I’ve just received an invitation from the Brisbane Institute to participate in a debate with Ian Plimer and Lord Monckton. Having seen Plimer’s Lateline performance, I can’t imagine that this exercise will add much to the sum of human knowledge. OTOH, the event will go ahead regardless. Any thoughts?
Clarification I should say straight off that I have no intention of attempt to debate climate science. Although I’m probably better qualified to discuss the key issues (many of which involve statistics) than either Plimer or Monckton, that’ s not saying much. In any case, discussing these issues in a debate format with dishonest antagonists is pointless, as has been shown many times.
So, the only way to approach it is to address the underlying conspiracy theory directly. If Monckton and Plimer are right, all the major scientific bodies in the world are engaged in a conspiracy to introduce communist world government by (drumroll!) auctioning tradeable carbon emissions permits. The question is, can I convince an audience sympathetic to delusionism that this is a really silly thing to believe?
Update Without advising me that my invitation had been withdrawn, the Institute made another invitation, to Barry Brook, who accepted. So, the decision has been made for me. I did, however, think about the approach I might take if I accepted.
I planned to elaborate Monckton’s conspiracy theory, announce myself as part of the global conspiracy, and conclude by pointing to Margaret Thatcher (Monckton’s former employer) as the originator of the whole thing (she has a great 1990 speech putting forward the case for urgent action based on the precautionary principle). At the end I would have played it straight for a minute or so, asking the audience whether they want to believe this black helicopter nonsense or the alternative that the scientists have it right. Would this have worked? We’ll never know.
Regardless, I certainly hope that Barry Brook and Graham Readfearn (the Courier-Mail environment blogger who will also appear on the pro-science side) stick it to Monckton and Plimer for their political axe-grinding, long track record of lies, and general nuttiness, rather than giving this deplorable event any credibility.
John Quiggin 
Perhaps Graham Readfearn will explain how News Ltd. achieved carbon neutrality by 2010 as promised!
Meanwhile, another day, another road project:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/14/2791946.htm
Okay so challenge is seemingly off for Pr Q, for now. Bit of a shame, as Barry Brook may push the nuclear power idea a bit too strongly – he is clearly an advocate now – at the expense of other more pressing points, like shutting down the non-contributing denialist groups with vigorous attacking rebukes. Go for the source of their planning of these tours etc, and the funding. See who is being paid as a “PR consultant” (it will be a big firm) to help the poor maligned denialists run a smooth campaign to add another decade of delay to the previous decade of delay. In the case of Plimer, wonder loudly and publicly whether the University of Adelaide, or any of the three Mining companies he is a board member of – as a director, really want one of their staff shooting their half-cocked mouth off over issues that he clearly doesn’t grasp as well as he claims on his CV section of the Adelaide University website. Painting himself as an expert and then getting demolished on Lateline – by his own hand! Good image for the companies he is on the board of.
Take to their funding sources and embarrass them, not the front men. There are too many front-men among the looney, the retired, and the disenfranchised. And then there are the lifers, those who have been front-men for every denialist campaign on every human health and environment issue of the time. Fred Singer comes to mind.
To counter their pursuit of cheap publicity, it would be a good idea for everyone to email the Brisbane Institute (there is a contat page on their website) to point out that giving a platform to Monckton destroys their credibility. They would not use the excuse of “promoting open discussion and debate on topical issues” to debate whether the prejudices of racist or sexist extremists had validity and they should not be providing a veneer of respectability to this anti-scientific charlatanism.
The trouble with ‘stick[ing] it to Monckton and Plimer for their political axe-grinding, long track record of lies, and general nuttiness’ is that it would invite quite a plausible accusation that they were refusing to rebut the alleged science that Monckton and Plimer will claim to be summarising. I really think the time for accomplishing anything useful in ‘debates’ like these has passed; they simply give credence to the deeply flawed ideas that (a) there is no scientific consensus and (b) the disagreements are essentially political and should be resolved like any other political issue.
Terje- No worries. I was not encouraging you to break the ban on discussing the details of AGW though, and in any case I do not have the knowledge required to assess the quality of arguments either way.
The point (as JQ has made) is simply that skepticism without solid understanding is not really skepticism at all. The divergence in opinion between the experts and the armchair skeptics is much more likely to be due to misunderstanding on the part of the uninformed than due to the body of experts making schoolboy errors, making most ‘skepticism’ seem pretty silly. I am glad that you do not have your head in the sand on this issue, though I must admit I am interested in what your opinion is about those who do. Any thoughts?
