On Friday a friend of mine forwarded me an e-mail from Martin McGuiness, special assistant to the president for legislative affairs. At this point, we expect the White House to spin every issue to its advantage, but this quote in Mr. McGuiness’s email stood out:
“This administration has done more for the environment and addressing energy security and climate change than any other in history.”
While the claim that George Bush has done more to address climate change than any administration seems ridiculous, I am always willing to welcome converts to our movement. If this administration has finally come around on the climate crisis, then now is the time for them to take action.
Let’s join together and demand that the Bush Administration commit to an international treaty that would cut CO2 by 90%.
The truth is that far from having the best record on the climate crisis, this administration would rank at the very bottom. Remember, this was the White House that hired an energy lobbyist to censor the scientists authoring the government’s climate reports.
Immediately upon taking office, George Bush rejected the Kyoto Accord that called for only a 7% cut in CO2 below 1990 levels. He claimed, with no basis in fact, that the treaty would damage the U.S. economy. And in April, 2005, the Government Accountability Office determined that George Bush’s climate program “lacks a major component required by law: periodic assessments of how rising temperatures may affect people and the environment.”
In addition, the White House worked to prevent any international progress on solutions to the climate crisis at both the G8 and APEC summits this summer.
However, his advisor is now claiming, “This administration has done more for the environment and addressing energy security and climate change than any other in history.”
Tell President Bush that it’s time to promote real solutions to the climate crisis and support an international treaty that will reduce CO2 by 90%.
Wow, he’s calling for a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions? Over what time frame? I know that climate change is an urgent issue but that sort of commitment seems unrealistic. Although in the long run it is probably what is necessary…
Never going to happen. That would mean giving up driving cars, eating meat, having constant electricity…
It isn’t an urgent issue.
Yeah, let’s completely destroy the quality of life for the vast majority of people based on predictions about the future that may never come true and are made by the same people whose last predictions didn’t come true.
If you’re talking about global cooling, wikipedia says that it was just media sensationalism and not a serious, widely accepted scientific claim. That makes sense because computers were shit back then and climate models were just getting started. So if somebody had the impression from their research that the climate was going to cool, there was no way to test it.
Now climate scientists have much greater confidence in the correctness of their climate simulations because they can reproduce past temperature trends using physically realistic assumptions about the atmosphere, solar input, etc.
This is a good place to read more about climate modeling and the argument for anthropogenic global warming in general:
I like this article in Physics Today about climate modeling and the tests they’ve done to validate it. It won’t persuade you but I’m a physicist so I include it…
Why do you oppose the scientific consensus on global warming? In previous posts you have suggested that scientific community is manufacturing a crisis so they can get funding and authority. What is it about the consensus that validates this theory to you?
I’m not talking about global cooling, but about the temperature rise predictions made during the early 90s which were way out. I keep hearing ‘if global temperatures go up by 4 degrees then we’ll see fireballs in the sky and five headed monsters rising up out of the lakes and the mountains changing colour’ and all the rest, but I’ve seen no evidence (and I’ve looked at the temperature data myself at some length) that such a rise will happen or is even that likely to happen. Particularly since this latest rise in temperatures is only a 30 year trend and we’ve been pumping loads of CO2 into the atmosphere for a lot longer than 30 years.
That I hear so much about my carbon footprint, about what I’m going to be forced to do to conform to some speculative notion of what’s wrong based on the self-contradictory precautionary principle, yet scientists constantly produce bullshit studies on nothing topics and none of them, not even the most senior climate scientists, criticise them for wasting resources. So scientists can use up as much energy as they like doing whatever the hell they want to do, but the rest of us have to bow to their will and lower our quality of life. That’s the message. And I think you can probably see why I don’t believe it. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is never a convincing position, except to people who want to be convinced, or are just plain stupid.
I don’t know what those predictions were, but the consensus on how much greenhouse gas emissions are affecting global temperature trends only developed in the past decade or so. Climate modelling has been improved and validated a lot more since then, which resulted in a consensus that human greenhouse gas emissions are “almost certainly” increasing the global temperature according to the IPCC report.
