I clicked a link to one of the silliest blog posts trying to persuade us to act now to prevent runaway climate warming.
The whole argument is done by analogy. As far as I can tell, the premise is that if you leave your the water running in a draining bathtub, and then run off to play Tetris, then you will cause untold damage to your home.
But, somehow, there are — evidently– some unnamed economists somewhere think it’s ok to play Tetris while water is running into a draining bathtub, because Tetris is loads of fun. But, evidently, Michael Tobis, is worried your tub will overflow, while you are distracted playing Tetris, then your whole house will crumble.
So, we must act to stop global warming now. (Or something.)
This whole argument lead me to ask myself: So, if I really do let water run into a draining tub, will my tub overflow? To avoid waste of natural resources, I simulated the whole tub experiment in my sink.
Now, for the most boring 4 minute plus AGW climate video ever: Will the sink overflow?
The clear conclusions based on the whole “analogy”:
Normal tubs don’t overflow if you have fun playing Tetris. So, go ahead and play Tetris day and night. Because, after all, in the analogy, wasting water seemed to be just fine– it was only the destruction of your home that was a problem.
Oh… and, since the tub doesn’t overflow we can deal with Global warming later.
Hmmm… why do I think that’s not the way the analogy was supposed to teach us?
Hat tip: Atmoz, where one can find engaging comments!
Awww… the hat tip points to the wrong blog. 😉
Presumably Tobis’ analogy assumed the tub was intentionally plugged because you were going to take a bath (or do laundry or whatever).
The analogy is not intended to prove anything about the earth system. The analogy is intended to explain the nature of mainstream economists’ foolishness about environmental issues.
They are playing the wrong game. Their game makes sense, like Tetris, only if you are already winning a bigger game, maintaining the structural integrity of the house. The structural integrity of the house isn’t part of the rules of Tetris. Analogously, the structural integrity of the biosphere isn’t part of the rules of economics.
The question I raise is whether and when you should start playing the bigger game.
Don’t worry about not getting it. A lot of people didn’t. I learned from the exercise never to make analogies without explaining what they are about. Anyway, that’s what I was trying to say. I hope you get it now.
Micheal,
Analogies don’t work if they are based on assumptions that others do not make. For example, you believe that CO2 does represent a risk to structural integrity of the biosphere and that this risk is large enough to reduce economics to the equivalent of playing a game. Many people do not share that view and feel that the biosphere, like tubs, has a safety outlet that will minimize and negative consequences of CO2 induced warming and that disrupting the economic mechanisms will cause more harm than CO2 ever will.
To put it in terms of an analogy that you probably won’t get:
CO2 alarmism is like trying to stop the tub from overflowing by turning off the heat in your house and expecting water to freeze. This approach is not only irrational and unnecessary – it might result in death by freezing if stated goal was accomplished.
Raven, Michael,
We are currently supporting some 6 billion people on earth. If you accept that keeping people alive and well is a good in itself any mitigation of risk associated with burning fossile fuel must not hinder the support of those 6 billion. We have avoided lots of misery by developing our economies (technology, organisation, specialization et cetera) and are in the progress of alleviating more from poverty. However there are inherent risks with out technology dependent society (of which I think CO2 is a lesser risk than say, over fishing, but for the sake of argument, lets say risk in general). How shall we react to such risks? Well, if we don’t continue to make technological and other economical developments then we know that we will fail, as we are currently not running a “sustainable” living. Hence the immense focus on minimizing consumption of energy is a distraction (it is often good to do so, but it has nothing to do with reaching our goal of a sustainable society).
I’ll offer my own analogy: picture yourself surfing down a 100 feet wave in a small vessel. This is clearly a risky position, much as our current state of affairs. But do we try to stop the vessel in a faint effort to halt our dangerous journey down the wave, risking that the wave crush us (burden our economical development so that we’ll never develop into a sustainable living) or do we try to speed as much as we can down the wave to outpace it (try to speed up economical development with much efforts into research and development, so to reach a sustainable living as soon as possible)?
Any sailor knows the answer to the analogy. It is very dangerous to have regrets in such a situation. Likewise, a lot of people – and many of them in the developing world – will suffer from current calls to halt consumption and to halt technological development (where the precautionary principle is foremost of stupidities).
Switching your lightbulbs just won’t cut it. Developing ECONOMICALLY feasible alternative fuels will. As soon as alternatives are cheaper than oil, coal and gas no one in his right mind will invest in them. Make them a little cheaper yet and existing plants will be replaced. And we are not that far off. Already today alternative fuels are cheaper than fossile in some cases, and current trends need only to be extended a decade or two for the transition point to be reached. (Current trends for solar and wind power is a bit more than half the price per unit per decade, and oil is, well, getting dearer…).
You can do the math for yourself: develop alternatives so that we by the year 2040 won’t invest in any new fossile plants will cut X amount of CO2 and pollutants; curbing todays consumption 5% will cut Y. X is a lot more than Y, and reaching X is probably a factor 1000 or so cheaper than Y.
So how come a whole world has gone mad, spending trillions on curbing todays consumption, when focus ought to be developing the technologies that will actually make some difference? I blame the same thinking that thought central planning was a great idea. If you don’t understand economical dynamics nor technological development I guess Kyoto seem reasonable.
