Today, Keith Kloor, a journalist and climate blogger presents part 1 of an interview with Lucia Liljegren (that would be me) and Bart Verheggen of Our Changing Climate. (See Bridging the Climate Divide. )
The interview was fairly long and enjoyable for me (though I did have some trepidation that I would sound like an idiot!) Keith will be dividing his report into two posts. For reasons having to do with flow of the narrative, the conversation is not presented in the order in which topics were discussed.
I’m going to muse a little on the topics in Keith’s post, interjecting interesting-to-me things I’ve learned about being interviewed. After that, I encourage you all to discuss the interview either here, or at Keith’sor Bart’s blogs.
Today’s topics touch on:
- The spectrum of points of view in the climate blogosphere. Bart and I discussed where we think our blogs fall in the spectrum.
It’s interesting to read the exact wording of questions and see the exact answer. In answer to What blogs are closer to the far end of the skeptic spectrum? I mentioned WattsUpWithThat as closer to the skeptical side than I am. Keith’s wording for the next question used “is” rather than “closer”. So, in answer to “What blogger is on the far end of the AGW spectrum.” I answered Romm.
I suspect Keith didn’t mean to make any distinction using the word “is” vs. “closer”, but the closer did not cause me to try to think of most uber-skeptical blog out there. That title might go to AlGoreLied or Climate Change Fraud. There may be other contenders.
- Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit’s tone. Bart and I don’t perceive the tone in entirely the same way. In any case, I think interpreting the ill feeling between RC and CA requires knowledge of the history at both blogs and the whole hockey stick debate.
- What actions should we take with regard to climate change? (If we discuss the long pause in my answer, that was because I felt I needed to think a moment. I seem to remember we all laughed after I said, “You see, on a blog I can just like, not answer that.” Sometimes, when a question is asked and I don’t know the answer, I don’t answer for a while. (Are any of you surprised? ) If pressed, I might say I don’t have an opinion or don’t know. Often, the question goes away!
The topics are all interesting. I seemed that Bart and I may disagree less when on Skype than when posting comments at Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog. That’s an interesting thing in and off itself.
Both you and Bart were terrific sports. Your last observation about disagreeing less on Skype is interesting one,and speaks, in part, to why I wanted to conduct the conversation in real time, as opposed to an email exchange.
Many thanks again for your time.
Pretty good exchange, Lucia.
As far as investing in alternative technology, how would you go about doing this? Government sponsorship of certain technologies? Tax breaks/credits? I’m a little leery of just pumping money into technologies (how do we know we picked the right ones?) and do prefer a market solution like a carbon tax or cap.
Boris–
I’d support at least some governmental funding for research in promising technologies. The government has been funding research in various technologies for a long time. These include battery technology which have applications to electric cars, solar power technology etc. Of course we can’t know if we pick the right ones until a technology pans out. It’s also certain that some technologies will not pan out while others do.
I’ve actually always supported a gasoline tax. The plan I favored in the 80s was for the government to impose a $0.10 per gallon tax and increment it $0.10 a year. Some of the revenue could be used to subsidize mass transit.
The a portion of tax might be waived for some groups (possibly farmers raising some minimum amount of food on some minimum acreage and living some specific distance from town. Waivers would have to be thought out and be related to the fact that farming, by definition, requires fairly low density populations and those people do need to drive to town sometimes. Mass transit would probably never work for very low density regions.)
Unfortunately, my genious plan for a gas tax was not implemented. We still have very little mass transit and urban sprawl proceeds a apace. Slapping a $2.00/gal tax on now would cause hardship on the many people. It’s true that some individuals could relocate to avoid what might be a overwhelmingly burdensome some tax, but they can’t all move into those existing apartments and homes that are currently accessible by public transit.
(Would I admit there might have been other flaws in my tax plan? Sure.)
I’d support other taxes. All need to be described more specifically than “Carbon Tax”, but a carbon tax strikes me as better than Cap and Trade.
Boris (Comment#45594)-I’ve gotten the impression that investing in alternative energy means, to a lot of people, General Energy R&D. The only advantage I can think of with that over targeted picking of winners and losers is that the chance you won’t give any money to the winners is much lower. Of course, the chance of investing in losers with general R&D is basically 100%.
However, taxes and caps are not legitimately “market” solutions. They are market distortions. The intention is basically to use (I would say abuse) the market for the purpose of achieving ends which are much more difficult to achieve by mere fiat. A distorted market is not really a market at all, since it doesn’t behave the way a true market would. It’s just a mess.
My idea would be to eliminate all subsidies and taxes directed at energy production specifically, and reducing regulatory hurdles to the building of new power plants of all kinds. Basically, set the energy market free. This would accelerate it’s growth and make additional capital available for private investment of great magnitude in AE tech.
Interesting exchange. It seems to me, and this is meant as a compliment, that your association with the headliners at the ICCC is more sociological than it is intellectual, or even political. I have a hard time relating the person in the interview with the person that sells the “lukewarming” mugs.
When you say you have a hard time laying out a program of action, do you mean in terms of the politics, or in terms of effectively slowing global warming? Or both? What do you think of Hansen’s carbon-tax-and-dividend idea?
Dear Lucia
You would remember the ‘holding the center’ comment I posted earlier.
Here’s what KK has to say on:
“They occupy a nebulous middle ground in the spectrum, …”
“Lucia, I know you see yourself in the middle of the climate spectrum…”
I mean, the brain-wave resonance is…amazing! 😉
On a more serious note, you do give the impression that you hold the middle sane ground.
“However, taxes and caps are not legitimately “market†solutions. They are market distortions. The intention is basically to use (I would say abuse) the market for the purpose of achieving ends which are much more difficult to achieve by mere fiat. A distorted market is not really a market at all, since it doesn’t behave the way a true market would. It’s just a mess.”
On the contrary; a distorted market still behaves like a market. That is part of the power of markets; whatever conditions exist, they will continue to price inputs and seek efficiencies.
Two other things: a market is not a “good.” It has no value in and of itself, except as it assists people in addressing their needs and wants. While there is ample evidence that highly restrictive, command-and-control economies are less productive than somewhat freer one, there is no evidence that a “pure market” or a “true market” is better than one with a fair amount of taxes and regulation.
Finally, ever since the theory of markets was codified in the 18th century, it has been recognized that there are market failures that have to be addressed by government intervention. The prime example of this is the unowned resource: the tragedy of the commons effect. And the best-known example of that is the environment. “True” markets cannot effectively price environmental damage, so the government has to estimate that damage, and either restrict it by means of laws and regulations, or price it by means of fees and taxes.
Pricing environmental damage improves the function of markets. It is the ability to damage the society and its economy at no cost that is a distortion.
Shug–
At some point, someone (Keith I think) did say something about lots of people thinking the hold the middle ground.
I think it is true that many people see themselves as close to the middle, and it’s clear that some must be mistaken. Of course I could be too; but I can identify people on either side of me. I can also identify people way far away from me on either side (either by rhetoric or by view on science.)
Of course, there is Romm who writes what I consider amazingly unreadable screeds on the AGW side. (Yet, some people must read them!) Then, just consider the names of these blogs:
AlGoreLied: http://algorelied.com/
Climate Change Fraud: http://www.climatechangefraud.com/
global warming hysteria: http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/
I may not be smack dab in the middle, but I’m not on either edge.
Re: Robert (Jun 11 11:24),
Both. I’m not sure you can separate the politics from picking a plan of action. In principle, everyone on earth could agree to stop using fossil fuels now. That’s a plan of action that will slow warming.
In practice, that’s not going to happen.
“I have a hard time relating the person in the interview with the person that sells the “lukewarming†mugs.”
You see, this is fascinating. I wonder if some fans/readers of bloggers form a very selective image of someone, based on what they project on to the blogger. I definitely see this with RPJ’s readers. A short while back, regular RPJ readers were apoplectic over his cherries/fudge/fraud post.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/05/picking-cherries-and-hot-fudge.html
Based on what what they thought they knew of Roger, it was incomprehensible to many of them that he could take that stand.
Seems like a similar dynamic here, with Lucia. The reader is having trouble reconciling some of Lucia’s statements with what he thought she stood for–based on her blog writings, I suppose (can’t just be about the mug).
So anyway, I had multiple objectives with this Bart/Luia/JKeith conversation, and one was to show that some of the people who I think who are most reasonable and open to listening to others actually also possess nuanced views.
About the mug:
The mug bothers a lot of people. It shows the temperature relative to the multi-model mean of the SRES projections and it does bother some people. It asks a question on the back.
It is certainly true it was made at a time when the observations were lagging the multi-model mean by a lot. I plan to update it if it ends up well above or well below again. Heck, I’d up date it now if 10 people who want to see it updated to this month promise to buy one. But none of the people who want to see it updated have expressed even the tiniest interest in buying an updated graph and an updated haiku.
About people perceptions of me: People have a right to have a wide range of perceptions. I’m also aware that some people in comments at other blogs will pretty much tell people that they never read my blog, but my argument is “X”. The description of my argument can be very, very long and detailed, and provides no links to any source (after all, they don’t read my blog– right?) It also either totally or partially distorts what I have said.
My impression is that many people develop an impression of a blogger based on 2nd or 3rd hand knowledge. Alternatively,they develop it based on 1st hand knowledge of 1 post (and apparently not even reading the comments in that post!). On the Monckton thread you’ll find someone who is grousing and seems to think I am an out-an-out alarmist and that I complain about not being able to convince people AGW is real. Meanwhile over on your (Keith’s) blog, Steve Bloom is calling me a denialist. Go figure.
(Let’s see if I have enough karma for Spam Karma to let this post through even though it contains a “spam-karma word”!
“I wonder if some fans/readers of bloggers form a very selective image of someone, based on what they project on to the blogger. . . .
Seems like a similar dynamic here, with Lucia. The reader is having trouble reconciling some of Lucia’s statements with what he thought she stood for–based on her blog writings, I suppose (can’t just be about the mug).”
With respect, I don’t see that as quite the same thing. It is one thing to project a range of views onto a person based on their stance on one issue. (For extra ad hominem points, one can then disregard their original point based on the views you have associated with them. For example: 1. Agrees with the theory of AGW —> 2. Advocate of a socialist world government —> 3. Your point about AGW is invalidated, coming from a socialist.) It’s quite another to get mixed messages from a single person on the same issue — “Vote for Obama, who was born in Kenya and won’t show us his birth certificate!”
While it’s possible, indeed likely, that my difficulty reconciling these things is owing to my ignorance, it’s not a case of going off half-cocked. I’ve read dozens of lucia’s posts, comments too, and I have her on my blogroll, right next to the aforementioned Climate Progress and RealClimate.
About the mug: put me down for an updated one.
Robert (Comment#45600)-“ever since the theory of markets was codified in the 18th century, it has been recognized that there are market failures that have to be addressed by government intervention.”
This “recognition” is based on the false idea that where the market does not result in the optimum result all the time immediately, it can/must be remedied by government action. In reality, government action often makes things worse, and in fact, “failure” is an important part of how markets work. Markets learn and benefit from errors.
“The prime example of this is the unowned resource: the tragedy of the commons effect. And the best-known example of that is the environment. “True†markets cannot effectively price environmental damage, so the government has to estimate that damage, and either restrict it by means of laws and regulations, or price it by means of fees and taxes.”
It is not true at all that the alternative in this case is taxes or fees, or just letting the unowned resource be dedgraded. In fact, the “unowned” resource cannot be pinned on the market, since as a public resource, it is “collective”. The way to fix that with markets is not to distort them with command and control, it’s privatization, giving property rights to “the environment”. In such a case, the owner of a piece of the environment will seek to protect it, and damage to it by someone else is a violation of his property rights. Public resources become the victims of the tragedy of the commons because they aren’t properties in a market, not because they are.
Lucia’s Karma
Will her own post be denied?
Not on her Blackboard!
” I’m not sure you can separate the politics from picking a plan of action. In principle, everyone on earth could agree to stop using fossil fuels now. That’s a plan of action that will slow warming.
In practice, that’s not going to happen.”
But don’t you have to first determine your objective before you think about the politics? If politics is the tool we use to get things done, it seems to me you have to have an idea of what should happen before you can address what could happen. Once you have your concept of the right thing to do, you can qualify that according to what is politically feasible. What do you think is the right thing to do?
A gasoline tax is a very good idea, especially given the aerosol problem (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/06/climate-change-commitment-ii/). Internal combustion engines have a disproportionate impact on total forcing, as NASA found: “Road Transportation Emerges as Key Driver of Warming (2/18/10)” (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100218a/).
Since we’re a large market for cars, pressure to improve mpg here could enjoy a force-multiplying effect abroad. Although, it must be said, most of the developed world is so far in advance of us on this issue that the impact wouldn’t be earth-shattering.
Kloor,
If you hide behind a legality to defend your stance, your position is not very strong. I mean, it can be ‘watertight’ and all that, but it is not a defensible position out in the wide world.
That is what RPJr’s ‘hockey stick is not a fraud’ stance amounts to. I would like to think that we skeptical commenters, motivate/irritate our blog ‘heroes’ to push the envelope, not just hide behind legality. But RPJr lives in the same climate sphere in the real world as well, whereas us commenters only inhabit it in the ‘blogosphere’. So he cannot take a strong polemicist stance, but that choice is really upto him.
I feel that, there are irreconcilable differences between the skeptics/deniers and the warmists/lukers. What is the point in papering over these differences and trying to ‘meet in the middle’? I also believe that just because there are these ‘differences’, that does not mean that the two camps should be at each others’ necks all the time.
I would also offer that many serious journalists and bloggers dismiss any conspiratorial content simply out-of-hand. Which to me, just boggles the mind. We do not have to accept what the ‘fraud’, ‘hysteria’ websites are pushing in the form they are pushing it, but there is insightful content in there – *if you train your eyes to look*.
Thanks
Robert (Comment#45600),
“Pricing environmental damage improves the function of markets. It is the ability to damage the society and its economy at no cost that is a distortion.”
.
OK, but I think your analysis begs the real issue. Sure, if your neighbor’s business activity is filling the air with poisonous gas that cause immediate and measurable injury, then government regulation is easy to justify. The problem with AGW (and to a lesser extent, all government intervention to protect “the commons”) is that the “injury” is difficult to accurately quantify, and so appropriate regulation (AKA taxes, direct and indirect) become a mainly political question. As the interview points out, much of the debate on “climate science” is just a surrogate for the real debate on what political philosophy will dictate government action. Opinions vary over a broad spectrum on what is appropriate government action, and depend as much or more on political POV and personal values as anything else.
.
The only reason I care about climate science it that I honestly believe it is being tilted and misused to advance a specific political agenda; critical analysis of “the science” is needed to keep climate science from becoming a Trojan horse for instituting a “progressive” agenda that I think wrongheaded and contrary to humanities best interests.
First– Apologies to those whose comments are going to the spam filter. I freed 3.
Re: Robert (Jun 11 12:47),
That’s 1! I’m going to have to think of a haiku now.
I’m not sure which messages you think are mixed. I’ve always said I think AGW is true. I also compare how the multi-model mean compare to observations. I think people on “both sides” often over-sell their position.
No, because I think determining your objective is a political act. Here’s what Wikipedia currently says about politics: “Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. ”
Determining a collective objective is a collective decision.
The right thing to do in what sense? If something plan is utterly unworkable — either do to human nature or because it is a physical impossibility, it’s not going to work even if people somehow collectively decree it “right” in some sense
Re: Shub Niggurath (Jun 11 13:12), .
You have a feeling so Keith even can’t try to do something you feel can’t work?
Great this is where I come in Lucia. Lucia, the government takes in taxes almost the equivalent to what the oil company takes in as profit. Do you want to treat oil companies like cigarette companies, where the government now makes more money off the sale than the actual tobacco company? I know that everyone wants alternative energy but you cannot add a tax to gasoline without expecting a price increase to the consumer, it is impossible.
I’ve actually always supported a gasoline tax. The plan I favored in the 80s was for the government to impose a $0.10 per gallon tax and increment it $0.10 a year. Some of the revenue could be used to subsidize mass transit.
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a tax of that sort was introduced in Germany in 1999 by a social democrats/ green government.
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http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96kosteuer_%28Deutschland%29
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the idea was to start with a 2.5 euro cent (tax was before euro introduction..) and increase it. it got expanded to a tax on energy use from non-green energy, but significant portions of energy use (basically all production) were excluded from the tax.
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current government is trying to close some further holes in the tax, to earn some money at the moment.
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i was (and still am, of course) a big supporter of the tax, and it is very interesting to investigate, how it developted.
the tax was extremely unpopular, and (annual?) increases were about the first things that got cancelled.
the money earned also did NOT go into improved public transport or support for alternative energy, but instead was used to plug a hole in pension funds. i was extremely angry about this, but it turned out to save the tax from the being abolished again, when a conservative government took over. (they had always claimed that they would remove the tax immediately)
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as an indirect tax, the “oekosteuer” punishes low income households more than richer ones. so it needs to be flanked with other measures, that counterbalance this effect.
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i think that your call for such a tax, and/or more investments in green energy research show limited understanding of the current situation.
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the problem with the tax, is a very negative image of the term alone. most people wouldn t even notice the tax, as the amount per tank-fill would be cheaper than the garbage food/drink most of us buy for a horrible price at nearly every tank stop. but they will still fight the tax.
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the problem with research is, that many alternative energy sources are ready for deployment. they will become cheaper by mass deployment and will improve through practical experience with the machinery.
I’ve actually always supported a gasoline tax. The plan I favored in the 80s was for the government to impose a $0.10 per gallon tax and increment it $0.10 a year. Some of the revenue could be used to subsidize mass transit.
.
a tax of that sort was introduced in Germany in 1999 by a social democrats/ green government.
.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96kosteuer_%28Deutschland%29
.
the idea was to start with a 2.5 euro cent (tax was before euro introduction..) and increase it. it got expanded to a tax on energy use from non-green energy, but significant portions of energy use (basically all production) were excluded from the tax.
.
current government is trying to close some further holes in the tax, to earn some money at the moment.
.
i was (and still am, of course) a big supporter of the tax, and it is very interesting to investigate, how it developted.
the tax was extremely unpopular, and (annual?) increases were about the first things that got cancelled.
the money earned also did NOT go into improved public transport or support for alternative energy, but instead was used to plug a hole in pension funds. i was extremely angry about this, but it turned out to save the tax from the being abolished again, when a conservative government took over. (they had always claimed that they would remove the tax immediately)
.
as an indirect tax, the “oekosteuer” punishes low income households more than richer ones. so it needs to be flanked with other measures, that counterbalance this effect.
.
i think that your call for such a tax, and/or more investments in green energy research show limited understanding of the current situation.
.
the problem with the tax, is a very negative image of the term alone. most people wouldn t even notice the tax, as the amount per tank-fill would be cheaper than the garbage food/drink most of us buy for a horrible price at nearly every tank stop. but they will still fight the tax.
.
the problem with research is, that many alternative energy sources are ready for deployment. they will become cheaper by mass deployment and will improve through practical experience with the machinery.
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ps: posting problems were significantly better over the last few days, but seem to be coming back..
By the way, just for any idiots that try to say alternative energy is cheaper than fossil fuel consider this important fact. The world’s cheapest oil comes from Saudi Arabia and it costs $2 dollars a barrel. So sorry, oil is on another level than other energies. It is literally the blood of the economy. Do not tax our blood.
Andrew, let me save you some time: I am exquisitely familiar with the ideology you are describing. When I was young and irresponsible, I was a fairly frantic advocate of it myself. I suggest you go back to the basic texts: Smith, Hobbes, Hayek, and see what they actually say. You might be surprised.
While you can privatize some environmental goods — shellfish grounds, forests — it is silly to talk about privatizing the atmosphere. There is no legal framework whatsoever in which to do that. Nor can you privatize the oceans, unless you have some technology with which to erect partitions between the auctioned plots of sea.
