How to argue with a global warming "skeptic"

[Vay]

Hey Mick - finally getting around to answering your last long post in full:

@Mick

Honestly, the incessant non stop of questions reminds me of a conspiracy theorist or a climate denier unwilling to engage in debate. To your credit this is a much better post, but would you expect to ask a climate denier to prove there is no such thing as global warming? Of course not, we make the claim and it’s up to us to provide evidence, which I would suggest is overwhelming, is it up to me to prove a carbon tax is ineffective? The same is true, Im not in the business of debunking theories, you make the claim, so you need to back it up.

Maybe I’m misremembering our exchange, but I think I had one main question (with a few examples) in response to your criticisms about the carbon tax: how has our civilization dealt in the past with major environmental crisises. Really I think 1 question with a few examples isn’t unreasonable. However, since you won’t address it, here’s how I would answer myself: just because major international environmental problems in the past have always been addressed by centrally-directed action, doesn’t mean a carbon tax is the right ~kind~ of centrally-directed action in this case. This is where the burden does fall back on me to show it probably is the “right kind of solution”. I’ll try to do a better job of that later; for now, just to at least demonstrate my perspective isn’t exactly fringe, let me quote The Economist:

@The Economist

The world will one day adopt a carbon tax - but only after exhausting all the alternatives.

…and suggest you read the following article, as I think it lays out quite well why I believe a carbon tax is a necessary (but not sufficient) course for societies to deal with human-caused climate change.

Do economists all favour a carbon tax?

Also, you didn’t answer my point about the relationship between gas prices and gas-guzzling car purchases- not sure if that means you’re considering it, or you disagree with it, or just didn’t see it.

On a side note, I think you’ve got it wrong about the burden of proof when it comes to deniers, though. AGW is a long-standing theory with an explicit scientific consensus supporting it. If someone wants to say it’s wrong, this is what Sagan would call an extraordinary claim (either the consensus of research is wrong or there is a vast scientific conspiracy) and thus the burden of proof falls to the personal making this claim.

@Mick

[quote=“Vay”]I didn’t say the planet cared. But by comparing countries you are basically comparing apples to oranges. Of course Australia can’t emit as much as China or India overall. Luxembourg was topping the list a few years ago - shall they nevertheless be exempt from any emissions caps at all, since they can’t in a million years emit as much as the US?

What list? By per capita? Is that how we measure things, officially? [/quote]

I’ll try to answer why my metric is the appropriate one in addressing your next question.

@Mick

[quote=“Vay”]I still can’t see how Fred’s point is “a valid one”. TBH, I can’t even see what the hell his point is. That the collective action problem exists, therefore do nothing is the best solution? Please, do elaborate.

Ok, key point, please consider this carefully. You want as a government to bring down peoples overall use of CO2, how do you do that. You’r an example of someone who is well aware of the impact of global warming yet is very difficult to change your lifestyle can be expanded to the millions who really dont give a shit and how effective a carbon tax solution will be.[/quote]

Ok, but as I said to someone Cooperations above, I don’t believe this is his point - it’s yours. His point was just to mock me, as he clearly admitted.

Regarding the actual issue of comparing me and my behavior to that of countries, I’m slow but I think I finally get your point and see why you say I’ve been avoiding it. If I understand you, you’re saying, if we imagine countries as thinking of themselves as individuals, why shouldn’t they reason as I do that non-cooperation is reasonable (although as I said to Fred, this isn’t my actual reason for non-cooperation).

My answer is this: the case of my wife (not I) reasoning as she does and countries are different, because in the case of individuals, it is totally impossible that most individuals are going to spontaneously get their acts together and decide to cooperate, and also, her cooperation isn’t going to affect this situation in any way. Further, even if it were possible that cooperation would suddenly seem to happen or her cooperation might affect even a small portion of society to also comply, individuals have no means of verification. They cannot observe the behavior of everyone in their own neighborhood, let alone city, country, or planet to determine whether or not others are basically cooperating.,. and they also have no means to punish for lack of cooperation, even if such verification did exist.

Whereas with countries, cooperation does indeed happen… because, Republican views aside, we are fortunate to have international bodies which work to make such things happen. And we have means - although not perfect - of verification of compliance, and punishment for non-cooperation. Also, it is a simple fact that, compared to individuals, there are a relatively small number of countries. Thus, even if Luxembourg wants to complain that compared to China its contribution is so neglible that it might as well not exist, at least it can be sure that its compliance is counted. Further, If Luxembourg wants to defect into non-cooperation, this behavior is known by everyone; it can be publicly shamed and punished, as it is clearly unfair… because if we blew Luxembourg up to the size and population of China, its contribution would be many multiple times that of China’s.

Now as to the issue of population growth, I think that is a separate question and one that I think could fairly be brought up as a factor in treaty discussions… but like I said before, that’s getting way out of my depth (not that the rest of this isn’t.)

