32,000 deniers

Energy Probe via Financial Post ^ | 2008-05-17 | Lawrence Solomon

[cogitator]

TSR doesn't necessarily use me as his "science guide". I suspect he respects my position and the level of my knowledge on the issue.

Why then is it constantly shoved down our throats as a catastrophe-in-the-making?

I hear this a lot. I think the answer is three-pronged: 1, the skeptical side (particularly Senator Inhofe) keeps saying that global warming is being pushed as a catastrophe-in-the-making. 2, when the range of potential futures from global warming is provided, the worst ones are somewhat arresting, and we tend to remember those things. 3, there's no doubt that emphasis is placed on those arresting scenarios when arguing that action should be taken to avoid them.

Imagine this. You take your car to the shop for an oil change. Your trusted mechanic Bob points out that one of your tires is pretty worn. You ask what could happen. He says, "Well, you could be fine for 10,000 miles, and most likely you'll just develop a bumpier ride and some increased road noise. Or you could come out to the driveway one morning and find it flat, and have to get it towed here for me to change the tire, when you should be at work for that important meeting. Of course, when it's this worn the tire might blow anytime when you're going 75 in heavy traffic on the interstate, you could lose control, hit three cars, roll, break your neck, and in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, if you survive."

Bob is now a "tire-wear alarmist" because he has been honest with you about what could happen -- even if it's not the most probable scenario for what could happen if you don't get a new tire soon.

Would you change the tire or wait until it blows to see if an actual catastrophe occurs?

Better yet: given what Bob said, how much farther do you feel comfortable driving before you replace the worn tire? (And what informs your decision?)

I will point out that changing the tire while the car is in the shop is less costly than either of the subsequent alternatives -- getting it towed when the tire is flat or having a catastrophic accident.

Later this afternoon I'll be posting three separate articles of interest in the Science forum.

[Bob]

1, the skeptical side (particularly Senator Inhofe) keeps saying that global warming is being pushed as a catastrophe-in-the-making.

Are you seriously claiming that it's not?

[cogitator]

Are you seriously claiming that it's not?

To claim that the only possible outcome from anthropogenic global warming is "catastrophe" would be ridiculously simplistic and unscientific. There is a large range of possible scenarios, with "hardly noticeable" at the bottom end and "significant danger of widespread ecosystem collapse and societal upheaval" at the top. I don't think either is likely, and I think that the midrange scenarios are considerably more likely.

[Old Professer]

Curious that you should use the analogy of Bob and his repair shop; as it turns out I once owned an auto repair shop in California and the Consumer Protection laws there are among the strongest in the world.

Had such a scenario as yours actually happened there and was reported to the state, the owner of that shop would lose his license to operate within the state for using “scare tactics” to sell products - no matter how bad the mechanic’s advice or how good.

Neither you, Gore nor any of the crusaders can point to one true benefit from carbon taxes or carbon cap and tax programs that anyone in the next 25 years will be able to verify, let alone enjoy.

There’s a leak in your hot-air balloon, better jump over to the reactive nitrogen bandwagon while front row seats are still available.

[RightWhale]

Four threads, at least, and still unpolled.

[AFPhys]

There are two reasons why I think we all need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism.

First, we need an environmental movement, and such a movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a religion. We know from history that religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s. It’s not a good record. Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth-—that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. The effort to promote effective legislation for the environment is not helped by thinking that the Democrats will save us and the Republicans won’t. Political history is more complicated than that. Never forget which president started the EPA: Richard Nixon. And never forget which president sold federal oil leases, allowing oil drilling in Santa Barbara: Lyndon Johnson. So get politics out of your thinking about the environment.

The second reason to abandon environmental religion is more pressing. Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not the state of their knowledge. Our record in the past, for example managing national parks, is humiliating. Our fifty-year effort at forest-fire suppression is a well-intentioned disaster from which our forests will never recover. We need to be humble, deeply humble, in the face of what we are trying to accomplish. We need to be trying various methods of accomplishing things. We need to be open-minded about assessing results of our efforts, and we need to be flexible about balancing needs. Religions are good at none of these things.

How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the clutches of religion, and back to a scientific discipline? There’s a simple answer: we must institute far more stringent requirements for what constitutes knowledge in the environmental realm. ...[ an organization more like the FDA]

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Crichton is one of the very few who might be able to affect this situation. He's so very correct. Lawrence Solomon and Dr. William (hurricane) Gray are two of the few others who may be able to slow this out of control freight train.

[Amendment10]

Given that the oceans cover 66-70% of the earth's surface, it's no surprise that ocean temperatures are regarded as a major indicator of global warming activity. So the slight decrease in ocean temperatures indicated by the Argo System oceanic temperature probes over the last several years reflects on the politically correct foundation of AGW alarmism, in my opinion.

Argo System ocean temperature probes
Argo System web site

[cogitator]

Interesting -- I did not know that. What's also true is that tires are mandated (most places, I think) to have treadwear indicators. Treadwear indicators are supposed to tell you when it's advisable to replace tires, right? So even if Bob didn't use scare tactics (as he shouldn't), if your car was in the shop and he checked the tires, he would conscientiously and honestly tell you that the purpose of a treadwear indicator is to indicate when tires need replacing -- and he'd tell you that your treadwear indicator is showing. (I think he's supposed to do that -- that's what happened to me once, but not in California.)

So Bob does his thing, within the law, and you check to find out if treadwear indicators are reliable. You do. So you now know that you have observed an indicator which informs you of a trend which -- if unaddressed -- could have a catastrophic consequence, but probably wouldn't, if you take appropriate action prior to the catastrophic consequence. The likelihood of catastrophe (or lesser, but still darned annoying, consequences) increases with an extended period of inaction.

With that, I will leave you to wait for my posts in the Science forum. I'll ping you with the one that is relevant to this discussion.

[Matchett-PI]

I agree.

[AFPhys]

cogs, though you sell yourself as trying to be balanced, you’ve clearly lost your balance, and this post#23 demonstrates that.

You might have included the other possibilities that, for example might be:
- higher CO2 increases plant growth and biological carrying capacity of the Earth with resultant increase in population and species diversity;
- higher CO2 turns out not to result in runaway temps but maxes out as moderately higher average temperatures with a result of many fewer deaths and proves beneficial to humanity and Earth’s biological environment;
- it is found that CO2 has far less to do with long term climate than do the consequences of solar variability and temperatures 50 years from now return to those of 150 years ago, but the money and technology spent on behalf of alarmists has effectively been burned;
- due to unforeseen factors- possibly cloud changes, particulates, aerosols, etc. -higher CO2 has no temperature effects.
- CO2 level amelioration, unsurprisingly costs far more than the alarmists now choose to claim both in terms of dollars and human effort, with a result that hundreds of millions who otherwise would have enjoyed the fruits of advancing technology are condemned to live in perpetual poverty or die;
- a hundred years from now, CO2 sequestering proves to cause long term environmental damage;
- the false “science” propagated by environmental alarmists soaks up both funds and science minded personnel and results in long term damage to both the reputation of science and the advancing of science.
- above, but technology, etc. I’ve just gotten started, and Old Professor, Robert A. Cook, P.E., and others could easily flesh out dozens of others I’m sure...

If you had included any of these above, all of which are as much in the realm of possible as the possibilities you chose to list, I might consider you “balanced”. However, you only list possibilities on a single side of the ledger. Of course, if you had, then “the midrange scenerios” which were “considerably more likely” would be that increased CO2 is benign or even beneficial.

As it is, you are being intellectually dishonest and deceptive to everyone, even yourself, by maintaining that you have a “balanced” point of view.

[cogitator]

Nice post. This is what I said, ONLY focused on the EFFECTS of anthropogenic climate change:

There is a large range of possible scenarios, with "hardly noticeable" at the bottom end and "significant danger of widespread ecosystem collapse and societal upheaval" at the top. I don't think either is likely, and I think that the midrange scenarios are considerably more likely.

I noted that skeptics keep saying that global warming/ACC is being "pushed" as a "catastrophe in the making". Yet the IPCC has clear ranges of scenarios, similar to mine. They consider poorly characterized variables like cloud cover as potentially reducing the effects. They consider the impact of advanced technologies in reducing the emissions rate. Are the alternate scenarios overlooked by the skeptical side? Seems like it -- you just did.

