There’s no longer any serious debate among climate scientists about either the reality of global warming or about the fact that its substantially caused by human activity, but, as 500+ comments on my previous post on this topic show, neither the judgement of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, nor the evidence that led them to that judgement, has had much effect on the denialists[1].
And the Australian media are doing a terrible job in covering the issue. I’ve seen at least half a dozen pieces this year claiming that the whole issue is a fraud cooked up by left-wing greenies, and January isn’t over yet.
The latest is from Peter Walsh in the Oz. Walsh is still banging on about the satellite data, and the Medieval Warm Period, suggesting that his reading, if any, in the last few years has been confined to publications emanating from the right-wing parallel universe. But that hasn’t stopped the Australian from running him, and a string of others.
If an issue like genetically modified food, or the dangers of mobile phones was treated in this way, with alarmist cranks being given hectares of column space, most of those who sympathise with Walsh would be outraged and rightly so.
Walsh does make one valid point however, saying. “If your case is immaculate, why feed lies into it?” To which, I can only respond, “If the cap fits …”
fn1. At this point, the term “sceptic” is no longer remotely applicable. Only dogmatic commitment to a long-held position (or an ideological or financial motive for distorting the evidence) can explain continued rejection of the evidence.
John Quiggin 
Grame Bird wrote;
“You might defend yourself even better by showing how your views on global warming are integrated with your views on glaciation. Which is really the same subject if you think about it.
We BETTER be able to warm the climate through the further release of CO2.
Or the planet is in big trouble.”
Even if past episodes of glaciation were a reason to support or encourage AGW, it would leave a series of very difficult problems which Graeme is probably happy to ignore. For instance, when would be the start of the next period and when and how much warming would be required to forestall such an event. Might it be a little inconvenient if the timing was off by a few thousand years?
This is an interesting line of argument proposed (seriuously??) by a few of the sceptics (or dogmatists if you prefer) – that a bit warmer is either no big deal, or is actually good.
It must come from a very poor understanding of biology and ecology. Certain plants animals and systems actually depend on, or are adpated to, low temperatures. The krill of the southern ocean aren’t likely to send us a thank you card if ocean temperatures rise by a few degrees. Crocodiles may not survive such an event.
Increased desertification is also a possibilty. Higher temperatures may mean higher rainfall, but not everywhere. Tropical areas may see a reduction in rainfall. And the overall picture is just just about precipitatin, but also evaporation rates. Higher rainfall may be cancelled out by increased evaporation.
And on a personal note, as a resident of Darwin, I along with many other people who live in the tropics, won’t be thinking in terms of ‘warmer is better’. I’m sure it’s a lovely idea for those thinking of a Melbourne winter, but no thanks.
Andrew
I was going to leave this dialogue, but a part of this has taken an interesting new turn.
To begin with let’s recap upon my supposedly overshot assumptions upon your position.
You think population growth is a good thing but you’re not a Pro-natalist. I can accept that you are not in the activist sense that I, perhaps carelessly, used to illustrate my earlier comment on moral intolerance. Nonetheless you are quite obviously in favour of attitudes and policies that would increase the birthrate such that population continues to increase, not decline. Please do not slip off into declaiming the role or action of Big Govt. on the matter. Just stay with the essential fact that you support those outcomes. To be effectively realised they do need to be embedded with some consistency within a common social attitude. Practically, this attitude will need to be promulgated from policies determined at some level of the social organism. Big govt. is just one of these possible levels, but it is the one that now prevails, in concert with big business.
You also believe that growth can continue without mathematical limit. Adding that to your support for continued population growth determines that you support the material growth of human society and economy upon this planet. Ipso Facto, you are a Growthist.
Sorry to make such a tag, but some are important to simply and accurately define vital territory. I calculate that there is no more important definition of territory than this one. One can believe growth is possible and good. They will hence at least add to the populist flywheel that drives its grinding power, if not actually forcefully crank its handle. Or one can disbelieve the market’s ability to forever pull magic rabbits out of resource hats as price signals command it to. The basic exponential function deems this latter belief to be apparent fact. Please do not confuse this simple, fundamental application of arithmetic with the arcane wads of equation that economists might use to paint up their micro-economic predictions. Alfred Marshall’s specific advice is irrelevant to my point in this discussion.
The latter position causes one to be horrified by the increasingly precarious complexity and momentum building ahead of each new precipice that will require a new magic market rabbit. If one is informed and honest, they are also painfully aware of the many bleeding edges that haven’t yet been properly acquitted by the market as a result of its existing business. I believe externality is the appropriate conjuring term that allows oversight of those embedded cankers. They lie under PR and political rugs everywhere, needing to be hidden or set in ambivalence to assist the delusion that we can solve the next set of growth- driven crises. Such a blatant fraud, but a global mass media is a powerful opiate to apply upon it.
Further one may also understand the vital, thus far irreplaceable role that fossil fuels have had in conjuring those rabbits, and in cauterising some of the bleeding edges, over the meagre couple of centuries that economists have had so much fun laughing smugly at Malthus. They should laugh while they can. Or better they should read some of Kenneth Boulding, Howard Odum, et al., and try to get real and genuinely useful toward the improvement of life on earth.