In fact, the idea of thousands of scientists in many different fields making schoolboy errors, and having these errors endorsed by every single scientific academy in the world makes rather less sense than the Monckton/Plimer/Minchin/Albrechtsen conspiracy theory that (nearly) all the world’s leaders are plotting to introduce a communist world government and that scientists have either been bought off or bullied into going along with the whole thing.
There remains the problem as I mentioned in the original post that the whole thing is rather like the South Park profit-making scheme
1. Spend 20+ years faking evidence of AGW
2. Spend another 20+ years negotiating international agreements
3. Finally get an emissions trading scheme which will add, say $100 to the cost of burning a tonne of carbon
4 ….
5 COMMUNIST WORLD GOVERNMENT/ENVIRONMENTALIST UTOPIA/DESTRUCTION OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY !!!!
Some of these climate change denialists are a bit like creationists. Some of them use a theological argument.
… The arrogance of man (not people or women), thinking that they are so powerful that they could destroy God’s creation. …
Of course, if you’ll swallow one theological argument chance are you’ll swallow them all.
If you had an respect, including for yourself, you’d shut up.
Those commies had to come up with something after the collapse of the Soviet block!
@Freelander
You mean those “commie haters” had to come up with something after the collapse of the soviet block – dont you Freelander? Nothing more terribly inconvenient than an enemy that just collapses of its own volition, is there?
@Freelander
Terje..in terms of responding with respectful dialogue we all know you will do just that…even if it is respectful artifical nonsense your arguments present. I swear Terje – you get a point up in here and have a longer lifespan than most ALS delsuionsists, simply because you are so damn polite. Quite an accomplishment.
Dont make you any closer to the facts Terje and you do deserve the biggest (hugest) wooden spoon award given out to any blogger here.
@jquiggin
Watch it JQ – I can see you gearing up for a fight with the idiot camp! I caution and say again – no air – really no air, no airplay.
Re: Update and uninvite
Perhaps they read your blog and became aware of how much it was going to cost them?
re JQ’s strategy. It reminds me of a great rave I heard on the ABC once by Bob Ellis. Ellis made the claim – and supported it quite convincingly – that Murdoch was the last and greatest of the Stalinist agents. The final blow against western hegemony.
I’d love to have an mp3 copy
While I’ve been to Brisbane a dozen times, I don’t know much about BI, but let me observe:
1) If people want to start solving a system problem, it helps to look from the symptoms back towards the underlying causes and mechanisms. Although I’ve been to Brisbane a dozen times, it’s been a while, it’s been a while, and I have zero knowledge of the sort of entity is.
The fact that Plimer and Monckton are given a platform is just a *symptom*, and focussing on them is being misdirected. I ask a rhetorical question: suppose they both vanished, would there be any replacements? So, let us consider BI.
a) Perhaps BI is a clear anti-science entity, in which case their worldview will not easily change.
b) Perhaps they just don’t understand, in which case they are acting as a media channel for this, but might be amenable to education.
c) In the middle are entities where many of the people think they are doing useful things (and may be), but a few strong advocates make things happen, using the organization’s influence to amplify it. In some cases, educating other people in the organization can help, as they may not realize they are being used. In the USA< Mocnkton got invited to speak at Univiersity of Hartford (via Larry Gould, I think), and to speak at a physics department colloquium at the U of Rochester (via any of several profs there, I'm not sure which one). I.e., a reasonable insititution can find itself hosting somebody without quite realizing what's happening.
2) So, if you want to do something, consider a few frameworks for analysis, which can help guide research and action:
OBR Flow shows flows of money and memes. Although slightly US-centric, OZ has most of these. (We just have *more* of them in USA, so it’s easier to find classes that contain many examples.) Yes, the money trails are tough, as the money-laundering is well-one, which is why that big cloud is there.
From the top, O.categories describes the organization types, and B.Categpories people’s backgrounds, with a reference to a K-Scale.
FINancial reasons for anti-science are in gray zone, others to the right. OBR.Map is a matrix of organizations and people versus {plausible, likely, and almost certain} reasons for supporting anti-science. That is related to JQ’s Taxonomy of Delusion here, which was a higher-level clusteriing compared to bottom-up detail here.
3) SO: who makes these decisions at BI? Why are they doing this? They could fit several places on the OBR.Flow chart, possibly even being relatively innocent media.
Alice – out of interest which other bloggers from the ALS are your refering to?