You don’t predict future global temperature trends merely by looking at the temperature data. The scientific approach is to create a mathematical model of the climate, feed it physical data about the state of the atmosphere, and see what the model predicts. Granted the climate is very complex and modeling it is very difficult, but mathematical models of the climate based on the laws of physics and real atmospheric measurements have been made. Those models have “predicted” previous global temperature trends in the sense that they replicated them to reasonable accuracy based on physics and data on the atmosphere/sun/etc. alone. So in that sense the models have been validated and their future predictions are likely to be correct.
In particular, there are physical reasons for the downward trend we saw in the middle of the century. I don’t know them offhand but if you look at the RealClimate blog you should be able to find some discussion of it.
Predicting the future climate based on historical trends is an extremely naive approach to something so complex. It’s like saying the stock market is going to keep increasing because it’s increasing now. The correct approach is to look into the physics behind the trends, build a model, validate it by comparing its output to known data from the present and past, then use it to predict the unknown future.
What’s contradictory about trying to avoid a potential danger that you’ve foreseen by the scientific method? People disagree about how quickly we’re going to see bad stuff start to happen as a result of anthropogenic global warming and the greenhouse effect, but basic physics says that increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere indefinitely would eventually throw the planet out of equilibrium. We have to take the precaution sooner or later. The models are telling us sooner is the right answer.
I don’t think scientists are going to be doing whatever the hell they want if we start cutting back CO2 drastically. The economy would take a big hit and the first thing to suffer when that happens is ‘discretionary spending’ like health care, education, and generally patronage of the arts and sciences. If this is a scheme to increase the power and status of the scientific community in society, it’s a pretty stupid one.
If the economy takes a hit, it’ll be people like me who don’t do anything immediately useful that’ll be looking for jobs. Unless I can get one working on CO2 reduction technology or something…
People can be hypocrites and still be right. If you’re not convinced, the earth will go on warming just the same. Take a look at the RealClimate link above and see the arguments and answers to skeptics. I found it overall pretty persuasive.
You seem to be very concerned that cutting down CO2 will hurt our quality of life. Well, it probably would. But the runaway greenhouse effect that is predicted if we don’t cut back will hurt it a lot more. We can bounce back from a hit to the economy with time, but if we fuck up our planet that’s endgame. Also, there is some possibility of using technology to slow down the greenhouse effect for a while as we get our shit together, like carbon sequestration, reflective satellites, etc.
My ideal plan would be to stall for time using technology for a couple more decades and in the mean time set up a Manhattan Project (or several) to get alternative energy sources online. Maybe even conventional nuclear could work, if we can deal with that nasty problem of radioactive waste that stays extremely toxic for millenia. Once we’ve got our power source online, we phase out fossil fuel emitters like coal plants, cars, etc and make the cars electric or fuel-cell powered.
Once clean, abundant electric energy is available, I predict clear sailing till the next asteroid hits the planet…
Oh, there’s a broken link on the RealClimate page to an ipcc faq on climate change. It’s a very good faq, so I found the real link:
Given the controversy about the extent of the warming trend, why not just ignore it and look at what is actually happening? We are now looking at the artic sea ice disappearing to the point that the “northwest passage” will be a reality in the next few years. We know that the Antarctic ice shelf is rapidly disappearing. These aren’t projections, they are on-the-ground, in-your-face realities. Forget what has ‘caused’ the temperature warming. We know that the results of rising sea levels is going to cause problems. Instead of squabbling over what is causing the problem, why not look at possible efforts that can be taken to slow it down? Reducing carbon emissions is the most sensible approach. How much and over what time period is negotiable, but not the need for it. Will it change our lifestyles? Undoubtably. But so will massive inland migration from inundated coastal areas. Extremist views on either side of the issue helps no one. We need some calm deliberate planning, and then action to match.
Thanks for reminding us that global warming is already causing dangerous changes in our global ecosystem.
I am emphasizing the science behind anthropogenic global warming because I think it is not heard enough (I guess corporate media thinks we’re too stupid or don’t care) and we need the science to understand what to do next. If we had no idea why the Arctic ice was melting, it would make no sense to propose drastic CO2 cuts which would slow down or cripple the economy. People must be made aware that (a) global warming is a serious problem, causing arctic ice to melt and sea levels to rise among other things (b) we have a good idea of why it’s happening (c) we can stop it if we cut CO2 emissions and/or find another way to lower CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
I think one of the biggest problems will be getting the nations to agree to do it together. This is a classic prisoner’s dilemma sort of situation, where each nation has an incentive to ignore a hypothetical CO2 drawdown treaty and emit more CO2 while everyone else cuts back and is put at an economic disadvantage. And everyone thinks everyone else is going to do this anyway, so they refuse to enter the treaty either. I’m afraid that as a result, nothing will get done until bad things start to happen and by then it might be too late to reverse.
