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Can't sell your brand of crazy? Make things up...
Posted on 03/20/2007 2:26:48 AM PDT by ricks_place
In a thought-provoking statistical analysis, Dr. Peter Tsigaris of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, Canada, concludes that whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong economic and environmental sense to treat it as human-caused and take action now.
Despite the fact that the hundreds of scientists and reviewers on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced Feb. 2 in Paris that global warming is "very likely" caused by human activity, governments and other policy-makers may still justify inaction because of naysayers like Danish weather scientist Henrik Svensmark, who maintains that global climate change can be attributed to the proportion of cosmic rays in our atmosphere, and atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, who asserts that “The whole question of anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming is central to setting any policy of climate mitigation and therefore warrants closer examination.”
“These arguments are moot,” says Peter Tsigaris, an economist at Thompson Rivers University, in Kamloops, BC. He continues: “The important question is the cost of these opinions being wrong relative to the cost of the IPCC report being wrong in its assessment.” In a thought-provoking statistical analysis, Tsigaris has concluded that whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong business and environmental sense to take action and mitigate the effects of global warming beyond taking measures to adopt.
He arrived at this conclusion as a result of creating the solution for a question he posed to his statistics students.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Newswise 4/30/06 — Consumers who think the cost of gas is high now haven’t seen anything yet, says Dr. Peter Tsigaris of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, Canada.
The public-finance economist argues that supply-side economics is only a part of an overall equation that could, and should, see gas prices rise even further.
“Sooner, rather than later, society is going to have to factor in the cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) damage to our environment, particularly in the form of global warming. While we can’t really set a price on endangered species and threatened ecosystems, we are going to have to pay to mitigate effects like storm damage, rising sea levels and the like,” he says.
" whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong economic and environmental sense to treat it as human-caused and take action now. "
IOW --
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!"
Sophistry at its finest.....
A fundamental axiom in statistics is "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.". I suspect we are witnessing a case of "garbage in, garbage out" a bit analogous to results of studies of non-thermal effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF).
[Tsigaris has concluded that whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong business and environmental sense to take action...]
Tell it to the starving, dying poor in Africa's developing countries, where oil and coal reserves are plentiful. I believe that they may have a different priority for their business and environmental interests. If this whole GW scam wasn't so dangerous, it would be laughable.
Huh?????????
A ha, this is my field of studies when I did my Masters degree. I was doing a statistical analysis of RF-range EMF and its effects on human health. You can produce a mathematical model that "proves" the existence of harmful effects, but some critical foundations of the model itself is based on numerous assumptions that may not have any scientific basis at all.
The budget for Near Earth Asteroid research is 3 Million maybe? We spend significant portions of the american GDP on gorebal warming political alarmism. If you were to divert a fraction of that budget towards Near Earth Asteroid Research and applying research to mitigating that risk we'd benefit on the environmental level just from the spinoff technology.
Sounds like his statistical conclusion is based on some speculation about evil Bush warming consequences. He assumes there are no good consequences. He swallows the rising sea levels tripe even though man will have no discernable effect on sea levels no matter what we do.
You have to get 3 paragraphs into the article to see that the esteemed professor is an economist.
It's only dangerous because the wrong people own this political horse.
If GW meant that we had to develope nuclear energy (e.g. fusion or smaller more decentralized nuclear powerstations)...
If it meant, that we would strive to be completely independent from the price of middle easts favorite products....
If it meant, that we had more high-tech products to sell and not to send caterpillars in rural areas....
If it meant we could have cheap ethanol...
... then GW would be quite a nice thing - as a bonus it's getting more comfortable and cosy, too - although we elimited fossile resources from beeing used as an energy source.
(That's if these measures would not reduce the warming because it's really cosmic rays casusing the heat to rise. -otherwise they might lead us to the next ice age ;-)
Yes, I watched the whole 75 minutes two days ago. It was excellent, and will convince any who don't have a GW ax to grind already.
'Treat it as human". ( Screw em, they're only sheep.)
The scam laid bare...
All in a Good Cause (Global Warming)
Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro ^ | March 2007 | By Orson Scott Card
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1800226/posts
If someone from University of Chicago made this statement, I would be more likley to believe it.
But notice that these people are from places like "Joe's University."
Given that interglacial periods are both rare and short, and that more warmth has always beget more prosperity, we should hope that we can effect the planet and do all we can to keep it warm, not cool it off.
