16
Oct
2018
Nordhaus vs. the IPCC
Folks, this is really ludicrous. Look at the stuff I dug up from Nordhaus’ most recent model run.
(Also, Tom and I walk through it on the latest Contra Krugman.)
David R. Henderson catches the Niskanen Center crew likewise spouting nonsense on this. Note, I am choosing my words carefully. I don’t just mean, “Hey, I disagree.” I mean, they are saying the UN’s latest report shows the folly of ignoring the work of William Nordhaus…when they themselves are thereby ignoring the work of William Nordhaus.
A quick eyeballing of the chart in the linked-to post suggests that one can get to any SCC number one likes (and with absolutely no knowledge of climate science) simply by varying the discount rate one uses. Is it known what discount rate the ICC used in their report ?
They didn’t use a discount rate really, Transformer. It’s not that they calculated the SCC and then determined that a 1.5C target would match MC and MB. No, they just decided 1.5C was the safe amount of warming, beyond which there were risky tipping points.
OK, so looking at some of the news releases a round the IPCC report I see it is saying something like this :
‘Our studies of the recent climate models indicates that the difference between limiting temperature rises to only 1.5C rather than 2C is huge (and micyh bigger than we previously thought) when measured in things like droughts, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people, species going extinct etc. This is so self-evidently bad that whatever the costs to keep to 1,.5C are then we have no choice but to pay them’
If the science really is changing and indicating that the SCC is higher than we thought just a few years ago then that is not something we can just ignore. It would be nice to have a DICE type model that told us exactly what the optimal carbon-tax should be. But it is clear that the costs of the sort the report is highlighting are very hard to calculate. And the problem with DICE type models is that just by varying the inputs and parameters (such as the discount rates) one can literally get any SCC one wants.
So I don’t have any answers and I’m sure the IPCC report is going to attract the attentions of various kinds of central planners who like that kind of thing – but I do feel a bit uncomfortable just rejecting the science as opposed to the economics of the report.
Transformer wrote: “I see it is saying something like this “
Hey, I’ve actually NOT seen something saying that explicitly, within the IPCC release. Are you saying you did, or are you saying outside reporters/bloggers commented with that kind of language about the situation?
I was basing that mostly on the Guardian article you link to plus this Economist
article.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/10/13/the-latest-report-on-global-warming-makes-grim-reading
I just skimmed those articles so I hope I didn’t misrepresent them in any material way.
Transformer, I’m not trying to be a pain, but I can’t find what you mean. The Economist piece literally doesn’t have the word “cost” in it, and the Guardian piece has it 3x, but they don’t refer to mitigation costs except one saying we need to meet the target in a least-cost way.
Can you find the discussion that prompted your paraphrase? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’d love to see someone talk about it. My gripe with the IPCC report is that they barely talk about the costs of doing this at all.
My initial reading of those 2 article was also that ‘costs’
were not extensively discussed and I was left with the impression that costs should be no barrier to going for the 1.5C target.
However as you asked I checked the 2 articles and find:
The Guardian: ‘This [the1.5C target] would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2C target. But the costs of doing nothing would be far higher.’
The Economist:
‘And it [the1.5C target] would cost money. How much, the IPCC has resisted predicting, blaming limited economic research in the area. But, for the same reason, it does not attempt to value the flip side—the damage caused by delay.’.
It then talks about a paper excluded from the IPCC report that is says ‘estimates that keeping temperature rises to 1.5°C would cost 150% more than keeping them to 2°C, though it gives no absolute figures. Like the IPCC, Dr Dietz stops short of comparing this to averted losses.’ and further adds ‘But earlier work by others suggests that a rise of 1.5°C would shave 8% from global GDP per person by 2100, relative to a world with no more warming. A rise of 2°C, by contrast, would cause a discrepancy of 13%.’
So, The Economist article appears to agree with you that the IPCC ‘barely talk[s] about the costs of doing this at all.’ but tries to address that gap itself, while the Guardian implies costs are discussed.
I’m going to see if I can find the actual IPCC report to see what it really says about costs.
The Guardian is correct and the report does explicitly say that the 1.5C target ‘would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2C target’.
So with this additional insight I would redo my paraphrase as
‘Our studies of the recent climate models indicates that the difference between limiting temperature rises to only 1.5C rather than 2C is huge when measured in things like droughts, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people, species going extinct etc. The costs of implementing the 1.5C target are three to four times higher than for a 2C target but avoiding the kinds of bad things listed above clearly make it worth doing’
Hey Transformer,
My apologies. This quote you gave from The Economist piece:
“‘And it [the1.5C target] would cost money. How much, the IPCC has resisted predicting, blaming limited economic research in the area. But, for the same reason, it does not attempt to value the flip side—the damage caused by delay.’.”
…is exactly what I was looking for. But my initial search didn’t work, because (unbeknownst to me) I had already used my article limit and so it wasn’t showing me more than two paragraphs of the article. So when I searched for “cost” I got 0 hits.
So thanks, that quotation is exactly what I wanted.