Would that be the same IPCC that Chris Landsea effectively resigned from in 2005 because it had “become politicized”, that it “utilize[d] the media to push an unsupported agenda”, and made “pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings”?
“I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.” Link
Forgive me for not trusting these people.
I know.
No, their record of past predictions has proven ‘reasonably’ good.
No offence, but you telling me there are good reasons without you knowing them isn’t particularly convincing. But I’ll take a look.
Why is one more naive than the other? They both seem to me like reckless folly.
Nothing. But that’s not the precautionary principle.
It isn’t in equilibrium. The constituents of the Earth’s atmosphere are and have always been in a constant state of change.
Why do we ‘have to take the precaution’? What’s the definitive reason that takes away our choice in the matter?
My guess is that we won’t start cutting it back drastically. And scientists will continue to play this game.
Hey, I never said it’d work, or that politicising science in this way wasn’t a stupid idea.
Develop programs for building high altitude cities to escape the impending flooding. It’s happening. Noah’s Ark, all over again. (sic)
They’re more likely to be wrong. I mean, if they’re hypocrites in public, who knows what they get up to behind closed doors? Scientific history has plenty of faked research and scandals.
We’ll see whether the earth goes on warming. And you telling me that regardless of whether I’m convinced, it will happen, is utterly unscientific and you know it.
The irony is that we probably won’t cut down on CO2 but we’ll see a downturn in quality of life anyway.
Let’s freeze the sun…
Or just stop using cars and develop hyperefficient man-powered vehicles.
Nah, SARS and international terrorism will still suffice as excuses for conspiratorial elites to play their horrible games. Could always bring back the War on Drugs, just for giggles.
I’ve also heard reports about IPCC scientists getting the science wrong. It’s not clear to me if this is because there is disagreement among the scientists on these topics, or if the science is being sexed up to support a climate control agenda. I do notice, however, that Landsea is concerned about a relatively minor topic (one which receives excessive and clueless coverage in the media for obvious reasons), that of the relationship between global warming and hurricane strength/frequency. If you look at his biography on Wikipedia, it says that he supports the consensus on anthropogenic warming due to CO2.
Clearly the IPCC suffers from serious flaws. Yet the basic consensus I described earlier is strong, and shared even by many of those who dissent from the details like Landsea. That basic consensus is what matters most when we decide what we should do next.
The stupid document doesn’t have a table of contents. I searched the text for model and found the one on climate modeling. It’s FAQ 8.1, page 117.
Also, that thing about midcentury warming is on several links on the realclimate site. It has to do with sulfates and volcanic eruptions cooling the climate.
We have physically based models that predict the past correctly using physical principles (as opposed to just tuning the parameters until the model fits the data). Such models can be reasonably expected to predict the future because physics does not change. That’s the whole point of physics, to be able to predict the future based on reasonable assumptions about the past.
It’s possible that they have just tuned the parameters to fit the past data and are bullshitting us all about having made a real model based on physical principles and observations. I don’t know, I haven’t seen the details and probably don’t have the expertise to comprehend them. But I believe the consensus, as I believe the experts and I have not read any dissenting opinions that raised well-reasoned arguments against their consensus.
Our entire technological society is based upon mathematical models of physics constructed and validated in the way I’ve described. We have vast experience with using the scientific method to do exactly what I’ve discussed. Climate prediction is difficult, and there are mistakes and faked research and all that in science, but I find it hard to believe that a consensus of this size is bullshit. Especially when I can’t find any reasonable dissenters.
By equilibrium I mean the set of conditions that support life on this planet, and which have stayed fairly constant over the course of human history. There are various feedback mechanisms in the biosphere that keep us in this equilibrium. If we push the planet too hard by forcibly changing the composition of the atmosphere beyond its usual parameters, it’s going to fall out of equilibrium into a different state which we may not like. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.