Haven’t I and other mods been urging you not to bring your wife and family into the debate?

Urging me? Why should anyone be urging me to do anything? I’m the one who keeps getting attacked about his personal life, remember? If someone is going to accuse me of hypocrisy because I own a car, I think it’s kinda necessary if I’m going to defend myself to bring up the fact that I have a car because my wife insists on it. And anyway, this is irrelevent; you’re the one who laid down the wife and kid as a criterion for a personal attack; I think the ongoing and many many many times-repeated car point (aka “Vay’s hypocrisy”) is a personal attack in-and-of-itself. The point is, it’s my personal life. It’s therefore, by definition, a personal attack to keep bringing it up… especially when I’ve made it quite clear it annoys me - and not because I feel in any way hypocritical. Bottom line: it addresses me the person, not my argument - and in what I think is clearly a mean-spirited way; thus, it should be unacceptable in these discussions.

@Mick

They may work. I took a look at your last couple of links the first says BC decreased fuel consumption from roughly 4.56 thousand liters in 2010 to 4.4 thousand liters in 2014. Whats that a 2% decrease, attributed to the carbon tax, must be right?

I posted the gas consumption statistics because they blatantly contradict the table in your BI article - a table which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. But also, if memory serves, this is a decrease happening in the midst of increases everywhere else in the country. And in fact, increases are to be expected; it’s the normal situation. So doesn’t that strike you as odd? Further, the statistics basically corroborate the finding of the study I posted earlier and that of the Duke Nicholas Institute.

@Mick

Then opened up your other one by the Duke Nicholas Institute, who are these guys by he way? See, skepticism works both ways. You may recognize the same questions I ask of climate deniers that I am now asking from you. They claim in the second paragraph a reduction by 5 to 15 %, my skeptical bells are ringing.

Ok now here I think you are clearly using “skeptical” inappropriately. It’s fine to be skeptical, but that doesn’t shirk you of any and all responsibility to find things out yourself. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, you’ve provided some evidence - but it contradicts what I prefer to believe… so I’m skeptical. Therefore I’ll just default to ignoring the evidence.’ As far as who the DNI is, let me Google that for you:

[quote=“Wikipedia”]Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions is one of seven interdisciplinary research institutes at Duke University[1] located in Durham, North Carolina. Founded in 2005,[2] it became the first environmental-policy-centered Institute with a Duke University affiliation.

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions is focused on helping decision makers in business, industry, government and the nonprofit sector understand their options, anticipate their choices and make the most of opportunities for leadership in creating a more economically and environmentally sustainable future. Since its inception, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions has grown into a major nonpartisan participant in key debates surrounding climate change, the economics of limiting carbon pollution, oceans governance and coastal development, emerging environmental markets and freshwater concerns at home and abroad.[3][/quote]

@Mick

But so you don’t think I am ignoring this, will say some times when I don’t comment, its because Im not looking for a confrontation with you.

Fair enough. And I apologize for getting nasty earlier. As I explained in an earlier post, it wasn’t really the non-response and ignoring of things I’d written in subsequent posts by you that got me mad: it was the issue of your being a moderator and rationalizing a defense of Fred when he was clearly outright making fun of me.

[fred_smith]

I thought that this was interesting…

Wall Street Journal

[quote]The environmental lobby has tried to turn climate change into a social justice issue even though its anticarbon policies disproportionately harm the poor. Honest Democrats are starting to admit this, as we saw in this week’s stunning revolt in the California legislature. Jerry Brown doesn’t have much to show for his second turn in Sacramento, and of late he has focused his legacy attention on reducing carbon emissions. The Governor hailed California as a model of green virtue at the Vatican this summer and had hoped to flaunt sweeping new anticarbon regulations at the U.N’s climate-change summit in Paris this year.

But now his party has mutinied. Democrats hold near supermajorities in both legislative chambers with 52 of 80 seats in the Assembly. Yet this week 21 Democratic Assembly members representing middle- and low-income communities—including 11 blacks and Latinos—joined Republicans to kill a bill mandating a cut in state greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Democrats also forced Mr. Brown to scrap a measure that would have given the California Air Resources Board plenary authority to reduce statewide oil consumption in vehicles by half by 2030. Imagine the EPA without the accountability. “One of the implications probably would have been higher gas prices,” noted Democratic Assemblyman Jim Cooper. “Who does it impact the most? The middle class and low-income folks.” Many Democrats demanded that the legislature get an up-or-down vote on the board’s proposed regulations before they take effect. Yet the Governor and Senate liberals wouldn’t abide constraints on the board’s powers.