Sorry to dwell on this somewhat repetitive ground, but to clarify what is a very distinct and salient line in the sand regarding human purpose and activity is critical ahead of considering any useful modes of political form or action. Any form with a deficient purpose is a flawed form. I agree with you fully though that a flawed form can and does corrupt a valid purpose.
So to the newly interesting part offered in your last post regarding your apparent primary concern toward scale and intrusion of Govt, and the quality of human action/interaction, including a very query upon mine.
Firstly, governance is a social reality. Councils are an essential part of the most simple tribal function. The notion of an ethereal ‘silent hand’ that can supplant the role of concerted human decision-making is quasi-religious and as dangerous as it is absurd at the massive and impersonal global scale it is now being expected to work. Of course it does leave huge scope for well resourced actors to get their own way, so it is very popular with them, and as they tend to have huge influence due to the power of their resource ownership, others less naturally favoured by the system can be convinced or intimidated into supporting this $1 = 1 vote electoral system.
Both the market and Govt are huge because of growth. And both are corrupt, inhumane and inefficient due to that corpulence. It is bleakly humorous to hear someone supporting both growth and small government. It is like wanting to both drown and have fresh air. A poor grasp of the actual cause and effect elements seems to be at work. The same condition that allows someone who is not hugely wealthy to support total free market governance .
The rub with the global market is that we either have no civil governance with it (as it professes to dream of but wouldn’t really want as it would then lose the ability to externalise costs onto public infrastructure) or we have huge civil governance that can stand up to the scale of demand posed by Global big business – unfortunately standing mostly as a service provider. Small government does not equate to a massive social scale. It is patently absurd to believe so.
Nonetheless the issue of scale and character of government is vital.
To activate more accountable and socially effective civil governance requires a higher average of personal awareness and active involvement. Not just in the extrinsic issues at hand but also in the ideals of and obstacles to good civil governance itself. Social and economic scale is a critical factor in this and growth as a primary socio-economic objective drives associated governance mechanisms fundamentally in the wrong direction. Growth is quite measurably not just a triple bottom line failure but an active and ongoing threat. Hence the need to actively oppose it.,
So what is my strategy? I work in a number of practical ways, mainly at the local and regional level, to seek awareness of the problem and promote useful redress. Usually this has to be limited to action within symptomatic issues. Unfortunately the basic issue is either too esoteric or too threatening for most people to deal with directly. Direct awareness of the problem enables powerful responses at the individual and collective level such as debt reduction, initiation of decentralised community governance mechanisms, configuration and support of local trade systems, meaningful town planning designations, etc.
As I read this to and fro-ing on AGW I am struck with the needless futility of it that stems from an endemic oversight of the basic problem – our society’s pathological addiction to growth.
Let’s assume AGW is a 50/50 proposition. If you were given a 2 chambered gun with 1 bullet in it, would you pull the trigger for fun? Would you pull the trigger for $1m? Globally we are willing to pull this 50/50 trigger for growth.
Growth is the only thing that makes us have this argument here on this blog page and however many 1,000 like it. If it wasn’t for our complete addiction to economic growth, we would stop our Anthropogenic impact on climate just in case it was the problem. Just as we would stop ravaging our own backyards with depleted uranium so as to better enforce our dominance in resource wars. Just as we would stop sending our youth to those wars as we also steadily erode the dissent and assembly powers of our own citizens in preparation for the restless resource deficient times ahead of us.
Growth -the triple bottom line cancer.
So can you see that it matters quite a lot whether you are for it or against it? It is not possible to be neutral.
Willis E. wrote;
“What evidence do you have that humans are warming the planet?
Let me discuss some parameters of my question, to save us from going down some blind alleys.
1) I’m asking for evidence, not theories.
2) I’m not asking for evidence that the earth is warming. I’m asking for evidence that humans are warming the earth, which is a totally different question.”
Maybe I’ve misunderstood the basics of how our planet works, but I thought it was accepted that the atmosphere and it’s gases (such as CO2) are responsible for maintaining our livable climate. They’re not called the ‘greenhouse gases’ for nothing.
So it’s not simply a matter of making “a logical error called post hoc, ergo propter hocâ€? when stating that increasing CO2 and increasing temeratures are linked causally, when it’s known that CO2 plays a warming role in the atmosphere. To suggest that it is, is to commit a logical fallacy called ‘playing dumb’.
Willis also wrote;
“5) Yes, in a theoretical planet with all other variables held fixed, theory says that rising CO2 will warm the planet. However, on our marvelous and mysterious planet, we have only the sketchiest idea of what the feedbacks in the system are. Thus, the theory that CO2 will warm is planet is just that, a theory, and not evidence.”
Well no, it’s not ‘just a theory’. Unless you belong to the Darwinism style of sceptics who also hold that evolution ‘is just a theory’.
There is doubt over how the planet will react. Some have continued to argue that various ‘buffers’ in the system will prevent run-way warming – such as increased temperatures leading to increased cloud cover and so dampening the warming (but clouds also have an insulating effect and so increase miniumum temperatures).
But you’re right Willis – we don’t quite know the outcome. One of the best arguments for acting to influence what we can.
I’m with you on that Dogz.
WhatyoutalkingaboutWillis?