For human purposes, the earth is a machine that requires a certain range of parameters to produce desirable living conditions. I’d prefer to stick with the range that’s worked for the past few millenia.
i like the cost-benefit approach taken in this article, although i don’t know how the estimates were made and if i’d agree with the assumptions inherent in them…
To me, though I probably know less about this than you, it’s damn clear from every word that comes out of their mouths (that the science is being ‘sexed up’ to support an agenda).
Regardless, it speaks volumes about the concern of some of the IPCC scientists for public opinion rather than strong scientific explanations. If they’re willing to lie about this (it’s quite common these days for climate scientists to put EVERY climate event that has negative results down to global warming) then what else might they be willing to lie about?
Sure, which means he obviously isn’t some ‘climate change denier’ as the leftwing elitist intelligentsia like to call anyone who doesn’t believe their dogma. He’s a genuine scientist worried that the IPCC is or is becoming a political rather than a scientific body.
No, the truth is what matters most. If you have a consensus built upon lies, propaganda and self-interest then it doesn’t make a fig’s worth of difference to what we ‘should’ do. If the global warming/climate change consensus is an example of this (and I’m willing to be persuaded that it isn’t) then we have no obligation whatsoever to listen to them when deciding what to do next. It is only if their claims and theories are well evidenced and well explained that we should listen to them. And that remains to be proven.
Sadly, this is my first day of a week off work so I’m spending it getting drunk and reading a 200 year old book about Freemasonry. It’ll be tomorrow at the earliest before I check it out, but thanks for the reference points, and for being specific.
We have physically based models that predict the past correctly using physical principles (as opposed to just tuning the parameters until the model fits the data). Such models can be reasonably expected to predict the future because physics does not change.
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An unproven assumption. Even the second law of thermodynamics has been found to have exceptions.
What’s the difference between a reasonable assumption and an unreasonable assumption?
How much have you looked for well reasoned arguments against their consensus? What would change your mind? No offence, but you seem pretty convinced about this. I have no doubt that powerful sectional interests are using this as an excuse/justification/smokescreen for a diabolical plot. But I remain unsure about the science itself. You, on the other hand, are pretty much convinced about the science itself, right?
You know what I’m going to ask next. What would falsify the theory of man made global warming, for you?
And the more we use technology the more we’ll find that technological modes of understanding are verified. Sad thing is, this is tautologous and proves nothing about the validity of a technological society outside of a technological society’s mode of reference and criteria for judgement.
See my questions above. I accept that you we disagree, and even some of your reasons for affirming something so contrary to what I believe.
So by ‘equilibrium’ you don’t mean equilibrium. This is a classic (and common) example of the rhetoric scientists use to try to scare people. It saddens me to see you using it so readily.
And I’ve no problem with that. But that’s quite different from your initial claim about equilibrium.
I understand your not getting to all the reading right away. I am pretty busy right now and can understand not wanting to be saddled with a reading list, especially on your week off. I’m not sure how terribly convincing it’ll be anyway, since a lot of it just expands a bit more on what I’ve been saying.
I think this is a stressful situation for everyone involved, and it affects the scientists too. Some of them are getting alarmist and forgetting their principles in a rush to persuade people to fend off the coming doom that their studies (however preliminary) might suggest.
I don’t think that they’re trying to systematically lie to form a fabricated consensus about climate change. Not because I trust them, but for two other reasons:
if this were happening, I think someone knowledgeable would report on it, but they haven’t. AFAIK the closest thing is this Chris Landsea letter, which is a relatively minor dispute he has with other scientists who are abusing the IPCC process to promote their personal ideas about the hurricane-warming relationship.
There’s no motivation. Like I said before, if it’s a plot it’s a stupid one bound to backfire any potential benefits for the plotters.
Now I’m aware of your theory that conspiratorial elites keep producing these massive, stupidly ineffective plots to control the public for their own benefit… but it just seems implausible to me in this case. How do you go about concluding that this is a conspiracy, rather than just human imperfection and alarmism causing an occasional overstepping of the scientific method?
I certainly agree. We need to figure out the IPCC is getting right, what it is getting wrong, and why. As I said above, I think it is basically right but suffers from some politicization because some of the scientists are getting alarmed, so they are overstepping the scientific method in the hopes of getting people to pay attention. It’s a classic environmentalist excess that’s been around since before “Silent Spring”. Claims of a larger more systematic conspiracy to distort the truth seem to me unwarranted.