Good environmental policy harasses the creative power of self-interest by pricing environmental harms. This facilitates the most cost-effective investments that protect the social good. That is an intelligent use of the market, not a threat to the mythical pure free market.
Libertarians consistently poll 1-3% in national elections, so merely asserting that governments are evil and markets are holy is not effective even as polemic.
“You have a feeling so Keith even can’t try to do something you feel can’t work?”
No. I do not mean that.
But, there are many commercial/governmental/quango interests aligned behind the idea of catastrophic warming (irrespective of whether they ‘believe’ in the warming or not). The consensus bloggers and commenters stand in the blogosphere frontlines, so to speak, and many may not be aware of the range of financial interests arrayed behind their backs. They think they fight for the ‘science’ alone, which I see as the honorable aspect of AGW belief.
(The AGW proponents counter this by saying that ‘fossil fuel’ companies fund and drive ‘skepticism’, which is stupid. The AGWers pose no credible threat to the oil or coal industry inasmuch they support ‘alternative energy sources’. There is no credible alternative. Do the oil companies fear the crap-and-tax? No they dont – they will pass the costs right down.)
The skeptical camp, the way I see it , is a ragtag outpost of argumentative ‘intellectuals’. This observation has been made numerous times by the AGW proponents themselves – that the skeptics are a handful of loony-bins who’ve had an inordinate amount of influence on the ‘climate debate’. How can ‘organized, massively fossil-fuel funded campaigns of disinformation’ and ‘clutches of desperate no-good cranky anti-intellectual deniers’ both be true?
So I see the skeptics and warmists as being ‘brothers-in-arms’ – who constantly fight like spouses do. Except there are many backers for the warming camp.
OK, but I think your analysis begs the real issue. Sure, if your neighbor’s business activity is filling the air with poisonous gas that cause immediate and measurable injury, then government regulation is easy to justify. The problem with AGW (and to a lesser extent, all government intervention to protect “the commonsâ€) is that the “injury†is difficult to accurately quantify, and so appropriate regulation (AKA taxes, direct and indirect) become a mainly political question.
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i look at the oil spill in the Gulf, and i seriously wonder what you are talking about.
i was a opponent of fossil fuels, before global warming became an issue.
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Great this is where I come in Lucia. Lucia, the government takes in taxes almost the equivalent to what the oil company takes in as profit. Do you want to treat oil companies like cigarette companies, where the government now makes more money off the sale than the actual tobacco company? I know that everyone wants alternative energy but you cannot add a tax to gasoline without expecting a price increase to the consumer, it is impossible.
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yes, taking the majority of the money earned, by stuff that is taken out of our earth, is a pretty fair thing to do.
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i also would go much further. for example, i would punish those responsible for oil spills with prison time. and i would completely change how oil and gas companies work. they have too much power, by control over oil, from the moment it is pumped from beneath right up to filling a tank.
i would completely destroy this monopolistic control over an important resource. the companies should be broken up into specialists for extraction, refining and delivery.
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take a look at companies, sorted by revenues:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
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7 in the top 10, are oil and gas, and they have a terrible revenue to employees ratio.
OK, but I think your analysis begs the real issue. Sure, if your neighbor’s business activity is filling the air with poisonous gas that cause immediate and measurable injury, then government regulation is easy to justify. The problem with AGW (and to a lesser extent, all government intervention to protect “the commonsâ€) is that the “injury†is difficult to accurately quantify, and so appropriate regulation (AKA taxes, direct and indirect) become a mainly political question.
.
i look at the oil spill in the Gulf, and i seriously wonder what you are talking about.
i was a opponent of fossil fuels, before global warming became an issue.
.
Great this is where I come in Lucia. Lucia, the government takes in taxes almost the equivalent to what the oil company takes in as profit. Do you want to treat oil companies like cigarette companies, where the government now makes more money off the sale than the actual tobacco company? I know that everyone wants alternative energy but you cannot add a tax to gasoline without expecting a price increase to the consumer, it is impossible.
.
yes, taking the majority of the money earned, by stuff that is taken out of our earth, is a pretty fair thing to do.
.
i also would go much further. for example, i would punish those responsible for oil spills with prison time. and i would completely change how oil and gas companies work. they have too much power, by control over oil, from the moment it is pumped from beneath right up to filling a tank.
i would completely destroy this monopolistic control over an important resource. the companies should be broken up into specialists for extraction, refining and delivery.
.
take a look at companies, sorted by revenues:
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
.
7 in the top 10, are oil and gas, and they have a terrible revenue to employees ratio.
.
Do not tax our blood.
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too much blood in the water along the gulf coast, for my taste.
Sod, the implication of what you are saying is that the oil company’s “control” over oil allows them to elevate prices and make huge profits. However, in showing the revenue they take in, you seem to completely forget that this is not related to what they are charging, but what the are charging and the amount they are selling. Oil and gas make amount eight cents on the dollar. That’s hardly “obscene”. The average across all industries is about seven cents, and Pharma/Biotech for instance make a little over over 19 cents on the dollar. In other words, OIL COMPANIES MAKE BIG MONEY BECAUSE PEOPLE BUY THEIR PRODUCTS! ALOT!
The rest of what you said was basically emotionally charged calls for draconian government intervention. This is how violent revolutions get started…
My comment must have gone to the spam thing again
Shooshmon claims:
At $2 per barrel that would be about 5 cents/gallon. And yet, filling up at the gas station the other day, I paid $2.79/gallon. Who exactly is benefiting from that $2.74/gallon differential? There’s about 25 cents in taxes, but I don’t think the rest of it goes to anybody here in the US!
I mean, if oil is typically being sold at a 5500% markup, something’s seriously wrong here.
Converting the retail price of gasoline to electric units gives you something like (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline) 7.6 cents/kWh. There are lots of sources of electricity cheaper than that.
Worse than that though, the typical efficiency of internal combustion engines is maybe 20%, while electric locomotion is 80-90%. So really, on an equivalent motive power basis, gasoline is costing us about 30 cents/kWh.
No wonder people are itching to buy the new Nissan Leaf!
Commendable interview by Keith Kloor.
The early comments at Collide-a-scape have some nuggets. “Stephen” presents a version of the Precautionary Principle as a trump card; Lucia explains that it’s not as simple an issue as he may think.
Keith Kloor links a May 2010 column by David Roberts, Why do peak oilers and climate changers not get along better? Worth reading, with respect to Pielke Jr’s Hartwell paper, and Bart and Lucia’s agreement that policies that focus on improving energy use may have a positive effect on AGW, without focusing on AGW.
sod,
“i look at the oil spill in the Gulf, and i seriously wonder what you are talking about.”
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Comparing AGW to a huge oil spill is bizarre. Oil spills are a case where damage is real, immediate, certain, and quantifiable; regulations to minimize the possibility of that kind of environmental damage are not terribly controversial. I certainly don’t oppose that kind of regulation. OTOH, many regulations (like ‘cap-and-trade’) that are proposed to address AGW are very controversial and actively opposed by a substantial portion of the public. Surely you can see the difference.
sod–
I didn’t say the tax had the even the remotest chance of being implemented as described or imagined in my dreams. So, I don’t know why you think my saying I would support such a tax implies I don’t understand that it might be impossible to put in place. Many things I support will never be put in place and if they did initially get put in place, interest groups will pressure legislators to modify them to achieve goals of the interest group.
Hi Lucia,
Nice talking to you and Keith the other day.
In response to your comment#45601, I think I responded to the ‘middle ground’ issue by saying something along those lines (that many people start a discussion by portraying themselves as being in the middle, more or less as a rhetorical ‘trick’). I kinda felt that I was being overly adversarial in the way I said it, and the way you explain yourself here is of course entirely reasonable: You see people on either side of you, and are nowhere near the edge on either side. The same counts for me, and I guess for most people (at least the first part). Which also means that it’s not a very meaningful statement.
Who knows, maybe next month McIntyre will be talking with Mann. The world is small.
“The right thing to do in what sense? If something plan is utterly unworkable — either do to human nature or because it is a physical impossibility, it’s not going to work even if people somehow collectively decree it “right†in some sense.”
The problem I have with that way of looking at things is that it is hard to see how big changes begin. As per Schopenhauer:”To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.” On many issues, from slavery to women’s suffrage to — to throw in a bad idea — Prohibition, an idea that was politically very unpopular ultimately became broadly supported and the law of the land. So it seems to me you have to at least entertain the idea of what is right before you can apply the filter of what is practical. I mean, how can a person even chose among the infinite possible courses of action without judging them according to some standard of what needs to be done?
You write: “Determining a collective objective is a collective decision.”
That seems distinct from what you, as an individual, think that we, the collective, ought to accomplish. You can express your goals prior to the process of argument and compromise that determines the collective objective.
SteveF: ” As the interview points out, much of the debate on “climate science†is just a surrogate for the real debate on what political philosophy will dictate government action. Opinions vary over a broad spectrum on what is appropriate government action, and depend as much or more on political POV and personal values as anything else.”
I agree with that absolutely. We have a physical reality, and people’s views of how we ought to deal with it are heavily influenced by their political philosophies, and by their identification of a given position with their own political “tribe” or someone else’s.
AGW presents a lot of challenges to the conservative viewpoint, especially as conservatism has developed in the US over the last 20 years. It involves the environment, an issue associated with the other side. It’s hard to see how we can cope with it without three things intensely disliked by most conservatives: strong and enforcible international agreements, taxation, and structural changes in our economy which will in the short term harm the profits of energy companies and cost consumers money.
Where the debate becomes toxic, I would argue, is when people who have a problem with the most straightforward solutions reason backwards in order to attack the facts, and even further, to attack the people and institutions that are trying to discover and explain the facts.
People who don’t like the solutions for reasons of political philosophy, instead of creating solutions that are maximally consonant with their values, chose to attack the notion of their being a problem at all. They apply the lessons of the Swiftboating and birther movements to a scientific debate: accuse, smear, create uncertainty and doubt, and judge success not by how close you approach the real story, but by how successful you are at undermining trust in the standard account.
The advent of the Internet and the 24 hour news cycle has paradoxically made it easier to exist wholly immersed in a narrative created by people who share your political philosophy. In this environment the axiom that each person is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts, has become a dead letter. This may have consequences for own democracy in the long run which are even more destructive than climate change.
Bart,
“Who knows, maybe next month McIntyre will be talking with Mann. The world is small.”
If it were just up to McIntyre, possibly. But considering Mann, I think a new ice age within the next 20 years more likely.
Re: Bart Verheggen (Jun 11 15:46),
I didn’t think you were adversarial. I think it’s true that many people see themselves as in the middle for many reasons.
Still, there are people who know they are at the extremes on at least some positions. There are some topics where I know I am not in the middle. I’m pretty liberal on social issues. I’m an atheist– I don’t think that’s the middle ground on religion.
Lucia,
“I’m an atheist– I don’t think that’s the middle ground on religion.”
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It’s the middle for me… all the different religions pretty much balance out, especially if you consider voodoo advocates, devil worshipers, and the ancient Greeks and Romans. From a broad perspective, your position seems pretty central. 🙂
It’s been a couple of thousand years since Aristotle’s “golden mean” was cutting-edge moral philosophy. The world has moved on, and whether one cites the Overton window, or Barry Goldwater, I think most people understand on some level that the argument that “moderate” is better than “radical” is a thinly disguised argumentum ad populum.
That said, the argument that we are right and the vast majority of human beings looking at the same facts are wrong (on any given issue) is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence.
Bart wrote:
“Who knows, maybe next month McIntyre will be talking with Mann. The world is small.”
Anything is possible, I say. If both set aside personal egos and thought it was for the good of climate science to meet and hash it out, then I bet that would eliminate one major source of gasoline from being poured on this fiery debate.
Remember, feuds feed on themselves. After a while they stop being about the original grievance but continue to build on themselves because of the trading insults, perceived offenses, etc.
The best way to get Mann & Mcintyre together is for someone who knows both (and is trusted by both) to do the initial reach out. So who’s the climate equivalent of George Mitchell?
So many people now, have mentioned this.
“‘Debate’ in climate science is just a political debate, using the science as a cover”, or something like that.
Bart has said that in his blog many times.
If that is indeed true, then the situation is pretty clear. There are scientists on one side, with their political views. There are the idiot skeptics on the other side with their political views.
Why is it, that the world should accept the scientists’ politics?
If the ignorant public are expected to learn climate science, why cannot the scientists be expected to learn some decent politics? Before trying to impose it on the rest of us?
“Anything is possible, I say. If both set aside personal egos and thought it was for the good of climate science to meet and hash it out, then I bet that would eliminate one major source of gasoline from being poured on this fiery debate.”
Que? The National Academy of Sciences put a lot of work into hashing it out. Multiple independent lines of research published in the peer-reviewed literature have hashed it out. Mann was right, McIntyre was wrong. Situation hashed. Those who are not satisfied by that are not going to be persuaded by a face-to-face debate. People overwhelmingly come away from those things feeling that “their” side won, in any case. And suppose Michael Mann is a lousy public speaker? It’s possible. He’s one of the foremost paleoclimatologists in the world; one can’t be good at everything.
The proper forum for debate with a scientist is the literature. On the other hand, if Joe Romm would like to step up, those two climate bloggers and science communicators could put on quite a show, I’m sure.
Lucia: You’re in the middle of the spectrum. RC is not. I cannot believe he said that.
Vis-a-vis McIntyre. There is a clear talking point that’s formed among the science is settled crowd: Steve is right sometimes but usually wrong; his tone is negative, and his is work is sloppy.
Steve is shockingly moderate. Look at his ICCC talk, its hard to square that image with Bart’s characterization of his tone. HIs one insinuation, which you can see growing over time, regards to what he describes as a consistent pattern of error. The mistakes in the work of certain scientists always seem oriented in the same direction…
But he consistently denied believing this was purposeful. He cast it as ‘group-think’/not questioning what doesn’t surprise your preconceptions.
He only seems to get emotional about UEA archive, but again, overtime he’s gotten much more strenuous about the ‘pattern of error’ aspect. I think that closed some doubts for him: when CRU denied his claims it was not a matter of differing opinions and intellectual debate, it was a cover-up–burn Steve for the greater good mentality.
He’s clearly taken it personally, and he should, his reputation has been smeared–and this interview is just one more knock.
Laura S.–
There is sometimes a somewhat mocking tone at CA. The lord Humphrey stuff, some titles can have an acerbic twist. So, I can see where someone who would prefer not to read the messages at CA there would complain of the tone or maybe find it stronger than others. Equally, I can see where someone like Bart might complain about tone because Bart really doesn’t resort to mocking at all.
That said, I doubt that’s tone is what caused anyone who is unhappy with CA or Steve to dislike CA or Steve.
I see much more mocking tones appearing constantly at Stoat, Rabbet, and Deltoid also at RC but less frequently than at the previous three. I see out-right venom at Tamino. Romm writes nothing but screeds; when I read those, I always wonder if his head isn’t about to explode. But Bart didn’t proactively complain about the tones of these other blogs and I think those tones range from RC, which is comparable to CA to non-stop nasty or snarky.
Blogs generally don’t read like journal articles. If you don’t like a blog, you might decide that makes their tone “wrong”. If you like it, you might decide it lends character.
By the way, just for any idiots that try to say alternative energy is cheaper than fossil fuel consider this important fact. The world’s cheapest oil comes from Saudi Arabia and it costs $2 dollars a barrel. So sorry, oil is on another level than other energies. It is literally the blood of the economy. Do not tax our blood.
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Oil is on another level – and that is why we pay Saudi Arabia $75 per barrel for their $2 per barrel oil … and maintain 1-3 aircraft carrier groups in the region … and deployed 150,000 troops to get rid of a militarily aggressive neighbor and secure a country which had an ability and a history of invading Gulf oil states.
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Taxing oil (or gasoline) would raise energy prices and act as a drag on the economy. It would also slow the transfer of wealth from American banks and households to the coffers of Saudi oil princes and corrupt government officials in a dozen oil states – including Mexico.
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So am I an idiot for supporting a carbon tax to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and slow the transfer American wealth overseas?
I just hate it when you folks talk about raising taxes as a “solution” to anything.
I live in a jurisdiction that has been raising local taxes by 10% per year for more than 20 years while us wage earners have averaged 3% increments over the same period.
You don’t have to be a mathematician to realise this trend will have catastrophic consequences if it is continued.
Robert,
“People who don’t like the solutions for reasons of political philosophy, instead of creating solutions that are maximally consonant with their values, chose to attack the notion of their being a problem at all.”
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It looks to me like you a bit too believing of CAGW propaganda. There are many people of good will and with considerable technical, business, and other experience who have honest and serious doubts about the magnitude and importance of the AGW problem, and who have honest doubts about the prudence of many of the proposed actions to address AGW. Many of these people believe that AGW must be weighed not as a singular problem, but rather as one of many problems humanity faces simultaneously. They are acting in good faith and in consonance with their values.
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If you choose to believe the worst about those who oppose immediate draconian action on AGW, and believe that they are motivated by politics, immorality, ignorance, stupidity, or pure evil, then it seems unlikely you will ever be able to support meaningful compromise. Which will be too bad, since you will be factually wrong and will make ever less likely the kinds of substantive compromises that are needed to address AGW. I am sure there is common ground and room for compromise, but not if AGW activists can’t accept that other points of view are worthy of inclusion in a compromise. Extremists are absolutely certain of their beliefs, very often wrong, and almost never effective.
KK says – {The best way to get Mann & Mcintyre together is for someone who knows both (and is trusted by both) to do the initial reach out. So who’s the climate equivalent of George Mitchell?}
Keith, I read that first as Goerge MICHAELS! I almost spat m beer all over my keyboard from the laughter!
Ron Broberg (Comment#45657),
“It would also slow the transfer of wealth from American banks and households to the coffers of Saudi oil princes and corrupt government officials in a dozen oil states – including Mexico.”
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I do not believe Mexico is any longer a major exporter of petroleum; many of their fields are in the declining phase of production, and there has been much delay in development of other fields, for mostly political reasons. With the rate of economic growth in Mexico over the recent past, domestic demand consumes essentially all production.
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The Saudi royal family does receive vast income from oil sales, of course. However, most of that money is distributed to Saudi citizens via subsidies for food, automotive fuel, health care, public services (like potable water), infrastructure, and residential housing. Saudis pay little or nothing in taxes of any kind. If we had to pay only what goes to the princes, Saudi oil would be inexpensive. Purchasing allegiance to the king is not cheap!
Ron Broberg,
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Thanks to the perverse nature of CO2 regulations the “low carbon fuel standard” will actually increase the amount of money flowing to the Saudis because they have the “clean” oil. The oil imports that would be reduced would be imports from Canada.
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This kind of unintended consequence is why I think Co2 regulations will cause more harm than good.
“It looks to me like you a bit too believing of CAGW propaganda.”
I think you just illustrated the point, Steve. The science is the science, not “CAGW propaganda.” Take off the tinfoil hat, pull on your big-boy pants, and deal with the reality of AGW.
gallopingcamel: “I just hate it when you folks talk about raising taxes as a “solution†to anything.”
I’m not overfond of people expressing a rigid and dogmatic opposition to the government raising revenue, so we can all suffer together.
“I live in a jurisdiction that has been raising local taxes by 10% per year for more than 20 years while us wage earners have averaged 3% increments over the same period.”
Really. Your taxes are now 670% of what they were in 1990? Hmm. How about a link?
“You don’t have to be a mathematician to realise this trend will have catastrophic consequences if it is continued.”
And you don’t have to be a political scientist to know that the US has a far lower tax burden than the vast majority of industrialized countries (1). The volume of the right-wing whining about taxes is poorly correlated with the actual tax rate.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
Ron Broberg (Comment#45657)-“So am I an idiot for supporting a carbon tax to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and slow the transfer American wealth overseas?”
I am reminded of Don Boudreaux’s recent letter to the Wall Street Journal, regarding protectionism:
Here’s a crazy thought: Money that “flows overseas” doesn’t sit there and rot! Money circulates around the world. In fact, many of the world’s crude oil exporters are also major importers of the more refined varieties, actually buying back their own oil, in effect. But even if they spent it on, well, anything else, the money would still in turn be used by those who got it from them, to make further exchanges. The money could very well make it’s way right back to you, having changed hands a trillion times since then.
