The scientific debate regarding global warming has been over for some time, and the Australian policy debate has moved beyond the point where delusional pseudoscience has any impact. What remains of the scientific debate is a screening device in which individuals and institutions identify themselves as so lacking in intelligence, judgement or honesty as to cast doubt on their contributions on any topic. As with Euclid’s fifth proposition failure on this test distinguishes the donkeys.
The latest to self-identify as a donkey is Barry Maley of the Centre for Independent Studies whose latest piece in the Oz states, among other pieces of nonsense scooped up from teh intertubes
Beyond a relatively small concentration, the effect of additional carbon dioxide decreases logarithmically, almost to vanishing point.
As Wolfgang Pauli would have said, this is not even wrong, since “decreases logarithmically” is a contradiction in terms.
Maley identifies himself as a “former academic” and his CIS bio describes him as a former senior lecturer in Behavioural Science who has worked on family and social policy. It’s a safe bet that he wouldn’t know a logarithm if it bit him, and that the simple exercise in logarithmic differentiation required to convert the claim above into something that can be assessed and refuted (here’s a good post that covers several more of Maley’s talking points) would be utterly beyond him.
Clearly he’s scrambled together a bunch of nonsense from delusionist Internet sites, and published it along with his “research” on family issues. Since he invites us to treat the two as being equally credible, I’m happy to accept. And since the CIS invites us to treat Maley as a serious researcher, the same goes for them.
Since we’re on the CIS, a quick Google search finds Helen Hughes, in the course of defending detention camps for refugees, producing this gem:
If there is climate warming, in 50 years’ time, Northern India and Northern China will have such a favourable climate that their productivity will go up enormously and people may want to shift from Southern to Northern India and, particularly, from Southern to Northern China, where there is going to be an enormous shortage of labour, which is already emerging.
I’m reminded of Samuel Johnson’s famous jibe
Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy house, is a receiver of stolen goods
To promote global warming delusionism on the pretence defending authoritarian xenophobia is a similarly impressive feat.
John Quiggin 
All ad hominem. Are we to believe that every comment you make is the position of your employer, or your financier? Surely not.
In what way is describing Maley as a former academic false? Furthermore, the CIS is nowhere mentioned in Maley’s piece. Are people not allowed to have views an opinions different from that of their employer? Do you?
This hit-piece is beneath you.
Maley Says:
JQ Says:
What Maley says is true if you parse it carefully, you know, the way Howard tried to avoid obvious outright lies.
If we say that the effect of carbon dioxide is proportional to the log of carbon dioxide concentration, then it’s trivially true that the effect each additional bit of carbon dioxide decreases.
If we increase the concentration from 10 to 11 (in whatever units), the effect goes from 2.3 to 2.4, a difference of 0.1. But if we increase from 1000 to 1001 the effect goes from 6.908 to 6.909, an increase of only 0.001. See, the the effect of additional carbon dioxide decreases logarithmically, almost to vanishing point. QED. 🙂
Sinclair, by describing himself this way, Maley was giving the impression that he was an academic climatologist. He is no more that than he is the man on the moon.
It would like a retired law lecturer writing an equally nonsensical piece on the clinical treatment of heart disease and describing himself as a retired academic.
Sinclair, I’m not suggesting that Maley’s description is false, just that it’s totally irrelevant, since his academic career obviously didn’t equip to write on this topic. And the CIS has published enough on global warming to make its anti-science line clear.
SJ, you’re confusing the logarithmic function with its derivative – parsing doesn’t get around this.
Okay, Sinclair, I’ll bite. Rather than seeing the entry as *all* ad hominem, I can’t see *anything* ad hominem there. Instruct me.
BTW, why do you ask whether JQ’s views reflect his institution? Heard of academic freedom?
In the words of William Connolley “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis”
The Cairns Conundrum “To fly or not to fly”
John, I’m not confusing anything, nor excusing Maley. I was attempting to explain the “logic” that leads to Maley’s conclusion.
Perhaps I should have put a 😉 rather than a 🙂 at the end.
If you’d like, I could write out a proof that the decrease in effect is exponential rather than logarithmic, but that kinda stuff is hard to write out in a blog comment.