I’d start believing the conspiracy theories before I started doubting the laws of physics, personally. The physics that climate modeling is based on is classical physics, it’s over a hundred years old and has been extensively validated experimentally. I’m not sure what exceptions to the second law you’re thinking of - there may be some depending on how you phrase it - but there are certainly none that would affect the ordinary thermodynamics on which climate modeling depends.
Investigate whatever skeptical routes of inquiry you please, but I’m telling you as a physicist and a philosopher that doubting the laws of physics is not a productive route.
Generally in physics, a reasonable assumption about the past would be one consistent with known physics and supported by experimental data. For example, if you plug in the concentration of various greenhouse gases into your climate model, I would expect that to be based on observational data from multiple independent sources that cover the globe well enough to get a global picture. In addition we should have cross-checks between our observations that show we understand why the features in our data are what they are, rather than merely experimental artifacts not representative of reality.
For the relevant climate modeling variables I think they have met these criteria. That is not something I’m going to argue in detail here, but it is discussed on the realclimate blog, wikipedia, and related pages.
I’ve looked some, but not exhaustively. I may be wrong. It’s always hard to sift through all the bullshit and stale discredited arguments on the web, and find credible people on either side. Thanks to sites like RealClimate, we have representation from the global warming establishment; the skeptical scientists’ opinions are scattered across the web and other media.
As you’ve probably noticed, the critical aspect for me is the modeling. Since climate is so complex, the only way we have a chance of predicting it is by computer models. Someone who knows the models would have to explain their deficiencies to me. Possibly I’m wrong about how well the models are validated or whether they are tuned to fit the data, I’m not an expert. The article above suggests there is some tuning going on but that it is ‘reasonable’. I’m not sure what that means.
If a climatologist familiar with the modeling were to write a dissenting argument and have a debate with those in favor of the consensus, that would help a lot. Maybe something like this exists and I haven’t found it yet.
As I indicated above I would need some more argument to believe the diabolical plot thing.
My usage of equilibrium is common in scientific literature but perhaps unfamiliar to you. An equilibrium in general is a ‘metastable state’ of a system, which means that the system stays near that state so long as the parameters of the system are not tweaked too much. An equilibrium is resistant to perturbation by outside influences, but only by so much.
In the case of climate, the equilibrium is the current state of the climate, which is held roughly constant despite small changes in solar activity, atmospheric composition, cloud cover, etc. by certain physical feedback mechanisms. By introducing loads of CO2 we are perturbing the equilibrium through the greenhouse effect. We don’t know how much we can do that before we reach a tipping point, the feedbacks holding us in equilibrium break down, and large scale uncontrollable climate change occurs. Not that I’m predicting disaster within the next century like some, but my point is we can’t go on doing this forever without disastrous consequences.
My meaning of equilibrium is not meant to carry any mythological connotations. You are right that there is no inherently good state for the earth to exist in. However, there is the one that we are currently adapted to living in. We want to keep it fairly constant, or at least changing slowly enough that we have time to adapt our lifestyles to it and avoid large-scale human suffering.
For example, if we had predicted that rapid global cooling would occur because of decreased solar activity despite our CO2 emissions, I might support increased greenhouse gas emissions to slow the cooldown and prevent another ice age.
You are right that there is no Eden, which is why we want to make the best one we can without spoiling what we already do have.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore.
Mr. Gore “is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted,†the Nobel citation said.
That’s hilarious X. Letterman and Leno can’t top that. I just received this:
Dear Felix,
I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
All we need to do to solve all of our environmental problems (and most of our socio-political ones, too) is reduce the human population of Earth by about 85% over the next century or so. Not kill people off, but reduce birthrates to near zero. The planet could easily support a billion souls, especially if we use our advanced technology to better the lot of all people. Phasing out fossile fuels would also be much easier with a lower population as we’d need far less energy. With more food, energy, space and other resources to go around, there’d be much less to fight about…maybe warfare would become the exception instead of the rule.
But humans like to have babies and ignore the future. How is there going to be a solution, and how will people not object to it? Not many people actually care about the earth or humanity beyond their lifetime.
I’m not sure how terribly convincing it’ll be anyway, since a lot of it just expands a bit more on what I’ve been saying.
That’s hilarious X. Letterman and Leno can’t top that. I just received this: