvidual predicts disaster unless the populace give him money, virgins, blood sacrifices etc

Global warming is just the latest version of this Con Trick

"Give me money and I can control the weather"

These con artists should be arrested and made to give back the millions they have swindled from the populace

Fabian the Fabulous

David Alexander September 23 1:12am
Revenge it seems, is a dish best served (global) warm.
I thing you mean "best served (climate) changed."
Do keep up with the appropriate terminology!

John Levett

Fabian the Fabulous:

Keep up yourself - it's 'climate disruption' today..

DougS

"...cuts of that level to its £3.2bn budget would make it unable to stand alone as a viable entity..."

What a shame, I can hardly stop crying...with laughter.

Surely anything in government with a 'Climate Change' label on it presents a massively target-rich environment (NPI) for cuts - I'd favour them at 100%.

Fabian the Fabulous

John Levett:
Doh! I consider myself suitably disrupted!

Frank P

John Levett

G-L-O-B-A-L ... Climate Disruption (GCD)if you please, sir.

They must have a climate phrase factory at the White House.

sleeping dolls

Bob:

This is the OLDEST SCAM KNOWN TO MANKIND and has existed since prehistoric times

Basically an indvidual predicts disaster unless the populace give him money, virgins, blood sacrifices etc

The War on Terror is just the latest version of this Con Trick

"Give me money and a couple of wars and I can defeat terrorism"

These con artists should be arrested and made to give back the billions they have swindled from the populace

John Holland

It's good to see that not one self-satisfied post on this site even bothers to make an attempt at any scientific knowledge whatsoever. With the possible exception of Baron's "4% drop in the carbon aggregate", which, devoid of context or interpretation means precisely nothing. It's like saying "this chemical isn't dangerous because it only comprises 4% of the total content".
When did the Right become so scientificaly illiterate? (With the exception of Lord Monckton, obviously, who tells us he's found a cure for the common cold and, happily, cancer) Similarly, all those 'Intellegent Design' fans who's theory can roughly be summed up as "I don't understand the complexities of evolution, and I can't be bothered to find out, so it's probably not true. Furthermore, anyone who does study it must be a fraud or a nasty swot."
The problem is, there is a physical world out there that is not defined or circumscribed by the proud scientific ignorance and solypsism of those who believe tax is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe.

Dixon

John Holland. That you think AGW narratives to be "scientific" indicates for certain that you know squat about science. I was studying science, the history of science and the philosophy of what constitutes "science" thirty five years ago, when you were either in diapers or as yet unborn. The very fact that we have pointed out the pseuo-scentific natre of AGW narratives a zillion times simply to be ignored every time by some callow fool or othe who imagines a head full of air to be a "scientific" viewpoint merely makes us unwilling to waste our time talking to the likes of such dweebs. So our comments are directed towards each other. Its a private conversation, got it? We dont have to talk as though to those outside our audience. We've done plenty of that, look at archives of these blogs from 2007-2009. We now consider the argument won: when "global warming" is hedged into "climate change" and "clmate change" shrinks into "climate disruption" it is clear that the boldness of the AGW coterie is diminishing. The tide is turning. Watch out, you could be left behind, sequestered on a lonely outcrop of history.

Bob

sleeping dolls

In Prehistory there was no Left undermining mankind's rise towards civilization

BTW Your comment has nothing to do with the subject

Brian O'Connor

John Holland:

First of all, a word of advice: any time someone tells you that "the science is settled", your sh*t detector should go off big time.

There's now ample reason to believe that the science isn't settled about any of the many aspects of GW/CC/CD (or whatever it's now called). I won't hash things out here — you need to do your own homework, and I'd recommend doing so with your mind set to "devil's advocate" mode to see where it gets you.

My personal favorite reason to be skeptical is the recent paper by McShane and Wyner (2010) in the Annals of Applied Statistics. http://tinyurl.com/23pnnew

In this paper, the authors — both of whom are professional academic statisticians — challenge the statistical methodology of certain prominent Climate Experts. (In doing so, they validate much of McIntyre and McKitrick's work.)

MW2010's conclusions are quite devastating to climate science, but the larger point is this: irrespective of whether or not they are correct, the debate (at least in terms of statistical methodology) has now become one which can only be settled by professional statisticians.

So it's no longer: "Climate Experts" vs "all us rubes." Nor can it be "Climate Experts who are not professional statisticians" vs "Professional Statisticians." (The Climate Experts are not authorities on the use of statistics, and therein lies a potentially fatal flaw.)

The most important methodological debate must be between professional statisticians: were the techniques used by the climate scientists appropriate or not?

Until that question is answered, the science simply cannot be "settled." (Caveat: the validation of statistical method is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for "settlement.")

Thanks, Frank P. It's good to be back.

John Holland

Dixon- thanks for the (slightly intemperate) reply.
Firstly though, why are you making irrelevant digs at my supposed youth? It's very flattering, but I hope your evidenceless (and wrong) assumption that I'm not balding and bloodshot isn't a good example of your ability to apply rational and unprejudiced arguments.
I'm more interested, though, in your confidence that you know what science is, or isn't, when the scientific 'establishment', ie the overwhelming majority of published scientific practitioners, do not. You don't say what your experience is in the field of climate study, though if you list the papers you've published it would certainly be useful. I wouln't, as you say, fully understand them, but it would of some use nonetheless.
This would be especially interesting because I have read almost no serious, first-hand scientific studies by anti-AGW meteorologists who gather data and publish the evidence and theoretical constructs behind their conclusions. On the whole, it seems to consist of trying to pick holes in other people's papers, which is of only limited use.
It is, even so, something of a privelige to argue with a senior, if controversial, scientist.
If, however, the intolerant nature of the scientific community means you havn't managed to publish any papers, or held a major post, or, indeed, managed to practice any science at all, I sympathise. I myself have written several novels of profound merit, indeed, importance, only to have them ignored by a cretinous and jealous literary establishment. I'm also an economist.

John Holland

By the way, I was listening to an interesting documentary the other day (admittedly on the Trotskyite BBC) about Russian territorial advances into arctic areas recently made commercially viable for mining and transportation due to the retreat of long-term pack ice and permafrost. The Russian government was very excited by it all.
Luckily, you and I know there is no such thing. What I want to know is, are the Russians deluded idiots, or was the whole thing made up by the BBC who, as we know, are part of this very complex AGW plot? Are the BBC and the Russians in it together?

C.Gee

sleeping dolls:

Surely the "billions will die, the sea will boil, etc." by AGCD is a far stronger example of the con you describe.

From what we are told by the AGCD crowd, continuing to produce C02 is a form of terrorism.

C.Gee

John Holland:

You cock an amusing snook.

The epistemological argument is more subtle than whether AGCD is science and non-AGCD is religion. It is whether AGCD is a science or a social science.

The evidence mounts that it is the latter. As social physics, it can do for science what social justice does for law: corrupt it.

sleeping dolls

Bob: in prehistory we don't know what there was. That's why it is called what it is. In historical times, however, it was indeed the left (certainly the Liberal) who championed "mankind's rise towards civilization".
Back On topic: interesting that the Islamic and Rabbinic tradition notes that Noah, during the last climate change "scare", preached to his neighbours who just laughed at him. I wonder what Noah would think now?