Do you think the left murdered 170 million fellow human beings in peace-time last century just on account of being soft-headed? They project their nastiness onto us and we in turn project our warmth, goodwill and sense of fairness onto them.
And this is where our pride takes over because we like to think that we are so much smarter. But that may not be the case. These guys are so hard to reach one really suspects that a lot of them can’t be that stupid.
Plus I’ve read dumb-left-winger scientists actually gloating about the coming glaciation. Describing this global warming as merely a man-made fever and that Gaia will get better, reassert herself and the ice will close in.
Now I don’t give a toss what these fascists call Mother Nature. But its pretty scary when conservatives don’t grasp that these leftists are actually SIDING WITH THE NAZI BITCH-GODDESS.
About that earlier glaciation that you reckoned lasted 25 000 years. Well I googled it and they said 30 000. Which goes to show what I said before about the arbitrariness of dating these things due to the constant oscillation.
But that extra 12,000 to 20,000 years that you are implying that we might have up our sleeves must surely have come from the start-end of the older glaciation right? So its not relevant to what we are facing surely.
Because we were seriously iced over 70 000 years ago right? (do update my data if you can). But from there the peak of ice cover didn’t hit until 18 000 years ago right?. Which means the period in between was more or less neutral and oscillated back and forth.
But we face ahead of us a period which is far from fucking neutral. So if the Milankovitch cycles were similiar in this ancient interglacial to the Holocene ……. then what we are saying is that they bought their extra time at the start end. And so that this in no way implies that WE have extra time at all.
Now how is your better data against that?
Says you are just being an idiot. And a completely offensive Jerk at that. Now what is it specifically I’ve said that you disagree with.
What a dopey prick you are.
The real question is the balance of risks. Since we have been iced over 80-90% of the last 3.5 million years then clearly the balance of risks is toward glaciation.
Too tough for you stupid?
Is that a little too hard?
Weren’t really that smart at school?
That one going a little over your head?
Sort of the slow kid that didn’t learn to read for a long time?
‘Well don’t wrinkle that little brow of yours in a futile attempt to understand’ because if you haven’t got it by now you probably never will.
Because you are clearly an idiot.
The balance of risks is clearly with glaciation.
Now beat that ya brainless jerk?
And try not to be so verbose. Because its really just you dancing around the issue.
Plus you made a false accusation as to the timing. I’m quite clearly saying the danger period is now or soon. Within this 2,000 years and more likely a helluva lot earlier.
So you are a fraud. An intellectual fraud and a liar. And a person of extraordinary poor character and probably a fascist.
There is no question about this: That you guys are idiots.
I’ve just been trying to get you pricks to own up to yourselves and give us a bloody explanation.
An explanation and an apology.
And explanation, a RETRACTION and an apology.
I don’t care which order.
RUNAWAY WARMING?????
Says you dope. No-one’s talking about runaway warming. What do you mean? Do you mean like Venus?
There is no chance of a Venus-like planet unless the Sun alters considerably. And the lesser runaway scenario isn’t a runaway scenario at all. But it could be a problem if all that iced up Methyl-nitrate at the bottom of the ocean boils up before we can capture it and turn it into drag-racing and CO2.
You see the greenhouse gasses have a logarythmic effect. So if this much extra water vapour and CO2 raises the average temperature 3 degrees you have to double it to get another 3 degrees and double it again to get another 3 degrees.
No chance at all of a runaway greenhouse until the Sun heats up or expands out. No doubt about that at all.
Its just a blanket we are talking about.
A thin blanket.
Not a second sun.
“But you’re right Willis – we don’t quite know the outcome. One of the best arguments for acting to influence what we can.”
Says you retard. No its not an argument to do what you can to reduce the CO2 output. Because we don’t know we go with either saving money or mitigating against where the balance of riskss tells us the mitigation is needed.
This is evidence of secular religion. It shows you are predjudicing the whims of the NAZI BITCH GODDESS MOTHER NATURE over the well-being of the human race.
You guys really have some explaining to do.
I want some answers.
Graeme Bird, this commentary thread is combative but your language and insults are unacceptable. I for one would ask you to tone it down or go elsewhere.
Given you’re almost unique in your use of “Utopian Eschatologist”, are you the same GMB that has been banned from wiki?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GMB
“It must come from a very poor understanding of biology and ecology.”
No it doesn’t you jerk. It comes from a very good understanding of biology and ecology. You’re the one with no idea.
What do you think the White Death Holocaust will do to those plants and animals HUH!..
And those stresses you are talking about. You usually have to combine them with human over-fishing and land greed to cause the super-major damage that you are worried about.
At work I say to the Muslims YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT MUSLIMS YOU JUST CARE ABOUT MUSLIM PRIDE.
And here you reveal that you don’t care about bio-diversity. You just can’t stand the idea of humans influencing nature. For good or for bad.
CO2 is what plants eat. Or breathe if you must. And they grow a lot faster when they get more of it. And that is good for bio-diversity. So long as you have the nature corridors and all that.
So its back to the high-school science class for you dopey.
Dogz.
Forget it. And don’t tell me that again before talking to the others.
Quiggin insulted me pre-emptively on another site. And that jerk had a go at me as well.