Anyone worried about “violent revolutions” should focus on the fact that the global economy is dependent on one source of energy (oil) for which there is no immediate replacement. Oil production is declining for all virtually all producers except OPEC nations, which represent some of the most unstable and repulsive regimes that exist. One well placed bomb in the Middle East would immediately bring the global economy to its knees. Then everyone would learn the true meaning of “draconian”.
I’ll plug this book again
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=8917780
With Adaptive Governance and Climate Change, Ronald D. Brunner and Amanda H. Lynch argue that we need to take a new tack, moving away from reliance on centralized, top-down approaches—the treaties and accords that have proved disappointingly ineffective thus far—and towards a more flexible, multi-level approach. Based in the principles of adaptive governance—which are designed to produce programs that adapt quickly and easily to new information and experimental results—such an approach would encourage diversity and innovation in the search for solutions, while at the same time pointedly recasting the problem as one in which every culture and community around the world has an inherent interest.
Robert. the unexamined assumption is that global action is required or even an effective course of action. At some point people will get the point that the call to global action is the biggest source of delay in effective action
I’d be checking my maths if I was you.
Lucia:
Using your sound foundation in hydrodynamics and your refreshingly open and pragmatic analysis of climate trends, you require no other justification for the way you run this blog.
It provides an extremely useful frame of reference for your readers to use in weighing the sometimes extreme positions of the Fred Singers, ‘Viscount’ Mocktons, Fred Seitz and Lindzens – on the one hand – and the Joe Romms – on the other.
However, on January 19, 2010, in a couple of emails to you, I (unsuccessfully) tried to gently bait you into a discussion of issues of how to deal with global warming, EVEN if it were only as ‘mild’ as about 1.0ºC/century.
I attached copies of 2 open access papers of mine that had just been published in the December issue of Steve Schneider’s journal, Climatic Change:
“Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming”
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9626-y
and
“Replacing coal with wood: sustainable, eco-neutral, conservation harvest of natural tree-fall in old-growth forests”
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9625-z
as ‘lures’ to begin a discussion of the policy side of the question.
These papers describe sustainable 8 to 13 GtC/yr of ‘new’ bio-sequestration that require little, if any, development of new technology, and could be financed by a carbon tax of about 1.00/gallon (or less) on gasoline – comparable to your own suggestion above.
I argued that issues of tomorrow’s bottom line need to be moderated by our best estimates of the bottom lines of future generations in managing otherwise ‘free’ markets. And I noted that the largest “new technology” problems would rather be in the development of global trust and cooperation in monitoring, regulating and ‘policing’ required international agreements to maintain equity and comfortable and sustainable climates and world prosperity.
Given the ‘tone’ of this thread, are you perhaps prepared to comment on such ‘fixes’ at this time?
Shub,
Your first quote I agree with. But then you twist it around. Of course I (or anyone) don’t claim that the world should accept the scientists’ politics. But the real disagreements are on how to respond to these issues, whereas they fight about the science instead. I think that is mostly because those who oppose mitigation attack the science in order to bolster their laissez faire attitude, and the scientists fall into the trap and start defending the science.
Laura S. I think that the climate scientists are in the middle: The large swath of scientific literature, scientific conferences, the IPCC, etc. RC is a fairly good representation of those position, though of course only a small fraction and made up of scientists who are worried about the public (mis-)understanding of the science.
Re: Len Ornstein (Jun 12 01:54),
It’s hard to bait bloggers into discussing things they don’t normally discuss.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/?k=Irrigated+afforestation+of+the+Sahara+and+Australian+Outback+to+end+global+warming
I downloaded and have now skimmed. I think sequestration is a useful thing to hope for generally and the idea of irrigating the Sahara is very interesting. The paper reads well. Obviously, I need to spend more time before I say more than that.
Bart–
I have a question. You think the scientists are in the middle of the blogosphere spectrum. Who in the blogosphere is more to the “pro-AGW” end than the scientists? I not only named someone more skeptical than me ( WUWT), I named 3 blogs that are more skeptical than WUWT.
Can you name a blog more “pro-AGW” than RC and then can you name 3 blogs more “pro-AGW” than that blog.
I think it’s useful to be careful and not think answering the question about “who is in the middle” with “who is correct”.
Re: Bart Verheggen #45674 (Jun 12 02:45),
Bart’s comment echoes Robert’s excellent and perceptive analysis way upthread, #45637 (Jun 11 15:47)
The conceit would come from imagining that their side exhibits the all-too-human flaws of blinkered reasoning and self-interest outfitted as Virtue, whereas our side does not.
Of course, if it were to be the case that all parties are vulnerable to blind spots: the particular temptations that prey on ‘us’ would be different.
But that wouldn’t be grounds for preening.
AGW Consensus advocate, blogger, and sometime-Blackboard commenter Michael Tobis made is making major contributions to the Climate Audit thread “Losing Glacier Data,” about the support glaciologist Lonnie Thompson recieives for refusing to archive paleoclimate proxy data. Tobis’ second long comment is a paen to the deep beauty of mainstream climate science. As he anticipated, “defending the indefensible”* didn’t go over well in that “lion’s den” (* “d the i” are my words not MT’s). Willis Eschenbach (no favorite of mine with respect to many of his scientific arguments) rebuts Tobis throughout the remainder of the thread (example).
The institution of climate science is unable to acknowledge obvious, glaring errors made by leaders in the field in important venues. Since these mistakes “didn’t happen,” they can’t be corrected.
And yet, the position of the AGW Consensus seems unchanged: since only “the other side” is the victim of the sorts of fallacies that Robert (and Michael Tobis) describe, Society is to (1) Take AGW Consensus science to be Holy Writ and (2) Implement the drastic policies favored by AGW Consensus advocates, immediately.
Perhaps it’s a good thing that, in the wake of recent embarassments, moderate, prudent voices such as Lucia, Bart, and Keith Kloor are garnering more attention. I think so.
Len Ornstein (Comment#45673),
I read your paper about watering the Sahara to sequester carbon some time ago (I think you had written about it in an exchange with R. Piekle Sr). While carbon sequestration on a huge scale (as you suggest) certainly could be done, a project of this size seems to me wrought with the possibility of substantial, and potentially very negative, unintended consequences. In addition, my experience suggests that maintenance and upkeep of any man made system over extended periods grows at least as fast as the size of that system. The requirement for continuous maintenance over hundreds or even thousands of years of a continent-scale water system presents a continuing cost which can easily be badly underestimated.
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I suspect other methods of carbon sequestration, which can be conducted on a small scale (like black carbon char in soils) would be lower in cost, lower in risk, and require no maintenance.
I do not believe Mexico is any longer a major exporter of petroleum;
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Look again.
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And, while I wrote ‘carbon tax’ above, my first choice is a simple import tax on oil. And I’m not particularly interested in the carbon footprint of tar sands -v- sweet light crude. Because the carbon footprint is less interesting to me than the geopolitical source of the oil. I don’t believe in fairy tales like 100% energy independence – but I think it is wise to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
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Understand that I ‘wear’ my politics pretty lightly – my preferences and political opinions are simply that – preferences and opinions. Just one small voice among 300 million with no pretensions that if my voice isn’t listened to that we are all going to die – or if that other guy’s voice is listened to that we are all going to die. Some people get pretty wound up into their political opinions – I’m not one of them.
AMac (Comment#45677),
I agree with your comment. That is the heart of the problem with main stream climate science. Political considerations are interfering with the normal process of separating reality from expectations and advancing real understanding. I am reminded of a recent paper which showed, unexpectedly, that crustaceans do well and have no problem calcifying their shells, even at extremely high CO2 levels. Somehow that mildly reassuring result led to a press release containing the usual calls for immediate and drastic reduction in fossil fuel use. Can climate scientists not see how comical the requirement for political correctness in climate science is? There is no place in climate science for such nonsense.
Ron Broberg (Comment#45680) June 12th, 2010 at 7:29 am
“I do not believe Mexico is any longer a major exporter of petroleum;
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Look again.”
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I did. Projected exports for 2010 are ~600,000 barrels per day, but at the same time, Mexico will import ~300,000 barrels per day of refined equivalents. Mexico’s net exports are quite modest and falling rapidly as their economy grows. Many Mexicans are justifiably concerned about this trend.
BV his blog has a scientific interest only because of the VS thread.
BV did his best ,there allready, to elevate the shaky argumentations , often blunt and rapacious and mostly ignorant, of the warmists there, Dhogazza Eli Rabbit and Scott Mandia spring to mind ( these seem all to be university education related characters ?) and muzzle and belittle the wordings of sceptics.
To have English language next to Afrikaans in a same blog smacks of elitarism. If Bart loses the argment he loses off steam amongst
his Dutch buddies.
The scientific relevance of BVs articles is laughable. Mostly it is politics anyways. Or some adulation for Peter Cinclair’s crocks.
BV lost it when he shut down the VS argumentation buildup.
I hope we learn about TSA and multi variate correlation in climate science soon, elsewhere!
BV does not deserve the attention anymore, he is now filtering every incoming posting.
The efforts DLM , Al Tekasski put in there should be spent elsewhere. Like the recent sampling Nyquist arguments of Al lately though.
-Should we have nationalist (Dutch) blogs on science?
BV writes idly from the comfy evironment of a Dutch R&D waterhole (BV counts dust particles in the air for a living)
=> I do not think so.
Any “Dutch” blog should be confronted with Srebrenica and the lost Jews in WWII. That’s where Dutch transparency shiined through the most.
Stick to science if you claim science.
BV does not do that.
Re: Ron Broberg (Jun 12 07:29),
Interesting. I resemble you on some political opinions but not others. I can get pretty steamed up during discussions that touch on civil liberties though.
Re: phinniethewoo (Jun 12 08:21),
Why do you think writing in Dutch and English is elitist? I read BV’s posts in English and don’t read the other ones.
I’ve seem French/English, Spanish/English etc. knitting blogs and don’t think that’s elitist. Two language blogs strike me as less common than two language knitting blogs, but I don’t think that’s an elitist issue. I think the blogger sometimes finds it easier to post in their native language and does. Often these are more “how to” articles, and they are best done in one’s native language anyway.
Sometimes the knitters want a wider audience for somethings and post in English. I don’t see two-language knitting blogs as elitist, so why would I see BV’s use of two languages elitist?
Lucia
Language is the foremost elitarist tool.
It is the ultimate barrier .
You can’t read the Dutch so that’s where BV might rake up the buddies to prepare an attack.
You sound like you would like to have Latin back?
Amateurs without the credentials the obligatory miter on the coconut won’t dare to knock on your door then.
The majority of us in europe fought ourselves free from the claws of catholic decadence & corruption, after the bible got translated form Latin.
Too bad 99.9999% of the earths species can’t read and take heed of the advice.
Re: phinniethewoo (Jun 12 08:49),
???
I’m happy to read Bart’s comments. I disagree with his point of view often enough, but he is well-reasoned and civil. Here, at his home base, and elsewhere, as far as I can tell.
Happiy, this isn’t the long-ago 1990s, when one would read the Op-Ed and Letters pages of the newspaper and fume, “the Editors are stifling debate!” You and I can simply start our own blogs. Now, as to readership…
I like knitting btw as a technology and mathematical artefact not for its Mahatma Ghandi allure. Weaving with machine like tools is ageold. the Greek and Romans were not knitting.
To knit for a hobby is like anoraks that stick to pushing wedges around : the wheel is to sophisticated for them?
Peter Sinclair crocks
is like “liking” Michael Moore movies.
anyways the VS thread was way above Bart’s head.
you do not interfere all the time with ” i do not have the stats knowledge, but..”
And certainly not when you got plumbed with a Phd in science somehow.
I’d like to read his dissertation.
It is a public notice, it should all be on the web.
Like to read Obama’s btw; and Proud Michele’s.And Lucia’s.
i wonder why all dissertations are not on the web?? Would be so much fun.
can we not pay a few SouthAfricans to scan them all in.
Instead of paying them to do liberal retard lip service.
Steve: (re Mexico)
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Steve, I understand the export model and Mexico’s declining production. But the US is currently importing about 1 million barrels of oil per day from Mexico.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
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One reason that I favor an oil import tax is to harden the US economy against future price increases/declining global production by encouraging lifestyles changes (where you buy your home matters as transportation costs increase), market changes (increasing preferences for fuel efficiency), and technical innovation. All of those are long lead items that take years to make signficant changes in society. And as we saw in the 1970s, and again in 2008, oil prices can change very quickly. I prefer to take my pain in long slow doses rather than sharp tramautic punches.
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But I’ve probably diverted this thread enough. What does get my goat (and is somewhat germane to the actual thread topic) is the derogatory, dimissive language used by some. A couple of days ago it was ‘AGW hysterics.’ Last night it was the ‘idiots that try to say …’ followed by an idiotic argument. Sometimes that language can be used to invoke an interesting discussion. More often than not, it is simply an emotional appeal to a crowd that the writer hopes will reinforce his own sense of superiority.
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Note that I am not immune to such impulses. There is a creature comfort in surrounding yourself with like minded individuals and hurling insults and monkey poo at the other tribe. But that behaviour is never “persuasive” and shouldn’t be mistaken for an “argument on the issues.”
Re: phinniethewoo (Jun 12 08:49),
The nuns tried to make me take Latin in highschool and I refused.
I am a culturally Catholic Atheist.
I like it for the product–thick hand made sweaters and to have something interesting to do while the family watches sports on tv. You pick your hobbies; I pick mine.
Someone would have to bother to scan them all in and post them.
Why all the references to South Africa?
Re: Ron Broberg (Jun 12 09:22),
I don’t think anything to do with oil diverts the thread. One of the topics in the interview is how to respond to what climate science says about AGW. The other is do we need to use AGW to dictate energy policy, or can justify changes that also benefit AGW by considering other factors.
Other factors can include nearly anything we want to discuss about oil.
On the name calling issue: If I remember correctly, the person posting the “idiot” comments is the same person who posted the “pussy” comment. I guess “idiot” is better than “pussy”. In both cases, word choice permits readers to evaluate a commenters inability or unwillingness to support their claims with actual arguments rather than just name calling.
I usually wait a long time and gauge the thread-jacking aspect of a term before assigning it negative spam karma points. I’ve got my eye on “idiots”.
Ron Broberg,
I disagree. I would much rather have the market deliver the medicine than the politicians. The reason is the market does not discriminate. Favoured constituencies do not get a break. Overseas competitors cannot use the price differential to take jobs.
The benefits of the market approach appeared in 2008 when US steel makets suddenly found themselves with more business because the cost of shipping steel from China increased dramatically. No domestic tax on oil could deliver that benefit.
Lucia, you asked Bart “Who in the blogosphere is more to the “pro-AGW†end than the scientists?”
But I’m not sure either “blogosphere” or “pro-AGW” are the right terms here. The extremes on the “pro” side go well beyond the scientific framework of “AGW” to total environmental destruction and humanity’s certain doom – the apocalyptics. I don’t think most of them do blogs – they’ve given up on humanity already. Examples are:
* James Lovelock (“billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable” by the end of the 21st century”)
* James Howard Kunstler (global warming and peak oil)
* Dmitry Orlov (all that and finance too…)
* Jared Diamond (civilizational collapse)
* The “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” !!
* ELF and similar groups
Scientists really are in the middle. The trouble is, nobody on the environmental extreme has any sort of public voice; there simply is no counter to the Limbaugh’s and Beck’s from the other side. So science looks like an extreme in the public eye, when in reality it is highly conservative in general.
AMac: ” The institution of climate science is unable to acknowledge obvious, glaring errors made by leaders in the field in important venues.”
That would be a fallacy. Any given climate journal publishes article in every issue that challenge previously published arguments, and, as in the recent argument over sea level rise, scientist often acknowledge better arguments when they come along.
Of course the lectures of Monckton, Livingston, Bob Carter et al are full of “glaring errors” by climate scientists, but these almost invariably prove to be grounded in stupid mistakes by the accuser, deliberate deceit, or both. Which is kind of ironic, if you think about it.
“Perhaps it’s a good thing that, in the wake of recent embarassments, moderate, prudent voices such as Lucia, Bart, and Keith Kloor are garnering more attention. I think so.”
You are illustrating my point about tribalism. Lucia thinks the globe is warming, at or a little below the predicted trend. She acknowledges that, even if we are trending a little below 0.2C/decade, we may very well catch up as climate change accelerates. She avoids talking policy as a rule, but has expressed interest in a gasoline tax. So in what way is she a “moderate”? Only culturally, really. Most mainstream scientists wouldn’t break bread with the ICCC. But in terms of the science, what’s not conventional?
” And yet, the position of the AGW Consensus seems unchanged: since only “the other side†is the victim of the sorts of fallacies that Robert (and Michael Tobis) describe, Society is to (1) Take AGW Consensus science to be Holy Writ and (2) Implement the drastic policies favored by AGW Consensus advocates, immediately.”
You pack a lot of straw men into one short paragraph. Can you cite anything that I wrote that asserts any of the three propositions you just attributed to me?
Arthur: Thanks for compiling that list. I agree that the “peak oil” stuff and extreme anti-industrialization environmentalism are similar to psuedoskepticism.
I have to take issue with one of your examples, though: Jared Diamond. He’s a very moderate guy. Have you by chance read “Collapse”? I recommend it. It’s not an argument that our civilization is doomed to collapse – he doesn’t think that. It’s about how societies have collapsed in the past (or managed to overcome society-wide threats) and what that can tell us about facing our current challenges.
Nothing is black and white for Diamond: he discusses at length the meticulous and successful environmental preservation undertaken by Chevron in New Guinea. He really doesn’t belong on a list of environmental extremists.
Arthur Smith,
You must be kidding. Enviromental extremists have most of the MSM publishing their propaganda on a daily basis. They have Al Gore and Ban Ki Moon. They have WWF and Greenpeace – billion dollar organizations that do nothing but promoting climate alarmism.
So idiotic
Writ even imbecilic.
Moronic’s okay?
==============
lucia (Comment#45686)-“I can get pretty steamed up during discussions that touch on civil liberties though.”
Interesting. I get steam by-well, no, pretty much anything can get me steamed. I don’t much care for people who don’t understand economics…which apparently includes quite a number of people on this thread. Speaking of which…
cce (Comment#45667)-Oil running out is what one might call a “self solving problem”. Oil will get more expense as it gets scarcer. At some point the alternatives will become more economical, and we won’t rely on it any more. As for the instability in the Middle East, nothing can be done to help the fact that these resources are associated with areas of religious conflict…Except perhaps George W Bush style spreading of Western style Democracy to reign in the barbarism. Or maybe you’d prefer the protectionist nonsense that Mr Broberg is peddling, in which case, I suggest you decide to stop purchasing goods from outside of your own household, and be richly rewarded for having to make everything yourself.
re: Kim
The idiot smiles
While finger-painting brown cows
Can you hear me now?
A troop of baboons scream
Another peers in the stream
Robert (Comment#45665),
‘I think you just illustrated the point, Steve.
And your insisting on condescending dismissals illustrate my point exactly. You sir need to learn how to address disagreements productively.
I think science the last 50y has been at a complete standstill.
Millions of “papers” yes, like a ticker tape parade. Nothing in it worth reading though. Progress has come from engineering in industry, alone.
Where is the time of Henri Poincare? the 1920s and the daring breakthroughs of QM .
BartVerheggen promoting Peter Sinclair crocks, just doesn’t make the cut.
The reason has been I suspect political correctness: Universities had to take on board all the women that “felt” a lot, contributed little: Balast.
Then came the 3rd world nincompoops: African elites that also, you know, want to send their sons to elite skools to fornicate a little.
Then came the “idea” hey we can reduce our worrying youth unemployment stats by sending everyone to the university for 5 years!
