Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
In their paper examining "movements" analogous to the current climate change movement, the authors show the common traits of 26 other like movements. They also identify key areas where the process and advocacy of such movements depart from rationality and science. A final para identifies individuals who have move from one movement to another - as each has been shown to involve false claims and more juicy pol8itical targets have beckonned.
Here is the abstract.
We summarize evidence showing that the global warming alarm movement has more of the character of a political movement than that of a scientific controversy. We then make forecasts of the effects and outcomes of this movement using a structured analysis of analogous situations—a method that has been shown to produce accurate forecasts for conflict situations. This paper summarizes the current status of this “structured analogies project.”
We searched the literature and asked diverse experts to identify phenomena that could be characterized as alarms warning of future disasters that were endorsed by scientists, politicians, and the media, and that were accompanied by calls for strong action. The search yielded 71 possible analogies. We examined objective accounts to screen the possible analogies and found
that 26 met all criteria. We coded each for forecasting procedures used, the accuracy of the forecasts, the types of actions called for, and the effects of actions implemented.
Our preliminary findings are that analogous alarms were presented as “scientific,” but none were based on scientific forecasting procedures. Every alarming forecast proved to be false; the predicted adverse effects either did not occur or were minor. Costly government policies remained in place long after the predicted disasters failed to materialize. The government policies failed to prevent ill effects.
The findings appear to be insensitive to which analogies are included. The structured analogies approach suggests that the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity. We
conclude that the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts.
Here is the abstract.
We summarize evidence showing that the global warming alarm movement has more of the character of a political movement than that of a scientific controversy. We then make forecasts of the effects and outcomes of this movement using a structured analysis of analogous situations—a method that has been shown to produce accurate forecasts for conflict situations. This paper summarizes the current status of this “structured analogies project.”
We searched the literature and asked diverse experts to identify phenomena that could be characterized as alarms warning of future disasters that were endorsed by scientists, politicians, and the media, and that were accompanied by calls for strong action. The search yielded 71 possible analogies. We examined objective accounts to screen the possible analogies and found
that 26 met all criteria. We coded each for forecasting procedures used, the accuracy of the forecasts, the types of actions called for, and the effects of actions implemented.
Our preliminary findings are that analogous alarms were presented as “scientific,” but none were based on scientific forecasting procedures. Every alarming forecast proved to be false; the predicted adverse effects either did not occur or were minor. Costly government policies remained in place long after the predicted disasters failed to materialize. The government policies failed to prevent ill effects.
The findings appear to be insensitive to which analogies are included. The structured analogies approach suggests that the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity. We
conclude that the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts.
07/12: Science Is Dying
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
While the implications of goings on at the University of East Anglia have implications for the debates about climate change, what they say about what may be happening to science more generally are even more disturbing.
From WSJ (Dec 4)....
"Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science. The nature of that risk has been twofold: First, that the claims of the climate scientists might buckle beneath the weight of their breathtaking complexity. Second, that the crudeness of modern politics, once in motion, would trample the traditions and culture of science to achieve its own policy goals. With the scandal at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, both have happened at once.
I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry.
Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.
What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences—physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering—came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences. Postmodernism, a self-consciously "unprovable" theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences.
This has harsh implications for the credibility of science generally. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies.
The East Anglians' mistreatment of scientists who challenged global warming's claims—plotting to shut them up and shut down their ability to publish—evokes the attempt to silence Galileo. The exchanges between Penn State's Michael Mann and East Anglia CRU director Phil Jones sound like Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition.
For three centuries Galileo has symbolized dissent in science. In our time, most scientists outside this circle have kept silent as their climatologist fellows, helped by the cardinals of the press, mocked and ostracized scientists who questioned this grand theory of global doom.
Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." The global-warming establishment says we know "enough" to impose new rules on the world's use of carbon fuels. The dissenters say this demotes science's traditional standards of evidence.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's dramatic Endangerment Finding in April that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as an air pollutant—with implications for a vast new regulatory regime—used what the agency called a precautionary approach. The EPA admitted "varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues." Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory.
If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
From WSJ (Dec 4)....
"Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science. The nature of that risk has been twofold: First, that the claims of the climate scientists might buckle beneath the weight of their breathtaking complexity. Second, that the crudeness of modern politics, once in motion, would trample the traditions and culture of science to achieve its own policy goals. With the scandal at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, both have happened at once.
I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry.
Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.
What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences—physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering—came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences. Postmodernism, a self-consciously "unprovable" theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences.
This has harsh implications for the credibility of science generally. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies.
The East Anglians' mistreatment of scientists who challenged global warming's claims—plotting to shut them up and shut down their ability to publish—evokes the attempt to silence Galileo. The exchanges between Penn State's Michael Mann and East Anglia CRU director Phil Jones sound like Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition.
For three centuries Galileo has symbolized dissent in science. In our time, most scientists outside this circle have kept silent as their climatologist fellows, helped by the cardinals of the press, mocked and ostracized scientists who questioned this grand theory of global doom.
Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." The global-warming establishment says we know "enough" to impose new rules on the world's use of carbon fuels. The dissenters say this demotes science's traditional standards of evidence.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's dramatic Endangerment Finding in April that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as an air pollutant—with implications for a vast new regulatory regime—used what the agency called a precautionary approach. The EPA admitted "varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues." Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory.
If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
The following is of interest primarily because of the credentials as a scientist which Prof Chris de Freitas has See full bio below). I first read his work some 36 years ago studying climatology at the University of Otago... the text was "Inadvertent Climate Modification" - published originally in 1971. Both my then lecturer Prof Blair Fitzharris and Chris are outstanding researchers and teachers. I am unsure of Blair's current views. Thanks to Vincent Gray for this copy.
NZCPR Guest Forum
Prologue to Copenhagen
Chris de Freitas
3 October 2009
The Kyoto Protocol, an icon of the global environmental movement, is soon to be replaced by a more radical international accord to curb greenhouse gas emissions. What it will involve depends on the outcome of negotiations this December in Copenhagen. In preparation, the Government has committed New Zealand to cut up to a third of current emissions by 2020. The emissions trading scheme is a first step, but this alone cannot guarantee such a massive reduction. Sweeping legislation restricting the use of oil, coal and natural gas will be required, along with far-reaching reforms in pastoral farming to cut methane release. The economic and social implications for New Zealand are immense.
NZCPR Guest Forum
Prologue to Copenhagen
Chris de Freitas
3 October 2009
The Kyoto Protocol, an icon of the global environmental movement, is soon to be replaced by a more radical international accord to curb greenhouse gas emissions. What it will involve depends on the outcome of negotiations this December in Copenhagen. In preparation, the Government has committed New Zealand to cut up to a third of current emissions by 2020. The emissions trading scheme is a first step, but this alone cannot guarantee such a massive reduction. Sweeping legislation restricting the use of oil, coal and natural gas will be required, along with far-reaching reforms in pastoral farming to cut methane release. The economic and social implications for New Zealand are immense.
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
The Western obsession with curbing carbon emissions is wicked and also economically foolish, says Deepak Lal - Business Standard New Delhi
Three cheers for Jairam Ramesh! India at last has an environment minister who is willing and able to denounce the hypocrisy and immorality of the West in twisting the arms of India and China to curb their carbon emissions. He is right to make it clear that India has no intention of signing the new ‘climate change’ treaty in Copenhagen in December, which would put curbs on the carbon emissions of the Third World.
If they do not comply they are being threatened by the draft bill going through the US Congress to levy carbon tariffs on their exports.
Three cheers for Jairam Ramesh! India at last has an environment minister who is willing and able to denounce the hypocrisy and immorality of the West in twisting the arms of India and China to curb their carbon emissions. He is right to make it clear that India has no intention of signing the new ‘climate change’ treaty in Copenhagen in December, which would put curbs on the carbon emissions of the Third World.
If they do not comply they are being threatened by the draft bill going through the US Congress to levy carbon tariffs on their exports.
16/08: Treason or Murder
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
From the ever brilliant pen of David Friedman:
Paul Krugman, in one of his more inflammatory statements, claimed that congressmen who voted against cap and trade were guilty of "planetary treason."