The defeat is all the more striking for the failure of appeals to green moral superiority. Liberal groups targeted Catholic Democrats with ads featuring Pope Francis. Mr. Brown demonized oil companies for selling a “highly destructive” product. The most morally destructive product in California these days is green government. Take the 33% renewable electricity mandate. Since 2011 solar energy has increased more than 10-fold while wind has nearly doubled. But during this period electricity rates have jumped 2.18 cents per kilowatt hour—four times the national average. Inland residents and energy-intensive businesses have been walloped the most. California’s cap-and-trade program has also hurt manufacturers, power plants and oil refiners, which are required to purchase permits to emit carbon. Between 2011 and 2014, California’s manufacturing employment increased by 2% compared to 6% nationwide, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cap and trade has also raised fuel costs, though its effect is hard to isolate from other environmental mandates. The Western States Petroleum Association last year projected that cap and trade would add 16 to 76 cents per gallon to the retail price of gas based on data from the Air Resources Board. In 2006 Californians paid about 23 cents more per gallon than the national average due to higher gas taxes and the state’s reformulated fuel regulations. The price premium increased to 41 cents last year and spiked to $1.14 in May after several in-state refineries experienced problems. The average gas price in California is now $3.22 and $3.41 in the Los Angeles metro region (where a couple of refineries are undergoing maintenance) compared to $2.36 nationwide. California’s low-carbon fuel standard will jack up gas prices even more. This anticarbon policy requires refiners to cut their fuel’s “lifecycle” carbon emissions including transport to market by 10% by 2020. The goal is to boost California biofuels. However, there aren’t enough commercially available “advanced” biofuels to meet the targets, so fuel blenders will have to buy regulatory credits.

The chief beneficiaries of the Golden State’s green government have been the well-to-do, while low- and middle-income Californians have borne most of the regulatory costs. The Bay Area and Los Angeles regions account for 80% of the state’s electric car rebates compared to the San Joaquin Valley’s 2%. Liberals in Sacramento have promised to spend cap-and-trade revenues on car-sharing programs, low-emissions public transit and electric-car charging stations in low-income communities. But then they sock it to these drivers with regulations that raise gasoline prices.

Meantime, while job growth in the Bay Area is booming, unemployment remains high in the rest of the state. The unemployment rate is 3.8% in San Francisco and 2.9% in Palo Alto. It’s 10.4% in Fresno, 8.8% in San Bernardino and 9.6% in the refining hub of Carson—nearly four percentage points higher than in December 2007. After this week’s defeat, Mr. Brown vowed to use regulation to end-run the legislature. “We don’t have a declaration in statute, but we have absolutely the same authority,” he declared. President Obama has taught him well. “We’re going forward. The only thing different is my zeal has been intensified to a maximum degree.” Vengeance is his, and the Governor will make hard-up Californians pay for their sins of emission.[/quote]

[Vay]

Yeah well the collective action problem is real - there’s no doubt about that. Politicians brave enough to look beyond the short-term and stick their noses out in front of the pack are probably mostly going to be sacrificing much to little end… unless Finley is right and there are win-win solutions that don’t necessarily involve taxes, costly permits or what-have-you.

Here’s something I found interesting, as I didn’t realize it had been done by this source:

FactCheck.org - Nothing False About Temperature Data

The big issue for the denialist crowd as far as the modern instrumental temperature record is the technique called “homogenization” - standard anti-bias corrections which they asset are actually used to massage the data. Here’s what FactCheck had to say:

[quote]…Monitoring organizations like NOAA use data from other stations nearby to try and adjust for these types of issues, either raising or lowering the temperature readings for a given station. This is known as homogenization. The most significant adjustment around the world, according to NOAA, is actually for temperatures taken over the oceans, and that adjustment acts to lower rather than raise the global temperature trend.

The homogenization methods used have been validated and peer-reviewed. For example, a 2012 paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research confirmed the effectiveness of the homogenization processes for NOAA’s network of stations, and even noted that “it is likely that maximum temperature trends have been underestimated.” In other words, there may have actually been more warming than NOAA has reported.

Another paper, from 2010, looked into the siting of U.S. monitoring stations in particular, and again found no problem with the homogenization methods. “[T]he adjusted [U.S. Historical Climatology Network] temperatures are extremely well aligned with recent measurements. … In summary, we find no evidence that the [conterminous United States] average temperature trends are inflated due to poor station siting.”

Berkeley Earth, a climate science nonprofit founded in early 2010 by scientists expressing skepticism at the time about global warming, has also found no undue manipulation of temperature data in its own analyses. Its page specifically on the Paraguayan Puerto Casado station that Homewood mentioned shows the adjusted readings do in fact show a rise in temperature over time.

An October 2011 paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research provides an overview of the entire Global Historical Climatology Network’s temperature data set, including detailed information about adjustments. In total, at least one “bias correction” was applied to 3,297 of the 7,279 stations in use at some point since 1801, though most of these occurred from the 1950s through the 1980s. As the chart below shows, there are approximately equal numbers of adjustments in the positive and negative directions.[/quote]

[fred_smith]

Yeah well the collective action problem is real

Yeah well I expect that you are right.

[finley]

@fred smith

I thought that this was interesting…

Why? Because a journalist farted out some unsubstantiated opinions?