The National Library of Australia shows he authored “Ethics & ecosystems: protecting human interests and environmental values” published by the Centre for Independent Studies in 1994
SJ, fair enough 🙂
Shorter Chrisl
JQ, this is one of the silliest things you have ever written. It seems you have turned into some sort of bigot and I once thought you were a fairly good economist, equipped to write on economic matters. Maley’s views are his own, surely, as yours are. And what does “the CIS has published enough on global warming to make its anti-science line clear” mean? Where? When? Galileo had better treatment than this drivel of yours insinuates. And Neil, academic freedom is only limited to people in publicly supported universities? If so, the whole concept as you describe it, is degraded. What a pathetic and dangerous debate.
Back in August I looked at everything that the CIS had published on global warming. Every single one of the items argued either that it wasn’t happening, we weren’t causing it, or we shouldn’t do anything about it. Here’s the list.
Talisker, Sinclair asked whether JQ’s views reflected his institution. It was in that context that I asked whether he had heard of academic freedom. Given the norms of academic freedom (inter alia) there is no presumption that an academic’s views reflect their institution.
But since you ask, academic freedom *is* is restricted to universities. See, it’s the word “academic” that is the clue here.
JQ I also agree that Maley’s piece is polemic drivel. And I also tire of politicised hacks from “institutes” like CIS wrapping themselves in a veneer of intellectual credibility when they are not (current) academics, write articles that are not peer reviewed, and frequently comment “expertly” outside their field of expertise, as in this case. My question is whether it is worth wasting time dealing with these people? They will never admit they are wrong. Its like getting a tobacco farmer to acknowledge that smoking is harmful. (I tried that once in Mareeba; the response was not reasoned debate.)
I have largely given up reading the Australian, and don’t miss it. Lets just stick to the debate on what to do about Climate Change, as in your other excellent pieces. Mr Maley’s implicit suggestion of doing nothing while referring it all to more scientific debate is obviously nonsense, that shouldn’t fool the average high school student.
CIS published this suggestion on what to do in November:-
Click to access pm80.pdf
Terje, thank you for that link.
I haven’t laughed that hard in ages.
Terje your link states: “This paper does not take a position on the debate about whether the Australian government should do something about greenhouse gas emissions.”
I suppose it’s different from all the other CIS pieces that all say we shouldn’t do anything about it.
Socrates, I guess you’re right. There was something about this piece that got my goat more than usual, but if we all ignore it, they’ll stop soon enough I suppose.
SJ:
I understand what “logic” with the quotes means (i.e. irony) but as JQ implied, what Maley said is wrong. The logarithm function increases, not decreases, with argument. (BTW, he should have said, at least, that the effect of additional carbon dioxide decreases inversely. Hence the effect of 1 kg of CO2 added to an atmosphere containing 560ppm CO2 is only half the effect of 1 kg of CO2 added to an atmosphere containing 280ppm CO2. Heaven help us if the atmosphere gets to 560ppm CO2.)
Hmm, not being a mathematician I didnt have any problem with the phrase “decreases logarithmically” eg on the pH scale acidity decreases as activity of H increases as -log is part of the equation. Of course the rate of decrease is to the power of 10 which makes for a more not less unstable brew.
I have also heard of freedom of thought, and freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. Contrary to popular opinion, these freedoms are not limited to academics, current or former.
Socrates’ “I have largely given up reading the Australian,”
What is ‘the Australian’?
what a lovely way to put a smile on my face on a rainy morning! so much more convenient than watching neighbors squabble over a fence.
question: should the government do as little as possible, with a view to maintaining some economic advantage, or, should it actively ‘force’ transition to renewables, hoping to either profit from new technology, or to save the planet from venusification by action and example?
if you choose ‘little as possible’, relax.
if you choose ‘get cracking’, how to press a government that already looks like plan a.
Way to change the subject, Sinclair. The question was (recall) “why do you assume that JQ’s opinions should reflect his institution’s views”?
The sophistry of the Maleys is interesting. And whether it is ‘intelligent design’ or AGW, it’s a little reassuring to note that their anti-science positions have to couched in scientific sounding terminology in the quest for credibility. An implicit admission of defeat.