So that means you sided with the wrong side. You should have gone to them first. You wimped out.
Graham
Thank you for this gem:
“This is evidence of secular religion. It shows you are predjudicing the whims of the NAZI BITCH GODDESS MOTHER NATURE over the well-being of the human race”.
It re-inforces the joy I get from the internet’s unique ability to let me meet lunatics I would never get to meet in real life.
Lots of people I know ignorantly think that their human benefit is divisible from the well being of nature. None of them though take this delusion to such aggressively creative heights.
Very entertaining, although it is more than just a little frightening.
I wish you well in future without enough clean water and good soil.
Just kidding.
No I don’t.
“CO2 is what plants eat. Or breathe if you must. And they grow a lot faster when they get more of it. And that is good for bio-diversity. So long as you have the nature corridors and all that.”
Graham
You think linear.
Nature works non-linear.
Graeme and Dogz, thank you both for posting. I truly don’t want to get into a slagging match about the motivations of anyone, or whether or not “they” want to see “us” dead. Doesn’t go anywhere, it’s a personal attack.
–
Graeme, the information on the EPICA ice core is available via the CDIAC, at ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc_dd.txt
Regarding whether the Milankovich cycles are “similar” between the long interglacial of about half a million years ago, I read it on the internet. However, being a suspicious kind of fellow, I went to the sources and calculated it for myself. Indeed, out of the last million years, that particular interglacial is indeed the most similar to the current one.
Even if it were not, however, the existence of a 25,000 year interglacial period clearly shows that we may not be “late” in going into the next ice age.
–
Finally, Dogz, re-read my example of models in high-energy physics. If models provide evidence, why would they still do experiments?
The answer, of course, is that they want evidence, not model results. Models cannot provide evidence, only indications of what might happen if a) the modeler’s assumptions are correct, and b) the model accurately reflects those assumptions.
But since those are the exact points in question (whether the assumptions are correct, and whether the model reflects those assumptions correctly), you can see that using model results as evidence is a circular argument. To take them as evidence is to assume that a) and b) are true … but we don’t know that, that’s what we are looking for evidence of in the first place.
To apply this to the current question, in the climate situation, the assumption that CO2 will warm the world is built into the models. Therefore, we cannot use the model’s results as evidence that CO2 will warm the world … I’m sure you can see the circular nature of the argument.
In addition, as you point out, the GCMs are less models and more a mass of untested assumptions and parameterizations. The unwillingness of the IPCC to impose any perfomance standard at all on the models they use should give everyone a clue about the reliability of the models … and for that matter, of the IPCC.
w.
You got some sort of relevant argument there Mr Wood. Or jusst a lot of stupid false accusations as to my understanding of the benefits of the natural world?
It seems we can’t trouble you for a debate? A debate where you don’t put words in my mouth.
But I guess you know your limitations don’t you …………… (idiot).
Dogz. This jerk had a go at me too. Its a case of swarming dumb-left-wingers. None of whom can be expected to give an accounting for their stupid beliefs.
So you gonna get on Greg Woods case?
Or are you going to wimp out again.
I can’t blame you really. The left is so ubiquitously insulting that when someone returns fire there is usually a bit of a panic.
Its as if the world has turned upside-down.
Greg you got an argument against my thesis?
I………DON’T……….THINKSO.
“Even if it were not, however, the existence of a 25,000 year interglacial period clearly shows that we may not be “lateâ€? in going into the next ice age.”
WHATYOUTALKINGABOUTWILLIS.
Just hold on there. I don’t think that’s right. As I said the extra years seem to have come from the early end of that ancient inter-glacial. If I’m not mistaken. And if that’s right then the extra years are immaterial to our predicament. Correct me if that’s wrong.
And what is this ‘may not’ talk. We ought not be doing this on a wish-bone. What we have to consider is the balance of risks as I explained to Says. Though I really rather think that the concept was likely beyond his comprehension. But you would know what I’m talking about right?
Graeme Bird,
You are doing nothing to improve the tone of this dialogue.
Regards,
Terje.
“Graham
You think linear.
Nature works non-linear.”
No I don’t think linear. And don’t be pretending that a dumb-left-winger, such as yourself, understands nature better then I do, because for starters that’s just laughable.
But if you did you would be able to put up a solid argument against my general thesis rather then put words in my mouth or presume to understand the inner workings of a mind so vastly superior to your own blinkered one.
Graham
I contended two specific but fundamental points of your assumption:
1) That humanity’s interests are divisible from nature
2) That increased CO2 levels would have a linearly beneficial net effect upon bio-diversity. I asserted that nature works non-linearly. I implied from that viewpoint that the effect would most likely be catastrophic to a bio-mechanical matrix evolved in accord to the current atmosphere and associated climate.
If you seriously want to argue that level of the patently inarguable, I can’t see much point in spending any time on your more esoteric concoctions.
I also made comment upon your remarkable theatrics.
Entertaining from a distance was the essence of my review.
Cheers
Terje ???????
Not another one. And I bet your a conservative too. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. What is this? Appeasement?
I haven’t insulted anyone who didn’t insult me first.
You tell these guys to settle down. Stop doing the dumb-leftist swarming routine. And account for their views in a rational non-insulting way.