The environmental lobby has tried to turn climate change into a social justice issue even though its anticarbon policies disproportionately harm the poor.

Hogwash. The whole point of taxing fuel is to correct a market distortion, ie, the fact that fuel users create negative externalities. If poor people find this puts them under pressure - by, for example, making a car more expensive to run, then maybe they should, like, sell the f’ing car. Honestly, where is it written that humans have a divine right to a certain level of disposable income or energy allocation? Bloody Marxists.

During this period electricity rates have jumped 2.18 cents per kilowatt hour—four times the national average.

So why is this is problem exactly? Is there some “correct” level for energy price? Some holy writ that says it must be 3 cents, or 4.5 cents, or - if the implication is that cheaper is better - even 0.0001 cents?

Stuff costs what it costs. The price is determined by what people will pay for it and what the supplier thinks he needs to earn a profit. We call this “capitalism”, but apparently the WSJ thinks that’s not the way it should be.

Amazing, really. I never would have expected the Wall Street Journal to be stuffed to the gills with them dirty communists.

Inland residents and energy-intensive businesses have been walloped the most. California’s cap-and-trade program has also hurt manufacturers, power plants and oil refiners, which are required to purchase permits to emit carbon.

um … isn’t this, like, the whole point? Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely the solution would be for energy-intensive businesses to either (a) reduce their energy intensiveness by upgrading to modern processes or (b) raise their prices slightly. Or both. Of course, those clever people with MBAs are probably way smarter than me, so maybe I’m wrong about that.

Between 2011 and 2014, California’s manufacturing employment increased by 2% compared to 6% nationwide, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And what’s that got to do with the price of fish?

The chief beneficiaries of the Golden State’s green government have been the well-to-do, while low- and middle-income Californians have borne most of the regulatory costs.

Evidence for this big assertion?

The Bay Area and Los Angeles regions account for 80% of the state’s electric car rebates compared to the San Joaquin Valley’s 2%. Liberals in Sacramento have promised to spend cap-and-trade revenues on car-sharing programs, low-emissions public transit and electric-car charging stations in low-income communities. But then they sock it to these drivers with regulations that raise gasoline prices.

um, what? If there are alternative transport choices being made available, who’s being socked exactly?

Of course, it’s possible those transport choices are NOT being made available, but the journalist doesn’t say that.

Meantime, while job growth in the Bay Area is booming, unemployment remains high in the rest of the state. The unemployment rate is 3.8% in San Francisco and 2.9% in Palo Alto. It’s 10.4% in Fresno, 8.8% in San Bernardino and 9.6% in the refining hub of Carson—nearly four percentage points higher than in December 2007.

I saw a stork the other day. Bet there’s going to be a few babies born soon.

[fred_smith]

From Judith Curry on your Fact Check “proof.” No, it has not been proved that any scientists are engaged in a grand conspiracy. True. That does not mean, however, that none have been biased toward focusing on attaining certain outcomes. Curry does not believe that this is likely. So, overall, true. The biases in many of the multiple different adjustments, however, are “large and systemic.” While peer-reviewed research has been done (true), there is “much room for improvement in the adjustment approaches.” Conclusion: Much more research and analysis needs to be done on this. So rather than your Fact Check proving your point, I would say Fact Check is saying there is no grand conspiracy but the results are still open to question despite the two peer-reviewed studies. This subject will require much more “discussion.”

[quote]Having worked with many of the scientists in question, I can say with certainty that there is no grand conspiracy to artificially warm the earth; rather, scientists are doing their best to interpret large datasets with numerous biases such as station moves, instrument changes, time of observation changes, urban heat island biases, and other so-called inhomogenities that have occurred over the last 150 years. Their methods may not be perfect, and are certainly not immune from critical analysis, but that critical analysis should start out from a position of assuming good faith and with an understanding of what exactly has been done.

Because the biases are large and systemic, ignoring them is not a viable option. If some corrections to the data are necessary, there is a need for systems to make these corrections in a way that does not introduce more bias than they remove.

Hopefully this (and the following two articles) should help folks gain a better understanding of the issues in the surface temperature network and the steps scientists have taken to try to address them. These approaches are likely far from perfect, and it is certainly possible that the underlying algorithms could be improved to provide more accurate results. Hopefully the ongoing International Surface Temperature Initiative, which seeks to have different groups around the world send their adjustment approaches in for evaluation using common metrics, will help improve the general practice in the field going forward. There is also a week-long conference at NCAR next week on these issues which should yield some interesting discussions and initiatives.[/quote]

judithcurry.com/2014/07/07/under … ture-data/

[fred_smith]

Finley:

The point of the article is to show that there are costs to these “beneficial” schemes. Is there a “fair” price for carbon? I don’t know. I imagine though that you and any other government body tasked with determining that will have a very difficult time. And, remember, that while you and others “feel good” about “doing something” or “taking action to fight this URGENT PROBLEM,” there are costs and those costs include manufacturing migrating from high-energy-efficiency locales to those where energy efficiency is MUCH LOWER, ironically causing more CO2 emissions than had the carbon not been taxed to said degree. While you and others think that everyone will be singing kumbaya when your perfected carbon-free world comes into existence, what is really happening is that the poor suffer disproportionately AND the benefits are, in fact, going to those who work for the large new bureaucracies “tasked with” finding a “solution” to our carbon woes. I often wonder how you and others who care so much about this issue justify the effects that your “actions” and “concerns” have on the poorest of the poor living in the least developed countries on the planet. How do you sleep at night knowing that you are destroying their livelihoods? Don’t you care?

um, what? If there are alternative transport choices being made available, who’s being socked exactly?

Well, those subsidies have to be paid for by someone, right? Perhaps, those struggling schools who are so desperate for public funding would benefit from having the tax dollars spent subsidizing some yuppie’s new electric car go to books and teachers rather than to making certain types feel good about themselves. Just a thought… try having one some time.

[Vay]

@Fred Smith

From Judith Curry on your Fact Check “proof.”

Not to nitpick, but her article was written before the FactCheck article. In fact, I’ve seen this article by Curry before and it’s good. Does nothing to challenge anything said in the FactCheck article, though.

[quote]No, it has not been proved that any scientists are engaged in a grand conspiracy. True.

That does not mean, however, that none have been biased toward focusing on attaining certain outcomes. Curry does not believe that this is likely. So, overall, true. The biases in many of the multiple different adjustments, however, are “large and systemic.” [/quote]

When she says “large and systematic biases”, she’s talking about unadjusted temperatures, and explaining that this is why adjustments are required. Re-read the article… It’s quite clear from the context.

While peer-reviewed research has been done (true), there is “much room for improvement in the adjustment approaches.” Conclusion: Much more research and analysis needs to be done on this. So rather than your Fact Check proving your point, I would say Fact Check is saying there is no grand conspiracy but the results are still open to question despite the two peer-reviewed studies. This subject will require much more “discussion.”

There is always room for improvement - but, in this part of the series at least, she raises nothing more than I think one minor area of concern - and that concern isn’t even of bias, but inefficiency. Also, improvement costs money… aren’t you opposed to putting any more money down this particular sink-hole?

The point of the article is to show that there are costs to these “beneficial” schemes. Is there a “fair” price for carbon? I don’t know. I imagine though that you and any other government body tasked with determining that will have a very difficult time. And, remember, that while you and others “feel good” about “doing something” or “taking action to fight this URGENT PROBLEM,” there are costs and those costs include manufacturing migrating from high-energy-efficiency locales to those where energy efficiency is MUCH LOWER, ironically causing more CO2 emissions than had the carbon not been taxed to said degree.

Aren’t you always talking about how the forests are coming back so nicely in developed nations, and isn’t this process of increasing environmental regulations mainly the reason? Also, aren’t you worried about the world’s poorest people’s, and doesn’t moving industries to poorer countries help those peoples? As for the impact of this kind of "leakage"on the desired outcome of emissions reductions - that one I agree is a serious issue, but it doesn’t obviate the reality of actual impacts of climate change; it’s just a problem that needs to be worked out.

While you and others think that everyone will be singing kumbaya when your perfected carbon-free world comes into existence, what is really happening is that the poor suffer disproportionately AND the benefits are, in fact, going to those who work for the large new bureaucracies “tasked with” finding a “solution” to our carbon woes. I often wonder how you and others who care so much about this issue justify the effects that your “actions” and “concerns” have on the poorest of the poor living in the least developed countries on the planet. How do you sleep at night knowing that you are destroying their livelihoods? Don’t you care?

I care; luckily, I don’t see how this point of yours is true. The World Bank has disagreed with the claim that, of all the nightmare ideas, coal is the answer to poverty in Indoa. And as Finley has oft pointed out, FFI infrastructure is too costly to be implemented in rural India or frickin Congo anyway - very luckily, as it turns out - which is why we are seeing phenomena like this:

Green Revolution Underway in Rural China
cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/07 … ef=24hours

Also, since we’re talking about effects on poor people, I should point out that one reason economists like the carbon tax is it’s fairly straightforward to mitigate the impact such a tax has on the poor- a fact which BC’s experience has born out.

And if we turn this around, I’ve shown you how warmer temperatures are killing the ski industry, and the shrimp industry in the American Northeast, and recently shut down the fishing industry in California. How about ~those~ livelihoods? Or what about the farmers in the Imperial Valley, with their crops withering in the field or on the tree? Or how about the fact that

Climate Change Will Hit Poorest Countries Worst
theguardian.com/global-devel … tries-ipcc

…don’t you care about that?

Well, those subsidies have to be paid for by someone, right? Perhaps, those struggling schools who are so desperate for public funding would benefit from having the tax dollars spent subsidizing some yuppie’s new electric car go to books and teachers rather than to making certain types feel good about themselves. Just a thought… try having one some time.