Terje,
I read the Foreword by Robert Carling, Senior Fellow, CIS, of the article you referenced. I found:
“As Humphreys points out, though, the purpose of a carbon tax should not be to raise additional tax revenue, nor even to reduce overall energy usage, but to use price signals to shift the composition of energy consumption in favour of ‘dirty’ rather than ‘clean’ forms.”
I see, relative prices should change to favour coal and oil but not wind and solar. Neat!!
You may have read my original post.
Ernestine,
Sounds like a typo.
The intent of a CO2e energy tax as outlined in the paper is to put a cost on emissions and thus favour energy sources (eg Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Gas etc) that either have no CO2e emissions or less CO2e emissions.
In a nut shell the paper outlines a no regret tax reform that shifts consumption away from “dirty” forms of energy (eg coal) towards clearner alternatives (gas, oil, solar etc). No regret in the sense that it is a good reform intitative even if AGW is completely wrong.
To be fair I think you should ignore the obvious typo and read the paper.
Regards,
Terje.
p.s. I don’t know why Ian Gould is laughing. Perhaps he can explain.
You do really wonder about the mental equilibrium of these people. It also shows how far the Australian has sunk, it seems to be festooned with loons, harpies, pseudo-intellectuals and ponces. I am never quite sure when I pick one up occasionally if it is really the Catholic Weekly or a cleverly constructed Media statement for the GOP.
I gave up buying it several years ago. Thanks to JQ for reminding me what a dreadful publication it remains and became. Rupert should in all honesty fire the Editor(s) they certainly can’t distinquish between reporting and embellished fantasy and they certainly have taken the entertainment value of media to a new level.
Hat tip to a myth buster!
Didn’t you promise a long time ago to not bother with delusionists any more?
JQ
With all due respect, have you been drinking?
The scientific debate regarding global warming has been over for some time
I do not claim to be an habitue of the scientific community, but Chris O’Neill very kindly pointed out some said community sites for me, and I can assure you debates over climate change are heated and many.
And to link Helen Hughes’ eminently intuitively rational observation – while certainly contestable – about geographical variation on the earth, to a grotesque claim she is “defending authoritarian xenophobia” is not only a non sequitur, it is a cheap and nasty libel that Prof. Hughes does not deserve, and which you should be above!
As they a “little knowledge is a dangerous”!
As far as I know, the CIS hasn’t given a view on climate change and has generally stayed away from commenting on climate change.
It is absurd to suggest that an organisations endorses all the views of all of its contributors.
This blog post smells of bigotry.
The quote given by Ernestine is clearly a typo. The point of the carbon tax was to shift incentives so as to increase the speed of our transition to “cleaner” energy and away from “dirty” coal. This should have been relatively clear from the paper.
wilful, you’re right, and I should have stuck to this. This piece was just so silly, and I thought by now we were past it. But from now, no more delusionist education for me.
Whether or not Maley’s piece discredits the CIS, it certainly discredits The Australian. Presumably they published it under the guise of getting a diversity of opinion on what we should do about climate change. But the problem with the piece isn’t Maley’s opinions, risible a they are, it’s his supposed factual material, which has been pulled straight out of someone’s arse.
The Australian’s editors can of course publish whatever they like. But why do think it’s smart to turn a supposedly serious newspaper into a supermarket tabloid?
Next, it’ll be “Aliens invaded my body and made me eat my baby”.
The logarithmic statement made by Barry is IMHO a rather mangled attempt at stating that log(C(t)) and (some appropriate measure of) temperature are linearly related. Barry misses the usual qualifications, such as ‘all other things held constant’, and ‘without consideration of feedbacks’, when referring to this relationship.
Even more importantly, when trying to assess economic costs of delayed action versus immediate actions, the reverse implication of this relation needs to be considered. If the CO2 concentration is really high, say due to more ‘business as usual’ for another 30 years or so, then we need to remove a large amount of CO2 from the atmosphere in order to achieve a small decrease in temperature – again with all the usual qualifications added. On the other hand, if we take strong action now, any improvement on CO2 levels will have a relatively larger impact on temperature than if we wait another 30 years or so.