Of course they won’t do it.
But I’ll be happier if you ask the instigators before you ask me. Otherwise how about not talking to me again.
Yes Greg. You did do all that.
Yes and it was all an unbelievably stupid argument since it assumed I believed things that you had no reason to assume.
Now do you have some sort of general argument against the basic thrust of what I’ve been saying here.
Now take note. For your enlightenment. Of the civilised nature of the discussion between myself and Willis. See there where we have had some technical differences. I assume on this one that his knowledge is better then mine. But I’m making enquiries to see if he’s thought everything through.
And these disagreements didn’t lead to pre-emptive insults.
And there is a reason for that.
You see.
He’s a gentleman.
Whereas you guys are LEFTISTS.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think Graeme Birds diatribe was directed at me.
Content was indirectly proportional to insult, but I’ll try to respond to what can be.
Graeme wrote;
“The real question is the balance of risks. Since we have been iced over 80-90% of the last 3.5 million years then clearly the balance of risks is toward glaciation.”
Give that we’re dealing in time spans of tens of thousands of years, the margin for error in terms of human lieftimes seems enormous. What if we have started a thousand years too early??
But Graeme, why is it “now” that it’s a problem? What’s the evidence for this other than your “balance of risks”. Is there an imminent danger to Australian coastal shipping from icebergs?
By the same logic, according to the history of life on earth, humans are going to become extinct courtesy of a large meteor, so it all doesn’t matter anyway.
If nothing else, Graeme gives an indication of the kind of person attracted to the AGW-denial bandwagon. It’s not a pretty sight.
QUOTE: I haven’t insulted anyone who didn’t insult me first.
RESPONSE: That is the attitude (held by many) that leads these discussions away from substance and towards bluster. Receiving an insult or feeling a personal slight from another person should not lead to a free for all in abuse. Civility requires that people operate from a position of good will towards others. It also requires a capacity to forgive.
The “he hit me first” defence is not going to get this dialogue back on track. Each of us should aspire (constantly) towards a higher standard of personal behaviour. If we compete our way to the bottom then we will find ourselves in the gutter along side our opponent.
Most of us here are genuinly interested in the global warming issue. I come to a site like this because those that have views contrary to my own also possibly have insights that I might learn from. And even if they don’t, there is something to be learned in terms of understanding what leads them to hold a belief different from my own.
“Give that we’re dealing in time spans of tens of thousands of years, the margin for error in terms of human lieftimes seems enormous. What if we have started a thousand years too early?”
Started what? You’re the one whose demanding resources be spent. Demanding more taxpayer money. If we got all that CO2 out there, in pursuit of the good life, for all of God or natures children, 1000 years too early………….. we’d get the ice all melted away then we wouldn’t have a care in the world.
Now dig this next peice of leftist projection sportsfans and policy boffins. Some say hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the Universe. And others, working tendentiously back from their mathematical models, say hey wait. No. There is all this Dark Matter. More plentiful then anything else………..
But I say that leftist projection is the most plentiful thing that is out there. And here it comes again:
“If nothing else, Graeme gives an indication of the kind of person attracted to the AGW-denial bandwagon. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Get that lovers of clean-burning coal?
Its not an irrational global warming panic. Its not a freak-show of scientific fraudsters demanding that we ‘change OUR LIVES to better suit their moo-oo-oods’. Its not everyone piling onto the global WARMING bandwagon before we can see that any human warming is anywhere near strong enough to overide the far greater threat of the white death holocaust. Its not dumb science workers, journalists and the entirety of the left piling onto that bandwagon.
It is the people who do not want to sign up for Kyoto that are climbing onto the bandwagon according to the left-wing projectionist.
And notice the lie involved in there. A leftist projection wrapped around a lie.
Lovers of clean-burning coal who perchance took the time out to actually read what I wrote may note that I don’t deny the globe is warming a bit right now. And my best guess is that there is a human element to it. In fact everything I’ve said confirms that I think there is a human element to this. And that its the best bit of dumb luck the species has ever experienced.
Or at least that would have to be the default conclusion until more evidence rolls in.
Oh yeah and I forgot.
“It’s not a pretty sight.”
Actually I’m a terrific bloke.
More projection?
Greame,
You don’t have to worry about the next ice age, according to Berger it is at least 50000 years away.
Berger, A. and M. F. Loutre, 2002: An exceptionally long interglacial ahead? Science, 297, 1287-1288.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/297/5585/1287
“That is the attitude (held by many) that leads these discussions away from substance and towards bluster. Receiving an insult or feeling a personal slight from another person should not lead to a free for all in abuse.”
Why are you talking to me about this. Talk to the abusive left-wingers or ‘talk to the hand ’cause the head aint listening’ as they say on Rickie Lake.
Thanks for that Hans. If that’s right and is subsequently confirmed without a doubt……. then the default policy switches to extra tax substitution toward Oil for the next 30 years or so and then substitution towards a broad-based carbon tax once we have weaned off Oil.
No excuse is there for any increase in the governemental footprint.
But how is it that you are so confident on the basis of what this one fellow says. It doesn’t jive with what I understand about Milankovitch cycles at all. We are absolutely home free by the time he says the ice will close in. Makes no sense to me at all. But I’ll check his reasoning and get back to you. Thanks again.