John Holland

Brian O'Connor; I don't really see how the debate now must, or can, be decided between professional statisticians; the numbers cannot be meaningfully divorced from their context and cannot be judged without a profound knowledge of the science underlying them.
This is not to say that scientists are always sufficiently statistically sophisticated (apologies); despite this, the scientific advances of the last few hundred years were achieved, somehow, without the final judgement of a group of people entirely untrained in the subject.
Unfortunately, most posters on this site have achieved a perfect circular system of judgement- if a scientist promotes the AGW theory he is, by definition, a fool or a fraud. If he doesn't, he's a rigourous and brave 'true' scientist, who's ideas and statistics will be unquestioningly quoted. No further study needed.
Of course, the same applies the other way to pinko AGW fans- it's just that they have far more scientists to blindly quote from.
I've said it before on this site; surely it would help clarify the matter if everyone stopped pretending there was a serious scientific framework to their opinions. The opinions come first; the science is, at best, lamely tacked on as an afterthought.
We could start each comment with "I don't (or do) want AGW to be real because....

Brian O'Connor

Frank Holland wrote:

This would be especially interesting because I have read almost no serious, first-hand scientific studies by anti-AGW meteorologists who gather data and publish the evidence and theoretical constructs behind their conclusions. On the whole, it seems to consist of trying to pick holes in other people's papers, which is of only limited use.

WRT "of only limited use." Is there any hypothesis or truth that is of "unlimited use?" As your phrase stands, it is fatuous.

But I think you really meant "of only limited importance." If so, you are absolutely, irretrievably incorrect.

There is absolutely NO obligation for any scientist to propose his own hypothesis when his goal is to test the hypothesis of another.

The falsification of an hypothesis can be a highly important event in and of itself, since it prevents others from wasting effort and resources on dead-ends.

sleeping dolls

CGee: Like you, I appreciated John Holland's post.

But do you really believe social justice corrupts law?

Blimey! I thought it underpinned it! Which makes it a rather strange argument you deploy.

C.Gee

John Holland, September 23rd, 2010 7:12pm:

"This would be especially interesting because I have read almost no serious, first-hand scientific studies by anti-AGW meteorologists who gather data and publish the evidence and theoretical constructs behind their conclusions. On the whole, it seems to consist of trying to pick holes in other people's papers, which is of only limited use."

When you say "almost no" - that means you have read at least one serious, first-hand (not ghost written?) study by anti-AGW meteorologists who gather data and have published the evidence and theoretical constructs behind their conclusions. Did you agree with it? Please cite it. The criteria for acceptability of anti-AGW science are so stringent, that I am delighted to find that there is even one such study.

If you expanded your criteria to include studies by experimental physicists, geologists, oceanographers, biologists, mathematicians, statisticians, environmentalists, earth scientists, astrophysicists as well as meteorologists, you might find more.

I am glad that you did not add the usual "peer-reviewed" as a criterion for publication. Though perhaps that is what you mean by “serious”? As only certain “peer-review” journals have the right kind of serious peers and editorial boards, it is quite hard for first-hand, data-collecting, meteorologists, or other scientists, to publish their evidence, with or without theoretical constructs, or conclusions. Seriousness is often mistake for intolerance. Thankfully, there are many in-earnest, rather than serious, journals which require review and permit holes to be picked in the papers after publication, where you can find anti-AGW science, not to mention the internet, in which the debate on substance - rather than the qualifications of people to make comments - is held to very rigorous standards.

Two points which might make your search for interesting anti-AGW papers more rewarding:

1.Disprovability defines scientific theory. Picking holes in other people’s papers is essential to the scientific endeavor. Picking holes is “only of limited use” to propaganda, or fiction. Where you find hole-pickers, there you find serious scientists.

2.Data can be falsified, suppressed, fudged. Disclosure of collection methods, all the data collected, and the basis for manipulation of the data is essential so that the findings can be repeated and reconstructed. The last thing the data should be is “creative” (tree-ring data), or secret (temperature measurements). There is no scientific reason to privilege data-collectors from scrutiny, just because they get wet or cold.

Derek BLADES

The issues involved here are pretty simple. Is the world getting warmer? And is human activity one of the causes?

The world certainly does seem to be heating up - both the North East and North West passages are opening up and,closer to my home, one has to go ever higher in the French Alps to get some decent skiing.

On the second issue - are we part of the cause - it certainly seems plausible that current levels of CO² emissions could be part of the problem and most of the chemists, physicists and meteorologists who have examined the question seem to agree.

The oil, gas and coal companies are extremely wealthy and wish to deny both propositions. They use all methods - covert and open - to denigrate the scientists and politicians who conclude that it would be a wise precaution to get out of fossil fuels. Interesting to see how many contributors to this blog have been duped. Useful idiots for the oil companies but dangerous fools for the rest of mankind.

Ed

Another post demonstrating Mel's tenuous grasp if science. Andrew Wakefield anyone?

C.Gee

Derek BLADES:

No scientist thinks the issues are simple, least of all the issue of whether the world is getting warmer.

Your politics, on the other hand are simple. Big Oil v. Humanity.

Brian O'Connor

Derek Blades:

The world certainly does seem to be heating up

Compared to what, and for how long? Satellite data or data from ground stations? Is such "heating up" unprecedented or not?

On the second issue - are we part of the cause - it certainly seems plausible that current levels of CO² emissions could be part of the problem

Plausible? That's a pretty low bar. And even if true, how much?

and most of the chemists, physicists and meteorologists who have examined the question seem to agree.

Science is not subject to the democratic process. Steve McIntyre is systematically dismantling the AGW case, piece by piece.

(Caveat: it is not necessary for skeptics, like McIntyre, to propose an alternative "plausible" hypothesis. It is merely necessary for them to show that those whose hypothesis they are examining have failed to meet their burden of proof.)

The oil, gas and coal companies are extremely wealthy and wish to deny both propositions. They use all methods - covert and open - to denigrate the scientists and politicians who conclude that it would be a wise precaution to get out of fossil fuels. Interesting to see how many contributors to this blog have been duped. Useful idiots for the oil companies but dangerous fools for the rest of mankind.

ad hominem and poisoning the well fallacies.

This is not your finest moment, Derek . . .

John Holland

Brian; the name is John, not Frank. It's written at the start of the comment.
The point about the importance of finding flaws in scientific theories is obviously important. This isn't quite what's happening, though.
I wrote a comment earlier that has, I think, been disallowed, but I'll try to make the point again in a way that won't be censored. It is basically that the science in blogs like this one, and on conversely lefty ones, is not really the subject. This is made clear by the almost exact division of belief/non belief in AGW along political lines.
If the science were taken as seriously as people pretend, this would obviously not be the case. No-one disbelieves in the second law of thermo-dynamics because of their political views.
The proposition that climate science is corrupt is obviously necessary if a non- scientist is to maintain a position contrary to those scientists.
So have a situation where climate science, somehow manages to maintain a false ideology- a claim always repeated when scientific claims threaten political or religeous beliefs- eg Catholics refuting the medical establishment on birth control techniques, or anti-evolutionists, or, indeed, Stalinism and genetics.
The converse, that anti-capitalists will leap on AGW with religeous fervour, is obvious.
As I tried to say before, it would be more useful if politically or 'ethically' motivated bloggers would start their posts with the phrase "I don't (do) want AGW to be a fact because......