It’s the good life there! La Dolce Vita. and well paid.
Lots of traffic jams around the university campus every day, 4pm.
Fridays empty, working from home: They are all on the beach then.
Lunaparks , disneyworld etc, incorporate more astute introspect analytical thinking than your average campus.
Someday sometime, someone will come along and say it is all unaffordable.
Re: Arthur Smith (Jun 12 09:37),
Blogosphere has to have a blog; pro-AGW means they have to discuss AGW and present the pro-side.
The combination doesn’t mean, “Some person who takes what might be seen as some sort of extreme Malthusian view and may or may not have some presence on a blog.”
I agree “clusterfuck nation” is extreme and he has a blog (here). But I couldn’t find anything about climate change on the front page. I found peak oil. So, it doesn’t appear
James Lovelock is concerned about climate change, but doesn’t seem to have a blog.
“Voluntary Human Extinction Movement†doesn’t discuss global warming on their front page; I clicked the most promising sounding links but that just doesn’t seem to be a topic they discuss. (They also don’t seem to have a blog.) So the appear to be neither in the blogosphere nor do they devote much time to discussing AGW even on their web page. (They may devote zero time as far as I can tell.)
Jared Diamond’s wikipedia entry lists tons of books– none about climate change. He appears to have a blog whose sole entry was posted in 2006. It does have a bullet point about man-made climate change, but it’s a bit difficult to assess what he thinks about it. I don’t think he’s “in the blogosphere”.
I don’t want to look through each and every one you propose to see if any of them blogs that discuss climate change from the pro-AGW side. Could you suggest which on the list might actually qualify?
Lucia:
“The other is do we need to use AGW to dictate energy policy, or can justify changes that also benefit AGW by considering other factors.”
A similar line of reasoning WRT to managing future threats. One of the biggest dangers in AGW is rising sea levels. It would be prudent to limit future damage by changing coastal development law NOW.
If we believe that the sea will rise by say 1 meter, and if we believe that it will be difficult to de carbonize, then at least we can mitigate the future damage by changing coast development laws now. But this is a LOCAL measure or country measure. so its not on people’s radar.
The blood runs red but
Bitter is the udder flow.
How now around Ron?
============
A gentle rains wash
The dust from my subaru
Watering the garden
Sometimes the less that I do
The more that really gets done
I don’t believe in knitting.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Knit, knit against the dying of the light.
Bart:
“…whereas they fight about the science instead. I think that is mostly because those who oppose mitigation attack the science in order to bolster their laissez faire attitude, and the scientists fall into the trap and start defending the science.”
The skeptical stance is much more complex than what you present and you know it.
Firstly, your argument can be neatly inverted and it would still hold true. Many scientists ‘support’ mitigation simply because it reaffirms and bolsters their, for lack of words shall we say, non-laissez faire worldview.
Secondly, ‘research’ into mitigation, adaptation has proceeded apace precisely because the IPCC seeks to bolster its worldview with science. Climate science is unique in this regard – scientific enquiries are pursued solely to answer to predetermined policy conclusions. The skeptics have pointed this out repeatedly.
Of course, the climate science euphemism for this type of activity is ‘reducing uncertainty’.
Hi Lucia,
I interpreted that question differently than you (and Keith probably as well).
Only taking into account blogs, RC is clearly not the midpoint between the extremes. I don’t see much point in pointing to what would be the midpoint, unless it’s also contrasted to the scientific opinion; we’re talking about a scientific subject after all.
The middle of the scientific opinion about this scientific opinion is quite well captured by the IPCC reports, and in the blogosphere this is best represented by blogs such as RC and others I mentioned. Joe Romm is to the more activist side, but I’m having difficulties naming a blog that’s more activist than his. I’m sure they’re out there, but frankly, I couldn’t name one.
The disparity/gap between the scientific middle opinion and the ‘middle’ in mainstream media and blogs is exactly what motivated some scientists (me included) to start blogging, and to the hypothesizing of what’s the cause of that gap.
I agree with Arthur Smith’s points about the extremes on the environmental side as well (though I don’t recognize all the names he mentioned).
I meant: “scientific opinion about this scientific subject”
Shub,
The IPCC is a proces more than an institution, so in effect you’re saying that all those scientists who participtae in the IPCC, and the articles they assess are adapting their science to fit their worldview?!? Quite a conspiracy going on there.
I realize that there’s a host of reasons for the “skepticism”.I don;t claim that the reasoning I gave is equally valid for all skeptics.
And about the reversed of what I said: To have the great majority of scientist sway their science because of their worldview is still very implausible to me. If people want more taxation just for the sake of it (how much sense does that make?!?), why would they go through the trouble of inventing (or exaggering) an imaginary (partly real) crisis?
I find the reverse of what I said not plausible to be occurring on a massive scale. See also the last point in this post, on how to assess the credibility of different position on complex topics such as climate change:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/who-to-believe/
Well, there are several dimensions along which one could talk about extremes… limiting it to “AGW” itself there seems to be a rather self-limiting extreme of believing it to be a fact. I.e. if you agree with the science, it’s hard to be more in agreement than being in agreement. So there’s a sharp edge to that particular dimension.
What I listed earlier was following the more general environmental/catastrophist dimension, of which there are certainly many who go far beyond climate scientists on what the future will bring. There are a few bloggers among that dystopian group – one I recently found was the “apocadocs”:
http://www.apocadocs.com/
But there are also those who go well beyond Joe Romm in advocacy for political action on energy, with specific large-scale plans of various sorts – activists in the good sense of trying to make the changes they know the world needs. A few on my list there:
Grist (particularly Dave Roberts): http://www.grist.org/
A. Siegel: http://getenergysmartnow.com/
Alex Steffen: http://worldchanging.com/
Bruce McF: http://brucemcf.dailykos.com/ (trains)
Stranded Wind: http://strandedwind.org/ (wind)
Jerome a Paris: http://jerome-a-paris.dailykos.com/ (wind)
[Edit – how could I forget] – and of course there’s Bill McKibben:
http://www.350.org/
who has started a whole activist movement pushing for CO2 at 350 ppm. Which is a more radical number than Joe Romm thinks is reasonable (and he’s argued with McKibben on the political issues before).
Well the recent stanford poll shows that lukewarmers are the clear majority. so there. and since Luica and I stand clearly in the middle where the truth is known to spend a considerable amount of time, we get to decide who is extreme and who is not. Basically, if you dont think we are in the middle, then you are an extremist and most probably wrong about a whole bunch of things. That debate is pretty much settled, so dont even bother objecting.
ok. just kidding. Lucia I did like the observation about the differences between the meat world and the pixel world.
If you will recall, When Judith sent out her missive I asked people to put the word “BUT” aside. to just look for common ground with Judith and ignore nit picking. But we always have to say BUT, I agree, BUT. I think its a malady of the medium.. and maybe the medium also attracts people with the malady as well.
Re: Robert (Comment#45637)
June 11th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I agree with Roberts POV:
“Where the debate becomes toxic, I would argue, is when people who have a problem with the most straightforward solutions reason backwards in order to attack the facts, and even further, to attack the people and institutions that are trying to discover and explain the facts.”
As an example, nuclear energy as an alternative energy source for electrical power generation, IMO, is a straightforward S&T solution to national decarbonization and clean energy objectives. Since nuclear power plants have been deployed in the US and world-wide for several decades, what is the problem in, say, doubling the number of nuclear power plants by 2020? It certainly isn’t a S&T problem, including waste disposal. Political problems can be much more difficult to solve.
Bart Verheggen writes:
I’ve made a number of attempts to resolve matters.
Wahl and Ammann’s code reconciled almost exactly to ours. I bought Ammann lunch at AGU in Dec 2005 – before NAS panel, before Energy and Commerce Committee. Since our codes reconciled, I proposed that we declare an armistice for 2 months, write a joint paper setting down what we agreed on, what we disagreed on and what was needed to resolve things. If we were unsuccessful, then the armistice would expire. I observed that this would be much more useful than writing articles at cross-purposes. He said that this would be “bad for his career”. I sent two emails confirming the offer, neither of which were acknowledged.
I made a similar offer to Nanne Weber of KNMI who was one of the co-authors of Juckes et al. She refused.
My own background is not academic and I’m used to disputes getting resolved. The issues aren’t very complicated. If I’d been in charge of IPCC WG1 and encountered a similar sort of dispute, I would have gone to considerable lengths to try to get it off the table or to understand clearly why IPCC was in the business of taking one side of this dispute. I definitely would have placed a non-conflicted party in charge of the assessment. My recommendation to IPCC in scoping AR4 was to exclude this topic if it wasn’t essential for policy.
I’m puzzled as to Bart’s apparent antipathy for Climate Audit. I try to write accurately and to correct errors if they are brought to my attention. If I’ve made errors in any posts, I’d appreciate it if Bart would identify them for me so that I can make an appropriate correction.
Lucia,
I had a long hard thought now about knitting and I think it is not a worthwhile activity to pursue.
Please stop this.
Do not get me wrong, I do see value in studying threads and weaving techniques.
All aspects of a thread, a knot, sewing ,interlocking thread patterns how different materials tear and interact and how you overcome it , it is all very fascinating and will persist being so, even with nanotechnologies and the sort.
But mindlessly doing this automated handling must be counterproductive.It is like a punishment? Also to make anything of worth within say 100 hours of labour you must have very thick yarn. Or can you knit with 1200Denier Polyester??
Yoou must value your quality time somehow,
speak to an economist.
If you knit a hat how long does it take you?
Check out alibaba, 500 hats @0.2 USD.green on top.
eco hat for lucia
Steve McI,
.
I won’t speak for others, but it is the near-constant presumption of wrong-doing that I object most to – not only among your commentators, but from you yourself.
.
While I haven’t read much on your blog this year (way too much climategate-this and oxburgh-that for my tastes), I recall a post on the “publication” of CRU data and some code at the UK MET website in Dec 2009. You kept insisting on finding the most unflattering angle in which to view the data presented – first because you couldn’t identify the appropriate network and, then, when corrected, because you didn’t read the fine web page as carefully as you could have (the same error that I made). Granted you acknowledged the errors and made corrections – but you never let CRU/MET off the hook for your reading error – never sent a kind word in their direction for redistributing the WMO RBCN data either as far as I could tell. Your posts at that time were about “mysteries” and “excuses.” You commentators full of “sloppy” and hints of cherry-picking. I do appreciate your call for more open code and data, but there are too many sharp elbows and preset opinions over there for my taste. Too many presumptions of wrong-doing.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/27/the-uk-met-office-subset/#comment-212918
.
Do you ever just openly and plainly, without barbs or jibes, thank scientists or institutions for providing data? There is more data publicly available in climate science than in any other field that I can think of.
.
It was partly due to that experience that I decided I’d rather continue my explorations in a different venue. Did you ever do any follow-up posts about that data set?
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/crutemp/
qewr
Lucia,
I had a long hard thought now about knitting and I think it is not a worthwhile activity to pursue.
Please stop this.
Do not get me wrong, I do see value in studying threads and weaving techniques.
All aspects of a thread, a knot, sewing ,interlocking thread patterns how different materials tear and interact and how you overcome it , it is all very fascinating and will persist being so, even with nanotechnologies and the sort.
But mindlessly doing this automated handling must be counterproductive.It is like a punishment? Also to make anything of worth within say 100 hours of labour you must have very thick yarn. Or can you knit with 1200Denier Polyester??
Yoou must value your quality time somehow,
speak to an economist.
If you knit a hat how long does it take you?
Check out alibaba, 500 hats @0.2 USD.green on top.
eco hat for lucia
Lucia,
I had a long hard thought now about knitting and I think it is not a worthwhile activity to pursue.
Please stop this.
Do not get me wrong, I do see value in studying threads and weaving techniques.
All aspects of a thread, a knot, sewing ,interlocking thread patterns how different materials tear and interact and how you overcome it , it is all very fascinating and will persist being so, even with nanotechnologies and the sort.
But mindlessly doing this automated handling must be counterproductive.It is like a punishment? Also to make anything of worth within say 100 hours of labour you must have very thick yarn. Or can you knit with 1200Denier Polyester??
Yoou must value your quality time somehow,
speak to an economist.
If you knit a hat how long does it take you?
Check out alibaba, 500 hats @0.2 USD.green on top.
eco hat for lucia
asdfs
Bart:
While a general statement that the “IPCC uses science to bolster its predetermined conclusions” may sound conspiratorial to you, and thereby not worthy of consideration, such a view is clearly formulated in the social sciences literature examining the IPCC. In fact, there are authors who concede explicitly that the IPCC process has ‘conspiratorial’ character.
But this does not imply that the scientists have translated their personal politics into policy. It is the systematization of a worldview that lies at the birth of the IPCC (and the FCCC), that shoulders this blame.
For a long time, the word ‘uncertainty’ and its usage in the IPCC context (and thereby in mainstream climate change discussion) gave me a headache. But not when you define ‘uncertainty’ as follows: ‘the knowledge-distance between the state of the climate and attribution of its causation to an anthropogenic emitted factor’.
For example, the influence of the sun (I take no sides in the science issues here – it is just an example) on policy-relevant climate change is considered tenuous and therefore worthy of dismissal, whereas the huge gap in the chain of causality between CO2 and malaria or polar bears, has ‘many uncertainties’ which need to be ‘reduced’.
Ron Broberg (Comment#45732) June 12th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
near-constant, implications dishonesty, puns made on peoples names that are juvenile, constantly questioning people’s motives, on OCD compulsion to nitpick then demand a response, then demands to be taken seriously while breaking all the rules of serious science in regards to professional respect. He needs to read some of his blogs, the comments on them, then compare that to professionally written scientific papers and see where the gaps are between what is seen as progressing science and trashing it. Because the path the McIntyre is leading us down is only going to end up debasing science, has already done an excellent job of doing so.
Ron.
“Do you ever just openly and plainly, without barbs or jibes, thank scientists or institutions for providing data? There is more data publicly available in climate science than in any other field that I can think of.”
Do I ever thank the bank for not screwing up my balance?
I suggest you start by reading Climate Audit.
I will even help you.
category data archiving: here’s an example
http://climateaudit.org/2007/06/14/some-prompt-data-responses/
If you read CA you would not even have to ask the question. Further if you understood Steve’s focus –PALEO data, and you understood the lacuna are there, you would not make silly comparisions to other fields.
Steve requests Paleo data. You point out that OTHER data is readily available. That an interesting point. on a different planet.
Mosher: I suggest you start by reading Climate Audit.
.
I am an infrequent reader, for the reasons discussed above. But that doesn’t mean I never read. I first tried to move from reader to minor commentator, years ago, when the discussion turned to GISS code. The same attitude I saw with CRU/MET data and code existed back then. His forte might be paleo, but it was *his* posts about GISTEMP and CRUTEM that attracted my closest attention.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/09/giss-model-e-data/#comment-148156
.
I recall with humor McIntyre’s befuddlement on encountering Unix compress Z for the first time. Once someone explained it to him, true to form, he was ranting about obsolete and incomprehensible data formats. As so often seems the case, ignorance on the part of one party became a club to beat the other.
.
Now let’s look at your example of an unequivocal thank you: Given the policies of WMO and IPCC, it’s ridiculous that unarchived data should be used in these studies, although one cannot hold Parker to fault for this, other than for failing to criticize this practice as an author. No barbs or jibe there! I hope that wasn’t your best example!
.
Snark is so thick over there, so common, that it has become like the air you breath – you don’t even notice it any longer. Recently I posted a comment expressing thanks and gratitude for McIntyre’s defense of Mann in the face of Cuccinelli. “Hoi Polloi” replied that if I ever read CA, I wouldn’t be surprised – that they only attack the science, never the man. This is from the web site that invented the term “The Team” to heap contempt and insult on a nearly daily basis.
.
McIntyre has blunted his own message by participating in and allowing this kind of crap on his blog. And it has made some people (from, apparently, Dr. Mann all the way down to insignificant guys like me) reluctant to associate themselves with him or it.
Ron Broberg (Comment#45740) June 12th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Michael Mann Quote:
“But that’s ridiculous. These days, scientists in the field prefer not to talk about the “hockey stick” anymore because of the sheer number of corroborating reconstructions; we now talk in terms of the “hockey team”. They might be able to take one member of the team out of the game for a while with a cheap hit, but there are others that can easily fill in.”
http://motherjones.com/environment/2005/04/man-behind-hockey-stick
(“Man Behind The Hockey Stick” interview 2005)
I asked the question:
I re-iterate this request. Ron Broberg writes:
[elision relates to commenters]
I examined the post that was referred to. When I pick up a list of station data, I carry out cross-checks against other data sets. I described the results of a quick cross-check as “merely interesting little puzzles” – “interesting little puzzles” are hardly a “presumption of wrongdoing”.
I checked for uses of “mystery” and “excuse” in my posts at the time – just after Climategate. While the term “mystery” has been used over the years to describe efforts to figure out things like Mannian confidence intervals – and I see no problem with the use of the term – contrary to your statement, it was only used a couple of times in the late 2009-early 2010 period that you describe and both in ironic posts.
In one post at the time, I referred to Macavity the Mystery Cat:
In another contemporary post, I referred passim to Gavin Schmidt being his own Mystery Man:
I don’t see why either use of the word “mystery” should have particularly offended you.
Neither was the word “excuse” used in posts of that period more than a couple of times – though again I see no intrinsic problem with the word. In a post here, I observed that excuses for not providing data the previous summer somehow no longer seemed to apply:
In a post here, I referred to the unsavory sequence of untrue excuses provided by the Met Office in response to David Holland’s FOI requests:
Obviously I’ve written a lot about Climategate context and the pseudo-inquiries. I understand that this is not to everyone’s taste. But they are events that concern me and I’m interested in the context of things that happened to me.
Oh yes, there is one other contemporary use of excuse is here:
Perhaps that’s the straw that broke your back, but please examine the author of this latter quote before blaming me for it.
PS- the accusation that I was “befuddled” by .Z files is a total fabrication. If possible, I’ll try to provide turnkey scripts in R for data retrieval. Because of the obsoleteness of .Z files, R ( a modern language with wide ranging utilities) had no mechanism to retrieve .Z files, forcing manual handling of data for R users.
Juvenile. I rest my case.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/14/steigs-mystery-man/
More juvenile behaviour, and OCD obsession with harrassing people. If all of science was done in this way, it would be a backstabbing shambles.
Shub,
I disagree, both on the fact that you deem such a conspiracy likely and what you say about the role of the sun being dismissed in IPCC reports. It’s discussed with reference to the scientific literature. I think what’s more the issue here is your apparent dislike of the scientific conclusions. I wrote about the IPCC process in one of first posts: http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/ipcc/
Steve McIntyre,
My issues with your writing is not in alleged errors you do or don’t make, but rather in how you package your message. It often reads as the noble detective trying to unravel some massive fraud, insinuating all kinds of things, mostly subtle (but apparently very clear to your followers nevertheless), sometimes less subtle (“try not to puke”).
When I looked at your role in the Yamal story, your style of writing irks me the wrong way, as I detailed eg in this post:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/mcintyres-role-in-the-latest-teapot-tempest/
You may very well have valid points to bring to the scientific table. I’m not opining on that. But if you do, there are constructive and less constructive ways to bring them to the table. From where I’m sitting, it’s more the latter.
Ron.
You seem to accuse steve of engaging in rants without any evidence or idea of what a rant is. I’l help by demonstrating a rant. dont take it personal. its an object lesson.
You dont have to be a frequent reader to take TWO seconds
to check if steve had ever thanked anybody for doing their effin job right. have you thanked any co workers for compiling their code?
Do you thank your wife daily for not cheating on you? Do you thank your doctor for not leaving a scapel in your noggin when he last went hunting for your brain. And you dont have to be a frequent reader of anything more complicated than the comics to realize that your question was one of the dumbest questions you could ask WITHOUT CHECKING FIRST. Dope. And pointing to the huge pile of UNRELATED data that has been released is like a defense attorney pointing to the jury and saying.. my client didnt kill any of YOU. good grief, you couldnt get two brain cells together if they were dogs in heat.