The bill contains substantial support for biofuels, including a five year moratorium on letting the EPA decide whether, on net, producing ethanol actually reduces carbon dioxide. Converting food crops into fuel drives up the price of food. Driving up the world price of food results in more people in poor countries dying. Krugman is, no doubt, opposed to world hunger in theory. But he has come out passionately in favour of it in practice.
Treason or murder, take your choice.
Paul Krugman, in one of his more inflammatory statements, claimed that congressmen who voted against cap and trade were guilty of "planetary treason."
The bill contains substantial support for biofuels, including a five year moratorium on letting the EPA decide whether, on net, producing ethanol actually reduces carbon dioxide. Converting food crops into fuel drives up the price of food. Driving up the world price of food results in more people in poor countries dying. Krugman is, no doubt, opposed to world hunger in theory. But he has come out passionately in favour of it in practice.
Treason or murder, take your choice.
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist
By GENE EPSTEIN
AN INTERVIEW WITH BJORN LOMBORG: This global-warming expert emphasizes sensible solutions to an often-sensationalized issue.
THE NEXT TREATY TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING WILL BE negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Bjorn Lomborg's home city. Called by The Guardian (U.K.) "one of the 50 people who could save the planet," Lomborg, a statistician, is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (2007). He also maintains a Website on environmental issues at www.lomborg.com.
Contrary to widely held belief, Lomborg isn't at all skeptical of the fact that global warming is a problem, or that humanity is contributing to it. To get some idea of his real message, Barron's recently caught up with him at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, in which he presented his views on the major priorities for helping the world's poor. Afterward, he sat down to answer our questions in clear, unaccented English, marshalling facts and figures with stunning ease.
By GENE EPSTEIN
AN INTERVIEW WITH BJORN LOMBORG: This global-warming expert emphasizes sensible solutions to an often-sensationalized issue.
THE NEXT TREATY TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING WILL BE negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Bjorn Lomborg's home city. Called by The Guardian (U.K.) "one of the 50 people who could save the planet," Lomborg, a statistician, is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (2007). He also maintains a Website on environmental issues at www.lomborg.com.
Contrary to widely held belief, Lomborg isn't at all skeptical of the fact that global warming is a problem, or that humanity is contributing to it. To get some idea of his real message, Barron's recently caught up with him at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, in which he presented his views on the major priorities for helping the world's poor. Afterward, he sat down to answer our questions in clear, unaccented English, marshalling facts and figures with stunning ease.
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
The worst of the climate change debate is its illustration of what we generally don't know - or refuse to accept - of the scientific process... to wit:
1. the apparently widespread belief that science and the understanding it seeks to reveal is a matter of consensus.
2. the belief that somehow the media - in whatever guise - is of some importance in the process.
3. the belief most prevalent amongst politicians that "policy", "motions" and "resolutions" are important.
I understand the priests waging war on Galileo "had a view" on gravity.
1. the apparently widespread belief that science and the understanding it seeks to reveal is a matter of consensus.
2. the belief that somehow the media - in whatever guise - is of some importance in the process.
3. the belief most prevalent amongst politicians that "policy", "motions" and "resolutions" are important.
I understand the priests waging war on Galileo "had a view" on gravity.
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in debating climate change is that the parties debating lack education in the business of sound debate and clear thought and have Nobel prizes in spin. The use of Saatchi and Saatchi logic is great for building brands but crash awful when we want rational debate.... Bjorn Lomborg explains here (thanks to NZBR)
Solving climate change will be the most expensive public policy decision ever. Half-baked thinking won't fix it now
* Björn Lomborg
* guardian.co.uk,
* Monday September 15 2008 09:30 BST
One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.
Solving climate change will be the most expensive public policy decision ever. Half-baked thinking won't fix it now
* Björn Lomborg
* guardian.co.uk,
* Monday September 15 2008 09:30 BST
One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
"Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming. So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions." Dr David Evans in The Australian
There is nothing especially new in the following. It does however provide a short, sharp summary from an impeccably credible source...
There is nothing especially new in the following. It does however provide a short, sharp summary from an impeccably credible source...
14/01: How Alarming Was 2008?
Category: Climate change
Posted by: Admin
Evidence is gradually coming in regarding climatic performance in calendar 2008. John Tierney writing in the FT nails how it is being interpreted....
"Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.
"Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.