Richard

John Holland says something important here. Many of the sceptical contributors to this blog are not really interested in being open-minded about the science. If they were, they wouldn't wilfully confuse the fair point that the AGW thesis is questionable with the unwarranted idea that it has been refuted. Brian O'Connor rightly says that we shouldn't accept statements like 'the science is settled'. Presumably he therefore rejects Dixon's statement that 'we now consider the argument won'. Neither side should declare the question settled; that shows a fear of argument. The ethical question this situation poses is what our responsibilities are in relation to an extreme danger that is uncertain.

What intrigues me about this and similar threads is the tone. After all, Melanie's post above isn't about the science at all. She merely seems to want to gloat about a department-closure that, if it happened (my guess is that it won't, since the clash with the previous slogan 'vote blue, go green' would be too blatant) would be symbolic. Where does this desire to gloat and sneer come from? Can't the sceptics find it in themselves to take people's fears seriously and treat them with respect, even though they believe the fears to be unfounded? What is it about environmentalism that people here find so threatening, that they need to gloat and snarl rather than argue respectfully? In America the 'culture wars' have become so bitter that people on both sides seem now to delight in trying to humiliate those who disagree with them. They want to mock and trash whatever is sacred to the other side. Are we going the same way?

Ed

Wonder what Melanie (and other sceptics for that matter) makes of Bjorn Lomberg now?

http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2010/09/interview-gay-climate

Brian O'Connor

Richard writes:

Brian O'Connor rightly says that we shouldn't accept statements like 'the science is settled'. Presumably he therefore rejects Dixon's statement that 'we now consider the argument won'.

I cannot speak for Dixon, but I can tell you what I think.

I don't believe that GW is not happening. I simply don't know because the proponents of GW have failed to make a case that is persuasive to me.

And the more others and I look, the more holes are to be found. I believe GW is no longer accepted as "settled science" as it once was. Quite the contrary. In that sense, the trend certainly is heading in a direction towards more questioning of the assumptions and methodology of GW proponents.

It looks to me that that argument — settled science vs not — is being won, if it hasn't already been won.

John Holland

The point, surely, is not "settled verses non-settled" science- its obvious that most science take a long time to be 'settled'. To some people, a lot never is. Take evolution; one can point to any evidence you like, there will always be some people (including Melanie P) who don't accept it.
The issue is therefore one of risk; the likelyhood of certain scenarios happening, and the costs incured in mitigating or ignoring the results.
It's not enough to say that the science is uncertain- of course it is. Someone mentioned Lomborg- he at least is prepared to make educated judgements about these cost verses probability issues, though not many agree with him.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

Brian; the name is John, not Frank. It's written at the start of the comment.

I apologize. I should have been more attentive.

The point about the importance of finding flaws in scientific theories is obviously important.

It is the very foundation of science. It is science at its best.

This isn't quite what's happening, though.

Actually, that's exactly what's happening. Above, I cited one recent article which challenged the statistics of some GW proponents.

This is made clear by the almost exact division of belief/non belief in AGW along political lines.

I'm not going to speculate on the political proclivities of various GW/skeptics might be. That's an entirely different issue than whether or not GW is sufficiently "settled" to justify remaking the world's economies and political structures.

The motives of advocates or skeptics is of little interest to me.

But what I do care about is the fact that as more and more is revealed about the methodologies and data collection of the AGW advocate-scientists, the more questions I have. I cited this http://tinyurl.com/23pnnew above and I hope you'll take the time to read it. You might do well to note the main point of the comment where the link first appeared: that the GW debate now must include a debate between professional statisticians, with one side supporting Mannian methods and the other criticizing them.

As an aside: are you entirely comfortable with the notion that the science is settled? Have you no absolutely no questions whatsoever? Aren't you just a little skeptical?

If the science were taken as seriously as people pretend, this would obviously not be the case.

This is an irrelevant side issue, as far as I'm concerned. How or why people believe as they do, whether or not they "pretend" etc. is beyond my analytical pay grade.

Brian O'Connor

Richard wrote:

Neither side should declare the question settled; that shows a fear of argument.

I think that's my position: we just don't know if we should be scared to death of GW or not. The evidence that we're about to meet a searing GW armageddon is, IMO, not sufficiently strong to keep me from drifting off to sleep each night.

The ethical question this situation poses is what our responsibilities are in relation to an extreme danger that is uncertain.

Hmmmm . . . I'm not sure I know what an "uncertain extreme danger" might be . . .

If it's uncertain, how can we know that it's any danger at all?

Brian O'Connor

Richard wrote:

What intrigues me about this and similar threads is the tone. After all, Melanie's post above isn't about the science at all. She merely seems to want to gloat about a department-closure that, if it happened (my guess is that it won't, since the clash with the previous slogan 'vote blue, go green' would be too blatant) would be symbolic. Where does this desire to gloat and sneer come from?

I can't and won't attempt to speak for Mel, but I certainly don't think she was gloating or sneering.

I can speak for myself: in recent months, more and more pieces of a puzzle have fallen into place, each leaving me feeling a little more vindicated for having taken a skeptical position early on. This is one such piece: as I posted above, it's a clash between boutique idealism and diamond-hard reality. What once could be enjoyed and rallied to as an expensive indulgence now has gotten chopped.

Can't the sceptics find it in themselves to take people's fears seriously and treat them with respect, even though they believe the fears to be unfounded?

"Respect" is not a default value for any old idea that comes down the pike, much less the emotion of "fear." Respect must be earned on the basis of merit. "Respect" is the highest form of recognition, in my book.

(As an aside, I absolutley hate it when someone says to someone who floats a loopy idea: "I respect your opinion." That's BS. The proper thing to say is: "I think your idea is nuts, but I respect your right to believe as you do.")

In your case, I respect your right to be fearful, but I have yet to see reason to respect the grounds of your fear.

Richard

Brian O'Connor,

It clearly isn't fair to describe AGW as 'any old idea that comes down the pike'. The vast majority of scientists in climate science and closely connected fields subscribe to it. They know more about the subject than we do; that's an elementary point. It does look as if some serious challenges to some - only some -of the evidence for the AGW theory have emerged recently, primarily from McIntyre. These must be permitted to work their way through the scientific process; I think you and I are agreed on that, though we have different intuitions about the likely outcome. But in the meantime, there are no grounds for sneering or derision.

Even Lomberg says that the IPCC report of 2007 was about 90% right. Therefore it isn't unreasonable for anyone to take the threat seriously. It makes sense to be worried. I can't see what is difficult about the notion of an extreme but uncertain danger. The danger may not be real, but there are strong reasons for thinking it could be, and for thinking that if it is real the consequences are likely to be disastrous on a global scale. When Melanie says that 'The cries of distress are particularly gratifying', and so forth, I don't see what you can call that but sneering. Plenty of things frighten her; I don't want those sneered at either.