I agree- but how about we take that money out the military’s incredibly bloated budget instead? One year outta pay for enough subsidies for the entire Earth for the rest of the century. And speaking of having to pay for things, here’s something you keep avoiding: someone ~also~ needs to pay for the consequences of climate change… you know, little things like the price of the homes and workplaces currently being incinerated in the worst fire season in history, not to mention the resources used to combat those fires. Do you think it’s fair that no matter how much someone does or doesn’t use fossil fuels, they still have to pay that price?

[fred_smith]

Point taken on the Judith Curry article. It is, as you say, BEFORE the Fact Check article.

And if we turn this around, I’ve shown you how warmer temperatures are killing the ski industry, and the shrimp industry in the American Northeast, and recently shut down the fishing industry in California. How about ~those~ livelihoods? Or what about the farmers in the Imperial Valley, with their crops withering in the field or on the tree? Or how about the fact that

And next year, it will be fires in Australia and fishing off Chile and Kenya’s forests and the Himalayas. Guess what? Droughts and fishing stock depletion and forestry and floods have been around for a long time and, again, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot point to LOCAL weather conditions and project GOTCHA climate change evidence. I remember when the Alps were going to be ski-free. How’d that work out for you?

The issues in the developing world require energy, cheap energy, and that is not going to include a large amount of solar or wind. It is going to be fossil fuel based just as it was for the developed world. Reforestation happened when people were no longer cutting down the trees for houses or fire wood. This will be even truer in the developing world. Get people into cities with reliable energy supplies and they will be burning a lot less charcoal which is far more carbon intensive than coal AND remember that most respiratory issues in the developing world are from indoor fires. Wanna talk health issues?

I have no doubt that the research into climate change will get all the money it needs AND MORE. My final point on this, as always, is that the projects of computer modeling are no where near being able to provide accurate information and the adjustments in the temperature data while not huge are still significant.

[Vay]

The point about the Curry article was not just that it was written before the FactCheck article, but that it in no way supports your skepticism" regarding the modern temperature record! Yes, the adjustments are “significant” - necessarily, because the biases in unadjusted temperatures are significant, just as Curry’s article points out. However, the studies in the FactCheck article show that the adjustments made are in both directions. Further, when you have many different types of temperature measurement corroborating the same basic story, the conclusion to be inferred is obvious: the story is essentially true.

As far as fossil fuels being cheaper, I think Finley would disagree and has shown this claim false in the past, but for myself, I will say that claiming this necessitates denying the costs of global warming, which is why you have to keep claiming I can’t “have it both ways”. I have explained to you about fifty times that there are no “both ways”- there is one: individual instances and trends are different. An anomalous occurrence, however interesting, cannot be counted by itself as evidence. A particularly low temperature among a field of rising temperatures, a severe snowstorm among generally warmer winters, one area better off because of climate change while the majority suffer deleterious consequences: that is called cherry-picking. You’ve heard this reasoning countless times: your only response has been that you disagree. You are free to do so, but in an argument, that doesn’t count for anything.

Just for kicks, let’s do an analogy: you claim that cigarettes cause increasing rates of lung cancer and other diseases. As evidence to counter you, my dear ol’ grampie who smoked for ninety years and died peacefully in his bed, never having gotten lung cancer, emphysema etc. You respond that individual anecdotes aren’t good evidence against your theory, and show me, in addition to general statistical data, news reports of major increases in lung cancer in places where smoking rates are high, like Japan. I then respond, ‘hey, you, can’t have it both ways!’

[fred_smith]

[quote]
Just for kicks, let’s do an analogy: you claim that cigarettes cause increasing rates of lung cancer and other diseases. As evidence to counter you, my dear ol’ grampie who smoked for ninety years and died peacefully in his bed, never having gotten lung cancer, emphysema etc. You respond that individual anecdotes aren’t good evidence against your theory, and show me, in addition to general statistical data, news reports of major increases in lung cancer in places where smoking rates are high, like Japan. I then respond, ‘hey, you, can’t have it both ways!’[/quote]

Yes, I know that this tobacco issue is one of your “talking points.” I reject the analogy 100%.

As to temperature data, again, your point is TAKEN but my point remains: this data and the computer modeling based on it is not yet of a sufficiently advanced/robust nature as to make the sweeping conclusions that you and other alarmists are trying to make.