“I recall with humor McIntyre’s befuddlement on encountering Unix compress Z for the first time. Once someone explained it to him, true to form, he was ranting about obsolete and incomprehensible data formats. As so often seems the case, ignorance on the part of one party became a club to beat the other.”
Dont be a dope. First it wasnt a rant. calling you a DOPE is a rant.
Second The issue related to the difficulty in avoiding MANUAL decompression of files. Not the incomprehensibility of the FORMAT. Steve wanted an R command to do the decompress, rather than requiring the user to download the file and unzip it by hand.
“CA reader, Nicholas, an extremely able computer analyst, has helped me with a number of problems with downloading data in compressed formats into R. One of the most annoying and heretofore unsolved problems was how to get Z files into R without having to handle them manually – a problem that I revisited recently when I looked at ICOADS data which is organized in over 2000 Z files.
Z files are an obsolete form of Unix compression that is not even mentioned at zlib.com nor was it supported at R. So if you wanted to analyze a Z file in R, you had to download the file, unzip it manually using WinZip or equivalent and then start again.”
I faced this EXACT same problem a couple months ago writing an R program. The goal is to provide a TURNKEY script. that means a script that you just run and everything gets done.
1. the file gets downloaded (download.file())
2. the “unzip” command in R unzips it. except the base command doesnt work on .Z. cause .Z is rather long in the tooth.
The R help archives were no help.
The base package of R doesnt have a command for .Z files.
You have to look in one 2 thousand or so contributed packages.
Even then there are some nice little gotchas if you are not careful and some issues that defeat platform independence.
Anyways, Because I knew Steve had faced this same issue it took me two seconds to check. and find the right package.
Seriously do you still compress to .Z? I would find that funny.
Ron
“This is from the web site that invented the term “The Team†to heap contempt and insult on a nearly daily basis.”
You think the term The Team was coined on CA?
Ron.
you think the term “the team” was coined on CA?
Arthur Smith (Comment#45631)
Arthur Smith is supposed to be one of the real educated ones here, but he don’t know gobsmack about economics. Don’t they even teach econ in the schools you went to Arthur?
Saudi oil actually costs about 12 bucks per barrel to produce. But they sell it on the open market FOR WHAT REFINERS ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT. The same goes for big oil companies. With increasing demand from developing countries such as China and India, there is more demand and the price goes up even though it costs about the same to pump it outta the ground (that’s why they’ve had huge profits lately). My goodness, some folks here don’t understand how the free market system works. Unfortunately, it’s the only one that does work.
The cap and trade idea is based on free market principles… make carbon based energy more expensive so cleaner energy can be competitive. The problem is that it requires the consumer to pay more for energy… which gets to day one, page one, econ 101 “Economics is a social science. People will act in their economic best interests.” So people in a democracy will not accept this idea, and less so during recessionary times.
If you want to get carbon out of the atmosphere, then develop and distribute energy which is cheaper and as convenient.
I think the discussion about Steve McI and CA illustrate a good point about the differences we see in the blogland. Several have made less than flattering remarks as to Steve’s style. I admit to finding Steve both humorous and relevant. However, the real howler from my point of veiw is that the side that clamours on about the science is the side that is finding problems with the Humor. As though to say, if you don’t humor me (by writing as I want you to) I will not consider your arguments. This might work for juveniles (such as bugs), but should not matter in a science discussion. To make it even funneir, it is acknowledged that one can be an adamant racist, and still be a good scientist. However, we now find, if you write humorously, you can’t.
I wonder if the authors of such a claim realize how juvenile THEY look.
Bart, it’s not a conspiracy, as I’ve told you before, so please stop beating that dying horse. It’s an ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd’. There were some with acute hearing who thought distant thunder was dangerous enough to move the herd, without knowing the direction led over a cliff.
================
bugs:
Speaking of juvenile behavior, people like you who only have insults and slurs to throw at other people is pretty much the definition of puerility. Didn’t Lucia ask you to stop debating what other blogs do? I don’t think she just meant Watts either. But you can’t help yourself, can you?
Without somebody to insult, you have nothing left.
Carrick (Comment#45758) June 13th, 2010 at 6:56 am
I was responding to McIntyre’s post here, on this blog, on this topic. How else can I point out McIntyre’s juvenile behaviour other than by pointing out his juvenile behaviour?
John F. Pittman (Comment#45756) June 13th, 2010 at 5:34 am
You will have to point out the huorous bits at CA. I must have missed them. Were they the less than flattering remarks he made about scientists?
bugs:
Well you included this link:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/14/steigs-mystery-man/
That isn’t this blog, nor is it “this topic.” It’s just another one of your patented harangues.
I’m just asking for an example of a post of yours that is something different than attacking people, or the words they choose to use.
Do you have one example?
Anyway if you were so horrified by juvenile behavior, you’d be railing against DeepClimate a bit more often. That blog is the epitome of juvenility IMHO.
I was referring to McIntyres disingenuous comments in regards to the use of the word ‘mystery’.
He has no problem using it in a juvenile, disparaging manner, despite his protestations here.
Re: steven mosher #45751 (Jun 13 03:22),
You may have moved onto tricky ground with this post addressed to Ron Broberg. Perhaps what I write here is superfluous, or perhaps it can help avoid an unneeded food fight.
You write,
Followed by 16 lines of RANT, concluding with
You then segue to a reasoned discussion of the problems that you and McIntyre have encountered in automating decompression of data files that are archived under the .Z scheme.
[humor]
Mosher, don’t be a DOPE and condescendingly “teach” people by RANTING ONLINE if you’re gonna end it by drifting back to a serious discussion of a technical issue!!! Ya MORON. Also, army boots.
News flash, subtlety is the first casualty of Teh Interwebs.
Ya MORON.
[/humor]
Ron Broberg will understand your point (appreciate? who knows). There’s no guarantee that’ll hold true for all readers, esp. those for whom English is a second language.
Bugs:
And my point is you yourself often descend into “juvenile, disparaging” language.
If you’re trying to set a model for how you think people should behave you aren’t doing very good.
And you are very selective in who you single out for your criticisms too. Usually they are just “enemies of the state.” I’ve yet to see you get your panties in a wad over any of Tamino’s rants. Or DCs. Or Deltoid.
You obviously have double standards. You have one set of rules for how those you see as opposition should behave, and another for how you and those you see as aligned with you should behave.
Which was really my point here, not to defend Steve (who I agree has undermined his credibility with some of his antics).
Hey! Look at me! I’m being audited! 😆
.
Steve, let me first state that CA is your blog and you have every right to run it as you see fit. My opinions are just that – opinions. And since they are opinions about a subjective topic – “tone” – we can even agree on facts and still hold differing opinions. You can become defensive or dismissive of my opinion, shrugging off my criticisms as unfounded or biased. Or you can accept the criticisms constructively. The choice is yours, not mine. I do appreciate you taking the time to respond.
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You are right to question the word ‘mysteries’. Rereading the post I had in mind, I see the word that should have been quoted is “puzzles.” This followed your CRU/MET post which complained that MET was using ‘excuses.’
.
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“Apparently, these excuses have somehow ceased to apply.” Can you hear your ‘presumption of wrong-doing’ in that statement?
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What did the MET have to say about the “CRU” data …
.
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Was some of the information provided to Dr Jones under confidentiality agreements? It seems pretty darn likely. We only have to look at Swedens’s
Meterological Service to see the non-redistribution language associated with their weather data.
.
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You then conclude this post as follows:
.
.
An admission of error … ?
A change in legal status …?
Bad publicity … ?
Or clearly explained in the data file that you quoted yourself … ?
.
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So the correct answer was staring you right in the face but you chose to wrap your post in continued accusations and “worst light” assumptions.
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“Puzzles” in another context would be pretty neutral, but given that it followed the above post by a few days, it seems to carry the connotation that CRU/MET continues to obfuscate – despite the fact that the network in question was identified in the quote you yourself posted. And you
clearly acknowledge that when pointed out.
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As I said, I found the Unix Z compress post amusing. I doubt that I have made it clear in this thread, so let me take the time to do so explicity: I
appreciate your efforts to open source data and code. I recognize that in solving this problem (using Z in R), you moved some open source code forward. Bravo. That is a contribution that I can appreciate.
.
But then you have to find a way to turn your accomplishment into another snarky insult to some convenient target.
.
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Fortran is as relevant to modern numerical computing as medieval Latin. Unless you happen to work in fields like nuclear engineering, orbital mechanics, fluid mechanics, or … numerical computing. I can personally attest that Fortran is used in critical mission support such as tracking satellites and missile launches. There didn’t seem to be any particular reason to lash out at Fortran or ‘compress’, so I thought that you were lashing out due to ‘befuddlement. You have explained that is not the case, so I withdraw the claim. But I remain amused.
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I sometimes get the sense that you feel trapped by your current reputation and by your blog commentators. That you would prefer to lose some of the ‘torches and pitchfork’ crowd. That you would prefer to gain some credible scientific reputation. That if you had the chance to do it over again, that you would do it different. If any of that is true, understand that to a large extent, your language and your choices have brought you to this place. And maybe a change can help you find a more rewarding road to travel.
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——-
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And just out of sheer stubborn curiosity and genuine interest in the subject, I’ll ask again: Did you do anything with the CRU/MET data after you got it? Any follow-up posts?
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——-
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Liza, I stand corrected: This is from the web site that invented appropriated the term “The Team†to heap contempt and insult on a nearly daily basis.
Well … I just learned a lesson. Default Windows 7 will reboot without warning for security updates. So I missed my window to fix typos in the above post. The only glaring fix should be made is to the last sentence in which my “strikethrough” tags were not allowed and so the meaning is unclear. As Liza points out, apparently the use of the phrase “The Team” was appropriated from an interview with Dr Mann and not invented at CA. This correction does not change the the nature of its use at CA.
Ron,
Steve doesn’t “presume” wrong-doing. He is constantly unearthing evidence of wrong-doing.
Like (A) in his recent post where he finds email evidence that the papers for the Oxburgh report were selected by UEA, but Oxburgh wanted to pretend that they were selected in consultation with the Roy Soc.
And (B) in his latest post, the IAC falsely claimed that he and Ross Mc were being interviewed by the IAC.
Finally, what he or anyone else wanted to ‘do’ with the CRU data is irrelevant – this is one of the basic principles of FOI.
Re: Arthur Smith (Jun 12 15:45),
No. After all, many of us who believe it is a fact get called “skeptics”, and people like SteveBloom commenting at other places call us denialists. So, clearly, many people do not think simply believing in AGW itself represents a hard limiting extreme bounding the pro-AGW side. There are people who believe AGW and are convinced that the absolute upper bounds of projects are either true, or appear to believe they are the only thing one may discuss. There are people like Danny Bloom who are trying to get everyone to talk about creating polar cities.
Bart
Yes. It appears we understood the question differently. I understood the question to be conversation in the blogosphere and specifically about AGW. I agree that we can find more extreme environmental types. With respect to response to AGW (as opposed to what science says only) we can find very rabid Ayn Rand libertarians who discuss libertarian principles– and who might occasionally touch on AGW– we can also find very rabid save the earth types who want everyone to kill themselves to save the planet– and who might occasionally touch on AGW.
Maybe Keith’s question included those or not. Equally likely, Keith is asking things in an open ended way and permitting us to answer based on our perception of the question. Either way, I think our discussing it here is good because we can see how our perception of the question affected our answer.
Arthur–
Thanks for the list. That’s what I was interested in in terms of evaluating the question as I understood it. The think is that people don’t necessarily all visit all the blogs at the various extremes. I visit lots of climate blogs, but I admit to rarely reading Grist (because I don’t feel that they say anything very interesting). I wasn’t even particularly aware of the others.
For that matter, I wasn’t particularly aware of some of the blogs I posted, but knew how to google for extremely-anti-AGW blogs on the fringe. I can just google “Gore climate” (without quotes.) I can find the most skeptical blobs and then explore the blog roll! I couldn’t quite figure out a google trick to find the most extremly-pro-AGW blogs because there isn’t a name they attach to things.
For what it’s worth, there is plenty of snark at RC.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/with-all-due-respect/#comment-115889
Examples: Introductory paragraph. Paragraph that ends ” Ginger Spice would be likely on past form, but they might improve the screening this time around…”
Mind you, the team isn’t very good at snark. I’ve always attributed it to recent generations of British (and some Americans) trying, but thinking Basil Fawlty on Fawlty towers represents some high form of snark. Basil’s snark is funny — but in real life Basil represents a person who really doesn’t know how to dish out snark in a way that make anyone feel they stand corrected. (The character of his wife is actually much better at snark. People who act like Basil generally either cause people to laugh at them (not with them) or provoke the response of, “Who is this idiot! Let’s go find another hotel or restaurant!” This actually happens in the show.)
Still, some people in blogland appear to be trying to use snark to achieve some sort of objective, but only look laughably foolish when they do it. My impression is that more of this happens at Rabbet and RC than CA. But of course, that’s my impression. Others may see things differently.
As for accusations of snark at blogs: You can probably find at least some irony at all climate blogs written by people whose primary language is English and who are writing in English. The reason you’ll sometimes see it is that English language writers often use irony and they are sufficiently adept at their own language to use it.
However, the fact that you don’t agree with an opinion and prefer it not be said is not what defines a snarky, or ironic comment, and it is not an issue of “tone”.
This was snarky:
” Ginger Spice would be likely on past form, but they might improve the screening this time around…”
Calling something that is puzzling, puzzling is not snarky.
Lucia,
snark·y (snärk)
adj. snark·i·er, snark·i·est Slang
1. Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide.
2. Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.
There is much more of this happening at blogs than ever happens in face to face discussions (too much possibility of a punch in the nose, I suspect). When snark is used in blog comments, it seems the snarker (a new noun?) is usually either unwilling or unable to constructively address the arguments raised by the snarkee (a new adjective?).
I think blogs would be a more effective means of communicating if there was a lot less snark used… even if an bit less entertaining.
Ron, I’ve obviously spent a lot of time in the past six months placing Climategate emails into context and commenting on “inquiries”. I know that many readers are sick of inquiries and Climategate context. Me too; I’d like to move on more than anyone.
Ideally, the inquiries would have got some issues off the table. Unfortunately, they’ve done their job so poorly that so far they haven’t resolved anything. In my opinion, there are issues that could have been resolved and dealt with if the inquiries had carried out their duties openly and transparently and written proper reports. Unfortunately, they haven’t done so thus far.
Successful panels are typically bipartisan – something that isn’t the case here- and which makes their task of resolving things that much harder. They haven’t interviewed Climategate critics and/or targets.They haven’t published transcripts. They’ve made untrue and/or foolish statements. Their terms of reference are obscure. (These points apply in different measure to the different inquiries.)
If the inquiries had carried out their duties openly and transparently and written proper reports, my posts on the inquiries would have been less adversarial.
I understand that a steady diet of Climategate and “inquiries” tends to narrow the CA audience to a core audience and be offputting to third party readers.
I see no way around this right now as I intend to see the matter through.
Inevitably, many posts on these topics discuss untrue statements. In such posts, I take particular care to be accurate – even critics like Bart Verheggen concede that it’s hard to find fault with the accuracy of what I say. Instead, they complain about the “tone”. But maybe they should reflect a little on the following possibility: if true statements leave the bad impression that bothers Bart, perhaps the fault lies with the people about whom the true statements are made, rather than the person making the statements.
Bart:
I know you get lot of credit – and all of it entirely deserved, for a patient hearing of what skeptics and deniers have to say. Why do you not see that others display similar degrees of patience too?
My contention is that you deal with skeptics’ claims about the nature of the IPCC- as sounding conspiratorial, to dismiss it.
You are making the claim that we say there is a conspiracy.
I did not.
In fact, the literature sympathetic to the IPCC process alludes to its conspiratorial character.
Let us not lose sight of this fact.
Steve McIntyre (Comment#45775),
I think the various panels of inquiry have not meaningfully addressed the most damaging information contained in the UEA emails. The membership of the committees seems poorly chosen, and the committee missions oddly circumscribed to exclude those issues which are most important.
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The apparent corruption of the peer review process, which to me is the most damaging issue, is never even addressed as far as I can tell. I think the key question is: Are the people who create these committees disconnected from reality, incredibly naive, or are they only looking for a specific result for the investigation?
The amount of lying, deception and bile Steve has had to endure is something few of us here can understand. I am amazed that he is still reasonable given all the BS he has to put up with. I can forgive a bit of snark.
I am actually pleased to see the current direction of CA. The multiplication of enemies is a delight to watch. BP, various Lords, umpteen British officials and UEA functionaries. It’s boring to read, but it alleviates the earlier relentless scientist-bashing.
Steve McIntyre wrote:
“even critics like Bart Verheggen concede that it’s hard to find fault with the accuracy of what I say.”
Admittedly though, I haven’t tried very hard. Others have though, and come to wildly varying conclusions.
Dominic’s comment shows that people’s perception of McIntyre’s (and RC’s, and most anyone else’s) communication style is strongly dependent on their viewpoint of AGW and the internet debate surrounding it. (I’m assuming here that Dominic is skeptical of AGW)
Contrast the Clear Climate Code project to CA. CCC actually aims to find bugs in the GIS code, but does not do so in a manner intended to offend and denigrate. GIS is glad to have their help.
As for McInytre’s audit efforts, it’s nothing like any audit I have ever seen. For a start, professional audit reports are snark free, they cover all areas to be audited, not just the low hanging fruit, and they tell you when you get it right. McIntyre studiously avoids the most important parts of climate research, the underlying physics, and does not tell us when it is right. If he is not competent to do so, he should get someone he is. The overall impression he leaves is that climate research is only ever wrong, that the scientists are incompetent and don’t co-operate with anyone, that people should be highly suspicious of the science in general, and that science is a discipline in which the focus is not on progress, but in obsessing with papers over ten years old.
bugs–
Why should he have this duty?
I think SteveMc has a perfect right to look at those specific issues that interest him. If it happens that the issues that interests him are weak points for climate science, he still has a right to do it. This is true even if you think the issues he looks at are unimportant or not interesting to you.
If you, bugs, want yet another person in this earth to look into climate physics, you can do so yourself or find someone who can look into that for you and report to you. You may need to pay them for their services. You don’t get to decree that Steve can’t look at what he prefers to look at simply because you think something else is more important in some sense.
lucia (Comment#45793) June 13th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
he could always change the name of his blog to reflect what he actually does, which is not an audit of climate, just selective nitpicking. However, the impression he leaves is something else.
bugs,
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Accounting auditors never have the time to examine every receipt and claim. What they do is verify that the company is following a process that allows them have confidence in their claims. This verificaton can include some detailed nitpicking on some reports which are a small part of the entire picture.
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What SteveMc is shows with his ‘nitpicking’ is that climate scientists cannot be trusted to follow a process that protects against confirmation bias and groupthink. Because of that we can have little confidence in their scientific claims.
Tim (Comment#45798),
That’s right. The biggest danger is not willful deception, but the real potential for confirmation bias and expectation bias. This applies, of course, to most any human activity, not just science; business managers are more likely to accept at face value market and financial data that agrees with their projections than data which brings their projections into question.
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Were climate science to have no more economic impact than (say) stellar evolution, the consequence of the field marching in the the wrong direction for a while would be zero, and nobody outside the field would care one way or another. People outside of climate science only care because of the huge costs involved.
Tim (Comment#45798) June 13th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
You have just confirmed my claim. The science for AGW is fundamentally sound. For example, despite years of attacks on the surface temperature record, independent reviews have just confirmed it is fundamentally correct. McIntyre, in all his years of complaining, never did that. CCC is getting along fine with the scientists, despite their aim being to find bugs in the GIS code. The “Accounting auditors never have the time to examine every receipt and claim.” claim is wrong, the fundamental scientific basis for AGW is not ignored by McI. That’s not ‘every receipt and claim’, that’s the unerlying ‘business process’.
Steve writes :
–even critics like Bart Verheggen concede that it’s hard to find fault with the accuracy of what I say. Instead, they complain about the “toneâ€. (…) if true statements leave the bad impression that bothers Bart, perhaps the fault lies with the people about whom the true statements are made, rather than the person making the statements. —
i think you are missing the point Steve : i think because of your tone noone really bothers taking a closer look at what you read. It’s rather fatiguing to search for content inbetween the snarks. And then i’m not even reffering to the comments section of your blog.
If you really want to gain a bigger audience, i think you will need to communicate differently. With more respect towards people. And in a more constructive manner.
bugs (Comment#45803)-“despite years of attacks on the surface temperature record, independent reviews have just confirmed it is fundamentally correct.”
This not at all what the “independent” “reviews” have done (I assume you refer to the various replications that Zeke often posts on). They have not shown that the records are “fundamentally correct” what they have shown is that they can get nearly the same result from the same underlying data, suggesting that nothing totally wacko is going on with the creation of these data sets. That doesn’t change that the underlying data are themselves problematic, and it doesn’t prove that the result is correct.
bugs,
.
You have no grounds to say the science of AGW is fundamentally sound. The work done by SteveMc shows that climate scientists are basically a bunch of hacks who make up stuff as they go along. If they happen to be right it is a fluke rather that the result of good scientific process.
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Fortunately, SteveMc’s work has prompted others to independently verify some parts like the GMST records. What this work has done is show that the GMST are basically right but not because climate scientists have done a good job but because the exact processing algorithm does not matter that much.
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However, the fact that the land records stand up to scrutiny does mean we can assume the sea records or the GCMs are reliable. These sources need to be put through the same process. Until that happens no claims can be made about their ‘soundness’.
Andrew,
I do not advocate protectionism. I advocate competent policy. If the straight of Hormuz is closed tomorrow, the global economy collapses that same day. As of right now, there is no replacement for oil even if it went to $1000 a barrel. The car in your driveway doesn’t run off of faith in the market, and the gas station down the street doesn’t dispense ideological purity. It takes time and planning to roll out infrastructure on the scale of the oil and transportation industries. Considering the ~$500 billion the US spends on oil every year, the amount of money spent on energy R&D is laughable, something less than $10 billion annually (pre-stimulus).
Unlike Global Warming, this insecurity should be very easy for the average person to understand, and it’s the reason why the Frank Luntz’s of the world recommend framing energy legislation in terms of security and not the environment (although, an uncappable oil well gushing for months a mile under the gulf might have some long term effect on the public psyche).
Actually, Tim, what is shows is that despite millions upon millions of words complaining about GISTEMP, HadCRUT and the rest, wenever it comes to actually proving allegations, Skeptics can never seem to find the time. Throw up a snippet of code, a quote from an email, some pictures and plots and move on the next accusation. Kudos to JeffID (and RomanM) for doing what no other skeptic had ever bothered to do. He’s saying that climate scientists are incompetent for inadvertently hiding the incline, so at least we’re heading in the right direction.
cce,
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The replication work has not done anything with UHI or the SSTs. All we have now is some confidence that the choice of gridding algorithm does not affect the land results. We also still don’t know how much of the rise is due to UHI.
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You are also forgetting that climate scientists have been shown to peddle nonsense when it comes to tree rings and the other paleo studies so people have a right to be skeptical so being right about gridding of land temps does not automatically mean they are right about anything else.
Hmm, Bart seems very animated about snark on blogs. Knowing that Bart has a reputation for being reasonable, I thought I’d check to see Bart’s blog – under the assumption it would be an examplar of snark-free blogging from which we can all learn.
Currently residing on the front page of Bart’s blog is a post about Scott Denning’s presentation to the Heartland conference. Bart makes one or two nice comments:
I agree with this. It takes a degree of intellectual courage and robustness to invite opponents to your viewpoint, let them speak and listen attentively (and is one of the reasons I have a lot of respect for Dr Curry who did this from the other side of the coin).
But the following sentence has a rather different tone. (My emphasis):
Wow. Just wow. Heartland had a good number of very well respected scientists from the sceptical side, such as Dr Lindzen. For those unfamiliar with cognitive dissonance, it is one of the methods the human brain deals with conflicting evidence and beliefs – often “adjusting” evidence in the mind to better match evidence with opinion. It is a form of confirmation bias. Bart is suggesting that (1) Dr Denning will be telling the likes of Dr Lindzen, Dr Michaels et al something they don’t already know and (2) that the scientists will jump through logical hoops and distortions to assimilate these data with their conflicted beliefs.
This is also a grade A snark. How do I know? Why, I’ve used it myself on blog comments. I’m not narrowly objecting to Bart’s use of snark. I’m well aware that AGW is a polemic topic and there is plenty of snark flying on all sides, especially in the semi anonymous environment of the internet.
What I find astonishing is that Bart is complaining about McIntyre’s tone whilst ignoring the beam in his own eye. It is the hypocrisy that bothers me. Or perhaps it is okay to snark about respected scientists, on the proviso that you only snark about scientists that Bart disagrees with?
And that isn’t the end of the story. Bart doesn’t like speculation about motives either, and accuses Steve of this also:
With this in mind, check out one of Bart’s responses to the CRU e-mails. On the basis of essentially zero evidence, Bart concocts a whole narrative about motivations of the people involved and legality of the events that took place. Again, there is nothing wrong with Bart doing this – he can blog about invisible pixies at the end of the garden if he wants to – but perhaps complaining about one blogger attributing motives when you do it yourself isn’t the smartest move to make.
cce (Comment#45809)-“the amount of money spent on energy R&D is laughable, something less than $10 billion annually (pre-stimulus).”
You are referring to government R&D, no? In my experience, the private sector usually puts way more up for things that Uncle Sam puts little money in. When they don’t it’s because it isn’t worth it. But frankly, the number from the federal government should be zero dollars. Despite the complaints by someone above about “Laissez Faire” “deniers”, I doubt there are many who would agree with me on that, but as the resident pro-market extremist of the climate blogosphere, I stand by that.
Phinniethewoo
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Someday sometime, someone will come along and say it is all unaffordable.
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You will not get many comments on that and yet there are many people who consider that this question is the most fundamental one .
The reason why it won’t get discussed much on a science oriented blog is that scientists have generally little to no understanding of economy .
A.Smith is an excellent example as he can’t even make the difference between a production cost and a market price .
Engineers and scientists working in industry are of course an exception because they know what a cost effective solution is and that they won’t get it with an umptieth peer reviewed paper .
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However I would like to come back to your question and illustrate it by a very real example .
One upon which lives of dozens of millions people literally depend .
What to do with the retirement system in France ?
The deficit is huge and keeps increasing . There are other correlated deficits that increase in pace – medical care and unemployment cover .
The state has already a huge debt – around 80% of GDP and racing towards 100 % in 2012 – a real positive feedback .
France (and others like Germany or Italy who have an even worse demography evolution) has been and is clearly doing “unaffordable” things .
.
So what to do ?
Well if your household was sustainably spending more than your earnings and the house is already mortgaged , you would know that a catastrophic end is very near .
The obvious answer is to decrease the spendings , increase the earnings and pay some money back to the bank to decrease the interest burden .
But to decrease the spendings is unpleasant to some voters so some politicians focus exclusively on increasing the earnings .
A caricature is the (French) socialist proposal who can’t admit that the spendings are “unaffordable” .
So they want to tax anything that moves despite the fiscal pressure that is already breaking the growth (e.g the earnings and the purchasing power) .
And of course there is this electorally best solution – “the rich will pay” . This demagogy may pay electorally but has a fatal flaw .
Even if the hundred thousands or so of “the rich” had the resources to pay for the 60 millions of the rest , it looks hardly as a sustainable solution .
Indeed if “the rich” were slaughtered fiscally , they might very well decide to simply go away , contribute their resources to some other country and then the whole system crashes down .
As long as personnal freedoms exist that is .
Like M.Thatcher said “The problem with the socialists is that they eventually run out of other people’s money .”
.
It is clear that under such conditions the questions whether the GW is A or what temperature we might have in 1 century or 2 are far below the radar of every French citizen .
If somebody tried to funnel a part of the inexistent resources into “unaffordable” climate initiatives , he would be swiftly shot down electorally . That’s what happened with the Carbon Tax project already .
And obviously there is no sane person I know who would trust an academia scientist if he tried to mess up the economy . Especially not a climate scientist .
Andrew
.
You are referring to government R&D, no? In my experience, the private sector usually puts way more up for things that Uncle Sam puts little money in. When they don’t it’s because it isn’t worth it. But frankly, the number from the federal government should be zero dollars.
.
Although you are right that the crushing part of R&D in the world is done by the private sector , I can’t agree that the state amount should be 0 .
And even if privately funded R&D is generally faster and more efficient .
.
For instance we have in Geneva the LHC which cost around 7 billions € .
No private company would have the funds for this investment .
Nor interest for that matter .
Yet the potential for progress in fundamental sciences like quantum gravity , SUSY etc is so considerable that it simply must be done .
Then there are also fundamental mathematics but here , at least , these people ask only for a sheet of paper and silence what doesn’t cost so much .
G.Perelman even refused the (private) 1 million $ when they told him that his genial demonstration was awarded the Clay Millenium Prize 🙂
Btw he also didn’t bother with the peer review system but published it on internet (ArXiv) .
Andrew_FL: In my experience, the private sector usually puts way more up for things that Uncle Sam puts little money in. When they don’t it’s because it isn’t worth it.
.
You should take a closer look at the relationship between the government and technology (aerospace engineering, computing, communications) and infrastructure (water, electricity, transportation). The backbone of this country is built on engineering projects that were either nurtured in their infancy by govt money (tech) or were implemented by the govt (infrastructure).
Andrew_FL:
In advanced R&D yes. In basic research al most nothing. No stockholder is going to stand for funding of research that takes more than a few years to come to fruition.
Certainly the narrowest myopic statement I’ve ever seen you utter. Just wow.
That’s a recipe for economic disaster.
Corporations are very short-sighted, because they have to be. In about 20 years, we’d be back to the tortoise-shell progress rates of pre-WWII research. We spent as much money during WWII as we did, because we had to. We quickly realized that some spending percentage of GDP actually realized itself as economic benefits later.
There’d certainly be no internet without ARPA, certainly nothing with the excess capacity for people to pull down free content with.
There have been some good comments in this thread about the problems of “tone” at “skeptic” (non-AGW-Consensus) blogs, in particular Climate Audit, coming from all sides.
Over at CA, Willis Eschenbach and Judith Curry weigh in on this subject, again. Eschenbach responds to Michael Tobis’ criticisms –
Judith Curry answers –
So… Who has the stronger argument, Eschenbach or Curry? (*)
* Stronger argument in that CA thread — not, “Who’s the better scientist/nicer person/more skillful knitter?”
Carrick,
You say:
“…In advanced R&D yes. In basic research almost nothing. No stockholder is going to stand for funding of research that takes more than a few years to come to fruition…”
At least in the industry I work in (pharmaceuticals), this is just wrong. It rarely takes less than 10 years to get a new product to market (I assume that qualifies as “more than just a few years”). And while it is true that most R&D dollars are spent on what you would call “advanced R&D” (and we would call phase 2 and 3 clinicals) very significant amounts are spent on basic research.
Stockholders (particularly VC and certain hedge fund guys) can be much more patient and long-term focused that you seem to think. You can research the development of the entire biotech industry or Celera as a particular case where shareholders contributed heavily for highly speculative and unknown returns. How long do you think it took Genentech to make money? But a combination of private seed capital, big pharma financing and capital markets gave it the financing needed to prove itself and become a powerhouse.
Capital markets have actually reacted quite efficiently here as the industry has developed a “feeder network” of small basic research companies that are funded by VC / hedge fund money. If these guys hit gold (or look like they will hit gold), they will generally be bought out by the big guys and everyone wins. If they fail (which is more normal) the VCs take it as an acceptable loss. You should research some of the basic science being done by these startups – it is really quite exciting.
Having said all this, I wouldn’t go as far as Andrew_FL to say there is no value to government funded R&D. Some real advancements have come out of universities and other institutions with NIH money and there is a free flow of research talent between universities and private corporations. However, it is clear that it is private institutions that have been the driving force behind pharmaceutical innovation.
I don’t think that the view that an absence of government funding for certain areas would mean no funding for those things really follows. In my view, the increased capital available to the private sector would make people more willing to invest in these things. Besides that there are always people sufficiently passionate about some research that they will personally give a great deal to it.
With respect to Aerospace, that’s actually what I plan to go into as an engineer, and I think you’ll find that the private sector is very rapidly preparing to pull NASA’s monopolistic rug from under it’s feet.
However I already know (Carrick and I have discussed this before) that I am viewed by many reasonable people as dangerously naive about this. Oh well. I think we’ll just have to disagree.
Actually, I am talking about combined private and public R&D and the government funded the majority of that.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/10/29/business/20061030_ENERGY_GRAPHIC_2.html
The market has shown time and time again that it can’t see beyond next quarter’s profit statement. For example, between 2001 and 2007, ExxonMobil spent something like $4 billion out of $2 trillion in revenue on R&D as defined by its annual reports.
That is a fraction of a percent. Microsoft will spend $9.5 billion on R&D this year alone.
Again, we have an extraordinarily fragile and polluting multi-trillion dollar global market, yet the efforts to develop alternatives are nothing short of pathetic.
“How the audience will resolve their inevitable cognitive dissonance remains to be seen.
Wow. Just wow. Heartland had a good number of very well respected scientists from the sceptical side, such as Dr Lindzen. For those unfamiliar with cognitive dissonance, it is one of the methods the human brain deals with conflicting evidence and beliefs – often “adjusting†evidence in the mind to better match evidence with opinion. It is a form of confirmation bias”
Spence_UK. You’re right, man.
That was exactly why I started posting on that thread (as did DLM, phinnie, Harry). Then Bart started amending comments and modifying them because the countersnark became too much, violated ‘blog policy’ and all that.
Snark is fine, only you should be open about it and fine with it yourself. 😉
In part, government funding crowds out private investment. The other problem is that, for all their “short sitedness” individuals in the market see investments that are unlikely to pay off for what they are: Not worth it. This may be “myopic” but it’s they way rational beings behave. Deal with it. The idea of government funding helping here is sort of “progress at any price”. If we can advance faster, never mind if we have net losses! It’s “progress”. Again, rational individuals see things differently.
WordPress might have eaten the following post this morning, or my karma may have dropped to dangerous levels (can I trade in negative quatloos for positive S.K.?). Apologies if this is a double.
Throughout this thread, there have been some good comments about “tone” at “skeptic” (non-AGW-Consensus) blogs, in particular Climate Audit, coming from Bart, sod, Carrick, Shrub, Ron Broberg, Steve McI, Robert, many others.
Over at CA, Willis Eschenbach and Judith Curry weigh in on this subject, again. Eschenbach responds to Michael Tobis’ criticisms –
Judith Curry answers –
So… Who has the stronger argument, Eschenbach or Curry? (*)
* Stronger argument in that CA thread. Not, “Who’s the better scientist/nicer person/etc.?”
Shub,
I removed offending parts of comments and didn’t approve ones that didn’t offer anyting except offense or off topic ranting. That’s my perogative to do on my blog. The problem isn’t “snark”, but obnoxious behaviour, of which you named some good examples indeed.
The typical Heartland crowd can’t take seriously what Denning said and at the same time cling to their view of AGW: They are mutually inconsistent. Is that offensive to note?
It’s only natural that people are easier offended by sarcasm/snark/negativity in something that they vehementy disagree with than in something that they strongly agree with. I guess you and I are no exception to that, though I do try to be even handed.
Regarding “answering the questions,†there are alot of ridiculous questions out there… But there are also alot of really good questions out there (the ones posed at climateaudit for example). Too many scientists dismiss all of the questions as “noise,†part of the alleged “politically motivated disinformation machine.†So the “noise†questions are to the detriment of science, but the good questions from technically educated people should be addressed and this population (loosely defined by the technical climate blogs) should be more mainstreamed into the scientific process and dialogue, IMO. So the challenge here is to sound like the signal rather than the noise, and the mainstreamers will start paying attention.
.
Judith is more right than Willis, but only by a small margin.
.
she is right, the noise to signal ratio is massive. and this is a very serious problem.
.
but there is a bigger problem: a massive interest of the “sceptics” in only producing anti-AGW results. the vast majority of the more serious “sceptic” blog posts are written with the obvious target to also cater for folks, who deny reality.
..
for example:
.
an article coming to the conclusion, that the warming is slightly smaller than predicted by IPCC scenarios, allows the interpretation, that thee is nearly no real warming.
Bart:
How do you know what the “typical Heartland crowd” thinks? Psychic link? 😉
Robert, I only just saw #45701 (Jun 12 09:41), thanks for the response to my #45677.
We disagree. I think it would be fallacious to say that since climate science institutions function correctly in most instances, therefore they function correctly in most important instances. “Most instances” of error correction don’t involve challenges to orthodoxy; I wouldn’t expect groupthink to obstruct such functions.
One counterexample is Tiljander; there are others.
Illustrating your point? That would require elaboration.
My three straw-man propositions would be (a) that you see the skeptics but not the AGW Consensus falling prey to fallacies; (b) that Consensus science is Holy Writ; (c) that drastic policies should be implemented immediately.
I was writing based on impressions and without having cites in mind, and, regrettably, with added rhetorical flourishes (“Holy Writ”). It does convey my sense of MT’s stance as presented at OIIFTG, the Blackboard, and recently at CA. But since you call these points straw men, I have overstepped.
My (a) arose from your Comment #45637, where you wrote,
I don’t recall you writing about such shortcomings on the part of AGW Consensus advocates. Are there analogous, severe issues in that “tribe” as well, in your opinion?
On (b), “Holy Writ” was a bad phrase. “The science is (largely) settled” might be better. In Comment #45654, you respond to Keith Kloor,
If Mann was right and McIntyre wrong (Mann08 notwithstanding), it’s hard for me to imagine any AGW Consensus scientist being wrong, and McIntyre being right. Have you mentioned important cases where prominent AGW Consensus scientists’ errors raise questions about the AGW Consensus narrative, in your opinion?
On (c), reviewing the thread, you have weighed in on market-based solutions. While not a straw man (MT has argued passionately for drastic policies at his blog), it’s inapplicable to you. I apologize for that.
Bart,
Spence’s point and mine is that the skeptics are not stupid enough to stricken by cognitive dissonance simply because an AGW proponent gave a speech in their midst. In fact, as the announcer pointed out, meetings such as Heartland should serve as a platform where the opposite camps can try to induce some ‘dissonance’ in each other. This is true because skeptics will not have an ear at the AGU, Royal Society, NAS meetings and the IPCC affairs.
The AGW proponents claim that skeptics need not be listened to because:
1) they are not credible scientists – which stands on shaky grounds atleast for the one point being discussed here – many of the issues are not about the science and the 0 Watt bulb geniuses at the IPCC lag far, far behind discussing how science interacts with policy.
2) discussing issues with the skeptics will create an impression of debate which is bad
With regards to point (2), I am sure climate scientists and all of us in general will rue the day the climate establishment and the media swallowed this constricted, propagandist claptrap, sold to us by the communicator breed – Mark Lynas, Naomi Oreskes, Chris Mooney and their ilk that having a debate would mean ‘conceding’ ground to the skeptics.
Heartland could have been a good venue for that – over the years. But as long as the orthodoxy stifles discussion by moral umbrage and institutionalized ostracism (we saw enough of that via Climategate), no AGW proponent will come forward and discuss matter openly, leaving naturally, the skeptics to speak for all voices.
I only pointed out what happened with the comments in the context of the countersnark – one man’s blinding truth is another’s snark. I don’t think that DLM, PTW or any others were not contributing constructively.
Regards
Lucia
The Interwebs is chewing up another post of mine.
Regards
I think scientists make good economy trolls from the read here 🙂
1.Practicing science , let’s all quickly agree, is just about debugging a little problem that happens to lay before you and using all your wits to solve it. It does not even involve hard logic thinking most of the time , as all the out-of-the-box-thinking self improvement literature illustrates.
Mathematicians in their productive period do not use logic to come to new insights.
2.Practicing science, is *not*, let’s all agree: Having a Phd and postering to other people they haven’t “published” yet.
Yet it is the latter , .2, that is the norm nowadays.
To put in all the efforts for .1, one needs motivation, means, and access.
Modern Motivation research indicates the true prerequisites are freedom/autonomy, mastery and purpose (cfr “DRIVE”, Daniel H Pink)
Now, all these are provided in a private (autonomy!) company that wants to be the best(mastery!) to be succesful (purpose!)
That’s why r&d in buisness is succesful, and in tax-paid-for asyla not.
19th century European universities and schools did very well on this, that’s why they were so productive
20th century universities , despite hippie movement and the adulation for anything that moans, did very poor. That’s why.
As for the means: When it is obvious money can be made, a lot of money is always available. Universities however tend to implement distribution and spread out according to little kingdom policies, networking amongst the old boys etc which results that any idea needs vetted over and over again by politicians and always too little means will be provided.
As for access: Universities , since they have been infested by the ever repainted watermelon, are specialist in building Kafka castles , addicted to myriads of subscription based tools. create labyrinths of proceses and procedures. The only true access to things there is to the islamic skool, the canteen and the university pub and night club. Which is where the fun is.
All the fancy tax-overpaid institutes are built in the same way.
To the conundrum of “education” and the 25% of GDP it costs:
We all know the only place where you learn is on the internet.
It is true that “education” fulfills other tasks like Kindergarten service to parents , entertainment and soulage (“where is Marry she should be in the meeting? Oh it is tuesdays she is at the Santa Claus repititions for her little one..All in choir “ooo..how enrichingly cute..” ) even instilling authority of juveniles eventually.
But it is only by getting rid of liberal retard lingo that we will come to acknowledge and identify these various services , and come with better, cheaper solutions for them.
Do not get me wrong: It is very nice to be “inspired” by some teacher/professor who really really well brings his show. Only , this is exclusive , and more an entertainment kind of thing that should be treated as such. Some lectures are really worth attending. Only most are not. Most teachers are like most plumber s or most whatever: They are dull, because they are not motivated and because showmanship is a talent for 1 in 1000, not 1 in 10. Certainly when they are working for government. Best teachers are standalone comedians. Good lecturers get overwhelmed with public. they do not need the university , they are more hemmed in by them. I have seen once a professor in fluid mechanics who got his auditorium packed each time , many of the attendees from other years, even from humanities. You just couldn’t watch anything better on TV, there was nothing better around to do with your time.
Liked eddie lizzard tonight on C4. True teacher. You keep listening to his waffle, makes you laugh.
The UK has still many good lecturers but access to them is too difficult.
Shub,
I didn’t actually click on the link, and hadn’t seen the extensive commentary on it. Quite illuminating. And your observations are quite accurate.
Bart criticises both Romm and McIntyre for what he sees as poor tone and use of language. Notably, he is quick to assert Romm gets the science pretty much right but he refuses to opine or assess the accuracy of Steve’s work. This may not have been Bart’s intention, but it reads as if he excuses Romm for tone because his science is right, but for McIntyre the science doesn’t matter because the tone is wrong.
Note: I’m not suggesting this is how Bart views it, but it is certainly how it comes across to me in his interview, whether intentional or not.
Shub,
Scientists of relevant disciplines, irrespective of their opinions on AGW or politics, are of course welcome at “AGU, Royal Society, NAS meetings and the IPCC affairs”. Non-scientists with strong opinions either way usually are not, at least not as active participant, though as observer, I don’t see why not. Plenty of journalists and business reps (promoting their equipment, books, journals or whatever) at AGU for example.
On policy options, of course everyone can discuss those and engage, vote, blog, do whatever. That’s a different cup of tea alltogether.
I for one argue strongly that optimal policy should be informed by the best available science that’s relevant for the policy question, but in the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I for one argue strongly that optimal policy should be informed by the best available science that’s relevant for the policy question, but in the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
.
This is a trivial tautology .
Of course everybody agrees with that so why is there a problem ?
Well because people don’t agree what science is relevant .
They also don’t agree what science is “best” or what scientists can be trusted .
Many would also point out that even if economy is not “hard” science , the opinion of economists counts at least as much if not more as the one of physicists .
But most importantly people don’t agree if there is a problem at all .
A guy may dedicate 10 years of his life to write papers how 2 or 3 °C warming are bad for Epyrgearus clarus just because it’s the mode and he can get funded . He’ll even have a chance to be quoted in some IPCC report .
Another PhD could write about how 2 or 3 °C cooling are bad for Lycaena cupreus but he will neither get funding nor be quoted in IPCC .
Most of it is just cherry picking guided by the probability to get funding or not .
The short of it is that a warmer world has always been better for life than a cold world and that nobody considers that an Ice Age is the optimum we should all wish for .
So as we are in a warming phase anyway , we’d rather adapt sooner or later . In a couple of centuries all this non sense will be forgotten anyway .
Bart, I think you have a pretty simple minded view of the “Heartland crowd.” Of course, that’s not to say others on the other side don’t make the same mistake. More importantly though, I’m not even sure you listened to what Denning said because it is so different from your statement.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/05/scott-denning-speaks-at-heartland.html
Denning “I have learned a lot from you folks…we have much more in common than our differences. One of the things we have in common is a genuine curiosity about the way the world works.”
Bart “The typical Heartland crowd can’t take seriously what Denning said and at the same time CLING to their view of AGW”
Obama “they CLING to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
I’m just a bystander but to me the anthropogenic global warming thesis appears in to be in shambles. We now know: there’s a divergence problem that has been swept under the rug; that a graph used to sway a lot of the public was ginned up; that the climate sensitivity number is not at all certain; that the issue of clouds is another huge uncertainty; that models don’t track known temperatures, and “it’s a travesty that they don’t”; that the IPCC was not administered very ably; that climate scientists will flout FOI law so they don’t have to show their work; that scientists will use the precautionary principle to paper over holes they can’t fill. Need I go on? I’m just a bystander but I have yet to see any compelling argument and evidence for a climate sensitivity number large enough to cause concern. Wake up Bart, thinking that you must be correct because the other side is so ignorant is a pretty lame approach to the questions at hand.
Bart Verheggen and his blog would have drawn very little interest, at least outside Planet AGW, if it wasn’t for the epic thread in which “VS” appeared thorroughly disrupting the mathematic/statistic values of the AGW “Science”. Eventually VS was chased away by the relentless bombardement of red herrings and straw men by the usual suspects such as the Tamino Trolls. Clearly Bart et al had no clue about proper statistic science and categorically refused to discuss this without applying the usual AGW dogma’s such as “it’s physics, stupid”.
Sure Bart is a nice person, but does that alter the contents of his blantant pro AGW blog or his messages filled with AGW dogma?
Kloor’s article therefore is pretty useless and more of the same…yawn….
Andrew,
If individuals behaved “rationally” in such matters, their savings rate wouldn’t be zero, they wouldn’t have assumed that their house was going to increase in value 10% per yer forever, they wouldn’t have valued tech companies with no assets and no products as being worth billions of dollars, and they wouldn’t assume that a replacement for oil and its infrastructure will spring from the ether at the drop of a hat. And it’s hard for the government to crowd out investment that never existed in the first place.
cce (Comment#45907)-People behave rationally in a FREE MARKET. The circumstances under which all the things you describe happened, was a controlled, government distorted market.
People would be saving money if the government wasn’t keeping interest rates low to encouraging spending. People wouldn’t have fallen for the real estate bubble if it hadn’t been inflated ridiculously by the government’s promises to banks to back sub prime mortgages (Freddy and Fannie)…and on and on.
And you seem to think that, because the investment didn’t exist when the government started to, it never would have come to exist-nonsense! You misunderstand what it means to crowd out private investment. Part of the reason it didn’t come about is because the government got into it first!
What are the roots of the divide between the AGW ‘consensus’ and the skeptical “deniers� Can they be bridged?
Beginning near the turn of the 20th century, with the theoretical studies of Svante Arrhenius about how infrared absorbing gases help determine the surface temperature of the earth; then spurred by the reexamination of those models in the 1950’s, by Roger Revelle, and in the 1960’s, by Jule Charney; and then James Hansen’s modeling of the unique green-house-gas (GHG) induced forcing of the atmospheric temperature of Venus – climatologists and geophysicists began to further reexamine such models in greater detail. This was also strongly stimulated by Charles Keeling’s accumulating data of the steadily increasing concentration of well-mixed atmospheric CO2 at the Mauna Loa Observatory, beginning in 1958, at about 317 ppm (presently at about 390 ppm). It was quite clear that the CO2 concentration had been flat, at about 280 ppm for centuries (if not millennia) prior to the growing use of fossil carbon (coal, petroleum and natural gas) to fuel the industrial revolution. That CO2 record was the prototypical – and almost ‘noiseless’ – “hockey stickâ€.
Although the theoretical models still leave uncertainty, particularly about the sign and magnitudes of the effects, on GHG feedbacks of some low- and high-clouds, a consensus began to develop that risks of resulting increases in global temperature – and the risks associated with their possible consequences – deserved substantial increase in attention.
Large efforts ensued to TRY to collect sufficiently unbiased, and statistically significant ‘other’ proxies for the hockey stick; global mean surface temperatures (GMST), ocean heat content (OHC), seal level rise (SLR), glacial ice-cores, sediment cores, tree-ring dendrology, etc. – all much noisier than the Keeling curve. The GMST trend for the last 40 or so years has converged to something like a mean of +0.2C/century, with considerable spread to the associated ‘95% confidence interval’. The others are not too out of line. And the increasingly more realistic (and more complicated) climate models are not ‘too’ far off either.
There’s a general ‘feeling’ that such correlation of very different ‘kinds observations’ and models should build confidence above the level provided by each ‘independent’ data set, but so far, no good ‘statistical’ tools exist for ‘averaging’ such diverse results to get a ‘net mean and confidence interval’. In the breach, the current paradigm has been to rely on the collective intuitions and confidence of those ‘experts’ who are judged to be most familiar with the data sets and with their relevance to related physical models.
But even if the GMST trend were ‘only’ +0.1C/century, the associated risks would be only delayed by a ‘blink’ of geologic time – still demanding to be taken quite seriously!
This certainly over simplifies things, but probably describes the root of the origins of the mainstream AGW ‘consensus’ – and of the current position of many ‘warmists’, and why they believe we must begin to seriously plan for the risks.
Why is this so inimical to most skeptical “deniers’?
Well, we have the record of ‘failed jeremiahs’:
1) Robert Malthus, who at the end of the 18th century, published his simple but penetrating theoretical econometric model, “An Essay on the Principle of Populationâ€, that has turned out to have been ‘off’ in the timing of its predictions (but I believe, probably is about ‘correct’ in predicting what we must expect, if some appropriate changes in human behavior fail to accommodate – ‘in time’ – to the reality of the finite resources of our planet); and
2) the predictions of the Club of Rome’s 1972, “The Limits to Growthâ€, that also have proven to have been somewhat premature.
And the IPCC was supposed to adhere closely to the (impossible?) charge to be “policy relevant†rather than “policy prescriptiveâ€!
The perceptions of just where science fits – in the spectrum of beliefs – differ among policy makers, the general public – and, to some extent, even among scientists – and this also has to contribute to a great deal of the resulting dissonance.
Further, it certainly doesn’t help that many believe motivation for science, does and should stem from values derived from Golden Rules, while others ,e.g., Positivists, insist that science can (I argue, incorrectly), and should, be freed from all such metaphysical baggage 😉
For further ‘clarification’ of these latter points, see:
“The Sceptical Scientific Mind-Set in the Spectrum of Belief: It’s about models of ‘reality’ – and the unavoidable incompleteness of evidence, for – or against – any modelâ€.
http://www.pipeline.com/~lenornst/ScienceInTheSpectrumOfBelief.pdf
What are the roots of the divide between the AGW ‘consensus’ and the skeptical “deniers� Can the divide be bridged?
Beginning near the turn of the 20th century, with the theoretical studies of Svante Arrhenius about how infrared absorbing gases help determine the surface temperature of the earth; then spurred by the reexamination of those models in the 1950’s, by Roger Revelle, and in the 1960’s, by Jule Charney; and then James Hansen’s modeling of the unique green-house-gas (GHG) induced forcing of the atmospheric temperature of Venus – climatologists and geophysicists began to further reexamine such models in greater detail. This was also strongly stimulated by Charles Keeling’s accumulating data of the steadily increasing concentration of well-mixed atmospheric CO2 at the Mauna Loa Observatory, beginning in 1958, at about 317 ppm (presently at about 390 ppm). It was quite clear that the CO2 concentration had been flat, at about 280 ppm for centuries (if not millennia) prior to the growing use of fossil carbon (coal, petroleum and natural gas) to fuel the industrial revolution. That CO2 record was the prototypical – and almost ‘noiseless’ – “hockey stickâ€.
Although the theoretical models still leave uncertainty, particularly about the sign and magnitudes of the effects, on GHG feedbacks, of some low- and high-clouds, a consensus began to develop that risks of resulting increases in global temperature – and the risks associated with their possible consequences – deserved substantial increase in attention.
Large efforts ensued to TRY to collect sufficiently unbiased, and statistically significant ‘other’ proxies for the hockey stick; global mean surface temperatures (GMST), ocean heat content (OHC), seal level rise (SLR), glacial ice-cores, sediment cores, tree-ring dendrology, etc. – all much noisier than the Keeling curve. The GMST trend for the last 40 or so years has converged to something like a mean of +0.2C/century, with considerable spread to the associated ‘95% confidence interval’. The others are not too out of line. And the increasingly more realistic (and more complicated) climate models are not ‘too’ far off either.
There’s a general ‘feeling’ that such correlation of very different ‘kinds observations’ and models should help to build confidence above the level provided by each ‘independent’ data set, but so far, no good ‘statistical’ tools exist for ‘averaging’ such diverse results to get a ‘net mean and confidence interval’. In the breach, the current paradigm has developed to rely on the collective intuitions and confidence of those ‘experts’ who are judged to be most familiar with the data sets and with their relevance to related physical models.
But even if the GMST trend were ‘only’ +0.1C/century, the associated risks would be only delayed by a ‘blink’ of geologic time – still demanding to be taken quite seriously!
This certainly over simplifies things, but probably describes the root of the origins of the mainstream AGW ‘consensus’ – and of the current position of many ‘warmists’, and why they believe we must begin to seriously plan for the risks.
Why is this so inimical to most skeptical “deniers’?
Well, we have the record of ‘failed jeremiahs’:
1) Robert Malthus, who at the end of the 18th century, published his simple but penetrating theoretical econometric model, “An Essay on the Principle of Populationâ€, that has turned out to have been ‘off’ in the timing of its predictions (but I believe, probably is about ‘correct’ in predicting what we must expect, if some appropriate changes in human behavior fail to accommodate – ‘in time’ – to the reality of the finite resources of our planet); and
2) the predictions of the Club of Rome’s 1972, “The Limits to Growthâ€, that also have proven to have been somewhat premature.
And the IPCC was supposed to adhere closely to the (impossible?) charge to be “policy relevant†rather than “policy prescriptiveâ€!
The perceptions of just where science fits – in the spectrum of beliefs – differ among policy makers, the general public – and, to some extent, even among scientists – and this has to contribute a great deal of the resulting dissonance.
Further, it certainly doesn’t help that many believe motivation for science, does and should stem from values derived from Golden Rules, while others, e.g., Positivists, insist (I argue, incorrectly) that science can, and should, be freed from all such metaphysical baggage 😉
For further ‘clarification’ of these latter points, see:
“The Sceptical Scientific Mind-Set in the Spectrum of Belief: It’s about models of ‘reality’ – and the unavoidable incompleteness of evidence, for – or against – any modelâ€.
http://www.pipeline.com/~lenornst/ScienceInTheSpectrumOfBelief.pdf
Len Ornstein (Comment#45936) June 15th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Thanks for your thoughtful post. I wish only to note a few things that perhaps you could consider.
.
Malthus and the Club of Rome did not just predict incorrectly, I think they looked much too narrowly at the entire question, and so missed the real limitations humanity faces almost completely. This very narrow view is what caused the errors in their predictions, although it is the errors in predictions which people tend to focus on.
.
Yes, most human activities consume materials, but the reality is that material limitations are relative, not absolute; the atoms do not disappear the a material is “used” (except for a small fraction of atoms in a nuclear reactor!). The availability of raw materials depends mostly on human expertise and on the availability of energy. This is seen clearly in most every case where a society rises out of poverty: the efficiency of use of energy (economic value per unit consumed) and the total available energy both rise rapidly, mainly because people become more technically capable and richer at the same time. Even in wealthy countries, economic output per unit of energy consumed normally increases year on year. Were energy efficiency to begin declining, there would be cause for some concern, but clearly this is not the general trend. There is every reason to believe that improving energy efficiency is dynamic: rising costs for energy (whether driven by taxes or by material shortages) will almost certainly accelerate the trend in improving efficiency, and will cause movement away from sources that are more expensive toward those that are less.
.
My impression is that most people who are very concerned about global warming continue to believe Malthus et al were right all along, but (as you say) have “proven to have been somewhat premature” in their predictions. I think this idea is simply mistaken; predictions of doom are contradicted by both history and current trends. Wealthy populations slow in growth over time, and there is evidence that increasing wealth leads to steady or even declining rather than increasing population. Perhaps someday (50 years, 100?) the ideas of Malthus and his many disciples will be rejected by most everyone, although, as with many “big ideas”, a small fringe of believers may carry on, even as the basic idea they support becomes ever less relevant.
.
But there is some common ground. While I do not think the end of the age of carbon will be a catastrophe, and I do not think the projected warming from fossil fuel use will be catastrophic either, conservation of relatively inexpensive fossil stores of carbon, which are very useful material inputs (as opposed to energy inputs), makes a lot of sense, independent of whatever reduction in future warming this might cause. A transition to non-fossil material inputs will require substantial investment and larger (rather than smaller) non-fossil energy inputs. If the existing fossil carbon stores are used more efficiently (less as energy input and more as material input), then humanity will be in a better position to deal with with the transition (AKA more wealthy, with better technology and better infrastructure) when this is transition is ultimately required.
.
I think that Malthusian ideas, taken together, pose a greater threat to humanity’s future than does global warming, population increases, or shortages of raw materials, because Malthusian ideas inhibit the growth in wealth upon which humanity’s future depends.
Hoi Polloi
Dont you think that is just a wee bit (really, just a little bit only) unfair about Bart?
He did moderate that two-thousand comment thread nicely. He did keep putting up pro-AGW stuff here and there, but that thread did not get a excessively heavy-handed moderation.
Len Ornstein (#45937) & SteveF (#45941):
There is a good deal of sense in your posts but I believe that Malthus’s thinking was wiser and more nuanced than you give him credit for.
The original “Essay” was not so much a prediction of doom as an explanation of the observable fact of near-universal human misery (apart from a fortunate but minute minority in a few of the richest countries). Thus he asserted “that the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived, and … this necessary oscillation, this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery, has existed ever since we have had any histories of mankind, does exist at present, and will forever continue to exist, unless some decided change take place in the physical constitution of our nature.”
Malthus modified his thinking over the years, and in his later work (e.g., in evidence to the UK Select Committee on Emigration from Ireland in 1827) recognised the importance of “establishing the conditions under which the labouring classes live, as to clothing, houses and other domestic comforts and conveniences…”
Hoi Polloi, Shub
At the “epic thread†that turned into a statistics discussion by VS’ excursions I made numerous attempts to engage him, and in no way did I “categorically refuse to discuss thisâ€. I was trying to point out flaws in his conclusions pertaining to the physics, and suggested ways on how his statistics skills could be put to good use in the climate arena. Along the way I thought that it could perhaps turn out to become a fruitful collaboration, but he seemed more interested in “disproving AGW†than in contributing to more understanding of the issues.
Re: Ian Castles (Jun 16 01:55),
In his 2007 book A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark revisits Malthus, and explores why certain countries at certain times (firstly, England in the 1800s) have escaped the “Malthusian Trap.” His answer is complex, and thoughtful.
Andrew,
The free market utupia you aspire to does not exist and has never existed. Join us in the real world. People believed that housing was going to increase 10% per year forever. Blame low interest rates all you want, but that will not change the complete and total irrationality of that belief. And speaking of low interest rates, they were put in place by the Ayn Rand loving Alan Greenspan in response to the bursting of another irrational bubble — the tech bubble of the late ’90s. But I’m sure the valuation of Fogdog.com was somehow the fault of the government, perhaps for creating the internet in the first place. In other news, stay tuned for the next collapse when a bunch of gold buying morons are wiped out. They’ll cry, “How could this have happened? They said it was different this time!”
The amount of investment in alternative energy compared to the size of the energy market is pathetic by any measure. The government never “crowded out” anybody with sums that are half of what Microsoft spends on R&D. And if you believe that the government was there “first,” what does that tell you about the competence of the “free market”? Shouldn’t a piece of trillion dollar markets provide all of the motivation it requires?
Why won’t it let me edit my comment when I’m me, and ten minutes haven’t passed?
i.e. “utopia”
Re: Bart Verheggen (Jun 16 08:02),
VS was the unit root stuff, right?
I also thought VS was resistant to thinking about physics. His points were interesting, but it was difficult to span the divide between what he was doing and figuring out precisely what it meant to climate.
I wonder why Bart is seen as moderate and I am seen as extreme. I haven’t seen anything Bart has written that I have any major disagreement with.
To be sure, that doesn’t mean that he agrees with everything I have written, and this shouldn’t be interpreted as such. On the other hand, to my recollection Bart hasn’t substantially expressed any major disagreements with what I have written, either.
MT
Quite honestly, I think it’s your tone.
Technical note: I tried to edit the typo above (“otehr”) immediately, and like cce reports in #45966, the attempt failed.
MT– Typo fixed. I fiddled with the edit plugin to prevent people who are moderated from editing. (I had a reason for that.). I’ll test to see if the problem stems from my edit.
cce (Comment#45809) wrote,
“It takes time and planning to roll out infrastructure on the scale of the oil and transportation industries.”
It does take time, and it does take planning. It does not require government planning, however. No government planning was involved in the development of either the oil or transportation industries in the US. Each player planned their own contribution and their own role in those industries (including the government, when it had a role). The post-fossil fuel economy will evolve the same way, unless the government usurps that mechanism and arrogantly assumes the role of Master Planner.
Ron Broberg (Comment#45818) wrote,
“You should take a closer look at the relationship between the government and technology (aerospace engineering, computing, communications) and infrastructure (water, electricity, transportation). The backbone of this country is built on engineering projects that were either nurtured in their infancy by govt money (tech) or were implemented by the govt (infrastructure).”
Er, no. Government had no role to speak of in the early development of any of those technologies. It did not invent the airplane, the steam engine or internal combustion engine, the transistor, the microprocessor, the telephone, radio, television, or any other of the key technologies in the categories you mention, or in the categories of electrical power or even atomic energy. It did not subsidize them and certainly did not presume to plan their long-term development. It inserted itself into them when politicians began to realize the were cash cows which could support free lunches and win them votes — primarily after WWII. Government did grant land for railroads, as it did for almost everyone else who asked, and it did build roads — but only after the market for them was created.
You are assigning a role to government in the history of technology that is wholly imaginary.
Carrick (Comment#45819) wrote,
“In about 20 years, we’d be back to the tortoise-shell progress rates of pre-WWII research. ”
We should be so lucky. That was the century (1850-1950) that brought forth the steam engine and internal combustion engine; the telegraph and telephone; electric generators, motors, and lights; airplanes; antibiotics and vaccines; photography and motion pictures; radio and television; the vacuum tube, the transistor and microprocessor — all with no government subsidies and no input from any government planners. Must have been a miracle.
I would like to thank and encourage Steve Mcintyre concerning the invaluable work he is doing for the benefit of the public. He has had to slog a tremendous uphill battle, and has had to deal with much,as Dominic has noted.
Personally, regarding his ‘tone,” I consider him to be rather restrained, particularly considering the importance of the subject matter he is dealing with, and the level of obfuscation he has encountered.
And while I Iam here, I would also like to thank Lucia and everyone who does all the work here at the Blackboard for all the work they do on our behalf.
Chris L (Comment#46045) June 17th, 2010 at 5:29 am
Can I just say as a member of the public that McI is doing nothing for me but sowing doubt with pointless nitpicking.
Lucia,
Yes, that was the unit root stuff. You had some constructive things to say on that topic back then, both on the phsyics and the maths (and connecting the dots between them). I agree with your take on VS.
Michael Tobis’ views both on the science and on the public perception and discussion re the science isn’t very different from mine at all. I think he has great insights on both aspects and his blog is amongst my favorite reading. However, I can also see how his way of writing irks people with different perspectives the wrong way. I usually try to avoid that (with differing degrees of success).
Upthread Spence UK asked me abput my views of McInyre and Romm. His paraphrasing doesn’t coincide with my views indeed (as he’s careful not to argue for btw).
In the light of the internet debate about climate change and energy issues, for all his faults, Joe Romm does work to support scientific understanding of the issues. Does that excuse him for being a bully sometimes? No. But does being a bully sometimes mean that he should be vilified, if his net influence on scientific understanding is positive? My primary interest in the internet debate is in increasing scientific understanding, so someone’s direction on that front is paramount in my perception of how positive/negative I view them.
McIntyre in my opinion has a negative influence on scientific understanding of the public. As DeepClimate once said it, he provides fodder for the “skepticsâ€, and he does so very effectively. With McIntyre, the problem as I see it is that he misses the forest for the trees in his various criticisms, and seems all to happy to let people walk away with the impression that the science is seriously flawed. His feeble excuse when called upon it (“but that’s not what I saidâ€) deep in a comment thread is not convincing, as it’s not followed up by making very clear what he means and doesn’t mean next time around.
(see eg McIntyre’s role in the Yamal story: http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/mcintyres-role-in-the-latest-teapot-tempest/ )
That coupled with his nearly continuous harassment of individual scientists and casting doubts about a whole scientific field (whether intentionally or not) makes my opinion of him very negative indeed. He seems to actively work to lower science’s credibility (whether intentionally or not).
cce (Comment#45964)-“The free market utupia you aspire to does not exist and has never existed. Join us in the real world.”
This is the most juvenile drivel I’ve ever heard. I have no obligation to join you in accepting the world as it is. I am free to talk about the way the world ought to be. You pretty thick if you think that there can’t be a difference, except for yourself. The green energy utopia you aspire to does not exist and has never existed. Join me in the real world.
“People believed that housing was going to increase 10% per year forever.”
You have just repeated this again. Repeating it doesn’t mean that I have to accept blame for this as an advocate for free markets. I will blame low interest rates, AND FANNIE AND FREDDY, for precipitating a housing bubble. As for the dot-com bubble, there were severe restrictions on short-selling of those stocks. When you can’t bet against the market, people will not see that anyone else suspects something is amiss. People by and large act in a totally rational manner if and only if no government intervention acts to skew their behavior.
“low interest rates, they were put in place by the Ayn Rand loving Alan Greenspan”
Anyone using that name Objectivism for some philosophical hodgepodge of his own, without my knowledge or consent, is guilty of the fraudulent presumption of trying to put thoughts into my brain.~Ayn Rand
“In other news, stay tuned for the next collapse when a bunch of gold buying morons are wiped out.”
Once again, people are being spurred to action by…the government. Supposing you are right and people who believe that the government is on the verge of precipitating massive inflation are wrong, the people ultimately to blame will still be the government, for forfeiting the confidence of the people needlessly.
“The amount of investment in alternative energy compared to the size of the energy market is pathetic by any measure.”
That is what you believe. You believe that more money should be spent on alternative energy. What I say is, you are arguing that they way things “ought” to be, presumes you-and I suppose a few ideological fellow travelers of yours-have a monopoly on what is best for everyone. On the contrary, the way things “ought” to be, is that people make the decisions of investment for themselves. They choose, quite rationally, not to invest extensively in AE. Because your personal belief that it should be more, is inconsistent with this, doesn’t obligate anyone to agree with your bullcrap.
“The government never “crowded out†anybody with sums that are half of what Microsoft spends on R&D.”
You still have no idea how the concept of crowding out works.
“And if you believe that the government was there “first,†what does that tell you about the competence of the “free marketâ€?”
Quite a bit. This is like saying, the government decided to go look for water in the desert, the market didn’t see promise in it. Well, the government got their first, they’re more competent. THE PROOF THAT MARKETS ARE RATIONAL (“COMPETENT”) IS PRECISELY THAT THEY DIDN’T WASTE MONEY ON THIS CRAP.
“Shouldn’t a piece of trillion dollar markets provide all of the motivation it requires?”
Motivated by trillions of dollars that only exist IN YOUR IMAGINATION? You have to be kidding me. Of course not.
Contrarian,
Please show me evidence that the market is interested in the time and planning required to roll out alternative technologies. The evidence suggests that the real money is spent maintaining the status quo. And with all due respect to the horse and buggy industries, it ran on hay.
Call it master planner if you want, but the government approves oil and natural gas pipelines, transmission lines, oil wells, coal mines, and regulates their safety and pollutants. It also regulates international trade, which provides for two thirds of oil consumption. As you mention, it also builds to roads. It sets the standards for communication, without which said communication would be jumble of interference as it was in the beginning. The government has a far greater role than you would suggest. If the public gets fed up with any of these things, like an uncappable underwater oil well, or hundreds of billions of dollars of money to OPEC, government has every right to step in and change things.
With respect to energy, the focus of government should be in fostering the uninterrupted supply with (and this is important) all externalities realized. Subsidizing fossil fuels to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars is not exactly the best way to do this. A better way would be to price carbon and make grant money available to the public for the development of alternatives, since those with the deep pockets apparently have little interest in upsetting the apple cart.
FYI, the governments of Germany, Britain, and the US simultaneously developed the electronic computer, not industry. The rapid miniaturization of the computer was due to the US space program (the microprocessor, BTW, was invented in 1969, not pre 1950). The aerospace industry is essentially the product of the US military and NASA, unless you want to count the money losing airline industry. Sputnik was the first satellite, and the first communications satellite was, of course, launched by NASA, and a joint venture between various countries and communications companies. Atomic energy was developed by the US military, and fostered to maintain a supply of weapons grade material. It’s continued development depends on government loan guarantees.
Andrew,
If you believe that low interest rates justify endless the exponential increase in housing prices, then I guess I will not convince you of anything.
If you think that lack of short selling was the reason for the internet bubble, then I will not convince you of anything.
If you think that a few billion dollars of energy R&D by the government is “crowding out” the market then I will not convince you of anything.
If you believe that energy R&D is more than a tiny fraction of total energy spending, then I will not convince you of anything.
If you believe that the size of the fossil fuel market exists only in my head then I will not convince you of anything.
The people to blame for the run up of gold prices are the idiots that think gold should be worth that much. They’re the same as the idiots who thought that their house was worth twice what they paid for it after just a few years. They’re the same as the idiots who thought toys.com was an awesome investment. They’re the same as those who ran up gold in the early ’80s. There was no shortage of scams and bubbles in the 1800s when regulation was non existent.
Here’s the deal. The dependence on fossil fuels is built upon entrenched domestic and international interests, subsidies, and unpriced externalities.
I especially don’t want my freedom and health rationed by Objectivist cults and the promise of ideological utopias no less absurd than hippy communes.
And if you want water in the desert, you build Hoover dam.
I won’t convince you of anything, since you seem be insistent on simply declaring I’m wrong.
Whatever. If you can’t see why you are wrong, you’ll never see anything.
“regulation non-existent in the 1900” Jesus Christ. Your even willing to rewrite history to push your nonsense on me.
Bart: “He [McI] seems to actively work to lower science’s credibility (whether intentionally or not).”
I do not understand how you can identify a very few specific scientists with Science. IMO, Science is not people, it is a method and a body of knowledge.
If anything undermines the credibility of science, it is allowing poor, unsupported research to trade on the good name of Science. Preventing this appears to me to be what McIntyre is attempting to do.
Re: cce (Jun 17 17:12),
It wasn’t thinking that their house was worth 2X, it was acting on that opinion by taking out a new home equity line of credit or second or third mortgage every time that they could so they could live beyond their means (and then cry to the government to bail them out, a new definition of chutzpah). It was also buying with no money down and no interest in the hope of future appreciation so you could sell to the greater fool. Or worse, a mortgage broker finding someone with inadequate means and faking the paperwork so they could buy a house they couldn’t afford and the broker pocket the mortgage origination fees and walks away. Houses and gold aren’t investments. A house is a place to live and gold is a hedge against possible future inflation. A new car with five or six year loan usually goes upside down when you drive it off the lot but nobody seems to care as long as they can make the payments. The US Treasury sells TIPS and I-Bonds. They’re a lot more liquid than gold.
Steve Reynolds (Comment#46111) June 17th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
It is indeed, so why does McI insist on personalizing it?
cce (Comment#46106 wrote,
“Please show me evidence that the market is interested in the time and planning required to roll out alternative technologies. The evidence suggests that the real money is spent maintaining the status quo.”
You will see evidence of market interest in alternative technologies when prices of fossil fuels warrant an interest in those technologies, and the level of interest will be proportionate to those prices. It will not show an interest based on the prognostications of “peak oil” tea leaf readers or the doom crying of climate modelers.
“. . . but the government approves oil and natural gas pipelines, transmission lines, oil wells, coal mines, and regulates their safety and pollutants. It also regulates international trade, which provides for two thirds of oil consumption. As you mention, it also builds to roads.”
And it can continue to exercise those functions. Regulating commerce to protect the health and safety of 3rd parties is one thing; planning the future of the economy and trying to force it onto some Utopian path is quite another. If and when fossil fuels begin to become scarce the market will find the optimum alternatives, and it is the only thing that can.
“With respect to energy, the focus of government should be in fostering the uninterrupted supply with (and this is important) all externalities realized. Subsidizing fossil fuels to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars is not exactly the best way to do this.”
Where did you get the idea that it is the role of government to assure the uninterrupted supply of anything? Why would you imagine the government would have a stronger motive to do that than the consumers of those products and the producers who make a profit from them? Why do people imagine that politicians are wiser and driven by purer motives than entrepreneurs?
BTW, there are no “hundreds of billions” in subsidies for fossil fuels. The greenies concoct those figures by counting expenditures that are not subsidies at all, and are not so counted in any other industry. Real subsidies for wind and solar outpace those for fossil fuels 50 to 1 per megawatt/hour.
cce (Comment#46106) wrote,
“FYI, the governments of Germany, Britain, and the US simultaneously developed the electronic computer, not industry.”
Er, no. As with atomic energy, the groundwork had already been laid by private entrepreneurs.
“Alan Turing is widely regarded to be the father of modern computer science. In 1936 Turing provided an influential formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. Of his role in the modern computer, Time magazine in naming Turing one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, states: ‘The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine’.
“George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the ‘Model K’ (for ‘kitchen table’, on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation. Later models added greater sophistication including complex arithmetic and programmability.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
As with atomic energy, the necessities of the war attracted government interest (although in the latter case Fermi, Szilard, et al, had to resort to subterfuge to attract the government’s attention).
“The rapid miniaturization of the computer was due to the US space program (the microprocessor, BTW, was invented in 1969, not pre 1950).”
Nonsense. It was due to the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs in 1949. The microprocessor was invented by Intel, for a private customer, with no government involvement whatsoever.
Andrew,
I meant 1800s (or 19th century) which is why I immediately edited it.
The Turing machine was a conceptual computer, essentially a ticker tape with a read/write head that could move backwards and forwards. When he was working for the British government, Turing built Colossus for the purpose of breaking codes, which was a true electronic computer. ENIAC was built by Eckert and Mauchly to create firing tables for the US military. Konrad Zuse built the first computer that actually worked (for the German Government).
All of these computers actually existed and functioned. They were real programmable computers, not pieces of paper, and they were built with real money. Why was it government, not private industry, that put up the money?
Show me one scientist who built an atomic bomb using private resources and money.
The first computers built with transisters were tangled messes of wires, i.e. “the tyranny of numbers” The requirement that a computer aboard a space capsule be small, reliable, and energy efficient led to NASA to pour a lot of money into integrated circuits, essentially propping up the entire industry.
Contrarian,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. A attack in Saudi Arabia will bring the global economy to its knees overnight. It holds one quarter of the world’s oil reserves, approximately the same as all non-OPEC producers put together. I remember driving around on 9/11 and some people were already putting a run on the gas stations, and I can only imagine their behavior if there was a real energy crisis. The fact that of all the producers in the world, only OPEC nations are able to increase production should give people pause, but, again, we’re not talking about rational people.
The first oil shock makes fools of anyone who believes the market is capable of acting proactively. Per capita energy spending was shooting up like a rocket before the 1970s, and then, suddenly, the market found efficiencies where it hadn’t bothered to look. Several percent of GDP were literally blowing out the window and oil was being burned to generate electricity when it was much more valuable as transportation fuel. Now we import 2/3rds of our oil. Do you think our economy is more, or less, secure because of that? I think the latter.
The government’s job is to protect its citizens. I read it in the Constitution. I think you’ll find affordable energy a prerequisite to freedom, or so a bunch of libertarians keep telling me.
The IEA estimates $557 billion in global fossil fuel subsidies for 2008.
http://www.iea.org/files/energy_subsidies.pdf
Yeah, cce, cheap gas for the poor of this world. That’s why the metric doesn’t fit as a ‘subsidy to the oil industry.
================
cce, I’m just going to juxtapose your quotes, because I wonder if this hasn’t occurred to you yet:
“There was no shortage of scams and bubbles in the 1800s when regulation was non existent.”
“The free market utupia you aspire to does not exist and has never existed.”
You can edit it back another century, but these comments will still contradict each other. Have a nice day.
(Oh and no, you can’t say “I meant almost nonexistent”, because remember I’m saying that as long as there is any interventionism, you’ll get bubbles and you can’t blame the market)
Bart,
From what I could gather after spending four days reading that death thread, it ended thus: VS ran away after the first guy who’s not afraid of formalism called his hand.
Amusingly, I also recall seeing VS refusing to move forward unless we agreed with his/her/its prolegomena, for the discussion would have been stalled…
cce (Comment#46119) wrote,
“All of these computers actually existed and functioned. They were real programmable computers, not pieces of paper, and they were built with real money. Why was it government, not private industry, that put up the money?”
Because there was a war on. That tends to hasten developments which would proceed more cautiously otherwise.
“Show me one scientist who built an atomic bomb using private resources and money.”
Well, cce, there is not a huge private market for atomic bombs. Governments constitute the only market for bombs. They will always be interested in weaponizing any new technology.
“The requirement that a computer aboard a space capsule be small, reliable, and energy efficient led to NASA to pour a lot of money into integrated circuits, essentially propping up the entire industry.”
NASA and other government departments were merely customers for the emerging solid-state IC technology. They were in no sense its conceptualizers or its developers. The IC circuit was invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instrtuments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Instruments, with no government subsidies. Kilby demonstrated his IC in September, 1958 — a month before NASA was created.
Government capitalizing on innovations developed in the market, and planning and guiding those developments, are two quite different things, cce.
cce (Comment#46120) wrote,
“The IEA estimates $557 billion in global fossil fuel subsidies for 2008.”
Virtually all of which are handed out by the despots in oil producing, 3rd World countries to their impoverished citizens, in order to keep them quiet. We were speaking of government’s role in the development of the US oil industry, cce.