I'll try to declare myself in the way John Holland suggests, but I can't quite fit into either of his camps. So: I don't want AGW to be real because I don't want my children and future generations to face catastrophic flooding, loss of crops and agricultural land, famines, millions of displaced refugees, loss of biodiversity, and feedback effects making the problem worse - but I think it is irresponsible to ignore the warnings of most of the experts, even though I hope the sceptics are right.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

The point, surely, is not "settled verses non-settled" science- its obvious that most science take a long time to be 'settled'.

Actually, the debate over the past decade has been precisely this.

Government policy — not to mention UN policy — is even now being crafted as if the question of GW is settled science.

We've been told by both on numerous occasions that if we don't implement a myriad of regulations and laws, millions of people will die from starvation, flooding, hurricanes, tornados, diseases, etc. and the globe will be damaged beyond recovery.

Those with the temerity to question have been called rubes, tools of the oil industry and demonized on quite a large scale. Those who've tried to publish in scientific journals have been impeded from doing so. We've been called deniers and likened to the nut cases who deny the Holocaust.

Now I ask you this: If there were a deliberate attempt to intimidate skeptics into remaining mum, leaving the field to the "it's settled science" group, what would have been a better strategy?

As I see it, the problem is this: by admitting that the science is not settled, by admitting that the Mannian statistical methods are fatally flawed (for example) the fierce moral urgency to radically change the world's political and economic systems RIGHT NOW evaporates. The rationale for action is gone.

To some people, a lot never is. Take evolution; one can point to any evidence you like, there will always be some people (including Melanie P) who don't accept it.

Irrelevant.

The issue is therefore one of risk; the likelyhood of certain scenarios happening, and the costs incured in mitigating or ignoring the results.

And if the issues are not settled, how do we establish likelyhood? (You might wish to refresh your familiarity with the Drake equation, and Michael Crichton's analysis of it here: http://tinyurl.com/32wsbzu )

It's not enough to say that the science is uncertain- of course it is.

Actually, it most certainly is enough. Or, it certainly should be.

If the science is not settled, the rationale for the myriad of changes in investment patterns, green subsidies, burdensome regulations and laws etc. evaporates.

Someone mentioned Lomborg- he at least is prepared to make educated judgements about these cost verses probability issues, though not many agree with him.

Again, I ask you: how do you determine probability when the facts to be used in a "probability formula" are themselves in dispute? (Think Drake equation.)

Baron

I’ve finished reading the ‘Hockey Stick Illusion’ by AW Montford few days back. A must read for anyone who remains unconvinced that the case for AGW amounts to probably the biggest con ever. And that’s if only half of the Montford’s story’s correct.

how could anyone fall for this crap beggars belief.

the whole premise of the theory that gave us the stick is based on an erroneous hypothesis that both the width and the density of tree rings reflect climatic temperatures. That’s bollocks.

you meet a gardener next time ask him this question: in which year will a tree grow more, one that’s very hot and dry, or one that’s not that hot but wet?

the exclusion of precipitation from the exercise (no proxy available, I guess) meant that no modelling could ever yield anything but trash.

Baron

John Holland writes: ‘With the possible exception of Baron's "4% drop in the carbon aggregate", which, devoid of context or interpretation means precisely nothing. It's like saying "this chemical isn't dangerous because it only comprises 4% of the total content".

what interpretation or context would you like me to provide in a simple statement then? Should I have spelt every letter of the words I used or what?

look, around 96% of the discharge of CO2 from this planet has bugger all to do with us, humans. Every bit of an organic matter that dies releases it, there a lot of dead organic matter around.

it has been thus since cell replication occurred on earth, living cells died and released CO2 together with volcanoes and stuff in times so sumptuously that the CO2 levels were up to ten times what they are today. Life kept on evolving though to the point of homo sapiens who are supposed to have appeared during the Paleolithic period some 400,000-250,000 years ago. You follow so far?

within the life span of the human species the CO2 air density and temperatures have fluctuated widely, too. Greenland was once green, then covered by ice sheets, now it’s greening again, yet humans are still here, kicking and arguing.

even the proponents of the AGW theory are now beginning to accept that during the medieval warming period temperatures may have been as high or even higher than now. Yet CO2 density in the atmosphere stood at around half of what it is today?

you capable of figuring the significance of this statement or find it taken out of context again?

what then engendered the high temperatures in roughly 1,000- 1400 AD when the car mad Yanks, the entrepreneurial Chinese weren’t around to ‘pollute’ the air with CO2, ha?

Brian O'Connor

Richard wrote:

It clearly isn't fair to describe AGW as 'any old idea that comes down the pike'.

I respectfully disagree.

What might have appeared as a reasonable concern 15 years ago evolved into something quite different, and the evolution was hardly subtle.

Scientists became advocates, started talked about the science being settled and the time for massive political action being NOW; these self same scientist-advocates demonized their opponents and withheld their own data and computer code from skeptics; when they tried to intimidate journal editors into not accepting the work of skeptics . . . With all that, their cause became garden variety flimflam.

This evolution has been obvious for the past 7-8 years, and AGW would have disassembled itself much sooner if the media were a tad more even-handed.

The vast majority of scientists in climate science and closely connected fields subscribe to it. They know more about the subject than we do; that's an elementary point.

Once again: science is not subject to the democratic process. You can't vote on what is true: the one guy who gets it right trumps the thousands who got it wrong. Period.

Scientists are not infallible or immune from peer pressure, nor are they impervious to the appeals of increased prestige, influence, grant money, salary, adulation, herd-mentality etc.

None of what I've seen in the last decade of GW debate is new: If you familiarize yourself with Crichton's Aliens Cause Global Warming, I believe you will find history repeating itself. http://tinyurl.com/32wsbzu

. . .But in the meantime, there are no grounds for sneering or derision.

I have neither sneered nor derided you. Nor is Mel's post either sneering or derisive. At least IMO. I will say that I feel vindicated, if not triumphant. I will also remind you that Mel and other hi-profile people sharing our beliefs have been vilified and demonized in public to an extent few of us can imagine.

If you choose to self-identify and pronounce yourself wounded by her words, all I can tell you is you should man-up. You're getting off really easy.

Even Lomberg says that the IPCC report of 2007 was about 90% right.

Irrelevant for all the reasons I've already mentioned. I'd also point out that Lomborg finds combatting GW to give a poor return for investment.

Therefore it isn't unreasonable for anyone to take the threat seriously. It makes sense to be worried. I can't see what is difficult about the notion of an extreme but uncertain danger. The danger may not be real, but there are strong reasons for thinking it could be, and for thinking that if it is real the consequences are likely to be disastrous on a global scale.

Your fear is irrational.

Look. There are equally strong reasons for thinking that "the GW danger" is not real, and for thinking that action taken to prevent (unreal) GW would cause catastrophic damage to the world's economic and political systems in ways far more devastating than what GW might visit on Ma Earth. Why not fear that?

I don't want AGW to be real because I don't want my children and future generations to face catastrophic flooding, loss of crops and agricultural land, famines, millions of displaced refugees, loss of biodiversity, and feedback effects making the problem worse - but I think it is irresponsible to ignore the warnings of most of the experts, even though I hope the sceptics are right.

"Most of the experts" have been incorrect in the past on any number of different subjects (cf Crichton), with the cost in human lives being, in some cases, unbelievably high.