[BlownWideOpen]

I’m glad to see you ladies calmly debating this topic. Fred, I’m proud of you

[Vay]

[quote=“fred smith”][quote]
Just for kicks, let’s do an analogy: you claim that cigarettes cause increasing rates of lung cancer and other diseases. As evidence to counter you, my dear ol’ grampie who smoked for ninety years and died peacefully in his bed, never having gotten lung cancer, emphysema etc. You respond that individual anecdotes aren’t good evidence against your theory, and show me, in addition to general statistical data, news reports of major increases in lung cancer in places where smoking rates are high, like Japan. I then respond, ‘hey, you, can’t have it both ways!’[/quote]

Yes, I know that this tobacco issue is one of your “talking points.” I reject the analogy 100%.[/quote]

Sorry, but as your “fossil fuels are cheaper” depends, not only on denying Finley’s evidence, but also on denying the reality of AGW impacts, I can’t let you off the hook on this point. The analogy has nothing to do with the cigarette industry’s suppression of science, and “I reject the analogy” is no more of a refutation than is “I disagree”. You need to use logical arguments and evidence to support your position - otherwise it can be dismissed out of hand.

As to temperature data, again, your point is TAKEN but my point remains: this data and the computer modeling based on it is not yet of a sufficiently advanced/robust nature as to make the sweeping conclusions that you and other alarmists are trying to make.

If you’re going to claim this, you need to specify what ~would~ constitute “sufficiently robust” and stick to that. Otherwise you’re just setting up movable goalposts that scientists can never reach in the same manner as a 9/11 Truther or an anti-vaccine advocate. But in any case, I’ve seen zero evidence that either temperature records or climate models are not sufficiently robust for policy makers to act on them.

[fred_smith]

I reject your analogy. I disagree with your point. The datasets and climate models are not sufficiently accurate/robust. This has been posted multiple times before with links/articles highlighting those flaws. Your use of this “Fact Check” is disingenuous in that it does not directly answer that assertion.

[Vay]

@fred smith

I reject your analogy. I disagree with your point. The datasets and climate models are not sufficiently accurate/robust. This has been posted multiple times before with links/articles highlighting those flaws. Your use of this “Fact Check” is disingenuous in that it does not directly answer that assertion.

In other words, 'I’m gonna stick my fingers in my ears because this is all getting way too inconvenient for my argument".

You’ve never answered my basic point about cherry-picking vs trends with anything but “I disagree”. That cuts no mustard. The FactCheck article isn’t disingenuous: it specifically refutes the criticism that homogenization = massaging data, and as for models, the latests posts on them have been by me, showing how well they are doing. Further, if you’re going to call data and models “insufficiently robust”, you need to define what “sufficiently robust” would look like (as I just said…); otherwise, you’re only setting scientists up for this:

…which is particularly mean, since you claim all money spent on human-caused climate change is wasted!

[fred_smith]

Yes, you have posted data on the “accuracy” of these climate models and I have posted data to indicate that they are no where near being accurate or how does one explain the “warming” falling so far into the bottom of these predictions that it will soon make the whole exercise irrelevant?

[Vay]

@fred smith

Yes, you have posted data on the “accuracy” of these climate models and I have posted data to indicate that they are no where near being accurate or how does one explain the “warming” falling so far into the bottom of these predictions that it will soon make the whole exercise irrelevant?

Mmm, really? It doesn’t really necessitate a whole lotta posting. Here’s how the models are doing to the present, with regard to surface temperatures:

That’s incorporating no potential drags on temperature, such as volcanic eruptions, human-emitted, sunlight-reflecting aerosol levels, etc. You can see that the models projections (as opposed to past predictions) start in 2005. So how can you possibly claim they are irrelevant? First of all, they’ve barely been tested. Second, they started a bit low, but have always been within the error bars… and the trend seems to now be changing rapidly in an upward direction. So is your advice to give it another twenty or thirty years and let them be fully tested? How would that advice be taken, if given to, say, the insurance industry or the CDC? And again:

@Vay

You’ve never answered my basic point about cherry-picking vs trends with anything but “I disagree”. That cuts no mustard.

Answer?

@Vay

The FactCheck article isn’t disingenuous: it specifically refutes the criticism that homogenization = massaging data

Answer?

[quote=“Vay”]if you’re going to call data and models “insufficiently robust”, you need to define what “sufficiently robust” would look like (as I just said…); otherwise, you’re only setting scientists up for this:

…which is particularly mean, since you claim all money spent on human-caused climate change research is wasted![/quote]

Answer?

[fred_smith]

[quote]GLOBAL warming has slowed. The rate of warming of over the past 15 years has been lower than that of the preceding 20 years. There is no serious doubt that our planet continues to heat, but it has heated less than most climate scientists had predicted. Nate Cohn of the New Republic reports: “Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century, temperatures have not kept up with computer models that seemed to project steady warming; they’re perilously close to falling beneath even the lowest projections”.

Mr Cohn does his best to affirm that the urgent necessity of acting to retard warming has not abated, as does Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, as does this newspaper. But there’s no way around the fact that this reprieve for the planet is bad news for proponents of policies, such as carbon taxes and emissions treaties, meant to slow warming by moderating the release of greenhouse gases. The reality is that the already meagre prospects of these policies, in America at least, will be devastated if temperatures do fall outside the lower bound of the projections that environmentalists have used to create a panicked sense of emergency. Whether or not dramatic climate-policy interventions remain advisable, they will become harder, if not impossible, to sell to the public, which will feel, not unreasonably, that the scientific and media establishment has cried wolf.