Post-script: Hans. They don’t sound half as confident as you seem to. I can say that even before signing in.
Terje, there’s no need to worry about what leads a sceptic to a belief that differs from your own – JQ has already told us: dogmatism, ideology, or bought opinion.
Willis, you are correct that models don’t provide conclusive evidence. But that is not the same as saying they provide no evidence at all. To use your high-energy-physics example: the physicists don’t go verifying the predictions of just any old model – they verify the predictions of the models that have proven their veracity in the past, because the past performance is taken as evidence that their future predictions are more likely to be correct.
The extent to which the predictions of a model are built into the model itself is certainly important. You won’t win a Nobel prize for predicting the fine structure of the Hydrogen spectrum if those very numbers are built into your model. The model has to predict something new and non-obvious. However, the model may have the fact that there is a fine structure to the Hydrogen spectrum built in, without the actual value, and its predictions would still be considered worthy of note.
A similar conclusion applies to the climate models. Yes they have positive correlation between temperature and CO2 built-in, but they don’t have the exact functional form of temperature as a function of CO2, aerosols, solar forcing, etc, built-in. The extent to which the models can make reasonable predictions of that functional form is evidence that they have genuine predictive power.
The problem is that the models also have around 100 free and poorly understood parameters that can be adjusted to make them fit the functional form of temperature. At that point things start to break down, because then the “evidence” coming from the models potentially means nothing more than that the models have sufficient functional flexibility to fit an arbitrary data series.
This is the study that seems not yet to have been done: to what extent can you adjust the parameters of say, the GISS model, to get it to fit a temperature time series different from the one observed over the past 150 years while keeping the boundary conditions (solar, CO2, aerosols, etc) the same?
If the answer is that the model cannot be adjusted to fit any reasonable time series except the real one, then that is strong evidence in favour of the model. However, the preliminary studies on climateprediction.net show that these models are in fact extremely sensitive to the setting of some of their more poorly understood parameters, which suggests that they may be tweakable to match arbitrary temperature records.
[Not sure which category of sceptic duplicity that falls into: rule out paid opinion since no-one is paying me to write this. So take your pick between ideology and dogmatism]
Dogz, you’ve reacted pretty violently given that you accept the reality of recent warming and agree that AGW is likely. I’ll observe yet again that of the models which were around in 2000, the climate science models have predicted well out of sample (the critical test if you’re worried about fitting to past data) while the “El Nino + solar cycle” put forward by Daly, Baliunas and others has done miserably.
Reading your comments it seems to me you are displaying a dogmatic unwillingess to accept the evidence which, as you’ve conceded, favours AGW. You’re nothing like so cautious on other issues.
And, I can’t help but observe that GMB has offered us a pretty impressive data point (only one data point I admit, but still …).
Dogz, consider my queston from way up the thread as answered.
Graeme,
When is the “white holocaust” due to begin and what leads you to think so besides the amorphous “balance of risks”?
JQ, please name a model and a study that shows how well it fits out-of-sample.
I see your GMB and raise you a James Lovelock.
EG, which question? The one about what I consider to be negligible?
Dogz, we seem to be repeating ourselves. I agreed about 100 comments ago that Lovelock and the contrarians are mirror images in most respects.
On out of sample prediction, five years is probably not enough data for a standard out-of-sample test, but in a head-to-head model comparison, the results are striking. The real models predicted warming, the sunspot models predicted cooling, and we got warming in spades. Again, I’ve said this before.
Willis,
Let me reiterate that the semantic clarification that a personal attack is indeed one that singles out a person, and not one that someone finds offensive, as you seem to assert. Characterizing the motives etc. of AGW skeptics can in no way be classified as a personal attack. That’s just a grammatical reality.
The distinction is not frivolous. Personal attacks are almost exclusively responsible for causing debate to degenerate (see above). This is not to say, as you so aptly demonstrate, that an accusation need be personal to be highly objectionable, unwarranted and inappropriate. But I submit that JQ’s statement was none of the above and indeed, could not be replaced without loss of import by something more politically correct. In other words, the predilection of AGW skeptics to remain skeptical of AGW no matter the mounting toll of scientific evidence is a point that should be debated. It is relevant because if people refused to be convinced of the science of AGW on ideological grounds, than the debate on policy should not be waged in a scientific arena. You may prefer to turn such an argument into a discussion of the predilection of AGW worryworts toward intellectual dishonesty, which is your prerogative and, it would appear, the preferred route of many of your brethren. But let’s not start building so many rules into a debate forum that we stifle the debate.
Hey Willis here’s some greater detail and context on what is happening to polar bears right now. Ask your friends at the anti-science anti-environment websites to add it to their polar bear links.
POLAR WARNING
A WARMING WORLD: THE DIFFERENCE A DEGREE MAKES
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/15/MNG3FGMHML1.DTL
See: http://pbsg.npolar.no/status-table.htm
The authoratitive table shows a lot of unknowns, two decreasing and two increasing populations.
The decreasing groups (pop 3600) are the most “harvested” with 202 kills per year. I suggest to start with a moratorium here…
Marjoraram, first, whether JQ’s attack was “personal” or “impersonal”, if he had said that kind of thing about black people, you’d have jumped all over him. But I guess climate sceptics are ok to abuse … what’s up with that?