Baron

Brian O’Connor @ 11.25:

a short, but one of the best repudiation of some of the aspects of the ‘settled science’ of the meretricious AGW creed I’ve come across, and I’ve travelled a lot on this issue. You’re a star, sir.

what you say about the process, people involved, trickery and stuff sits well with the guidance on matters scientific informed by the definition of science by Sir Thomas Huxley: Science is common sense at its best. Rigid accuracy in observation; and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Brian O'Connor

Baron wrote:

I’ve finished reading the ‘Hockey Stick Illusion’ by AW Montford few days back. A must read for anyone who remains unconvinced that the case for AGW amounts to probably the biggest con ever. And that’s if only half of the Montford’s story’s correct. & etc.

Amen. I'm reading it for the second time.

Personally, I think Steve McIntyre should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Richard

Brian O'Connor,

I wouldn't deny that a scientific consensus can be wrong. Your argument seems to be that it is always wrong, or inherently likely to be wrong because it is a consensus.

What is a non-expert to do? Always reject the established majority scientific view?

I am trying to be as open-minded as I can about this - to find a path through it that leaves both possibilities open. I don't like the macho rhetoric of 'man-up', but if we're going to think in those terms, a willingness to face the implications of both possibilities seems braver to me than staying in the comfort-zone of a fabricated certainty that merely cheers one side against the other - my side deserves Nobel prizes and has suffered nobly, while yours is nothing but bad faith, self-interest, scam and deception. Don't you think there are people of good faith and expert intelligence on both sides of this question?

There are indeed great risks involved in taking measures to try to avert global warming (not that there is much sign of such measures being taken). The challenge is to acknowledge the risks of action and of inaction, and to look for ways of acting that take account of both. That's why this is such a difficult subject, politically and ethically, and why partisanship, one-sided accusations and sneering are so inappropriate to it.

Stephen Green

All this fuss creats more jobs for the boys. Cut through the bureaucracy. Reduce the civil service, including Quango Land and at all levels, by 40% by drawing lots as to who is to go.
Result balanced budgets and nobody will no the diference so far as the quality of service is concerned

John Holland

Baron- thanks for the short explanation of life on earth. Now I know.
My point was that in a relatively stable system, saying an additional 4%, or maybe 2% after natural absorption, is 'very small', isn't a very meaningful statement. You wouldn't apply it to running a bath.
That's a small quibble, though. The problem I'm trying to point out, though, never quite gets through. Whatever Brian O'Conner claims, the politics and the psychology of the global warming 'debate' are not just relevant, but fundamental.
As I said, by and large, belief for or against AGW divides remarkably neatly down political lines. This site is essentially right-wing. This site is also, overwhelmingly, certain that AGW is bunk. Go to a New Society blog and see the reverse. This correlation may not prove the science used by either group is wrong- but by pretending it's irrelevant, one is left with a huge mass of partial, misunderstood and disingenuous statistics with no insight into the subjective reasoning behind them.
Essentially, the belief systems boil down to this; the left bases its faith in the fact that a strong majority of establishment scientists concurs with AGW theory. This is a fact if you go by published views. The right says, the scientific establishment is either dishonest or inept- papers published is a meaningless yardstick because 'good' science is a self-defining closed shop.
Truth is to be found in the work of outsiders, including thriller writers.
Both sides are then free to throw fruit, in the form of arbitrary statistics, at each other, and work themselves up into a self-satisfied lather.
This is why my point about Melanie P's opinion of evolution is not "irrelevant". It's exactly the same methodology- few people would seriously claim that religious believers of creationism or intelligent design came to that view through a disinterested and detailed study of the scientific evidence. Even if their views are correct, they came first from their faith, not vice-versa.
In objective terms, it's pretty
random as to what constitutes important evidence- Brian O'Conner refers to the economic situation as "diamond-hard evidence". No it's not; it's a human construct, economic, political and psychological. A rock falling on your head is diamond hard evidence.
To take a better example; last winter was, by the standards of the last thirty years, cold, at least in some northern temperate areas. This site was full of jubilant posts declaring this as yet more evidence that global warming was a scam. This year, summer across much of Europe and northern Asia has been record-breakingly hot, harvests have fallen and new Arctic shipping routes have opened up. Not one mention of this by any of the 'sceptics' on this blog. Obviously, by themselves, neither of these events prove or disprove anything, it's just useful to note what evidence is considered relevant.
One more example; Baron says Richard should "man-up" if he's feeling disrespected (by the way, I love Baron's street-hard language- man-up, you capable of figuring?, ha! etc.). He then sympathises with terrible oppression and victimisation of anyone who stands against the totalitarian forces of pseudo-science. Again, the fact that prominent supporters of AGW often get death threats is off message. Why? (Unconnected, but Baron's assertion that science is common sense is simply not true, though it might seem so in retrospect. Much new science is odd precisely because it goes against 'common sense').
So the evidence can come from any source, as long as it supports the essential gut feeling. Al Gore, Lord Monckton or Crichton, who some people seem to regard as the leading scientist of our time. Did anyone ask Conan Doyle what he thought of electro-magnetism? I'm sure he had an opinion. And then, for Brian, it's enough that doubt is exposed to conclude that the argument is done. But does anyone work like this in their own lives? If there is doubt that I will crash my motorbike, do I conclude from that that I am safe to drive the wrong way down a road at 100 with no crash helmet? Only if I'm an idiot. I judge what I think the risks and probabilities actually are, and act accordingly. Usually.
Everyone loves to define themselves as clear-eyed rationalists surrounded by dupes and bigots. So we could have a competition- try to find ONE person who's belief or otherwise in man-made global-warming goes directly against the grain of their basic political instincts; someone who's open and rational study of the science has resulted in a fundamental rethink. The prize could be a leather-bound copy of The Collected Wisdom And Scientific Breakthroughs Of Lord Monckton.

Brian O'Connor

Richard wrote:

I wouldn't deny that a scientific consensus can be wrong. Your argument seems to be that it is always wrong, or inherently likely to be wrong because it is a consensus.

My argument is not that consensus is always wrong, nor has that ever been my position. But when I'm told that we have to act radically now to change the world's economic and political structures because "scientific consensus" says the world will suffer catastrophically because of human caused GW, I become very, very skeptical.

What is a non-expert to do? Always reject the established majority scientific view?

Well, in the case of GW, you can read the "other side" and decide whether or not the science is "settled" or not. I would highly recommend starting with A. W. Montford's book "The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science."

It's very readable and will introduce you to some of the controversies between AGW proponents and, in particular, Steve McIntyre. Now, there are probably some errors in the book, but what struck me especially was how thoroughly Montford documented McIntyre's attempts to reconcile what he was seeing with what the Hockey Team saw, the problems McIntyre has had getting a peek at the Team's code and raw data, the kinds of issues he ran into trying to publish his work, etc.

Montford's book is either a whopping lie or it's not. My sense is that it is not, but you should make up your own mind.

You might also read McIntyre's blog Climate Audit at http://climateaudit.org/ . You probably won't understand everything that's written there (I sure don't), but what is readily apparent is the care, the detail and the precision of what's posted.

The comments are excellent too: there are a lot of very smart, highly trained people who contribute ideas and criticisms, and there's precious little snark.