While the cautious amongst us are saying you should stay away, I say go for it, provided they pay you a whopping speaking fee (which of course they won’t). But if on the off-chance they do, go there to observe Monckton’s and Plimer’s methods and take note of their lies, and report back to us.
Instead of lecturing the audience on the science of global warming, tell them they are all scientifically illiterate and to discuss scientific matters with any of them would be a sheer waste of time. Tell them that Plimer is a fraud, and since he was exposed as a fraud a few weeks ago on the ABC, hundreds of thousands of Australians know this. Tell them that most people know they are all deluded and for that reason most people disregard what they have to say. Tell them they are paranoid narcissists who are being manipulated by the oil and coal companies, and that Monckton has already received over $500,000 from Exxon-Mobil (I read somewhere), and that Monckton’s tour is being sponsored by parts of the Australian coal industry. Since they are mostly conspiracy theorists, there is a slight chance that some of them would be able to appreciate this fact, although their right-wing politics works against this. Tell them their paranoia makes it difficult for them to function properly in normal society, and that their narcissism makes them a danger to others.
While you are there, you could ask Monckton, who is a conservative catholic, if he is also a creationist. You could use Monckton’s catholicism as a wedge between him and Plimer.
@John Mashey
The Brisbane Institute would I imagine be similar to the Sydney Institute (where Abbott gave his speech last night). They are a Conservative so-called ‘think-tank’ — basically a buddy club for hard right wingnuts.
The BI is much more complex. It was a perfectly reputable centrist to centre-left outfit when it was set up, but it has apparently been taken over by rightwingers or at least climate delusionists in the fairly recent past. This seems to have been the key event
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/ailing-institute-cuts-ties-with-uq/story-0-1225736507525
Note that, despite this story, the Institute still claims ties with UQ. I will look into this.
Re: ties with UQ. I see that it still lists UQ as the Primary Sponsor, and there are folks on the board who look pretty reasonable. I’ve spoken at UQ a few times, and it is certainly is a credible place. If I were there, I would not be so keen to have my school’s name attached to this event.
I do see current Chairman Runge:
a) Is a mining guy.
b) Did MA & PhD in Economics @ George Mason University. Oh…
@jquiggin
Cutting the links to UQ… Yet another example of rightwingers’ and delusionists’ creed that the unexamined life is definitely worth living.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
There are a few Terje – you would know as well as I. Been in here long enough. One I wouldnt say his name (lest trouble start!)
oh thank goodness – should I have heard of Barry Brook? I havent. Stupid that he is now giving them air. Damn nuisance people engaging charlatans and quacks. Keeps it the stupid, ill informed newspapers…of Murdered media..who seem to thrive on lies and sideshows.
Oh its time we developed a brain in this country. Its almost embarrassing to say you are Australian (the cultural cringe belongs to us).
“…the members of Climate Scientists Australia http://www.climatescientistsaustralia.org.au/ will not debate denialists becuse we believe that it is the wrong medium to counter simple lies with complex truths. We turned down a CEDA event in December for that very reason. ”
‘ Afraid that won’t wash, with a public whose interest is being aroused. If the Scientists won’t explain & debate the Science, preferring to hide behind complexity and afraid to stick their heads outside their peer review process, then they’re just going to look scared, arrogant and out of touch, at best.
Meanwhile as the ‘denialists’ engage with the voting public – who are they going to trust ?
@Joe Spencer
Good on you Joe – for posting this. Im sick to death of the interfernce of the work of these scientists by fakes, paid for hacks and creepy old peers who have started a new business of lying for am living (probably to protect his inheritance).
Less interference thanks, so these scientists can get on with the job of working on the problem productively.
Leave them alone and as for Plimer and Monkton – a headmaster I once had was very fond of saying to us all in assembly and I say it to these two …
“why dont you all crawl back under the rock you crawled out from”
@Alice
They’re both getting on a bit, maybe they can’t find the rock.
Silkworm – telling a general audience (who you don’t know) that they are all scientifically illiterate is a poor way to win people over. However it would be consistent with JQs ethos that ordinary human beings are not smart enough to discuss scientific matters.
John Quiggin,
The real problem is that you and your cheer squad don’t understand the scientific method. You can never prove any scientific theory but you can falsify them, and your hallowed scientific researchers spend most of their time “proving” AGW to be true, much as a legal advocate does at the bar. It’s Lyell’s legacy to science where reasoned intellectualism asserts truths, rather than the data. It’s progressive science in its purest form, and it isn’t science – its scientology.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
If they really are illiterate it’s not so much impractical as pointless abuse. And if they aren’t, it’s counterproductive. I stand by my view that the exercise is not worth it from the POV of anyone interested in clarity on this question.