If climate change is not caused by humans, then it makes NO SENSE to do something about it, especially if the climate is WARMING. Everyone agrees our populations have historically flourished during times when our planet was warmer than it is now, due largely to improved crop yields.
Geesh, we must really have these people on the run now.
It's so interesting that enviro-nuts try to completely eliminate humans from proximity to eco-systems, in our no-humans-allowed preserves and national parks, because of the FRAGILITY of natural systems; and now we are asked to interfere with NATURAL CLIMATE CHANGE? Where is unjustified fear when we need it?
So let me see if I understand this. This learned professor indoctrinates a class full of mush-minded students with his beliefs and prejudices. The students, striving for that all important high test grade, know that they have to agree with the learned professor or they will get a lower grade. They dutifully parrot back their indoctrination, and the learned professor takes that as validation of his beliefs. The learned professor knows that he has to publish or perish, so he folds all these test answers into a press release that gets his name and that of his employer into respected scientific publications.
Did I miss anything?
We can make the exact same argument to stop global cooling.
1. There was no statistical analysis.
2. Nothing was debunked.
What a completely bogus headline.
They'll get my payment in the precious metals lead and brass...
My God! I didn't know Dr. Peter Tsigaris of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, Canada, had done this study! This settles it! We're all doomed!!!!!
That is, given the body of evidence we have now, further arguments over the evidence for or against the claims will only marginally affect the decision rule regarding doing something about the problem. And so…
He continues: “The important question is the cost of these opinions being wrong relative to the cost of the IPCC report being wrong in its assessment.” In a thought-provoking statistical analysis, Tsigaris has concluded that whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong business and environmental sense to take action and mitigate the effects of global warming beyond taking measures to adopt.
That is, the (present value) costs (in terms of future outcomes) of not doing something to stop man-made climate change are so enormous that even, if the probability is very small of an occurrence, they outweigh the costs today of avoiding the outcome.
So first, Tsigaris is assuming away possibility that the IPCC evidence is sufficiently solid so that arguments over it will yield no change in the probabilities. This is the crux of the debate, of course, and the second point about relative costs are simply an admonition that we should stampede quickly to a solution now, before we all die.
Someone yells fire in a crowded theatre. There could be a fire, they happen after all. A person yelling fire randomly will be correct with some small probability because a real fire being random would have to occur, with positive finite probability, at the same time as someone yelling fire. The costs of not getting people out of the theatre are enormous, the costs of a stampede are one or two persons trampled to death. Therefore, we should not discourage yelling fire.
Yelling fire is akin to “global cooling – let’s spend money on collectivism to save the seed corn,” or “the Club of Rome says that all natural resources are being used up – let’s spend money on collectivism and regulating commerce,” or “AIDS – a quarter of the world’s population is going to die unless we fund more research and give kids condoms,” or “nuclear winter – give up your armaments, western fools, or the world will wither without sunlight for hundreds of years” or “the population bomb,” or “that giant sucking sound will mean the end of the US economy,” or “think of the costs war that would result from defending Czechoslovakia,” or “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming – run, run, run for your lives.” Soon – we will have calls to spend vast amounts avoiding the small probability of a catastrophic asteroid strike. Then something else, until finally some catastrophe does happen, which will probably be unanticipated anyway (my bet: volcano belch), and then we have to wait a thousand years to get back to worrying about man’s carbon footprint.
Catastrophe mongers have been yelling fire since humans were numerous enough to stampede. The good professor forgets that instead of one catastrophic alternative hypothesis – that, if the null is rejected, would require spending money and forgoing future benefits – we have hundreds of them, each calling for spending money. Appropriate tests for such things are, conceptually at least, available, but I have ranted long enough.
More than half the "University" Student's are in the career/vocational /trade program! Nothing wrong with working for a living but it does reflect on Dr. Tsigaris abilities.
That doesn't matter though. The headline says he debunked the naysayers. They're debunked! Why are you reading the article?
If the earth warms up, won't we use less oil for heating? We've seen how much cheaper oil gets when it's warm in the northeast.
Also, what if we "mitigate" global warming and it turns out we are in danger of an ice age instead? Then won't the costs of "acting" be higher than not?
For a small fee I will keep Lions from your yard. Sure, reports of lions in your area seem to be made up based on letters I wrote to the editor, but the cost of you being wrong and having a Lion eat you alive is much higher than the small fee I am charging to ensure that the Lion does not get you.
My service will protect you from any wild Lions. I can't however protect you from Lions that your neighbors allow in their yards first.