Second, you talk about
I asked for examples of your so-called “mounting toll of scientific evidence” (above) and rather than a “mounting toll”, you guys have provided …
Nothing so far. Zero. Zip. Nada. Niente. Nihil. Well, except for abuse, plenty of people from both sides have provided that.
Far from a “mounting toll”, you have provided no evidence at all.
Still waiting …
w.
I compared Lovelock with BMG, not an arbitrary “contrarian” as you describe us. If your point is that most contrarians are comparable to Lovelock in their foolishness then I disagree; Lovelock and BMG are both outliers, but Lovelock is almost certainly the more dangerous as a lot of people actually seem to listen to him.
Let me get this right: you’re justifying the climate models by comparison with a single, radically different, alternative model, which many sceptics (including myself) have never endorsed?
If so, what would you say if I could show you that those same real models with different parameter settings predict no warming at all for the past 5 years?
Simonjm, thank you for yet another frantic, wildly exaggerated popular view of the rumoured demise of polar bears. Fortunately, as Han’s table from the Polar Bear Specialty Group shows, your article contains only heat, but no light at all.
This is why we have science. For example, the Hudson Bay polar bears are the ones that are most mentioned in the popular press as decreasing. The PBSG report shows that despite all of the ink and tears shed over the Hudson Bay bears, their population is stable.
Stable. Repeat after me. The Hudson Bay bear population is stable.
In fact, all of the measured polar bear populations are stable except four. Of these four, two are decreasing and two increasing.
Please don’t bother sending any more tear-jerking, saccharine-sweet, totally incorrect popular accounts of the “possible”, “maybe”, “might happen”, “could” decrease of the polar bears. The arctic is not yet as warm as it was in the 1930s, and is still much less warm than it was at the start of the Holocene. The polar bears made it throught that, and their numbers worldwide are not decreasing now. The only thing that is not decreasing is the number of “fearful” press reports.
Look, bad news sells newspapers, good news does not. Your cited article, while it is suitably warm and fuzzy, and is clearly designed to appeal to people whose thinking is the same, is simply a joke. Yes, it contains lots of bad news … you seem to be surprised and impressed by that …
I would be embarrassed ask anyone, as you suggest, to add a link to this kind of scaremongering. It is yellow journalism at its best.
w.
Nice link Hans would you consider that since shrinking sea ice rates -and that the fact it is increasing-is vital factor to the health and breeding of the polar bear it might be wise have a moratorium in those regions sea ice has been shrinking the most?
Given the long term prospect for sea ice one wonders if the wild population is doomed regardless of the hunting levels and that the best the world will do is capitive and frozen gene bank.
Simonjm, thanks once again for an interesting post. You say:
You speak of the “shrinking sea ice rates” and the “fact it [the rate of shrinking] is increasing”, but in fact the situation is far more complex than that.
From 1978 to 1988 Arctic ice amounts were about steady. From 1988 to 1995, the ice area declined. Then from 1995 to 2002, the ice area actually increased (although you would never read that in the popular press), it decreased again in 2004, and in 2005 it increased again … and at the end of 2005, the amount of Arctic ice was back to the 1979-2000 average ice coverage. See
for more details. It is a much more complex picture than you seem to think, and the rate of shrinking is not increasing as you say.
Finally, you speak of the “long term prospect for sea ice” … not even the scientists who study polar bears know what the long term prospect is for Arctic sea ice.
Finally, as I keep pointing out in the hopes that you will notice, temperatures in the Arctic were warmer in the 1930s, and much warmer at the start of the Holocene, than they are today. The polar bears went through those times, so your idea that a few degrees of warming will drive them extinct is not borne out by history.
w.
Greg,
Thank you, immensely, for your most recent response to Andrew Reynolds.
Your piece should be compulsory reading for anyone who, like myself, has had to argue against proponents of this society’s prevailing ideology which effectively demands that unelected corporations, instead of elected governments, be responsible for decisions which effect our daily lives.
Let’s get together so that we can ensure that all the enormously valuable contributions you have made are placed somewhere else, where they can be made far more accessible to the very many people others out there who will find them to be of immense interest.
JQ
Here’s some more sense (or nonsense), from NASA and GISS:
“Note that the number of warm stations fluctuates a lot from year to year, especially in the winter season. For the latitude inter val 30-60°N (shown above) the year-to-year fluctuations are magnified by the fact that a large portion of the stations are located in a single region (the United States). Because the longwave atmospheric weather patterns (Rossby waves) have a scale of several thousand kilometers, it is not unusual for the temperature of a region the size of the United States to be substantially warmer or co lder during a single season than the zonal mean temperature. These fluctuations are a useful reminder that “global warming” as yet remains smaller than natural temperature fluctuations on regional and seasonal time scales.”
Also suggestive is the decline in the number of reporting stations relative to the base period 1950-1980. How many of the non-reporters are in the cold northernmost regions? No doubt you evaluated this before making your confident assertion that the global warming debate is over. There are lies, damned lies, and….
Tim
PT 1
oh don’t be such a hypocrite Willis again you feel free to post articles that champion your side and then denigrate others who have the hide to use news articles also.
