Awkward

My experience as I have followed the global warming debate is similar to the experiences of Ross McIntrick, who writes:
"I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. The surface temperature data is a contaminated mess with a significant warm bias, and as I have detailed elsewhere the IPCC fabricated evidence in its 2007 report to cover up the problem. Climate models are in gross disagreement with observations, and the discrepancy is growing with each passing year. The often-hyped claim that the modern climate has departed from natural variability depended on flawed statistical methods and low-quality data. The IPCC review process, of which I was a member last time, is nothing at all like what the public has been told: Conflicts of interest are endemic, critical evidence is systematically ignored and there are no effective checks and balances against bias or distortion." http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullco...

I've said it before, but I think much official science has been thoroughly corrupted:
1 by it's connection to grant funding.
2 by the political domination of education.

I suspect (from observing preschool teaching) that many have been inculcated with the attitude that humanity is a plague upon the planet and that profit making entities are inherently evil.

Some portion of students, after years of hearing that man is destroying the planet, etc., will go into salvation sciences with the intend of thwarting the destruction. Hence, their participation in the sciences will often be lacking in objective observation.

AGW theory is made to order to attack organized economic activity. CO2 forcing accords very well with the precept of human caused evil.

AGW theory isn't a discovery of salvation scientists, it is their initial assumption. Whatever "negative" change may be occurring, they are already certain that human activity is causing it.

To Sam Grove,

This article explores and supports what you suspect.
Government Funds Distort Climate Science
07/22/09 - Science and Technology News

Quip: We don't fund studies critical of our policies.

Summary:
The US Government has spent $79 billion since 1989 on research and support for climate change studies. Yet, scientific review and criticism is left to unpaid volunteers, who have repeatedly exposed major errors.

Dedicated, uncoordinated scientists around the globe test the integrity of global warming theory. They compete with a lavishly-funded, highly-organized, centralized purchaser of climate research.

The government pours money into a single, scientifically baseless agenda. It has created a self-fulfilling prophecy, not an unbiased investigation. Sound science cannot easily survive this grip of politics and finance.

EasyOpinions

Daniel, what are you skeptical about (other than Austrian economics and libertarian philosophy)?

The climate change debates reminds me of the WMD debate, and any other debate we have which features one side the notion that "we must act now before it is too late!"

The WMD debate made me even more skeptical than I was before of official reports, claims, etc.

Global climatology is the new (socialist) economics, pretending to predict, and even centrally to direct, a fundamentally chaotic, dynamic system.

The article confuses "skepticism" with positive assertions by proponents of competing theories. I'm a skeptic, but I have no other theory. I don't pretend to know what other factor, from the solar wind to ocean currents, might dominate global temperature variation in the future. I only doubt that AGW modelers have it all figured out by now. They rely too heavily on positive feedbacks.

Human beings are systematic creatures and can't avoid reinforcing their own presumptions systematically. Only a skeptical community can counter this tendency. Skepticism frees the mind to consider competing theories, but once a mind has embraced a competing theory, it ceases to be skeptical. Only a free community can remain skeptical.

Well said. I hold two central beliefs with regard to global warming:

1) We don't currently possess the understanding/technology to model a system as complex as the Earth's climate with sufficient confidence to state that any perceived climate change is caused by human action. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, and our historical data record is too short.

2) Even assuming that the earth is warming and the warming is due to man-made carbon emissions, the best solution is not to impoverish humanity in order to reduce carbon emissions. The solution is probably to continue to develop technology as best we can and find an as-yet-unknown way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Or to adjust to a warmer globe.

As an example, a rational person in the year 1775, upon being told that the earth in 2009 would hold over 6 billion people, would probably expect that we'd all be drowning in horse manure. Technological progress works in amazing ways.

Human beings are systematic creatures and can't avoid reinforcing their own presumptions systematically.

So humans incorporate positive feedback in their belief systems.
That's how we get runaway climate hysteria.

:) Only awkward if you made religious declarations and forgot how relatively little we know about the universe (a fault that both sides share to some degree).

This is convincing stuff, but the impact of man on carbon content of the atmosphere and the impact of carbon dioxide on climate is also convincing stuff which doesn't automatically become less convincing when we identify other cycles, such as these ocean cycles. Again, I think we need to think about the climate like we think about the economy (because that's pretty easy for most people on here). The long-term trend of the economy is positive. But it also oscillates (it's not trending positive now!). Learning more about these ocean cycles is important, so that we don't mistake a steeply positive trend in the ocean cycle for a positive secular trend. But they don't negate all the other findings about carbon dioxide emissions.

Many people that have been looking at this for a long time think this is still a major problem. The conservative thing to do, it seems to me, is institute a carbon tax that can price in the externalized costs and keep it low. We can reduce it to zero if we become more skeptical over time - but we can ramp it up if things get more disconcerting. It's flexible. It's not putting all our eggs in one basket, as climate change skeptics would have us do - but it's not draconian, excessive, or "picking winners" either.

but the impact of man on carbon content of the atmosphere and the impact of carbon dioxide on climate is also convincing stuff

I'm not persuaded of the significance of it, as you seem to be.

danielkuehn,

Amongst climate scientists there is a debate over whether the claims made about carbon are accurate.

The conservative thing to do, it seems to me, is institute a carbon tax that can price in the externalized costs and keep it low.

Which even if that were the thing to do is not going to happen, and will not be imposed by India, China, etc. Or let's put this in perspective - there was much ballyhoo recently about China's decision to limit the growth of carbon emissions, which is exactly what the Bush administration called for. For one yapping on about reality you ought to be able to face up to the fact that a carbon tax is not what we will be facing in reality. We will be facing - if it passes - a loop-hole and protectionist driven cap and trade system which will be incredibly costly, will not lower carbon emissions in any significant amount, and which will benefit concentrated interests and harm everyone else.

"This is convincing stuff, but the impact of man on carbon content of the atmosphere and the impact of carbon dioxide on climate is also convincing stuff"

And what is the impact of man in terms of % of temperature rise?

I give up - what is it?

Rising CO2 concentration is not controversial, but CO2 is not a powerful greenhouse gas. The warming effect of CO2 alone is slight. The large increases predicted by AGW models require feedbacks increasing water vapor concentration. Apparently, this dependence on positive feedbacks is not controversial.

If some other weak effect counters the effect of CO2, it also counters all of the positive feedbacks that purportedly amplify the effect of CO2. If the globe doesn't warm, or even cools, for the next 20 years, any subsequent warming must be far more rapid than previously observed to reach a 5 deg C increase by 2100, toward the high end of current projections.

With no temperature increase (never mind a decrease) at 2030, we'll need a rate of 7 degs/century to reach 5 degs by 2100, and that's nearly five times more rapid than any rate measured in the 20th century. How does weather across the entire planet change course so rapidly?

The Climate Cassandras need such a high rate, and betting against them seems safer all the time. If a warming trend similar to the 20th century warming trend appears around 2030 and persists throughout the century, 21st century warming is like 20th century warming and doesn't portend any catastrophe by any credible reckoning, so we can focus instead on harvesting the increased atmospheric CO2 somehow.

AND, there is a diminishing effect as CO2 increases. We have already passed the levels where increasing CO2 has greatest effect.

Let's also point out that the most recent, highest resolution, ice core studies shows CO2 lagging warming by about 800 years.

Except Cassandra was right in all her predictions. I think you need another name for those who get a heart attack when anyone mentions the word "CO2".

Fortunately for me, I don't use the term.

Replied to the wrong person. Sorry :(

There are three sides to the global warming debate. Those who insist that human activity is causing the warming, those who aren't sure, and those who don't care much one way or the other. Of the three groups, the latter is by far the largest, and if they are made poor they will overthrow the politicians who they will blame for making them poor. So, a silver lining...

Exactly, and hopefully with salacious sex scandals.

Don't hold your breath ...

I don't worry much about AGW hysteria impoverishing anyone, because the impoverishing forces already in play are large enough. Within the coming decade, the full force of all the promises "baby boomers" (who are really baby busters) made to themselves will press down on the generation following them. "Boomers" invested too little in this generation, so it can't keep the promises.

This story should fill our headlines, but it's more often a footnote. AGW and the rest are only distractions. We deny the scary truths we don't want to confront by concocting a lot of scary fantasies.

Martin,

I think that you are correct in your understanding of the coming intergenerational proprietary relationships, but I don't think its going to be all that difficult to overcome. The younger generations will refuse to pay the higher taxes necessary to compensate, that is certain, but all it means for the boomers is that they will have to work a few years longer than they had originally planned. For me personally, its looking like about 2 additional years of part time work. An inconvenience, but not a disaster by any stretch.

And I agree that AGW hysteria isn't going to impoverish anyone, because any politician who tries to impoverish the 3rd group in the name of some objective that they don't care about isn't going to last a term.

Dispelling the Global Warming Myth

I have collected some articles about the flawed science supporting Global Warming. They are clear and convincing to me. Maybe they can add to the debate, or add references for pleasant arguments with the believers.

The most recent revelation about global warming is about the tree ring data underlying past estimates of Earth's temperature going back 2,000 years. It seems that the whole warming trend is based on just 10 tree cores from Siberia! These cores have been chosen from among 200 cores, without explanation by the reporting scientist. Other studies are derived from this one.

This tree core data has been promoted in favor of global warming, despite the fact that it contradicts historical accounts and archeological data supporting past warm and cold periods with greater temperature variation than in modern times.

A big red flag against global warming promoters is their refusal to release their data and methods. They publish their results and deny others the access that would allow support or criticism.

Point: Jones selected the data and published his graph of warming data. He was asked to supply the data and methods of analysis. He replied: Why should I give you the data? You will try to find something wrong with it.

Yes, well lets hope this global warming thing IS all wrong because it could awkward to the reputation of the free market philosophers around the world.

The eight warmest years in the NASA/GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990.

Global warming has nothing to do with free market economics. The world is not your dualistic division.

Global temperature measurements increased in the 20th century. This fact is neither controversial nor surprising. The controversy involves the magnitude of future increases.

Temperature measurements increased in the early 20th century, then plateaued and declined a bit, then rose again in the last few decades of the 20th century. Most climatologists don't attribute the first warming period to CO2, because artificial CO2 hadn't reached a significant level early in the century, but temperature rose no more rapidly in the second period and now seems to be leveling off again.

The trouble with advocating a particular theory, rather than waiting for the measurements, is that the measurements don't always support your theory.

"Yes, well lets hope this global warming thing IS all wrong because it could awkward to the reputation of the free market philosophers around the world."

What do you mean hope? I thought it was your belief that the science was settled.

Are you insinuating that it's never been warmer?

Didn't your own Priests discover fauna that was revealed by receding glaciers, proving that the planet was at least this warm 6500 years ago?

He said "in the NASA/GISS record". I don't think they were around to take readings from space 6500 years ago.

Granted, USGS might have records that go back further.

The NASA/GISS record has nothing to do with satellite temperature readings, only surface ones.

The actual satellite readings do not agree that "the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 1998", even though they only go back to 1979. That's why the NASA/GISS/NOAA record is the preferred temperature proxy of those who want immediate action on AGW, while the satellite measure is the preferred proxy of those who do not.

Personally, I have no faith in NASA/GISS/NOAA. Unfortunately, I don't know that the satellites are any better.

There is a difference between saying something and insinuating something. I simply read it as brotio asking muirgeo if, by saying x, he was insinuating y...

I have no real opinion personally about the existence of (carbon related) climate change. I simply do not have the knowledge to judge for myself. I can simply echo what appears to be the spectrum of Scientific opinion, which is heavily biased towards the existence of human caused climate change, and use it as a guide.

However, I am very suspicious of the American right's scepticism. It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact.

Ironically, an Economist should be very alert to this kind of intellectual danger. After all, what field can you find this many laymen stridently contradicting academic consensus for obviously irrational reasons.

* I have a lot of respect for Prof. Roberts. The reason I listen to his Podcasts each week is for their critical nature. I am not accusing of anything.

"It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact."

This may be absolutely true. Global warming may be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but there is (and this is where muirdog gets really confused) plenty of room for debate about what should be done.

The idea that an all wise team of scientists can use the coercive power of the government to "fix" a warming earth is laughable at best, and dangerously naive at worst.