The rest of his opinion piece is just as bad.
[Note: David J. Thomson (1997), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol 94, pp. 8370-8377, August 1997, gives both a reference to radiation theory for CO2 vs Temp relation, and a strong argument as to why CO2 concentration explains much more of temperature changes (in 20th century) than solar irradiance does.]
No, Humphreys, this blog does not smell of bigotry in my language. This blog deals with phenomena that is of great concern to many, within academia and outside.
Your notion of a typo (typographical error) covers both the spelling of ‘black’ as, say ‘blak’ and the spelling of ‘black’ as ‘white’.
Applying your notion of a ‘typo’, one could classify the Maley article as a piece of typo-literature.
No, I won’t read the rest of your article because I don’t agree with your notion of ‘a typo’.
Hmm, not being a mathematician I didnt have any problem with the phrase “decreases logarithmically� eg on the pH scale acidity decreases as activity of H increases as -log is part of the equation. Of course the rate of decrease is to the power of 10 which makes for a more not less unstable brew.
The problem with this is that if this is Maley’s intrepretation then he knows even less about climate change than what this post gives him credit for.
I suspect that it is simply a case of Maley not have the faintest clue about global warming and not have the sense to know this.
Ernestine,
That is a tragically narrow view of a typo. You’re dismissing a body of work merely because a third party (that wrote an introduction to the work) got the polarity of one statement the wrong way around. And the context of the document makes it plain that it is nothing more than a grammatical mistake. It seems somewhat petty.
Regards,
Terje.
Terje,
So far, you and Humphreys have ascribed first a ‘typo’ to Robert Carling’s forword to Humphrey’s CIS paper. Now you claim Carling has made a grammatical mistake. Robert Carling is a Senior Fellow, CIS. Maybe you and Humphreys first want to check with him.
If a paper free of apparent contradictions is produced, I might read it.
Typo/Grammatical mistake. Talk about splitting hairs. The statement is clearly wrong. I’ve agreed that it is wrong. Humphreys has agreed that it is wrong. However if it still causes such discontent then on reflection I don’t think I want you to discuss it with you because I’m sure it is not perfect. If agreeing that a singular statement in a body of work is wrong means any further consideration or discussion of that body of work ceases then I’d hate to think what might happen if you read it and then we were to encounter something we disagreed on.
Maley’s piece again illustrates what happens when you mix up your logic and assume a scientific argument is a political proposition. It rates as another piece of pseudo science masking a political polemic. Check out the page at Real Climate where they have a special page devoted to the standard denialist arguments, says it all.
He could have just read these two articles from Spencer Weart that were posted on Real Climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii/
The reality of greenhouse energy absorption is not straightforward and is not a simple logarithmic relationship anyway. The articles are worth a read.
Ken, as far as I know a logarithimic decrease can occur when zero is not the base line eg with pH 7 is the norm.
All this aside, when I read Maleys piece thru JQs link I thought ‘another rant’ and turned off; normally I cant be bothered reading any rants whether they be left right or over under sideways down.
I’m coming late to this discussion, but as someone in an editorial capacity at the CIS:
1) The CIS has not published any sceptic material for years, as Lambert’s own list shows, and has published very little at any point.
2) It is not going to publish any in future.
SJ Says:
Dunno what I was thinking here. x^(-1) is a function involving exponents, but it’s obviously not properly described as an exponential function.
I put it down to a brain fart. 🙂
Chris O’Neill is correct when he states that the proper description, given Maley’s assumption that the effect is proportional to the log of concentration, would have been that the increase in effect per unit of concentration is inversely proportional to total concentration.
I haven’t been up to anything lately, but what can I say? More or less nothing seems important. I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but shrug. Pfft. Today was a total loss. Not much on my mind to speak of.
While technically incorrect, Maley’s statement succinctly conveys the correct impression.
The supposed refutation linked in the OP, has that:
There is no “plateau”? What about the obvious one at 100%? Should we also guffaw at this technically false statement? Of course not.
Mathematical statements lose a lot in translation. In a non-mathematical article a certain latitude is necessary in the interest of parsimony.