Remember — the only big issue is whether or not the science is settled. If yes, take radical action and accept the enormous economic and political consequences (benefits for some, liabilities for others). If not, don't act, which carries with it a different set of costs/benefits, and different winners and losers.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

Baron- thanks for the short explanation of life on earth. . . . BIG snip . . . Of Lord Monckton.

Too many words all clumped together.

Oh . . . and it is "Brian O'Connor", not "Brian O'Conner." It's written at the start of all my comments.

Richard

Brian O'Connor,

As far as my primitive grasp of the statistical methods permitted, I've followed McIntyre's critique of the 'hockey stick' over the past year or so, prompted to do so by my arguments with people on this blog (which is why talking to people of differing views is valuable, and I hope Dixon, for whom I'm beginning to feel a perverse fondness, doesn't really mean that people inclined to accept AGW should keep away from this blog - I've learned from it, and found genuine debate here as well as knee-jerk taunting from both sides). I haven't read the Montford book you recommend, but I have read The Climate Files by Fred Pearce, which seems to me to be striving for an even-handed account of the controversy. He is very critical of the CRU scientists over their refusals to release data and general culture of defensiveness, while acknowledging also that there has been a lot of deliberate misinformation from the sceptical side. This tends to confirm the picture John Holland paints (and surely his post deserves a serious response).

Pearce says that 'upwards of a dozen studies, using different statistical techniques or different combinations of proxy records have have produced reconstructions broadly similar to the original hockey stick', and that 'whatever the reliability of the tree rings, other proxies that do not rely on trees show much the same(...) [such as] studies of the water in hundreds of wells and deep boreholes in all six continents' (100-101). In other words, McIntyre's critique, though it raises serious doubts about specific uses of tree ring data, is smaller in the whole scheme of things than you are suggesting. McIntyre himself acknowledges this. Pearce quotes this recent statement from your Nobel nominee:

'While there is much to criticise in the handling of this [Yamal] data, the results do not in any way show that AGW is a 'fraud', nor that this particular study was a 'fraud'. There are many serious scientists who are honestly concerned about AGW..' (61). McIntyre dissociates himself from the accusations of 'fraud' and 'scam' thrown out so freely by the sceptics, and has said publicly that if he were in power he would be concerned about AGW and want to take precautionary steps. McIntyre is cited a lot here, but not these statements - which, again, confirms John Holland's observations.

All I'm asking for (apart from courtesy, which is a different thing from PC 'respect') is a more balanced picture, and a willingness to consider a wider spectrum of options than the two polarised ones - do nothing at all or take steps that ruin people's lives by foregoing all economic growth - that you present. Are there precautionary measures that would not be economically damaging on such a scale as to rival the catastrophe that seems likely - though not certain - if we do nothing? That's the serious question.

Brian O'Connor

Richard.

All I'm asking for (apart from courtesy, which is a different thing from PC 'respect') is a more balanced picture, and a willingness to consider a wider spectrum of options than the two polarised ones - do nothing at all or take steps that ruin people's lives by foregoing all economic growth - that you present. Are there precautionary measures that would not be economically damaging on such a scale as to rival the catastrophe that seems likely - though not certain - if we do nothing? That's the serious question.

Sorry. But I disagree.

The primary question is whether or not the science is settled on AGW.

Look â” we've been told for the better part of a decade that if we don't make radical changes in our energy consumption NOW the world will pass a tipping point and we'll destroy it by AGW.

That's the primary question: is the science settled enough to support such drastic action?

I think not.

So I'm absolutely opposed to radically changing the world's economic and political systems to protect us from AGW until such time as the evidence supporting AGW is far more compelling than it is.

I hope you are too.

That does NOT mean I'm for the status quo wrt energy use or that I'm not, within reason, protective of the environment.

John Holland

Brian O'Connor- fair point about the spelling mistake, very sloppy.
Sorry there were too many words and not enough spaces, too.
The point I'm still trying to make, though, remains unanswered whichever side I put it to.
"Montford's book is either a whopping lie or it's not. My sense is it's not", i.e., the others ARE a whopping lie. Funny, that. Could have gone either way, I guess.

C.Gee

Richard:

"Are there precautionary measures that would not be economically damaging on such a scale as to rival the catastrophe that seems likely - though not certain - if we do nothing? That's the serious question."

No. The "precautionary measures" - controlling CO2 - even if draconian, have a zero probability of preventing climate change, bending change in the any direction, or postponing or lessening the impact of catastrophic weather events.

"Catastrophe" is not a predicted Sudden Really Big Global Flood, Sudden Really Big Global Drought, Sudden Really Big All-Ocean Boiling, Sudden Atmosphere Reversion to Conditions of a Billion Years Ago, despite what the popular imagination believes, thanks to Al Gore and his special effects. Even those who investigate (theoretically) irreversible "tipping points" see the point of inflexion as occurring over a long stretches of time . No, the "catastrophe" breaks down to several separate impacts: coastal floods increasing in frequency and intensity, sinking of islands and estuaries, agricultural disaster, starvation, dislocation, death, loss of animal life.

So far, AGW- modeled predictions of hurricanes have not been accurate. The Maldives are still afloat; the Bangladeshi estuary wetlands are still seasonally wetter or dryer. If we look at the specific localities - not the whole planet - experience tells us are most likely to flood, the more feasible risk and mitigation analysis is, when undertaken by the people who are likely to be impacted.

People could move away from threatened coasts; economies could be shifted away from primitive monsoon-dependent agriculture; harmful land use practices could be changed. All of this could happen most efficiently were the market allowed to provide the incentives for change. The market is far less cruel in evolving cultural change and improving entrenched economic practices than government coercion.

The AGW proponents do not want to allow the market's or nature's incentives to do their job. Too slow. Not fair. They believe that governments should step in. So rather than schedule an increasingly bothersome (to some) climate over an indefinite time in the next century or so (giving time for their predictions to prove themselves), the impression is given ("last decade has six of hottest years on record!", "the polar bear is threatened", "coral is dying") that we are accelerating to a tipping point within the lifetime of our grandchildren, unless we set up an economic centcom pronto.

As a well-respected climate scientist remarked:

“We’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have." Professor Schneider, Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University and a lead author on the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He is not alone in his precautionary zealotry. The "consensus" of AGW climate scientists (whether they describe their fields as "Global Change" or not) shares it.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

The point I'm still trying to make, though, remains unanswered whichever side I put it to.

"Montford's book is either a whopping lie or it's not. My sense is it's not", i.e., the others ARE a whopping lie. Funny, that. Could have gone either way, I guess.

I can simplify this entire conversation — or start to, anyhow.

Do you believe that the world should radically change its political and economic institutions to save itself from AGW . . . because the science of GW is settled?

(And now, I will echo Baron: If half of what Montford says is true, then GW- and AGW-science is not settled.)

Brian O'Connor

C. Gee wrote:

“We’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have." Professor Schneider, Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University and a lead author on the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This is, of course, advocacy science. Professor Schneider has reached a conclusion and wishes to direct public policy in a particular direction through the use of simplified statements, dramatic statements and while suppressing questions that might thwart progress towards his goal.

IMO, this is nothing more than propaganda, promulgated by someone who's perfectly happy to misuse his authority and position to achieve his aims.