Dramatic warming may exact a terrible price in terms of human welfare, especially in poorer countries. But cutting emissions enough to put a real dent in warming may also put a real dent in economic growth. This could also exact a terrible humanitarian price, especially in poorer countries. Given the so-far unfathomed complexity of global climate and the tenuousness of our grasp on the full set of relevant physical mechanisms, I have favoured waiting a decade or two in order to test and improve the empirical reliability of our climate models, while also allowing the economies of the less-developed parts of the world to grow unhindered, improving their position to adapt to whatever heavy weather may come their way. I have been told repeatedly that “we cannot afford to wait”. More distressingly, my brand of sceptical empiricism has been often met with a bludgeoning dogmatism about the authority of scientific consensus.

Of course, if the consensus climate models turn out to be falsified just a few years later, average temperature having remained at levels not even admitted to be have been physically possible, the authority of consensus will have been exposed as rather weak. The authority of expert consensus obviously strengthens as the quality of expertise improves, which is why it’s quite sensible, as matter of science-based policy-making, to wait for a callow science to improve before taking grand measures on the basis of its predictions.

Anyway, Mr Cohn cites a few scientists who are unruffled by the surprisingly slow warming.

It might seem like a decade-long warming plateau would cause a crisis for climate science. It hasn’t. Gerald Meehl, a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has seen hiatus periods before. They “occur pretty commonly in the observed records,” and there are climate models showing “a hiatus as long as 15 years.” As a result, Isaac Held, a Senior Research Scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, says “no one has ever expected warming to be continuous, increasing like a straight line.” Those much-cited computer models are composed of numerous simulations that individually account for naturally occurring variability. But, Meehl says, “the averages cancel it out.”
Isn’t this transparently ad hoc. The point of averaging is to prune off exceedingly unlikely possibilities. It does not vindicate a model to note that it gives no weight—that it “cancels out”—its only accurate constitutive simulations.

If “hiatus periods are commonly observed” is the right way to think about the current warming plateau, then the rest of Mr Cohn’s article, examining various explanations of the puzzle of the hiatus would be unnecessary. But, as all the pieces discussing the warming plateau make perfectly clear, climate scientists are actually pretty baffled about the failure of their predictions. Is it the oceans? Clouds? Volcanoes? The sun? An artifact of temperature data?

As a rule, climate scientists were previously very confident that the planet would be warmer than it is by now, and no one knows for sure why it isn’t. This isn’t a crisis for climate science. This is just the way science goes. But it is a crisis for climate-policy advocates who based their arguments on the authority of scientific consensus. Mr Cohn eventually gets around to admitting that

In the end, the so-called scientific consensus on global warming doesn’t look like much like consensus when scientists are struggling to explain the intricacies of the earth’s climate system, or uttering the word “uncertainty” with striking regularity.
But his attempt to minimise the political relevance of this is unconvincing. He writes:

The recent wave of news and magazine articles about scientists struggling to explain the warming slowdown could prolong or deepen the public’s skepticism.But the “consensus” never extended to the intricacies of the climate system, just the core belief that additional greenhouse gas emissions would warm the planet.
If this is true, then the public has been systematically deceived. As it has been presented to the public, the scientific consensus extended precisely to that which is now seems to be in question: the sensitivity of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Indeed, if the consensus had been only that greenhouse gases have some warming effect, there would have been no obvious policy implications at all. As this paper has maintained:

If … temperatures are likely to rise by only 2°C in response to a doubling of carbon emissions (and if the likelihood of a 6°C increase is trivial), the calculation might change. Perhaps the world should seek to adjust to (rather than stop) the greenhouse-gas splurge. There is no point buying earthquake insurance if you do not live in an earthquake zone. In this case more adaptation rather than more mitigation might be the right policy at the margin. But that would be good advice only if these new estimates really were more reliable than the old ones. And different results come from different models.
We have not been awash in arguments for adaptation precisely because the consensus pertained to now-troubled estimates of climate sensitivity. The moralising stridency of so many arguments for cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and global emissions treaties was founded on the idea that there is a consensus about how much warming there would be if carbon emissions continue on trend. The rather heated debates we have had about the likely economic and social damage of carbon emissions have been based on that idea that there is something like a scientific consensus about the range of warming we can expect. If that consensus is now falling apart, as it seems it may be, that is, for good or ill, a very big deal. [/quote]

[hannes]

Amazing, all the time posting here, but not enough time to include the source when quoting someone.

[fred_smith]

[quote]Amazing, all the time posting here, but not enough time to include the source when quoting someone.
[/quote]

Same Economist article that has been posted multiple times.

A cooling consensus

If you had been “all the time posting here,” you would know this. Anything else stressing you out today? Shall we pull out the blue markers and make sad posters to express our angst?