For a nominal additional charge I can also protect you from Tigers, Elephants, and Aunt Gertrude.
Now, while it may be true that this theory has not yet been proven beyond absolutely every reasonable doubt, just make a probabilistic risk/benefit analysis: If my theory is right, and you don't pay, you lose everything! However, if you pay the rather small amount of $2 billions dollars, you have saved the entire world! Obviously, saving everything is worth such a small insurance investment, even if it could, theoretically, with a certain probability, not be strictly necessary.
So, gimme the money now and save the planet before it's too late!!!
Dr. Peter Tsigaris should lead by example and leave the planet. I was getting tired of his carbon footprint anyway.
More a matter of presenting a conclusion and then directing students to justify it 'scientifically'.
I especially liked the way the report literally reversed a comparison with 'innocent until proven guilty' into 'guilty because innocence cannot be proved beyond a shadow of doubt' (man-made because we haven't proved either alternative).
I think diet doda causes brain tumors. I can't prove it, but if we make a Type I error, and it turns out that I'm right, they'll be hundreds of billions in lawsuits and medical costs.
So let's just outlaw diet soda right now, since the cost of outlawing it is much less than the cost if I am right.
Who needs science anyhow?
Algore is the new Sun God.
If it is not our fault, how can we change/control it? The idea that man can control climate change is nonsense and hubris gone amok.
IOW - we may not have caused it, but we should try to fix it - the weather that is(??!!).
Do these folks even hear what they're saying?!
Don't forget Y2K.
Someone yells fire in a crowded theatre. There could be a fire, they happen after all. A person yelling fire randomly will be correct with some small probability because a real fire being random would have to occur, with positive finite probability, at the same time as someone yelling fire. The costs of not getting people out of the theatre are enormous, the costs of a stampede are one or two persons trampled to death. Therefore, we should not discourage yelling fire.
Yelling fire is akin to “global cooling ... or “the population bomb,” or “that giant sucking sound will mean the end of the US economy,” ... or “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming – run, run, run for your lives.” Soon – we will have calls to spend vast amounts avoiding the small probability of a catastrophic asteroid strike.
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Great example that illustrates the ridiculousness of arguments such as these, which the alarmists have been trotting out for oh, so long.
How many of those scientists are experts in the field of climate and meteorology? The vast majority of scientists who have climbed on the global warming bandwagon aren't climatologists or meteorologists, and know little more about climate change than the hare-brained talking heads who tell us that mankind is doomed to extinction unless we all ride bicycles to work and live in caves.
naysayers like Danish weather scientist Henrik Svensmark, who maintains that global climate change can be attributed to the proportion of cosmic rays in our atmosphere, and atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer,
Oh yeah, let's just ignore the many scientists who are authentic climate experts and study weather patterns as their sole occupation, and go along with the crowd of leftist/greenie kneejerk "experts" in totally unrelated scientific fields and follow them back to the dark ages where people lived in cold dark hovels and rode donkeys to work.
It's common knowledge that the climate has gone through countless cycles of warming and cooling over the millennia, and has done so within the memory of some people who are still alive. There was a period of below average global temperature that lasted for over 2 centuries until the late 19th century, and there have been lesser global climate fluctuations for shorter periods of time in recent decades. For example, IIRC there was a short period of below average temperature in the northern hemisphere during the mid-20th century.
But nevermind any of that, because so many gullible people believe this junk science was sent down from Mount Olympus on a lightning bolt, the leftwing tree-hugging Gaia worshipers who want us all to live on granola bars, ride bikes, live in dark cold hovels in winter and hot sweaty hovels in summer, and shut down all industrial facilities and power plants will probably get their way and bring about a global economic/political disaster on a scale that has never been seen before.
NOW CUT THAT OUT!! Whatsamattayu anyway? You tryin to start a trend of thinking before acting or sumpin?
One day there will be a carbon dioxide tax. When the libs get into power they will do this to us.
My daughter and I were talking about this last night. I think we are better off with Global Warming because we can move north and inland, and we'll be able to go to the beach more often.
She would rather have another ice age so she can play in the snow.
Warmer climate and higher CO2 are good things. Problem solved.
What started out in 1970 as Cariboo College with "degree" programs in Cook, Welder, Electronics, Electrical, Carpentry and Automotive, Small Engine and Heavy Duty Mechanics Vocational Training programs by 1972 became University College of the Cariboo in 1992 and renamed Thompson Rivers University in 2004.
Cariboo, does it taste like chicken?
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