Ultimately, this will have a horrible impact on scientists and the scientific enterprise. If we can't trust our scientists to be impartial and objective, of what use are they?

John Holland

Brian O'Connor- Surely it's not as simple as determining whether the science is settled, then, if you think it's not, doing nothing.

Rational action is taken all the time based on probable, or even possible, risks. People don't generally refuse to take out house insurance because there is no absolute proof their house will burn down.
They will decide not to insure the property if they think its value, multiplied by the chance of it being destroyed, is too low to justify the premium. But that's a pretty difficult and imprecise calculation.

So people's attitude to the threat of climate change hinges on both a vague impression of the probability, which if we are honest, we are quite irrational about judging, and the personal value attached to the things at risk. Like I've said, the latter usually strongly defines the former.

If you say no action at all need be taken if there is no absolute consensus, then you must value the things said to be under threat pretty low, otherwise your position would surely be excessively reckless.
If your child was in some risk of being hit by a car, you'd endanger yourself to intervene, you wouln't wait for proof or near certainty. If it was a cat, you wouldn't.

Personaly, for whatever psycological and biographical reasons, I 'believe' preserving what is possible of the ecosystem we have inherited is overwhelmingly important; I think to fundamentally damage it would be the most qrotesquely hubristic and literaly self-defeating act we could perpetrate. I believe rapid global climate change in a world where systems can no longer move to follow climate fluctuations would be profoundly, and potentially even catastrophically destructive. Even high-tech agriculture needs climactic stability to function.
To me, risking this because there is no complete consensus to justify cutting our GDP would be, erm, unwise.

But then,these bleeding-heart blatherings are value judgements as much as anything, so if someone doesn't share them, there's not really any argument to say they should.
You could see it just as an interesting experiment.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

To me, risking this because there is no complete consensus to justify cutting our GDP would be, erm, unwise.

I respect your right to believe whatever you choose, but I do not respect what you have chosen to believe.

The evidence in favor of AGW continues to weaken as the data and methods used by climate scientist-advocates become more closely examined. Even now, it does not support your fear.

But be afraid if you must.

Have you ever read the paper "How to sell a Pseudoscience" by Anthony Pratkanis?

Lubos links it to AGW and summarizes it here: http://tinyurl.com/2axrcyd

The full article is here: http://tinyurl.com/2v5jw

It's an easy read.

I'm not sure why you chose to present yourself as one who cares deeply for the environment unless it was to separate your environmental virtue from my environmental depravity.

In truth, the fact that I am agnostic about GW and AGW does not mean that I don't care every bit as much about the environment as you do.

Finally, I'm tempted to suggest you read Montford, but if your decision to be fearful irrespective of the strength or weakness of the GW case is as deeply-rooted as I suspect, it would not be worth your time.

Richard

Brian O'Connor,

You wrote:

'So I'm absolutely opposed to radically changing the world's economic and political systems to protect us from AGW until such time as the evidence supporting AGW is far more compelling than it is.

I hope you are too.

That does NOT mean I'm for the status quo wrt energy use or that I'm not, within reason, protective of the environment.'

The difference between our positions is that I do think the scientific case as it now stands, even though it is not 'settled', means that we ought to be doing a great deal more about this, on the precautionary principle and because of our ethical responsibility to children and future generations. Whether that would mean 'radically changing the world's economic and political systems', I'm not sure. It depends what you mean by that? Would providing strong tax incentives and other financial support for insulating buildings and other energy-saving measures amount to such a radical change of system? Would increased public investment in renewables and, perhaps as an interim measure, nuclear power? Would carbon-rationing? Would a tax policy to discourage food-miles and frequent air travel? I can't see any of these measures as categorically different from others that have been implemented at different times in the last century, for different reasons, under broadly the same global and economic systems as we have now.

So I'm not sure how great the distance between us is, in principle. You aren't in favour of action that would radically change the political and economic systems, but you say that you are in favour of changes in energy policy and of some degree of environmental protection. Our debate, then, would be about the extent to which the political and economic change brought about by an environmental policy would be too high a price to pay for the environmental benefit. Such debates would be technical and pragmatic, and would involve careful weighing of each measure rather than a single, blanket attitude to all environmental protection.

Aren't these economic and political systems constantly changing anyway? Resources become scarcer and more expensive, new technologies appear, new economic powers emerge, old ones decline. Aren't these systems just as unsettled as you think the science is? The question is how we should respond to changes as they come.

C.Gee

John Holland:

Your insurance analogy (like your mad motor-cyclist analogy) for taking “precautionary measures” is misplaced. The risks of fire are well-understood by actuaries and the premium reflects it. The house-owner decides whether the insurance money paid out in case of fire will be more than the cost of premiums (invested), not whether the house and contents are too valuable to risk losing in a fire. The point is that insurance offers protection against the costs of fire, it does not prevent fire. If you prize your stuff so highly that you cannot put a monetary value on the destruction, insurance is pointless. Insurance protects your wallet, not the valuable stuff.

AGW activists, on the other hand, are claiming that they can protect the valuable stuff (at a huge cost to your wallet). They are not offering insurance upon actuarial assessment of risk. They are offering salvation in the form of a magic thermostat. Limiting CO2 output, they argue, will allow the atmosphere to return to the (estimated) ppm levels of CO2 at some arbitrary pre-industrial date. This will prevent - or even more absurdly, turn back - runaway warming, whose effects, bad or good, are unspecified and unquantified. The probability of success of the thermostat is unknowable on current science, even “consensus” science, but it is very, very, close to zero. The prudent man has no way of performing a calculation as to whether purchase of this precautionary thermostat will be worth the costs.

On the other hand, prudent men in the past have sacrificed lambs - and human beings - without understanding probabilities, as a precaution against natural or man-made disaster. And so the argument shifts as to what is rational prudence and what is placatory superstition. This, too, is probably correlated with political views.

Brian O'Connor

Richard wrote:

The difference between our positions is that I do think the scientific case as it now stands, even though it is not 'settled', means that we ought to be doing a great deal more about this, on the precautionary principle and because of our ethical responsibility to children and future generations.

I'm not a big fan of the precautionary principle, especially as it relates to AGW. It includes too many assumptions. For example, that GW is happening, and that it is unprecedented (was there a Medieval Warm Period?); that humans are responsible for it, if it is happening now, and that humans can control it even if they aren't causing it; that the net negatives of GW outweigh the positives; that the "cure" for GW will be better than the "disease" of GW.

The precautionary principle wrt GW is what's invoked when the evidence isn't compelling: "Well" we're told "IF it should happen, the world won't be able to recover. Millions will die because of flooding, the spread of disease, hurricanes, starvation, etc. So we have to act NOW because the consequences will be so terrible IF our predictions are right."

WRT GW, the "precautionary principle" is a transparent "Appeal to Emotion." http://tinyurl.com/4kgog9 Going hand in hand with that principle has been the decade long demonization of those who question GW. What I've seen in the past decade is a pull-out-all-stops by AGW proponents to get their way: 1) The science is settled and we have to avert worldwide catastrophy before it's too late; 2) Even if there might be some questions about whether or not AGW is happening, prudence dictates that we follow the precautionary principle against the possibility that is a certainty; 3) Besides, all those who argue with us are rubes or on the pay of the big oil companies.