@Louis Hissink
The cast majority of your lot show no evidence of understanding it, and those who have some inkling spend your time lying about its purview and pertinence to punlic policy to serve the interests of humanity’s enemies, so this is simply laughable, in a sad and sick kind of way.
Where uncertainty about the nature of the world is persistent and ubiquitous, the most important function of science is to guide public policy towards rational trade in risks, costs and rewards. You want to take uncertainty about the world as a rationale for culturally-based policies into which the interests of the most privileged can be invested, with only the thinnest and least convincing of plebeian-centred figleaves.
@Louis Hissink
You can’t falsify anything either. If you new a bit more than Popper’s naive version of falsification you would know that.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
Terje – if you dont believe Silkworm, yesterdays SMH said Monkton was scientifically and quantitatively illiterate as well. Amazing for murdered media to suggest he was perhaps better suited to designing jigsaw puzzles.
Amazing that the younger Murdoch clan are also dishing it out to their own head of Fox for his rampant neoliberal rightwing fox news. Apparently the younger Murdoch clan support Obama.
About time we had generational change in the Murdochs. It could be a good sign for the news.
@Louis Hissink
I’m sorry to read that your knowledge of the philosophy of science stopped in 1955, with Popper. Popper’s work was a good contribution but hardly the complete and final word on what is that thing they call science – to steal from Alan Chalmer’s book title. If falsification was all there was to it it would be great, and very boring.
Every good scientist serves an apprenticeship of several difficult years developing the necessary skills and “bushcraft” – even Einstein. Popper ignores that completely, yet it is vital to appreciating why a scientist has insight that Mr Joe Citizen or Jane Citizen does not. All data requires interpretation, at least in empirical work the last time I checked. It takes skill to do that process well and without falling for some subtle traps. Now, while it may be convenient for you to believe that everyone here is unable to appreciate confirmation bias – a baby error – it simply isn’t the case.
More frustrating than your sporadic asinine comments is the manner in which a prejudiced campaign is underway in the print media concerning the entire subject. How about railing against the articles in the Australian in which various people claim to debunk AGW, yet use erroneous and/or misrepresentation to buttress their claims? The irony of this is that these various “skeptics” are further undermining the public’s belief in the relevance and success of science in understanding the natural world. Certainly, any high school student today has little reason to feel that science is worthwhile as a profession. I mean, with biology’s central principles (evolutionary theory and mechanisms like natural selection) already sidelined in many private schools in Australia, replaced by the mutant pseudo-science of “Intelligent Design” (so I am told), and with the constant baying that scientists are just in it for the grant money etc, where is left for a child to get any sense of wonder of the natural world, and the relationship of that to the value of a good science education?
As a side note, nearly all of the occasional “skeptic” opinion writers for the Australian are in some way affiliated with the Institute for Public Affairs, according to the author credit-line at the bottom of these articles. Is this “balance”, or truth in science? I don’t think so, Louis Hissink.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
“JQs ethos that ordinary human beings are not smart enough to discuss scientific matters.”
I have no such ethos. I think a large proportion of people are smart enough, assuming they do the necessary years of work to master the subject, just as large proportion of people are musical enough to learn to play the piano pretty well. That doesn’t mean that people who haven’t done the work are entitled to conclude that the experts have got it wrong, any more than a novice can play a Beethoven concerto and claim that they are better than the professionals.
But you don’t need to assess this in the abstract. Look at the idiotic and obviously dishonest claims made by Monckton, Plimer, McKitrick, Carter Singer, Seitz, Milloy and the rest of the delusionist crew. Only someone who really wanted to believe and had a grossly inflated view of their own capacity to reach the right answer based on a minimum of work could possibly give any credit to this.
@jquiggin
You can do it (be smart enough to discuss scientific matters without the background training) if you are a genius. Clearly, (Lord) Monckton, Plimer, McKitrick, Carter Singer, Seitz, Milloy and the rest, are.
Unless those debating Monckton and Plimer have the wit and edge to cut through the pseudo science arguments and show them to be as ridiculous as they actually are it’s pretty pointless to engage them. JQ, I don’t know how well you handle yourself in a heated public debate but I think – if the invite is reissued and you think you’re up to it – you would be on the right track to aim for laughter at their expense. The pomposity of both begs for some satire.
Ha Freelander I agree 🙂 though I suspect that even being a genius is insufficient. Most science is as much about knowledge as it is about process, and a genius might have brilliant scientific process but would have to build up the knowledge like anybody else (though they could probably do this much faster than most).