I didn't try to get into other areas, such as those you touched upon (resource allocation, un-addressable future scenarios, and subtle insinuations of deliberate obfuscation). I merely said that there is a range of possible scenarios, and I think that there will be noticeable effects. Some of these noticeable effects would be expected to have deleterious consequences for both natural ecosystems and human society, if they happen.

Since you already know that I believe pretty strongly that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, how much more honest and balanced can I be than what I said?

[jwalsh07]

"Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed” and that even 450 ppm will translate to a sea rise of 75 metres and at 550ppm, the world would warm by 6C not the 3C as previously estimated."

Did Jim Inhofe make Hansen say that?

[cogitator]

I said: "3, there's no doubt that emphasis is placed on those arresting scenarios when arguing that action should be taken to avoid them."

And that's what Hansen is doing. Whether or not you believe him is contingent on consideration of available information on the topic.

[jwalsh07]

Why would anybody believe anything that Hansen says? He claimed Bush censored him. He lied.

[AFPhys]

I’m going to ignore your improbable statement maintaining that the alarmists are not emphasizing the disaster scenerios. That is like SnObama maintaining that he had no idea how radical Rev.Wright’s preaching has been over the years. Let’s get on to the crux of our exchange:

By implication, in reference to your post#23, I include in “range of scenarios” the things on the leftists’ side of the ledger. You do not include any such consideration for items on the right side of the ledger, including positive feedbacks of solar irradiance or that effects of aerosols, cloud effects or particulates are so misunderstood by the IPCC that the actual anthropological effect on temp is negative. You refuse to acknowledge that the temperature data is being manipulated by the IPCC contributors to the point that it is dishonest. You won’t acknowledge that the only place that major “global warming” exists, and I mean their 5+F forecasts, is in the completely unreliable GCMs, which have no, and I mean NO, track record of success in reality.

In addition, I agree I expand the set of important scenerios to include those where CO2 might add some temp, but where the effects of that are benign or even beneficial. I also include the HIGHLY likely situation that world economics and science and technology will suffer highly detrimental effects from the amelioration of CO2 WHETHER OR NOT higher CO2 proves to be a problem. The alarmists are very like a surgeon suggesting that you have some part of your body removed “just in case” it might be a problem later on, even though there is no strong reason to believe there will ever be a problem - say, a woman having her breasts removed “just in case” because her mom had breast cancer.

I also don’t think any of the extreme positions is probable, for example that CO2 sequestration might lead to an ecological disaster, or that there is an rapidly impending major Ice Age due to any reason. The difference is that I will include as possibilities that the bureaucratic IPCC policymakers have it all wrong, and that they ignore the much higher costs (economic, opportunity cost, technology, beneficial side effects, etc.) by their excessive focus on the disaster scenerios.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Oh, please. I don’t use cogitator as my one source, for crying out loud. What did you think I said? “COGITATOR IS RIGHT; WE ARE ALL DOOMED???”

I was just pointing out relevant information in his home page. Sheesh!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

One thing you left out: Bob the mechanic actually has the technology to fix or replace the tire. However, we've just started to venture into how to mitigate the carbon threat, to the extent that it actually is one.

Furthermore, the government normally does not require me to get my tire replaced by Bob. I'm still free to be stooopid and not avail myself of Bob's already-existing technology. AlGore and friends, on the other hand, wants to force us all to greatly reduce our carbon footprint when the technology to do so without taking us back to the 1820s is not even at hand.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I definitely do not believe Hansen. That 75m sea level rise at a mere 450 ppm makes him seem like a kook. However, I will not hold it against you if you do. The science definitely does not seem to be settled yet.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Of course the alarmists are going to emphasize the upper extremes. That’s why I don’t listen to them. If it were up to them, we would all be walking, biking, or taking the bus to work. Can you imagine me walking 36 miles to work? :-)

[cogitator]

That 75m sea level rise at a mere 450 ppm makes him seem like a kook.

In the context of the statement, if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed” -- he's taking an extremely long-term view with that statement and anticipating the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. I prefer to just worry about 6 meters from Greenland first.