Atmoz– I noticed and fixed it this morning! Sorry.
Mr Tobis has the analogy the wrong way round. AGW is playing Tetris, and the house and overflowing bath tub are the pressing real world problems economists deal with.
Wait, I thought AIT was the most boring longer than 4 minute AGW video. 😀
Next time the hands should stay in shot longer too. Like show the dangerous overflowing while they’re being washed.
Oh. So “Will the sink drain” by Lucia Liljegren has competition. But with sufficient inspiration (and possibly alcohol), I’m sure I can achieve even longer more boring videos!
Michael stay away from metaphors and analogies. You don’t know how to use them.
I can say that as a professional metaphorist. Write an equation next time.
Raven, your belief in the “safety valve” is based on what evidence, exactly?
Consider the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. Who broke the valve then?
The world comes with no warranties attached.
All, I don’t deny that this problem must be weighted against other problems. I simply question the soundness of the methods doing the weighting in the Lomborgian view, which seems to be the preferred paradigm here.
If the physical and biogeochemical world works the way we think it does, any understanding that CO2 and similar global perturbations are negligible is based on an obviously inappropriate theory. That is to say your Tetris score is not the whole story.
Michael Tobis says:
A rogue comet or meteor could appear at any time and cause much more devastation. We cannot control what might happen but we can adapt. Ultimately, that is our only real option.
You forgot to mention that the Paleocene-Eocene episode happened over 20,000 years – rapid in geological terms but longer all recorded human history. We will run out of fossil fuels long before then. That episode is not a justification for immediate drastic action. You also forgot to mention that the earth’s climate ‘corrected’ itself which provides pretty compelling evidence that poorly understood negative feedback mechanisms exist.
That said, that does not mean we should not keep an eye on things and adopt prudent measures designed to reduce our ecological footprint without obsessing about CO2. Balance is important.
As everyone ignored my point I’ll make yet another try. lest my self esteem as a pedagog will suffer…
Michael Tobis: doing “nothing” is akin to allow the process to continue, that so far have solved most environmental problems, lifted billions out of poverty, and has led us to a point not far from where renewables can compete with fossile fuel.
Now you and the IPCC, Al Gore and others, state that we face a risk so great that we must control in detail the emissions of CO2 all over the world. Doing so on short term requires lots of interference with the economy. How can you all be sure that by doing so, you wont stop the wonderful progress humanity makes each and every day?
How do you know that you wont throw out the baby with the bath water, to use a swedish saying?
(And “doing nothing” may include a lot of sensible stuff such as switching taxes from income to fossile fuel, investment in research etc, just not Kyoto style central planning.)
Lucia,
As one who actually did two months ago run off and play Triptych while my tub was filling, and came back to find water everywhere, can you help me with my short term memory?
Considering my history on the tub question, I don’t suppose you want to know what I think about AGW? No, thought not…
SteveUK–
I can’t fix your short term memory. If your tub does overflow, what I would advise is:
1) Have a plumber come in and check your overflow to make sure it’s large enough and drains freely.
2) Buy a gameboy so you can play Triptych in the bathroom while keeping an eye on things.
3) Never start filling the tub unless you want to take a bath.
Actually, I’d love to hear what you think about AGW. I happen to think it’s probably real and have said so repeatedly, here, at climate audit and in comments at other blogs.
I’m interested in knowing how fast or severe it’s likely to be. I think this is important for planning.
I’m a bit amused at the sorts of arguments pro and con I read. I think the “Tetris-Bathtub” analogy was opaque, a bit silly, and could support the Lomborgian view of economics better than the alternate view.
But, as to any underlying economic argument: I think it’s useful to take some steps now to address warming.
Heck, I’ve been for energy conservation and alternate energy since the mid-70s. My undergraduate senior project was on solar energy. Many engineers who concentrated in the thermal-fluids side of mechanical engineering were motivated by the need to conserve, develop alternate technologies etc.
Who do you think does the work to develope, refine and implement these technologies?
Avfuktare för Vind
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is used here too. As you know, having been born in a developing nation, and lived there for my formative years, I too am concerned with harming the economy in ways that hurt the poor. When I was a child, I saw way too many little boys running in the streets wearing nothing but t-shirts. (And I mean nothing but the t-shirt.) I saw kids begging in the streets daily. I know how the maids with few economic choices were often treated in home.
I am aware of both the downside of ruining the world economy and the downside of global warming.
We don’t need bathtub analogies to show why and how poverty is bad.
Lucia
I did want to take a bath. I just forgot.
I’m not a climatologist, or a mathematician, but my political radar tells me something about the current state of alarm is overwrought for whatever reason. I respect your work, as you are more open-minded than most, eg at dot earth. Please keep analysing the data, and let us know what you think is going on.
I also am in favour of energy conservation, alternative sources etc. My reasons for that are maybe more geopolitical, and philosophical (simple is better) but if climate change must be at the party, why not. The pity is now when I think of those good ideas, I have a bad temper reaction because a hysterical green lobby and some nasty tax grabbing politicians are forcing them down my throat. I completely agree, we need to know asap for reasons of planning, and it’s a good job gifted pewople like you are working on it. I don’t think we’re going to have much effect on the warming though, if any. We’ll need to adapt, rather than squish our economies would be my take.
Do you have any opinions on the longer term data? I know you are interested in the recent figures, but what about the hockeystick scrubbing out the Little Ice Age and MWP? Also, Ferenc Miskolczi resigned from NASA because they would not publish his correction of greenhouse theory, based (he says) on the assumption of an infinitely thick atmosphere. His repaired version predicts negative feedback, after a positive phase. What bothers me about all this, is the closing down of debate, which does not seem right.
Steve UK
No, I really don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other on the longer term data. I read the Miskoczi issue. I can’t speculate over what happened at NASA. Also, I skimmed the paper, but it’s not my area. So… I don’t really understand it!
Raven,
Perfect! in the US we continue to let a privaledged few, live on faultlines ( SanFran), live in fire zones, ( socal)
live in huricanne hit zones ( NOLA), live in drought susceptible areas ( Georgia), without any regard for the burden
they place on others in the future.
Steven:
Don’t forget Florida coast, Outer Banks, and other wonderful sea side locations. You also have yor leavies in central Cal and those along the Missippi To name a few of the great places to live. Remember Tornadoes are gods answer to trailer parks.
All:
FWIW the future wil be what it will be. There have been many in the past who thought they knew the future. most were proven wrong. There is no scientific proof that we are experiencing other than natural variability in climate or weather. It has been colder and warmer in the past and it will be colder or warmer in the future. Stuff Happens and we should prepare for it. If we spend our time and money continuing to chase one possible cause we are just asking for trouble in the future. In my opinion the first error the IPCC made was to attempt to rewrite history. The second was to try to forcast the future without fully understanding Climate.
Actually, Mike D. I think there is persuasive evidence that some of the recent warming is due to AGW. I’m not sure how much is, and I think we need to test apply standard hypothesis tests to projections.
If we don’t how are we to gauge the correct level of response, or select which method are most suitable?
Lucia,
I regard myself as a “sceptic” in the global warming debate, not because I don’t think that man is able to alter climate nor because I don’t think CO2 causes warming. In fact I find plenty of evidence, not least in historical records, of significant change of regional climate caused by human behaviour and I also find it very plausible that the primary impact of CO lies in the 2 – 4 W /m2 region.
Where I disagree with the IPCC is
1) that I believe they have overestimated climate sensitivity
2) that I am almost certain they have significantly overestimated the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere (which I find to be somewhere in the 30 to 50 year range)
3) that I am certain that they have done truly incompetent economical forecasts. If ones faith, as in the case of the IPCC leadership, leads you to think that man will return to a coal based economy by 2100 and to combine that with forecasts of much higher economic growth rates than anything seen in the 20th century, even in the OECD countries, you will have to neglect the very basic premise of why we have had economic development at all. To a large part economic development is driven by technology (with some contributions from specialization, organisational and institutional development). To believe that the economy will spurt on ever faster while we stop the development of new technologies is flabbergastingly stupid, and especially so when currents trends point in the reverse direction.
4) that I believe that the policy this “policy neutral” organisation pushes is a road to hell rather than salvation. I sincerely believe that short term regulation of the economy will impede our long term goal of building a sustainable society, including our ability to develop new tehcnologies, to adapt to climate change (of whatever sort). The “statist” or “technocratic” ideology of the IPCC leads the organisation and the world in the wrong direction.
By the way, I did put some numbers to the earth rotation vs temperature. It shows that to see the kind of speed shifts we’ve seen in the last 9 years, the sea would have to be roughly 1 K colder down to 700 m. But I doubt the whole idea as the needed sea level increase would be easily detected and I think it hasn’t been, so something else is also in play…
avfuktare vind
I’ve never really considered the IPCC economic forcasts. Those are somewhat separate from temperature forecasts.
If they overestimate– and the way to do that is monitor the fidelity of the sorts of projections that can be monitored– I suspect it’s unintentional. It would be interesting to see if some any blogger has posted their own or IPCC proofs that any previous projections were either not falsified, or validated with a test of with sufficient power to reduce the β error to 5%. I’ve never seen such a thing, but who knows?
What I do see over and over is proofs that the trend of 0C/century is falsified for recent times. Yes. It is. But I don’t think that’s the important question. The question is: So what is the trend?
I hate to sound pessimistic, but if the standard view of AGW is right, it is way to late to do anything about it. If you discover your tub overflowing already you have to live with the damage done to your house. At that point, its to late to take out a home owner’s insurance policy. Like it or not, that’s where we are. Of course, its not that I believe the tub is about to overflow any time soon, but well…
I can’t go into details about why its “to late” to act (ie mitigate) right now, but if people demand an answer to this, I’ll supply it later. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.
Andrew–
I think Tom Wigley shares your view. But, not everyone does.
However, it is true that if there is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and the time constant for CO2 is a large as many believe, the tub has already overflowed, and we are now filling the basement! So, we need to go out and find a big pump to get the water out.
See where analogies lead us? 🙂