My crap detector goes off when I see scientist-activists about to stampede the body politic into action by appeals to emotion or demagoguery. I've seen it before (Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb," Carlson's "The Silent Spring").

The world should debate exactly the kinds of things you brought up in your post. But Global Warming should not be a rationale for making policy decisions until the evidence for GW is reasonably solid. At least IMO.

Richard

Brian O'Connor,

But all these arguments also apply to the proposal that we should take no measures to avert global warming. Inaction too is a policy, a moral choice and a gamble. It too makes large assumptions: that global warming isn't happening, that it isn't anthropogenic, that we can do nothing to control it, that the consequences if it is happening will be mild or manageable or less terrible than the consequences of action, and that action will bring political and economic changes that will otherwise be entirely negative. Sceptics too abuse their opponents and question their honesty and motives (you only have to read any climate change thread on this blog to see that). 'It's over' is just the same as 'the science is settled'. 'You're an oil-industry stooge' is the same as 'you're building up this case in order to advance your career and get research funding' (both may sometimes be true). There's a lot of tit for tat in all this.

Both sides of this argument are emotional - you can't divide this neatly into reason versus emotion. And the question of the desirable role of emotion is difficult. Emotion shouldn't displace reason, but it would be odd not to feel strong emotions about such dangers and uncertainties, wouldn't it? No one is free from emotion, or would want to be, though some display it more than others, or differently. 'Don't be emotional' has a pretty dishonourable history as a rhetorical device - though there is certainly such a thing as a dishonest or manipulative appeal to emotion.

John Holland

Brian O'Connor- It's late, so just a couple of responses-
a) I don't think your description of yourself as a AGW "agnostic" is reasonable- I don't either of us could fairly be described as agnostic.

b) I don't think ,either, that there was anything hysterical or demagogic about Carlson's 'Silent Spring'. It was influential in the banning of DDT, an appallingly destructive chemical that was very indiscriminately used at the time, and its warnings of the crash in animal populations, particularly songbirds (compare the relative 'silence' now compared even to twenty years ago), was only too prescient. If you think that was nonsense, I wouldn't call you environmentally depraved, but I would think you're probably not that concerned. Which is your choice.
I will follow your links when I have time- thanks.

John Holland

Richard- yes, well put.
C. Gee- I don't think there is a genuine case for saying with confidence that the chances of a cap on carbon emmissions slowing warming is "close to zero". And I'm not aware of any reputable scientist claiming that these measures will reverse any changes.

Comparing the admittedly uncertain science (because it pertains to a, in human terms, unpresedented future scenario) to making burnt offerings is utterly disengenuous. It's a reducto ad absurdum that gets us nowhere.
Brian O'Connor- apologies, you were talking to Richard.

Brian O'Connor

John Holland wrote:

a) I don't think your description of yourself as a AGW "agnostic" is reasonable- I don't either of us could fairly be described as agnostic.

If the evidence for AGW is unpersuasive and becoming weaker every day, what is unreasonable about me saying that I don't know whether or not AGW is real?

I can't prove that it's not real (how do you prove a negative?), and I'm wide open to the possibility that it is.

Sorry if that's unsatisfying, but there you have it.

b) I don't think ,either, that there was anything hysterical or demagogic about Carlson's 'Silent Spring'. It was influential in the banning of DDT, an appallingly destructive chemical that was very indiscriminately used at the time, and its warnings of the crash in animal populations, particularly songbirds (compare the relative 'silence' now compared even to twenty years ago), was only too prescient. If you think that was nonsense, I wouldn't call you environmentally depraved, but I would think you're probably not that concerned. Which is your choice.

Well, that's certainly one part of the equation . . . the dark side of DDT.

On the other hand, with the worldwide ban on DDT, an estimated 880,000 people die in sub-Saharan Africa each year from mosquito borne Malaria, in spite of the use of other, less effective insecticides. (Over 20 years, that amounts to roughly 17.5 million human deaths.)

I'm not suggesting that DDT would have prevented all those deaths, but I will point out that it was largely responsible for eradicating Malaria in many countries before it was banned (and typhus, too). So I suspect its use would have cut that death toll dramatically.

There are, of course, other countries in which Malaria is a killer.

I guess the question I have is this: how many human lives are we prepared to pay for the pleasures of listening to song birds? If DDT cut the mortality to, say, a mere 750,000 per year (DDT use saved 130,000 lives per year), would that be too high a price to pay?

(Here's a Univ. Chicago 2007 review paper (PDF) on DDT: http://tinyurl.com/36pk3lj )

C.Gee

John Holland:

"I don't think there is a genuine case for saying with confidence that the chances of a cap on carbon emmissions slowing warming is "close to zero". And I'm not aware of any reputable scientist claiming that these measures will reverse any changes."

A genuine case to be made with confidence? Look at the IPCC reports. Does its case become "genuine" when the authors -reputable scientists or government appointees - assess their confidence levels at 95% (or some Big Percentage)? How are these confidence levels arrived at? They are no more than an announcement by the authors that they are almost sure their conclusions are right. This may be assumed.

Confidence is for tricksters. Genuineness is not a qualification with any meaning for a scientific case. Please refer me to any reputable scientist who has assessed the probability of success in reducing the rate of warming through reduction of carbon emissions and at what percentage above zero is that probability? (Not confidence levels, probability).

My point in any case was that the probability of success is unknowable - not able to be assessed meaningfully. The chances of coincidental occurrence of reduced rate of warming (and there is a very wide band of predicted rates based on temperature measurements whether manipulated to show hockey sticks or not) and decreased carbon dioxide emissions are far greater than the predictability of emissions reduced by any given amount (up to 100% from a given year) having a direct measurable effect on climate trend shifts. "It would be far worse if we do nothing", is a policy rationale not a scientific prediction.

I do not count AGW activists - economists, politicians, spokespeople, green advocates, choice architects - as scientists. I accused AGW activists - not "reputable"scientists - as claiming that control of carbon emissions can be reversed or slowed. But I also doubt that reputable scientists can claim that reduced carbon emissions will effect climate trends. If they do, they have probably stepped over into activism.

I note that Hansen has taken to street protesting - and was arrested.

Derek BLADES

Brian O'Connor puts great store by the McShane and Wyner article. Their article is about the statistics on global temperatures and it does not say whether global warming (which they believe to be happening) is or is not due to human activity.

McShane and Wyner describe their findings as follows: "We propose our own reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere average annual land temperature over the last millenium, assess its reliability, and compare it to those from the climate science literature. Our model provides a similar reconstruction but has much wider standard errors, reflecting the weak signal and large uncertainty encountered in this setting." In other words, they confirm that global temperatures have risen sharply since the beginning of the 20th century and they are only arguing about the size of the error margins around the estimates of temperatures in the more distant periods. Their article is hardly the killer punch that Mr. O’Connor would have us believe.

A more important point is this. Statisticians are good at designing experiments and interpreting the results when those experiments have been carried out. But that is not what they are doing when it comes to the evidence for global warming. That evidence comes in many shapes and sizes and none of it was collected according to the mathematical rules that enable statisticians to interpret the results of experiments better than other people. When it comes to looking at the long term data on global warming of the kind that is currently available, statisticians are no better qualified than any other group of experts.