@jquiggin
Yet again Terje disappoints but I am coming to expect this as the norm from Terje and give less and less credibility every time he sprays out the same unquestioning rhetoric that supports a minority of charlatans like Plimer and Monkton – and lets face it JQ – Terje played the hack job for all it was worth didnt he?.
@Donald Oats
Don dont waste your time on “hissing”
Maybe Monkton is part of the global warming conspiracy – after seeing one of his performances, it would be difficult for anyone to take the delusionist stuff seriously. But that’s just part of the plan…
Terje doesn’t doubt the scientific consensus on such matters as homonid evolution, the age of the universe, the existence of extrasolar planets, the chemistry of neurotransmission, the significance of the higgs boson or really anything else.
But somehow when it comes to climate science, the scientific consensus is suspect.
What’s the difference?
Why is this the one field of science on which non-scientists have as much credibility as scientists, by virtue of their being “ordinary human beings”?
The difference is that this is the one field of science with a relationship to Terje’s political beliefs. Yes, he will grudgingly admit that sensible regulations on emissions may be necessary, but the fact that the invisible hand of the free market, left to its own devices, runs a good chance of ruining the habitability of the planet creates a good deal of cognitive dissonance in the LDP mind. Couple that to the effects of socialization in the parallel universe of the libertarian blogosphere where hockey-stick conspiracies are established truths, and suddenly the pitiful delusions of an otherwise reasonable guy aren’t so hard to understand.
He is at the same level of mental development as your average proponent of “intelligent design”, who diligently point to the flaws in the mainstream consensus in biological science. Look at all the gaps in the fossil record, clearly the scientists are pretending to know more than they know, right? Whether an intelligent designer intervened is therefore an open question – the science is not settled. I won’t pretend to know the truth, but can’t we at least hear both sides? Why shouldn’t “ordinary human beings” be allowed to have an opinion?
Of course Terje doesn’t care about Biblical literalism so he’s quite happy to defer to the scientists in the case of evolution. But he cares a lot about the free market, so for this branch of science at least, peer review in the scientific journals is no more a mark of credibility than peer review in the libertarian blogosphere. They’re “ordinary human beings” so they have every right to their own version of science, just like the ordinary human beings pointing out the gaps in the fossil record.
@gerard
Terje wouldn’t know where he could disagree, without being a complete idiot. In the list – homonid evolution, the age of the universe, the existence of extrasolar planets, the chemistry of neurotransmission, the significance of the higgs boson – you can, as a layperson, disagree with the existence of the last, the higgs boson. All the others are such solid science, so solidly supported by a mass of evidence that their is no scope for disagreement, especially by a lay-person (except maybe on some currently unclear details). The Higgs boson is yet to be found and may not exist. In this case, there is, therefore, scope for ‘skepticism’.
As far as anthropogenic climate change goes, it is also based on very solid well supported science, on well established basic chemistry and physics. The modelling has tracked historic data well, not by ‘fitting’ as happens often with econometrics, but by model building informed by the laws of chemistry and physics and hypotheses about the interactions taking place in the atmosphere and ocean. That they track the data well and do not track the recent data if anthropogenic additions of greenhouse gases are excluded, again, provides solid support. Here again, the brilliant layperson has at most scope for disagreement on some currently unclear details. Are you such a layperson?
Terje how about being skeptical where there is scope for it at the frontiers of science where scientists are making informed speculations? Here are a couple of candidates: the Higgs boson, dark matter and dark energy. Even in these cases the scientists speculation can be wrong but I would hazard a guess that they are better informed speculations than yours.
If I have to take a bet on the future of the planet between you and the other brilliant laypeople’s conceit and the consensus views of informed scientists working in their specialist area, take a guess where I would place my money?
Take a guess who I would give the benefit of the doubt to when being wrong comes with such a terrible price?
Don’t you think you display incredible overweening conceit?
“you can, as a layperson, disagree with the existence of the last, the higgs boson.”
There’s room for skepticism on the existence of the higgs boson. But there’s a difference between the skepticism of the scientists who are building a gigantic particle accelerator to test the hypothesis, and the skepticism of a libertarian echo-chamber that learned their science on conspiracy-theory websites and can reject a hypothesis simply on political grounds. Of course the higgs boson has no political implications, it is therefore not a subject of libertarian “skepticism” despite being one of the many fields of science where there is no solid consensus. Instead they focus on the greenhouse effect – a field where there actually is a consensus. For some reason this is the ONE field out of all the physical sciences where all the scientists who have accepted the consensus either don’t know – or have suppressed – a wealth of contrary evidence possessed by rightwing bloggers.