" the spectrum of Scientific opinion, which is heavily biased towards the existence of human caused climate change"

You are probably correct that there exists a scientific consensus that humans are contributing to climate change. However:

1. I do not believe a scientific consensus exists that humans are the primary cause for climate change.

2. I do not believe a scientific consensus believes that anthropogenic global warming is necessarily harmful, or at least as harmful as global warming zealots would have us believe.

3. I do not believe there is agreement among scientists and non-scientists that global warming is the most serious problem facing mankind.

The problem with CO2 emissions curtailment is that it will definitely reduce economic growth. Yet economic growth is exactly what the human population to solve so many of the other problems it faces. The decision to enact growth-sapping solutions to global warming cannot be just a scientific one.

"I am very suspicious of the American right's scepticism. It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact."

How do you know the reasons for the skepticism of the millions of people you refer to as "the American Right"? Please remember that opponents of cap-and-trade and other global warming "solutions" can be opposed for many different reasons. For example, many believe such methods will be ineffective at halting global warming. They are right to argue that the costs of such methods are not overcome by what they see as only minimal benefits.

1 & 2: I cannot really argue here. I don't think there is a consensus but I do think that qualified opinion weighs heavily in this direction. In any case, certainty is not required. Surely a 30% chance of terrible consequences (eg a substantial reduction on global food production) is cause for action.

How do you know the reasons for the skepticism of the millions of people you refer to as "the American Right"?

Of course I do not. I never claimed to. I said I am suspicious. I think I have reasonable cause for this as I said above. An analogy would be a someone sceptical of the effectiveness of large farming practices because of a preconceived notion of how a farm should be. It is still ok to object in other ways, but it is irrational to say things like "they do not produce efficiency" when evidence and expert opinion suggests otherwise. At least not with some good reason.

I did not refer to those with reasons for opposition to solutions, only those (there are many) who say human caused climate change is not real, although, I suspicious of them too. Ron Paul I include in this category.

netsp: "Surely a 30% chance of terrible consequences (eg a substantial reduction on global food production) is cause for action."

First, where do you obtain that figure of "30% chance of terrible consequences"? Do you mean that 30% of scientists believe there is a 50% chance of terrible consequences? Where did you get that figure?

Second, doesn't it depend very greatly on the relatively certain consequences of the action being proposed? If reduction of greenhouse gases to levels being promoted by Al Gore causes a 1% annual decline in global productivity, the cumulative impact after 50 years is enormous. Standards of living - in particular standards of living in poor nations - will remain much lower than would have been enabled absent the curtailment of economic growth.

"However, I am very suspicious of the American right's scepticism. It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact."

More of the looney left's disingenuous way of phrasing things so as to denigrate the position of those who disagree, without ever presenting a valid proof or argument.

There is no scientific consensus.

Insubstantial is the only word I can come up with to describe the intellectual ability of a socialist. (Well, not the only word, but it fits this morning.

"It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact."

You are right that some criticize the scientific opinion as a proxy for their policy opposition. If it were not for the particular policy trying to be justified with it, most people wouldn't question the climate reports any more than they question any other science news they read in passing.

But the policy implications are more readily understandable to laymen. The science requires they take experts' word for it. It is not irrational to be skeptical of what you don't understand--results identifiable only with statistical models. It is rational to oppose what you know is wrong--the economic and political consequences of the proposed policies.

And it reflects a sound knowledge of history to be skeptical of any consensus with political implications.

RE: "But the policy implications are more readily understandable to laymen."

Yes and no. I think a lot of the opposition to the policy comes from the fact that opponents don't understand or won't accept the point of the policy. They feel imposed upon by a carbon tax, which is completely ridiculous in light of the fact that they're comfortable imposing costs on others that they don't have to provide compensation for. An externality is nothing if not a tax on people who suffer the costs to subsidize the people who don't have to pay for imposing that suffering. A libertarian or anyone else with anti-tax sentiments is perfectly comfortable with this sort of imposed tax, transfer, and subsidy - but they're opposed to taxes and transfers that the people come together to argue about and agree on in a legislature! The opposition is nonsensical and contradictory!!! And on some level you realize that so the way you make it sensible is to (1.) imagine that externalities aren't real, or (2.) fetishize the state into some foreign entity that can't possibly be a tool of the people.

There is no other way that you could be fine with taxes and transfers that are involuntarily imposed through externalities, but not fine with taxes and transfers that have some degree of mutual agreement through being passed in a legislature.

the fact that they're comfortable imposing costs on others that they don't have to provide compensation for.

