25
May
2017
Potpourri
==> Bryan Caplan explains how it can be that the “anti-denier” crowd thinks uncertainty about climate change is reason for government action, whereas the “skeptic” crowd thinks uncertainty about climate change obviously weakens the case for government action.
==> Daniel McCarthy talking about Trump’s leakers.
==> Speaking of Trump and anonymous sources for major media outlets, I continue my valiant efforts (here and here) to troll Scott Sumner.
==> Trump used to be far more articulate. So is the current stuff an act, or a deterioration of his faculties?
==> Oren Cass talks about climate change and catastrophe.
==> An interesting Tom Woods episode featuring an FBI hostage negotiator.
Much of the case for action hinges critically on a non trivial “probability” of high end outcomes. If one assumes that greater uncertainty is symmetrical it implies both a greater probability of very low end and very high end outcomes.
But magnitude of effect estimates tend for mathematical reasons to have asymmetrical probability distributions and thus symmetrically greater uncertainty of parameters will disproportionately increase the probability of high end outcomes.
But if there are systematic biases in the estimates-not merely neglected uncertainties-then we are currently overestimating the magnitude and possibly the sign of the problem (in terms of impacts).
This is why it is important not just whether recent trends are within the envelope of all past projections, but where in the distribution of projections current trends are falling. Because new data should tighten uncertainty around the more accurate projections. It’s becoming increasingly unlikely statistically that the highest end scenarios are actually possible in the real world.
The “Precautionary Principle” logically implies that it’s much too risky to apply the “Precautionary Principle”.
The Caplan is from 2009. Is this an attempt to avoid fake news by avoiding anything new?
On Trump’s leakers, McCarthy says no harm if nobody finds out. Reminds me of the husband who says much the same about his affair. However, I see I have used an analogy so must concede the argument immediately.
On climate catastrophists, I agree that experts are only experts in their area of expertise. We have no reason to think that a climate scientists is qualified to lecture on the advantages of a carbon tax over a cap and trade scheme, for example. I would have more time for this argument if the “deniers” did not disparage the science quite so much. Bob tends to use IPCC data to demonstrate his economic points, which is entirely appropriate. But a great many commenters argue that the science is fatally flawed. Trump among many others has said it is a hoax. That not only says that all those scientists are wrong, but deliberately so. So if everyone wants to stop making such accusation about things they know little about, then I am all behind the scientists staying quiet on the policy areas related to their science.
As it is, the scientists’ message gets overwhelmed by ill-informed nay-sayers if they stick to the laboratory.
Harold, your comment is a classic case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Can’t go a single Murphy post without bringing up Trump. LOL
RL Styne, Harold wasn’t the one “bringing up Trump.” He was responding to the article Bob was linking to about Trump’s leakers. LOL
Zach,
I was referring to the climate bit.
Perhaps you are also afflicted with TDS.
Bob mentioned Trump three separate times in this post. You then accused Harold of having Trump Derangement Syndrome and said he “can’t go a single Murphy post without bringing up Trump. LOL”
I thought that was a strange response.
I hope you consulted an expert before accusing people of not knowing much… because it would be kind of hypocritical for you to come to any opinion of your own on these matters.
Harold, huh, good call. Bryan recently re-linked to it, and I guess I missed that it was old.
The old ones are the best, they say. It is a position I am agreeing with more and more as time passes by….
“I would have more time for this argument if the “deniers” did not disparage the science quite so much.”
Since when does science require that we abandon logic?
There’s no such thing as a global climate. Therefore, Climate Change hysteria fails before it starts.
Climate is aggregated weather data – it’s not an event, but a historical (read: past) trend of weather measurements.
(This also means that climate logically cannot cause “extreme weather events”.)
Weather is an event, but it’s regional, not global.
Case closed. All the observations that climate scientists are doing, therefore, are generating meaningless data for purposes of the Global Warming agenda.
Same for when Global Warmists used to be Global Coolists.
guest, what an absurd non-argument. The world cannot be warming because there is no such thing as global climate. This is what happens when you run out of arguments.
Wow, M.F sure is prolific on the money illusion comments.
Major Freedom is doing heroic work on the Sumner blog. He got Sumner to openly express the fact that Sumner knows that Sumner doesn’t know how to respond to Austrian analysis.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=17692&cpage=1#comment-205619
After 5 years, that comment still stands as the closest we’ll get to the intellectual foundation, if we could even call it that, of “market” (not at all a market) monetarism.
It would be bad enough if the foundation were “good” passions and not reason. But hatred and disgust is what underlies the desire to impose a statist centralised counterfeiting hegemony on everyone, or how it is communicated by the “pragmatic” statist technocrats: “If socialism, then socialism”.
It is obvious that many of these commenters do not know much becasue their aguments are absurd. I am thinking for example of those who believe the greenhouse effect does not exist or that ocean acidification cannot be happening because the ocean is alkaline.
If you want scientists to remain quiet in public about policy you should also want non scientists to remain quiet about the science in public.
What lots of people want is a double standards where any Tom, Dick or Harry can dismiss the science in public, but scientists are then expected to shut up and stay quiet in their laboratories.