Gerard. Do you really think there is no room for skepticism when it comes to the big bang? Is that what you truly believe? Because the Big Bang is shockingly bad science. And yet you seem to believe it in some sort of absolutist way.
@gerard
Yes. I agree with you entirely. Libertarian “skepticism” is a complete joke based on exactly the same type of thinking as creationism and holocaust denial. This thinking goes “I would prefer that such and such is not true”, therefore, I am a “skeptic” concerning the truth of such and such (or don’t believe it outright), and there is no amount of evidence that will resolve my “skepticism” against my preference. Mind you, in the last case, holocaust denial, I think most of those people are simply saying either I couldn’t care less whether it happened or that they are in favour of what happened. I would hazard that few in this last category have any doubt that it happened.
Change of topic …
I wonder whether it isn’t time for us to consider the question of geoengineering.
Pre-Copenhagen, there existed the (remote) hope that something like the beginnings of a satisfactory agreement top staunch emissions might emerge. Post-Copenhagen, it’s hard to believe one will arrive anytime soon, and yet, emissions will continue to rise and therewith all of the impacts we are now seeing. The last Assessment report, was based largely on data published by 2005, and known in 2003. Since that time we have learned that emissions are growing more rapidly, sea levels rising faster, sea ice extent in decline with its valuable protective albedo dissipating, glacial mass decomposing more quickly and the prospects are that by 2030-2035, temperatures will have risen enough to put Arctic permafrost on track to dissipate and release its stores of CH4 and CO2, wiping out whatever cuts in emissions growth we’ve managed by then. If we lose the permafrost, end of century temperature rises of 4-6 degrees C are pretty much certain, absent some serious geoengineering — and I’m not talking “no regrets” measures either. Such risies would be catastrophic, especially for the poles and for Africa which would get a lot warmer than that. We would get massive growth in desertification around the 25 degree north and south latitudes which would encroach on major food growing areas. People dependeing on glacial meltwater for irrigation would be in dire trouble.
If we are going to start doing geoengineering, it would be as well to start early in a very modest way, precisely so that we can gather data about possible undesirable and unintended consequences, the precise positive impacts of particular measures and so forth.
Crutzen suggests admixture of sulphur dioxide to the stratosphere. This would be fairly cheap to do if for example, aircraft flying over either the north or southern hemispheres during the respective summers used fuel with about 0.1% sulphur added. This wouldn’t be enough to materially affect stratospheric ozone and it could be enough to stop the uptick in CO2-forced temperatures beyond the predictions current in 2001. It would be a light foot on the brake which might buy us the time we need to stabilise emissions before we lose the permafrost and Arctic sea ice extent in the northern summer.
Another possibility would be ocean fertilisation, which if it aimed at no more than returning the levles of algae on continental sea shelves to about what it was in in 1980 would make a contibution to the effectiveness of marine sinks and possibly reinvigorate sections of the marine food chain.
The moral hazard issues are not small of course. This is why (rightly) many of us are reluctant to go this way. Giving the polluters a partial pass opens a wedge against doing something about emissions. That’s why I believe such measures should be very modest in scale and aimed at nothing more than buying us time to get the right kind of international agreement in place on emissions and eliciting the modelling needed to do accurate risk trading. Using SO2 to protect albedo values is a fairly modest and semi-‘natural’ exercise. We’d be underpinning a natural negative feedback.
And of course we should do revegetation and biochar or whatever we can.
Thoughts anyone?
@Fran Barlow
it is a disturbing prospect, but there maybe little choice since no effective international agreement seems likely. How would geoengineering be kept within boarders? I don’t imagine geo-engineering will be any easier to get international agreement over. Except that the fossil fuel industry might call off their attack dogs if their vested interests aren’t threatened. In fact I can see a seemless transition happening where the right quickly transisitions from AGW denial to pro-nuclear and geo-engineering when the effects of climate change start to be more difficult to explain away.
@Michael
It couldn’t be. Realistically, you’d have to get the major powers on board.
There is science and then there is climate science
“Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research.”
Are you sure you aren’t exaggerating it’s importance? Have you read the IPCC report or are you reporting this after reading the times online, the Australian, http://www.bitchaboutbarack.com, http://www.prophecyfellowship.org….?
It’s interesting that this made the front page of the unbaised Australian today.