Only if you accept fact-making by assertion. The evidence against current AGW theory is more compelling than the rebuttal that "the science is settled" (it's not) and "there is a consensus" (it's crumbling).

The idea that CO2 should be declared a pollutant is absurd.

You're the one asserting that these things aren't convincing to you. The libertarian perspective vis a vis climate change or any other potential externality becomes ambiguous because externalities are involuntarily, coercively imposed costs just like the state solution. For those who hate ambiguity the only option is to wish the coercion away and stay laser-beam focused on state action. I know it helps you sleep better at night, but it's not convincing. Every gallon of gasoline you consume imposes pain on someone else involuntarily. I'm tired of people plugging their ears on issues like this just so they can maintain what they perceive to be the moral high ground.

I don't think the question is closed on climate change - but I also don't agree with declaring inconvenient findings absurd.

You're the one asserting that these things aren't convincing to you.

Well, DUH! What a sharp observation.

Every gallon of gasoline you consume imposes pain on someone else involuntarily.

Maybe, but I doubt due to the CO2.
CO2 has benefits as well. Agriculture thrives on CO2. I'm helping to feed the hungry as well.

I've cited countering evidence, but you happily ignore it.

I'll make you a $50 bet.

Within five years, there will be no more consensus about CO2 forcings and some natural mechanism will be recognized as the primary driver of the last century's warming.

The surface measurements will be determined to have been unreliable, and there will be no more heard from James Hanson.

Let me spell it out for you Daniel. The tendency of the state is to grab more power and more money (by increasing amounts and varieties of taxation) as time advances. Cap and Trade legislation is not being pursued as a way to redistribute the existing tax burden. It is being pursued as a way to increase it. And the so-called externalities of carbon fuels are subject to debate. What being a libertarian is about in that environment is simply refusing to grab one's ankles and accept more wasteful taxation.

Well stated!

"It indicates an unwillingness to accept scientific consensus because of the policy implications of accepting this fact."

That's the debate in a nutshell. And it was summed up even shorter in the title of Al Gores book, "An Inconvenient Truth". And at this level it is absolutely no different then the creation versus evolution debate.

Further, we see the same anti-science rhetoric about multiple other inconvenient market externalities. Dogma dies hard.

The world is cooling ... The world is warming ... The world is flat. Wake me up when you figure it out and tell me how much I owe you. Then go away.

Most of us would pay you to shut up, but history tells us that you will not go away. That's the current wisdom -- and I'm encouraged.

I'll go away eventually but global warming will be around for much longer then you , I and our grandchildren. Wanting things you don't like to go away is what children do. We are the adults here. We need to do and act and think like adults... not like our children who's job it is of ours to protect.

I can't figure out whether it's childishness, vanity, or ego to believe that the fate of the future climate rests on the decisions of your generation. I assume that the climate, and climactic changes will survive me -- and that I had no affect on them -- unlike the significant affects they had on me.

So if the climate models are unable to predict what's happening now, explain to me why exactly we're supposed to trust them to predict what's going to happen in, say, 2050? Look, I'm no climate expert, and I have no idea what's really going on. But I don't trust the government to know either, and I certainly don't trust a "cap and trade" bill that nobody can tell me how much it is supposed to actually lower global temperatures, but yet come at great cost.

Heresy!

I am Cardinal Yasafi Torquemuirduck of the Church of AGW (headed by His Holiness: The Divine Prophet Algore I) and I do not take this blasphemy lightly.

Repent and accept the One True Church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You have been warned!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, seriously , YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Nope, never saw this one coming. [/sarcasm]

Heh, now just sit back and watch all the screeching about hybrid vehicles.

The scientific corruption exposed at the U.N. commission on global warming has been truly alarming.

I can't think of a science which has so disgraced itself, at least since the Piltdown Man fraud.

Whether or not AGW occurs, you would expect, given the complexity and low signal-to-noise ratio, that some honest studies would support, and other contradict it. There only needs to be a bias in the selection process, not faking of data, to produce a consensus.

Saw this at ClimateDebateDaily.com.

Here is a complete list of disasters caused by global warming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwCnDRN3tKc