Scentists have been forced into the public eye by the deniers, it is hypocritical to criticise them for it now.
So “obvious” has now become an acceptable substitute for “expert” when convenient? That’s handy.
When it comes to accusations of Trump leaking classified information you are willing to accept the word of some anonymous person who claims to be familiar with the matter but also not authorized to talk in public about it (yet apparently quite readily will talk in public despite being told not to) and this anonymous person says Trump has done something so bad that the details of what Trump actually did cannot be told, because that’s classified but just trust me it’s real bad, yeah.
You trust that guy (who may not even really exist) right?
But you wouldn’t trust someone like Ed Krug, or Tim Ball, or John Christy because those experts give answers that you don’t agree with.
Might as well drop the pretense then… you will call for an “expert” when it suits your agenda and that’s all this is about.
By the way, the basic dictionary definition of “acidification” is to make acid. If you don’t have any acid at the end of the process then you haven’t made acid. That’s true because “obvious”. Any schoolboy chemistry student can tell you that calcium carbonate (of which large amounts exist in the ocean, you might have heard of sea shells, corral, etc) is a buffer which becomes rapidly more soluble as CO2 dissolves into the water, therefore the buffer holds the pH on the alkaline side. You don’t end up with any acid. None, not a drop. Just believe me, or look it up if you like, go to your local swimming pool supplier who can explain it to you.
What’s totally obvious to me is that I’m sure you will do none of these things, because it’s not the answer you wanted to get to. It’s about the agenda, isn’t it? Obviously.
As I’ve written before, I don’t know why anybody responds to Harold. Complete waste of time.
Richie you are spot on. Tel offered an explanation based in logic and reason with provable facts. On the subject of anthroprogenic climate change, Harold and his ilk are akin to religious fanatics. You can’t have an honest intelligent discussion with a fanatic. It’s a complete waste of time. It contributes nothing to your intellectual development.
Oh and if you think you can reason with fanatics, try a religious conversation with a member ISIS. Then again that cultural sage Katie Perry thinks they just need a hug. You first Katie.
“But you wouldn’t trust someone like Ed Krug, or Tim Ball, or John Christy because those experts give answers that you don’t agree with.”
Tim Ball is a crackpot who denies the greenhouse effect.
http://drtimball.com/2012/co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas-that-raises-global-temperature-period/
Fine – he is entitled to his opinion, but so are the flat earthers and perpetual motion pedlars. Some positions are not worth wasting time on, and that is of them. I do not disagree with him because he gives answers I don’t like, but because he talks nonsense about conspiracy theories without evidence to back him up.
Ed Krug seemed to have had something to say decades ago about acid rain. I am not familiar with his expertise in climate change and he does not seem to have published or written anything about it that can be located with a quick google search.
Christy is a genuine expert climatologist who pioneered satellite temperature monitoring. In 2007 he said he he agreed with the IPCC assessment. He certainly thinks CO2 is causing warming, but does not believe it will be catastrophic. In the famous “97%” consensus paper, Christy had 5 papers included in the survey. Two of the papers minimised or rejected the human influence on warming and the others took no position. Christy is therefore in the 3% of climate scientists that were classified as disagreeing with the “mainstream” position. We know they must be somewhere, so it is no surprise that some champion can be found for the contrarian position.
Just to prove that no comment can be allowed to go by without mentioning Trump:
“When it comes to accusations of Trump leaking classified information you are willing to accept the word of some anonymous person who claims to be familiar with the matter but also not authorized to talk in public about it”
I have not said I accept their word. I have said it is evidence. When put together with other evidence it may become convincing.
Evidence? Now you are asking for evidence?
I thought it was experts you wanted. Make up your mind son.
Well, if we are talking about evidence, let’s start with Guest’s question above: please provide a way to calculate global “temperature” that fits the standard thermodynamic definition of what temperature is. Since this has never been done, you could be the first.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf
Tel, more attempts at distraction.
Do you think that the world cannot be warming because there is no such thing as global temperature?
If so then we can all see where you are coming from and sensible people can ignore you.
If not then why are you arguing about metrics when the issue is warming?
You’re dodging.
Harold, don’t let them bully you. You said, ”What lots of people want is a double standards where any Tom, Dick or Harry can dismiss the science in public, but scientists are then expected to shut up and stay quiet in their laboratories.” I disagree. Back when I was in college doing science was hard. It required a mainframe computer, thousands of punch cards, and a ton of time and effort. It was expensive, tedious, and time consuming. Today all it takes is a laptop, Excell, and a data set. Today every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Mary Sue IS a scientist. Which brings me to my thoughts on Climate Change. I agree that the world is warming. But I think the next question to ask is: “Is this good or bad?” We CAN be scientists. In fact my Granddaughter and I are being scientists. We are putting together a data set of all the countries and areas of the world, their population, land area and average temperature. We call the ratio of people to land area the “carrying capacity” of the country or area. Antarctica of course has zero people and lots of land area so it is zero carrying capacity. While our data set is still quite small, (50 states, Canada provinces, twenty other countries, Antarctica) we can still use Excell to analyze. We can plot carrying capacity vs. average temperature. We can do linear regression and find out the higher the average temperature the higher the carrying capacity. In fact, while this is NOT by any stretch “Settled Science” because our data set is so small and incomplete, based upon the data we have and Excell we know that a three degree Fahrenheit (1.5 degree Celsius) temperature rise will result in a 1.2 billion person increase in the carrying capacity of the Earth. Even adjusting for the loss of land area owing to the melting of the glaciers and Polar ice cap it still predicts an increase of over a billion people. How can this be bad? This is real science not made up garbage like you read in the press.
Tel, Sorry I disagree, acidification is the lowering of the pH, even though the absolute pH may still be alkaline.
You are welcome to argue with the dictionary if you like, don’t let me get in the way. If you had previously insisted on deference to “experts” then I would be in a position to call you hypocritical over that, but since you believe anyone can do science, I guess it’s at least logically consistent that anyone can define what a word means.
Personally I would call it “neutralization” if you were bringing the pH towards 7 (i.e. making neutral) and only use “acidification” if you were bringing the pH down below 7 (i.e. making acid). I’m not willing to fight you over it, but perhaps I can politely suggest that if we have a group of people who want to communicate and also want to make that communication as effective as possible, then choosing the best word to describe the situation is to everyone’s advantage. Maintaining a standard meaning of words might assist future generations as well.
“I’m not willing to fight you over it,” Which is just as well, although you already did fight me over it.
The term was coined in 2003 in the paper in nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6956/full/425365a.html
You often find that experts use words slightly differently than laypeople. Ask a mathematician if two triangles are similar and you get a different response than if you ask the person in the street. It is similar with acidification. It is a perfectly reasonable term to use by chemists for any reduction in pH, although it may sound a little odd to laypeople.
” If you don’t have any acid at the end of the process then you haven’t made acid. That’s true because “obvious”.”
Acid is H+ ions, right? (at least at one level)
At pH 8 you still have H+ ions. At any pH you have some H+ ions. Increasing the concentration of H+ ions can reasonably be described as making more acid, hence acidification.
Water at 100C has a pH of 6.14. That is the negative log of the H+ concentration is 6.14, because water dissociates more at higher temperatures. Yet it is neutral because the OH- concentration has risen by the same amount. Is water at 100C acidic? Are we acidifying water when we warm it up? We certainly don’t usually think in these terms, but it is important to note that neutral and pH 7 are not the same thing.
The fact is it would make no difference to the argument if was called something else, but ocean acidification is the term that stuck. Neutralisation would be the wrong term because it implies deliberate progression towards equal H+ and OH- concentrations.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites examples of the word “acidification” as used by chemists in the years 1794, 1804, 1837.
There’s also examples cited from 1847 and 1863 which are culinary type discussion.
So, no the term was not coined in 2003, you are just demonstrably wrong, and obviously have not done even cursory research here.
Tel, the term we are discussing is “ocean acidification”, not acidification.
Of course acidification was used before that time. This is so obvious that I assumed nobody could interpret it that way.
I think my comment shows that I did at least a cursory amount of research. It is disappointing when people are so convinced at their own correctness that they believe their own mis-readings must be the result of a lack in the author.
It wouldn’t matter if it was a bathtub, an ocean or a souffle. The word doesn’t mystically change to a different meaning entirely just because some climate scientist starts using it.
Anyway, if you read the thread above (every comment is right there) the relevant quote is clearly this: “acidification is the lowering of the pH” so what’s happening here is you are simply changing the story … when you are hopelessly wrong in one direction, don’t worry just pretend we were always talking about some different thing. I’m sure you climate alarmist loons can keep doing this indefinitely, but people do notice. The switchbacks, the hypocrisy, the distractions… they notice all that, and it was those things that first started me thinking this might be a scam.
Now I regularly discuss these topics and I see the same tricks getting used over and over… which is how I can be very sure it’s a scam.
Tel.
You are heaping distraction on top of distraction.
Ocean pH is reducing. Whether we call this neutralisation, reducing alkalinity or acidification does not affect that.
My initial point was that people who focus on the name given to it rather than the effect itself can be dismissed as not attempting to engage with the subject. I think you have demonstrated my point admirably. .
Bitter,
“Back when I was in college doing science was hard. It required a mainframe computer, thousands of punch cards, and a ton of time and effort.”
Well, it depends on the science. Loads of amateur naturalists have added to our body of knowledge over the centuries with nothing more than notebooks and keen observations. But I get your point that the internet gives us greater access to knowledge and data.
We can all be scientists and your research is a good example. However, I would caution you on the conclusion you have written here. This requires ceteris paribus, or other things equal, and your data is not sufficient to demonstrate this.
One of the key requirements of science is to put your research in context with the body of knowledge so far. This is why nearly all scientific papers have an extensive introduction with lots of references. Thus is often the most time consuming part of a publication because it requires good knowledge and understanding of the whole field – which cannot be obtained quickly.
It is my belief that you do not need qualifications to be a successful scientist, but you do need a thorough understanding of the field you have chosen.
,