You are so full of it.
Read the PBSG latest press release 14th meeting of PBSG in Seattle, USA 2005
“The Group concluded that the IUCN Red List classification of the polar bear should be upgraded from Least Concern to Vulnerable based on the likelihood of an overall decline in the size of the total population of more than 30% within the next 35 to 50 years. The principal cause of this decline is climatic warming and its consequent negative affects on the sea ice habitat of polar bears. In some areas, contaminants may have an additive negative influence.�
So everything is so hunky dory that they still had to upgrade from least concern to vulnerable!
Also read the rest of the site you goose.
“There was substantial discussion about large quota increases in some polar bear subpopulations in Nunavut where there has continued to be uncertainty about subpopulation size and trends despite scientific studies augmented by computer simulations and traditional ecological knowledge. The group concluded that increases in harvest levels or estimates of subpopulation size should not be based on traditional ecological knowledge without support from sound scientific data and further, that regardless of how certain the combined information appear to be, increases in quotas should be implemented with the precautionary principle.�
“Future challenges for conserving polar bears and their Arctic habitat will be greater than at any time in the past because of the rapid rate at which environmental change appears to be occurring. The complexity and global nature of the issues continue to require a significant degree of international cooperation and development of diverse and new approaches.�
Yet again a prime example of cherry picking.
That cheap shot over those best qualified with senators picking themselves combined with your history on anti-environmental posts confirm to me you are just another politically biased anti-environment AGW recalcitrant and have no more to contribute on this debate than a creationist on evolution.
Dogz, Yes, this is the question in question. Your post on model verification indicates to me that it is not possible for you to say more at present than what you did.
Simonjm, your “hypocrite” and “goose” comments are unwarranted, untrue, and unpleasant. We can talk science without your nasty interjections, and if you continue with them, I’ll not answer any future posts from you. Why the nastiness? You must know that it just emphasises the weakness of your position.
My problem was not that it was a news article. It was that it was an untrue news article, and I showed just how, where, and why it was untrue. If you disagree, you’re free to show how it was really true … but I notice you’re not doing that, you’re making personal attacks instead.
And yes, I know that the PBRG wants to upgrade the polar bear status to “vulnerable” based on their fears of future global warming … however, since there is no sign of any current polar bear decline, I must say that their fears don’t carry much weight with me. I commented on this stance of the PBRG before in the prior incarnation of this thread, but I guess you didn’t notice.
While it is understandable that you didn’t notice my prior comment on the PBRG, as it has been a long thread, abusing me for not commenting on it is not understandable.
I am much more interested in scientific facts than I am in scientists’ fears about what might, could, has a chance of maybe conceivably possibly happening in 50 years. If the population starts to decline, fine, we should take action. At present there is no sign of any decline, so no action is warranted. What would the action do in any case, reverse the non-decline?
The fact that some scientist is afraid that we’ll have no arctic ice in fifty years means very little to me. If we were to act every time some scientist said “Oh, mommy, hold me, I’m so afraid …”, science itself would be endangered. “Fearful” scientists are not even a dime a dozen these days, they’re five cents per hundred. Every time I read the popular press, some scientist is telling us that he/she is “afraid” that X is about to happen … spare me.
So the conclusion?
I prefer facts over fears, and the facts show the polar bears are not declining … you prefer fears over facts, and you fear that they might decline in 50 years. You pays your money, you takes your choice, and if your choice is the path of fear, nothing I can say about that except better you than me, I’d rather be driven by facts than by fears …
w.
I’ve deleted a comment speculating on the identity of a commenter, as I think the wrong person was identified and I’m concerned about possible defamation liability. I request again that personal attacks between commenters should cease
James,
I would be fascinated to find where I have advocated the transfer of power to unelected corporations. As an incentive, if you find one, I will cease commenting for 1 (one) week from the date of proof. I have been, I hope, reasonably consistent in opposing this tranfer of power – power should be at the lowest practicable level. Corporations only have power through exploiting their links to elected government – ergo, reduce the power of government, reduce corporate power.
.
I will have to leave a response to Greg’s missive until I have a bit more time. I have noticed, however, that he loves his labels. It makes it easier to understand, doesn’ty it Greg? Unfortunately, they ofter mis-lead.
Willis
Your threshold for scientific proof adequate to support active concern and policy response toward resource or system quality appears to demand very hard experiential certainty.
Given how bio-physical systems actually work I have no idea how you would expect to recover the damaged values and embedded effects that would necessarily be realised from depending only upon such retrospective certainty. It is like driving a car very fast and only acting with any vigor upon the picture gained from the rear-view mirror.
Or do you perhaps view such accelerated baseline change to be an acceptable part of the Anthropogenic effect upon global evolution?
If so, is that simply because you have no documented evidence of the likely counterprodutivity of such rate and scale of change?
ie, because the phenomenon has never happened within our recorded understanding, it is likely that it will never happen.
That would seem to me to be quite unscientific.
Surely the measurable odds of disability should trigger a strong degree of precautionary response well short of absolute certainty.
It appears that you would view the precautionary principle as soft headed and “unscientific�.
If that is not so, I would like to hear your understanding of the meaning and purpose of that principle.