Full report here:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
Bob,
I’ve been following this a bit, including having read Nordhaus’ last paper on his update to his model. I just have a question that I feel has been overlooked in your articles and in the CK episode.
Nordhaus seems to repeatedly mention that his model has become “more pessimistic.” I interpret this as something to the effect of “The costs of mitigation, as of today, are higher than they would have been 5-10 years ago.” Which, in theory, makes the non-interventionist case more appealing, in the sense of “It’s now more expensive to fix it than it previously was, so doing nothing looks relatively more attractive.”
But that said, couldn’t a climate alarmist respond to that by saying: “Yeah, you deniers ignored us, prevented the government from taking the necessary measures, and now things are worse! Climate change is still going to cause damages and the ability to fix it is now more expensive than it should be! The government listened to you people 5-10 years ago and that was clearly the wrong decision, so why should we listen to you now?”
(Note: I understand the proper response to that is an explanation of the sunk costs fallacy, and talking about we need to optimize for the future rather than re-litigate the past, etc. But I feel like the argument above has some pretty clear rhetorical and emotional impact, and I’m not quite sure how to respond to it.)
Matt, I actually think when Nordhaus says his model has gotten more pessimistic, he means that the damages of climate change are worse now, than he previously thought. So for example the social cost of carbon is way higher in his model now, than it was back in 2007.
If you check out my original Independent Review article, note that the SCC estimates in there refer to tons of CARBON, not of carbon dioxide.
Okay… but I’m not sure that answers my question?
Even in that case, couldn’t an alarmist say, “See, even Nordhaus previously underestimated how bad climate change was going to be – but if you would have listened to Al Gore instead, we would have acted sooner and reduced the damages more efficiently!”
Would it be true to suggest that so far, to the extent that DICE and other models have been “wrong”, they’ve been wrong in the direction of under-estimating the damage of climate change, and that to the extent that public policy has been “wrong”, it’s been wrong in the direction of not intervening enough?
Matt,
Nordhaus would agree that the US and most other governments haven’t been doing enough to slow emissions. However, I think it’s still true that even with his current model calibration, it’s better that we “did nothing” since 2007, rather than embark on a quest to limit warming to 1.5C.
When people’s behavior makes no sense at all… that’s because you haven’t yet figured out who benefits from this situation.
https://imgur.com/OnEK84f
WE WITHDREW FROM PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD AND LOWERED GREENHOUSE GAS 2.7% WHILE FRANCE INCREASED IT 2%.
COMMUNISM LEADS TO MORE, NOT LESS, POLLUTION.
CO2 emissions tonnes per capita 2014:
USA 16.5
France 4.6
In what universe is 4.6 higher than 16.5?
CHANGE, NOT ABSOLUTE
I love MF’s comment without context.
While I have found MF’s recent contributions (while entertaining) a bit lacking in real-world context , on this occasion I am fairly sure he just means that he was talking percentage change while Harold was quoting absolute emissions numbers.
[yaaaaaawn]
MF, your caps button seems to be sticking.
What made you believe you could read minds again?
🙂
When you refer to the “caps button” are you referring specifically to the “caps locked” button, or are you referring to any button that may be used to create a capital letter? For example, the “shift” button and/or the “caps locked” button both could be at play here.
Also, I think it’s racist to attempt to shame people for wanting to use all uppercase letters vs a mixture of upper/lower case letters.
Applying Occam’s Razor, as discussed below, most likely the caps lock key, which I think with hindsight is a better term than button. Other combinations are possible, but require more assumptions, so are not the currently favored hypothesis. This could change with more evidence, such as may be obtained by examining the keyboard.
Perhaps it is a bad thing to shame people for using all caps. After all, it does little real harm. It does remove some options for expression of emphasis, it is harder to read and comes across as shouting, which can exhaust people’s reservoir of goodwill. These are quite minor compared to what the words can convey.
However, it is not racist.
I dunno Harold, if I were a liberal I would need to appeal to my narcissistic personality disorder and attribute any criticism of me by you as deriving from racism…or so something.
Problem is, I lack any of the physical characteristics that would enable to me to be approved to claim one victimhood feature or another which would have permitted me to say anything I want no matter how insane….because “revolutionary consciousness ‘n s#!t”…so my approved role as a good “socialized man” (drats, that’s sexist) is to wallow in unearned self-guilt and apologia to the world, of course making sure I avoid contradicting myself in more and more noticeable ways as I travel down the path of collectivist righteousness, so that I don’t end up saying this:
https://i.imgur.com/rWWoKFq.png
After all, once I am fully communized, the inner racism of the left would be revealed to all without anyone prompting me.
“What black people need” is only racist if others say it
“if I were a liberal I would need to appeal to my narcissistic personality disorder…”
Not all liberals have narcissistic personality disorder as the term is defined pretty much everywhere.
From wikipedia “About one percent of people are believed to be affected at some point in their life.” Are there that few liberals?
“Problem is, I lack any of the physical characteristics that would enable to me to be approved to claim one victimhood feature or another ”
Oh, OK. I had always imagined you a black, Jewish, lesbian dwarf.
I don’t think we can easily assume that the caps locked key would be the keyboardists first choice if we are also assuming the keyboardist is also shouting. Personally, when I am shouting on the internet, I like to use a lot of force with one hand and one finger to hold down the shift key, while using my other hand and one finger to violently press each letter key. This is similar to when I am angry in person and I am shouting while clinching my fists as I become more tense and stressed. Because of the physical tension and stress that comes from internet shouting I feel like an internet shouter would be more likely to proceed this way.
“From wikipedia “About one percent of people are believed to be affected at some point in their life.”
I heard that 98% are unreported.
#IBelieveAnyoneWhoAgreesWithMyPolitics
Ben, I think shouting is an alternative hypothesis to the stuck key. Occam again, there is no need to assume both a stuck key and an intention to shout. Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity and there is no necessity for more than one explanation.
MF, that would leave 1% unaffected. You could be right.
About the caps lock thing, if a person hears voices in their heads at the mere sight of symbols, after how many days to boot, I say they may want to get checked out by a medical professional.
MF,?
What made you believe you cold read minds again?
This time it was the 17th post about caps lock that did it, thanks.
Hey Murphy,
Do you know of anyone who rejects objective truth and believes that the only thing that matters is “persuasion” as a standard of validity/relevance?
Who also might have a brain aneurysm should they read this?
https://www.breitbart.com/midterm-election/2018/10/19/exclusive-scott-adams-predicts-greatest-turnout-by-republicans-maybe-ever-in-midterms/
Hahahahahahahahaha
Here is a question I should know the answer to but don’t off the top of my head: Is the optimal amount of warming in DICE higher than it would have been if we had started pricing carbon 25 years ago, and if so by how much?
Note: I’m not asking whether the model from 25 years ago would give different answers that the current version. I know it’s been tweaked over time. But plausibly the overall costs of reducing emissions are less if you ca. Do them gradually, and if so, that means that starting later would translate into having to accept more warming that you would otherwise. I don’t know if that has been calculated.
Interesting point. Presumably if we did nothing and the warming was at say 2C, the optimal warming would then be higher than 2C, since the cost of reducing the temperature would be astronomic. Following this principle, the longer we leave it the higher the optimum temperature would be. This is the objective of stage 5 denialism: its too late.
If only stage 5 “denialists” like Al Gore, James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri would stop predicting the end of the world, we wouldn’t have so many people fooled into believing the world has already ended.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/global-warming-apocalypses-didnt-happen
Let me just take a peek out the window… phew!
Sea level nowhere in sight, think it’s safe for the time being. I’ll tell you if I hear anything.
You know on the bright side, at least for the final 10 years before we are all doomed I will be sitting on beach front property, laying in a deck chair with a fishing line in the water… cheer up, it could be worse.
” since it is “too late,” why spend any more time and money fighting global warming?”
There you have it – stage 5.
You can tell if someone is trying to find the truth or simply trying to confirm their existing beliefs. The former will look at all the information, the latter will seek out individual pieces of information that back up their views and use only them, often misrepresenting them, whilst studiously ignoring the bulk of the data.
The Cato piece selects a few statements by a few individuals from the millions available. They misrepresent them by claiming the effects would have happened by now when the claims are the effects will inevitably happen in the future. The claims may or may not be wrong, but current observations cannot tell us.
Out of interest, what do you think of this video by potholer54? This discusses these points with a free market point of view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99qI42KGB0
“You can tell if someone is trying to find the truth or simply trying to confirm their existing beliefs. The former will look at all the information, the latter will seek out individual pieces of information that back up their views and use only them, …”
You know who also prefers, if they can help it, individual pieces of information that back up their views, and also prefer to ignore the bulk of the data?
Scientists.:
Occam’s razor
[www]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_razor
“Occam’s razor … is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the correct one. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions. …”
“… In the scientific method, Occam’s razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result; the preference for simplicity in the scientific method is based on the falsifiability criterion. For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there may be an extremely large, perhaps even incomprehensible, number of possible and more complex alternatives. Since one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.“
Occam’s most usual formulation was “”Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.” That necessity bit is important.
I honestly don’t know what point you are trying to make here.
Not inventing explanations without necessity is not remotely the same as ignoring the bulk of the data.
From the article you quote “For example, if an individual makes supernatural claims that leprechauns were responsible for breaking a vase, the simpler explanation would be that he is mistaken, but ongoing ad hoc justifications (e.g. “… and that’s not me on the film; they tampered with that, too”) successfully prevent outright falsification. This endless supply of elaborate competing explanations, called saving hypotheses, cannot be ruled out—except by using Occam’s razor.”
As an example, the idea that thousands of scientists all over the world are working together to promote a communist world order by lying about the results they actually find, corrupting data and inventing non-existent problems in a way that is sure to eventually be discovered requires many more assumptions than that they are just normal people doing their jobs in a normal manner.
The conspiracy hypothesis is untestable because any new data can be rejected as part of the conspiracy, as in the leprechaun example.
Your video asks “When did climate become a political issue”, and then shows a video of Thatcher from 1989.
But Earth Day was concocted in 1970, and it was concocted as an economic response to the perceived threat of overpopulation (not a threat at all, actually)
The idea was to get the socialist governments to attack capitalism with a global effort because they thought that capitalism was causing famine.
So, the politicizing of climate change started with socialists, and it was an attempt to solve a non-problem.
The result is that the Green Energy agenda is destroying the poor by disincentivizing rich people’s production.
Socialism’s mistake is that it attacks arbitrage – those reality-based differences in people, time, and location that provide opportunities for specific individuals who are in a position to better their own lives to do so.
All of capitalism follows logically from the fact that arbitrage opportunities exist and will always exist.
There is no such thing as a healthy economy that can be centralized because only individuals economize. And to inhibit someone else, rich or poor, from benefiting from arbitrage opportunities because it will deny other opportunities to someone else ignores property rights.
Everything you enjoy in life has a potential egalitarian use – so whenever you choose to enjoy life, you are foreclosing on an opportunity to be egalitarian.
You have your own interests, and you have limited knowledge about other people’s interests and well-being.
So, it is impossible to live life in a way that will be completely egalitarian.
Without the knowledge of other people’s well-being, you cannot help but to be less than completely egalitarian.
And, frankly, as a human being, if someone required you to make sure everyone else was OK before you enjoyed yourself, you’d never enjoy yourself, and you would, in due course, abandon your egalitarianism so you could enjoy your own life.
Because, while other people matter, *you, yourself, also matter*. And you matter for the same reason other people matter.
This a rare opinion video from Potholer, and quite different from most of his. The science ones I find utterly convincing, this one not quite so much, so I was interested to get other takes on it.
You say Earth Day was in 1970, well before Thatcher, but then go on to say that Earth day was not about climate, so that does not pertain to when climate became a political issue.
You seem to be arguing against communism and for capitalism (in very broad brush language), but so is Potholer in the video so you have no dispute with him there. He sees no contradiction to believing the science of climate change and believing in free market economics. Neither did Thatcher and most conservative politicians in the world.
“… but then go on to say that Earth day was not about climate, so that does not pertain to when climate became a political issue.”
No, I’m saying that the video attempts to use Thatcher to show that, when the climate change issue began (he says the origins are important) that it wasn’t socialist in nature.
This is false. Both climate and population hysteria are, and were, socialist in nature:
Earth Day, Then and Now
[www]https://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/earth-day-then-and-now/print
“Of course, the biggest environmental crisis facing humanity nowadays is supposed to be global warming. Not surprisingly, worries about the future climate were a common theme among alarmists on the first Earth Day. However, they couldn’t agree on what direction the earth’s temperature was going to take.
“”The greenhouse theorists contend the world is threatened with a rise in average temperature, which if it reached 4 or 5 degrees, could melt the polar ice caps, raise sea level by as much as 300 feet and cause a worldwide flood,” explained Newsweek in its special January 26, 1970, report on “The Ravaged Environment.” …”
“… Kenneth Watt was less equivocal in his Swarthmore speech about Earth’s temperature. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.””
It is also the case that just because one calls themselves pro free market doesn’t mean that they are.
(Most Conservatives, today, are unaware that they are socialists, even as they claim to be for free markets)
Thatcher had socialist inclinations just like Trump does, now.
(For example, tariffs are intended to protect producers *as a class* in the country that is imposing them; That’s bad economics for the same reason that protecting “workers” as a class is bad – it’s a collectivist policy.)
Your video guy (Potholer?) is also a collectivist. He even says that the climate issue is important for our “democracy”.
America was not founded as a democracy, and the founders explicitly rejected democracy in favor of a republic.
(To be sure, Republics are also collectivist in nature, but the form of republic America originally took was a significant move in the direction of free markets from the mercantilism of Britain.
(Unfortunately, the founders still believed in the collectivist idea that farmers should be protected as a class.)
Well, if you are classing Thatcher as a socialist you are going to have problems communicating with a lot of people.
There is also a distinction between communists being concerned about something and something being communist in nature. Communists are concerned about cancer.
You are falling into exactly the fallacy Potholer describes. You dismiss the science because you see the solutions are socialist.
By Murray Rothbard
June 1990
Mrs. Thatcher’s Poll Tax
[www]https://mises.org/library/mrs-thatchers-poll-tax-0
“Unfortunately, the local tax case is characteristic of the Thatcher regime. Thatcherism is all too similar to Reaganism: free-market rhetoric masking statist content. While Thatcher has engaged in some privatization, the percentage of government spending and taxation to GNP has increased over the course of her regime, and monetary inflation has now led to a severe price inflation.
“Basic discontent, then, has risen, and the increase in local tax levels has come as the vital last straw. It seems to me that a minimum criterion for a regime receiving the accolade of “pro-freemarket” would require it to cut total spending, cut overall tax rates, and revenues, and put a stop to its own inflationary creation of money. Even by this surely modest yardstick, no British or American administration in decades has come close to qualifying.”
The same can be said of Winston Churchill.
Guest “Thatcherism is all too similar to Reaganism: free-market rhetoric masking statist content.”
Well, OK, I agree these classifications are somewhat subjective and particularly here socialism has a wider definition than usual. She did say “There is no such thing as society” but that was relatively early in her premiership.
The poll tax article is interesting. The poll tax is economically the least distorting, since there is no behaviour change one can make to avoid or reduce it. As the article points out, it also means that the less well off end up paying much more for the same revenue.
It was quite obvious to most that was going to be a very unpopular introduction. It was trailed in Scotland and was very unpopular. Thatchers aides tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. It was her undoing.
This demonstrates why she introduced policies that could be considered “socialist”. To not do so would be to lose the election.
It’s always best to follow the experts, which is why Al Gore can be ruled out. If he was really an expert he wouldn’t have made wrong predictions all over the place.
https://youtu.be/7Ib0UWEot3E
Now there’s a real expert. Much better choice of expert opinion to follow.
Also, Ed Krug’s book “Environment Betrayed” is extremely good, although the self published nature of this book shows why editors can make a difference. It’s a bit raw in places, but I find that more authentic.
I agree about Al Gore – he is a publicist. Follow the scientists.
On Evans, the interview could have been designed to demonstrate the denialist mindset. I listened to it and made notes as I went. I did not remember who he was at first. In summary, if you find this guy convincing you are working really hard to believe unsubstantiated nonsense and reject an overwhelming amount of evidence on the basis of misdirection and fallacies.
On Evans and the piece
1) the intro is incorrect: climate change formerly global warming. Wrong. This is a meme started by deniers.
2) CO2 before warming. This is well understood and not a problem. Pure red herring.
3) Climatologists adjust data to match predictions. Wrong wrong wrong again! He offers NO evidence for this slanderous allegation. This guy is a crackpot, even if he has 6 degrees.
4) Claim: There is no empirical evidence to back CO2 theory. Wrong wrong wrong! There is a huge mass of evidence!
5) There have been numerous occasions where theory disagrees with observations -observations nearly always win. Red herring as observations are not at odds with the theory.
6) Initial models were bad, these are the models we are using today. Wrong.
7) If there was a mistake made in the 1960’s that would be why the models don’t work. wrong wrong wrong.
8) OMG! He is married to Joanne Nova!! A lot is explained. One of the principle deniers. This does not undermine his arguments, but since his arguments are so weak they do not require undermining anyway. It does perhaps explain why he is promoting such rubbish.
9) Al Gore doesn’t ask the next question:where does the heat go? Yes he does!! it goes into warming the planet!
10) Claim: message put out is that CO2 is bad. Crap, rubbish nonsense. Nobody argues we should do away with CO2. He spends 5 minutes in the short carbon cycle which no scientists object to.
11) He is complaining that industrialised nations needed fossil fuels to industrialise and developing countries are being denied this. However, simultaneously there are massive shouts of outrage that developed countries are being asked to cut back while developing countries are doing nothing! This is classic case of trying to have it both ways. the fact is that developing countries are not expected to cut back in the same way developed countries are. They are not being denied the use of fuels.
12)”On the back of an unproven theory contradicted by a fair bit of empirical evidence.” No theory is ever proved, and there is NO evidence that contradicts AGW. He couldn’t really be more wrong.
13) Killer question from interviewer: if it isn’t CO”, what is it?
“it is hard to overlook the sun”. Indeed, which is now less active than it has been for ages. “Any minor variations are going to have an effect here”
OK, so are we cooling then, since the sun is less active?
“The sun turned down most recently in 2004”. OK, so we should be cooling then?
“there is a “notch”. This is total rubbish. There is NO evidence that this wild hypothesis, which has no basis in physics, has any predictive capacity.
“We predicted the 2020’s would be cooler than the 1980’s”**
Honestly, looking at the temperatures, does ANYONE think this is reasonable? ??? I will bet up to all my wealth that it is not. Anyone take me up on this?
“back to your question, we are pretty sure it has something to do with the sun”
OMG! Is that the best he can do! This guy is so clearly a charlatan. When asked “What is it?” he waffles about the sun, then explains that the evidence is actually totally against that, as the sun has been less active yet we are warmer, then invents some wild “notch” hypothesis with no basis in physicist (honestly, there is no mechanism)* which requires absolutely unprecedented cooling over the next few years. Come in, he is busted!
I am only half way through! What more gems will there be? I will have to make another post as this is getting too long.
**Direct quote form Evan’s in the blog linked below
“Prediction: There will be a sustained and significant fall in global temperature from about 2017 – 2022, of about 0.3 deg C. The 2020s will be cooler than the 1980s.”
*”At some point David realized, from the electrical analogy, that the timing was suspiciously precise. Because the delay was the length of a solar cycle, and the notches were synchronized to the Sun, the cause of the delay wasn’t on Earth — but inside the Sun. The delay was not a smeared out thing, but a literal delay — the effect due to a change in TSI only begins to act one sunspot cycle later, and quickly affects the surface temperature here on Earth. The flickering signals from total sunlight are a clue that precedes some other change in the solar dynamo. We’ll talk about the possible mechanisms in future posts, because there are a lot of fields, fluxes and particles coming off the Sun that could potentially affect our climate.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/02/new-science-22-solar-tsi-leads-earths-temperature-with-an-11-year-delay/
(I haven’t watched what you guys watched.)
“1) the intro is incorrect: climate change formerly global warming. Wrong. This is a meme started by deniers.”
It’s not a meme. When Mann’s hockeystick graph was shown to be fraudulent, the socialists moved the goalpoast and started claiming that “extreme weather”, such as hurricanes and *cold* weather was the result of dirty capitalism, I mean fossil fuels.
Logic will tell you that if global warming is leading to extreme weather – which is “cold* (hello) – then there’s no problem at all.
But logic would also tell you that the danger climate socialists are warning about would have to result in *all* regions of the planet remaining warmer (on any given day, mind you) than they did previously, otherwise their theory cannot explain how the warming affects some regions, but not others.
Guest.
How about the 1955 paper “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change”?
In the 1980’s the IPCC was formed – panel on Climate Change, not Global Warming.
All well before the Hockey Stick (which was not proved to be fraudulent, but irrelevant to this discussion)
Global warming causes climate change. There was no shifting of goalposts.
“But logic would also tell you that the danger climate socialists are warning about would have to result in *all* regions of the planet remaining warmer (on any given day, mind you) than they did previously,”
Logic does not tell you this at all. “The Day After Tomorrow” was not a great film, and dreadful in its science, but it shows the fallacy of thinking that everywhere must be warmer for there to be danger from climate change. The premise is that the gulf stream shuts down and Northern latitudes become colder. This has been a very common story of how warming may lead to local cooling. Your “logic” makes no sense.
“Logic does not tell you this at all. “The Day After Tomorrow” was not a great film, and dreadful in its science, but it shows the fallacy of thinking that everywhere must be warmer for there to be danger from climate change.”
No, no. Again with the goalpost moving.
The threat claimed by so-called global warming was that the earth would be *hotter*, not that the climate would change erratically.
And if global warming can *cause* colder weather through “extreme weather events”, then global warming can reverse itself.
Not that there can even *be* such a thing as a “global climate” that can rise.
Climate is aggregated weather data, climate is not an event. Weather is the event.
And weather is regional.
Er go, there can be no such thing as a global climate.
Guest. You have misunderstood to a staggering extent.
Imagine a house with several rooms. We pump energy into the house. This warms it. A heat pump cools one room to below the original temp. But does not result in any heat loss from the house. It pumps heat into the other rooms. By your argument because one room is colder we must conclude that energy has been lost by the house. This is wrong and there is no valid reasoning that can lead to that conclusion.
If you are seriously saying there are no adjustments inserted into the data, then I’m pretty sure you have not been studying this very closely. If you even do a cursory search you can find examples where it’s explained in detail.
Of course there are adjustments! That was not the claim.
Scientists don’t just take a bunch of raw numbers – they adjust them to account for known sources of error. Remember UHI? This is just one source of adjustments to account for urban spread affecting local temperatures. If we used the raw data it would appear the world was warming much more than it is. This is a case where adjusting the data results in a much lower estimate of warming.
Do you remember BEST? From wiki
“The Berkeley Earth study addressed scientific concerns raised by skeptics including urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias.”
This was back in 2010. There were allegations the data used to make global temperature datasets were corrupted and wrong. BEST set out to test this. It ended up backing the previous studies completely. This should have been an end to this zombie argument, but some people are so determined to believe what they want to believe rather than what the evidence tells them they ignore this.
Anthony Watts said before the results were published “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. … [T]he method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU, and, there aren’t any monetary strings attached to the result that I can tell. ”
What happened when the results proved his premise wrong? He rejected the result, of course. Because he is a denier and not a skeptic.
Muller, the leader of BEST, was a genuine skeptic. He said after the results were in:
“Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
So adjustments are essential and carried out all the time on all data. What they do not do is to adjust them to fit the prediction.
“But does not result in any heat loss from the house. It pumps heat into the other rooms. By your argument because one room is colder we must conclude that energy has been lost by the house. This is wrong and there is no valid reasoning that can lead to that conclusion.”
If the heat from the cold room is being transferred into the other rooms, eventually the other rooms will heat the colder room, merely making the colder room cold relative to the hotter rooms, which are being heated from an outside source.
We do not see all temperatures rising in every region on earth.
So, again, logically, no room can become cooler than it once was if global warming is real.
Further, anyone who has suffered under intense heat of the sun, and then was fortunate enough to be covered by the only cloud in the sky, can figure out that, with so much water on the planet, it’s impossible to cook the planet to any meaningfully alarmist degree.
The claim (quoting you from above) was “Climatologists adjust data to match predictions. Wrong wrong wrong again!”
So you accept that the data is adjusted but presumably you believe those adjustments have been away from the “global warming” prediction.
Here’s the Darwin data…
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show.cgi?id=501941200000&ds=5&dt=1
They show unadjusted (yellow trace) and final adjusted and homogenized (black trace)
You can see that previously it was cooling before 1940, but after adjustments they cooled the bast by 2 deg C and voila we have warming in Darwin.
From history we know that Darwin was bombed in WWII and then hit by Tracy in 1974 but rebuilt each time. The airport has always been fairly open, with a golf course and creek nearby so I doubt that UHI is significant. Probably more aircraft take off today so if anything they should be cooling the current temperatures to adjust for jet exhaust.
At any rate, there’s one clear example of cooling past measurements by using adjustments which generates a “global warming” trend where none existed in the raw data.
I know about Berkeley Earth, they threw away Darwin which might have been a good idea. However, if you go around comparing GIST with BEST it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I looked at Moscow for example, the raw data shows average of approx 4C from 1760 to 1960 and then a sudden warming up to 6C, which looks a lot like UHI to me (approx 1960 was when Russia started ramping up industrialization). Well GIST decided to warm the past by 1C (why?) so if it was UHI they should be cooling the recent data. BEST just left it alone and came up with a huge warming result.
I’m sure someone somewhere thought this was good, but it does not look even slightly like they are fixing up UHI.
Then there’s Tony Heller who went through the US data and found a strong correlation between the overall adjustments and the CO2 level, there’s a link to a spreadsheet including source FTP (which conveniently has been locked). I know you probably don’t like him but you know what they say, “The data speaks for itself”. Something like that.
Guest. No, The heat pump keeps the room cooler than it was. Your so called logic is not logic.
Consider a house with the heating thermostat set at 15C (which is above outside temperature). In the house is a fridge that is not turned on, so the whole house is at 15C, including the inside of the fridge.
The thermostat is adjusted to 18C and the fridge is turned on. The house warms to 18C but the inside of the fridge cools to 4C. By your “logic”* the house cannot be warmer because the fridge has been turned on. I think on reflection you will see that this makes no sense.
(*Guest: So, again, logically, no room can become cooler than it once was if global warming is real.”)
Tel.
You are just cherry picking. You cite two places as proof that temperatures are adjusted to increase warming. BEST did thousands using dozens of qualified scientists over years to investigate.
“you believe those adjustments have been away from the “global warming” prediction.”
They are both towards and away from as they are made independently of the predictions. Some go one way, some go the other.
You cite Darwin, which moved in the 1940s. See Bekely earth data here
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/152446
The obvious discontinuity obviously requires correction.
You did not mention Tokyo, which is correctly adjusted the other way.
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/156164
Berkely Earth did this work. You cannot discredit it by picking 2 or 3 sites that you think they got wrong.
Tony Heller, the guy who insisted CO2 froze out of the atmosphere in Antarctica even after it was pointed out to him that the idea was batshit crazy. His fellow deniers on WUWT said of him (June 9, 2009) “More embarrassingly bad non-science by Goddard in support of the unsupportable rubbish he posted in the original article. A blog that claims to be the ‘best science blog’ should post an update to point out that it’s complete nonsense.”
The guy who averages absolute temperatures in a totally inappropriate way to falsely accuse NOAA of fudging USA temperatures, about which Anthony Watts said of him “”I took Goddard to task over this as well in a private email, saying he was very wrong and needed to do better,”
The Tony Heller that incorrectly accused the WAPO of fraudulently claiming a glacier had shrunk because he mistook floating ice for the glacier?
Yeah, don’t have much respect for him.
“The thermostat is adjusted to 18C and the fridge is turned on. The house warms to 18C but the inside of the fridge cools to 4C. By your “logic”* the house cannot be warmer because the fridge has been turned on. I think on reflection you will see that this makes no sense.”
Did you catch that, Bob Murphy?
I told you we had these warming alarmists dead to rights just on the logic – no need to go further.
Yes, Harold. I know that, if initially at room temperature, when the fridge is turned on, the fridge will become cooler than the previous room temperature, and the rest of the house will heat up.
What you’re missing is that, according to global warming hysteria, the “fridge” has always worked, and it has no doors.
There are no closed system cooling areas on the planet the warmists can point to in order to account for temperatures going down.
And yes, that’s accounting for seasons.
The inside of the fridge will get warmer, even though it’s the coolest place in the house.
We don’t see that on Earth.
We would have to see all “fridge” temperatures continually rise, and not going down, in order for global warming to be true.
Otherwise, the warming isn’t global, and the climate socialists don’t have a case.
Guest. Every time you loose then change the goalposts. It is important to nail down your points and challenge them one by one, otherwise you just switch back and forth.
“Not that there can even *be* such a thing as a “global climate” that can rise.”
By your logic we cannot say the house has warmed because there is a fridge in it. Obvious nonsense. It is perfectly sensible to say something is warming if we are putting more energy in that it is loosing.
I assume you have now moved to my position that it does make sense to talk about the “temperature” of the house, even if some bits of it are cooler.
Having dispensed with this objection, we move to the next. You next objection is that it is impossible for a general warming to result in some areas cooling. It is true that my fridge example does not address this, but it was necessary to address the first objection first.
Your second objection is also not supported by logic. As a premise it would be true for some systems, such as tank of water. However for the Earth it is not a true premise. Since the energy largely comes into the equator and is then transported towards the poles, it is trivially simple to put forward a premise that extra heating could reduce the rate of transport, which would then lead to cooling of some areas.
Logic cannot tell you which is right. Both systems are logically possible.
Therefore your claim that logic dictates that all areas must warm is untrue. This is because to make this a valid conclusion you have to introduce further premises which themselves are not true.
“Otherwise, the warming isn’t global, and the climate socialists don’t have a case”
Here you commit an equivocation fallacy. You are using global in two different senses. One means “everywhere” and the other means “overall”. If the only thing you object to is the term then I am happy to accommodate you and use another term.
Quote from Roy Spencer on WUWT
“Of course a “global temperature” doesn’t exist. But a global AVERAGE temperature for any altitude (or depth) you desire does exist.”
“By your logic we cannot say the house has warmed because there is a fridge in it.”
No. By my logic, if the temperature in each room (or, in the coldest room, accounting for wind) falls to the temperature that would obtain absent the existence of claimed extra sources of warming, then the claimed extra sources do not exist.
“It is perfectly sensible to say something is warming if we are putting more energy in that it is loosing.”
It *is* perfectly sensible to say that, but, as I said, since some areas get colder (again, accounting for seasons), we don’t actually observe the warming that would logically have to occur if the climate alarmists were right.
I actually said nothing, either for or against, the average temperature of the house in your analogy since that analogy was only intended as an attempt to use basic concepts of heat transfer to disprove me.
Not only did I say nothing about that, I actually showed you where your house analogy breaks down (the fridge has no doors, and such)
You quote someone later about average temperatures, and I want to hit that point when I get to that quote.
“Since the energy largely comes into the equator …”
You don’t say.
“… it is trivially simple to put forward a premise that extra heating could reduce the rate of transport, which would then lead to cooling of some areas.”
What you’re *not* saying, here, is that the rate of heating *slows*; You’re saying that areas are actually are *cooling* as a result of the increased heat.
So … increased heating leads to cooling. Got it.
It’s looking like my claim that logic dictates that all areas must warm if a “global warming” is taking place is, in fact, true.
“Here you commit an equivocation fallacy. You are using global in two different senses. One means “everywhere” and the other means “overall”.”
No, I’ve been consistent, throughout. What the climate socialists need, in order to be right, is a sustained rising temperature in every region, otherwise there is no global threat that needs to be solved by global socialism / Captain Planet.
“Quote from Roy Spencer on WUWT
“Of course a “global temperature” doesn’t exist. But a global AVERAGE temperature for any altitude (or depth) you desire does exist.””
Even the weather at different altitudes is regional, so no. This is false.
At an rate, the only temperatures that are going to matter for the climate socialists’ case are those where humans live their lives (which are going to be regional temperatures).
Aggregating *regional* *weather* data into a global average is meaningless.
My logic stands.
Why don’t socialists just stick to trying to argue the merits of the economics of their system? They have to obscure their attempts to destroy any freedom of markets.
Guest, I genuinely have no idea why you think that *logic* dictates that adding energy to a system cannot lead to some areas cooling.
I mean, just think of a fridge. You have to add energy to the fridge system to get some areas cooling.
“What you’re *not* saying, here, is that the rate of heating *slows*;
I am not saying it because it is not true.
“You’re saying that areas are actually are *cooling* as a result of the increased heat.”
Yes! This is certainly logically possible.
“So … increased heating leads to cooling. Got it.”
Yes! Increased heat can *logically* lead to cooling of some areas.
He’s got it! I think he’s got it!
“It’s looking like my claim that logic dictates that all areas must warm if a “global warming” is taking place is, in fact, true.”
What? No! Where did that come from? That is exactly the opposite of the case!
One more try.
You agree “It is perfectly sensible to say something is warming if we are putting more energy in that it is loosing.” You said that was perfectly sensible.
Ok, so if the “something” is the Earth, it is perfectly sensible to say the Earth is warming if more energy is entering than leaving.
Disregarding whether this is actually happening or not, you claim that it is logically impossible for *any* part of the Earth to cool if more energy is entering the Earth system than is leaving the Earth system.
Do you honestly think this is the case? We are not talking whether this is actually happening, just whether it is logically impossible.
It is trivial to prove this wrong logically. We just need a premise that more heat causes cooling in some areas.
If you disagree can you explain your logic in the form of premises and conclusions?
My syllogism is here:
1) heat is energy transferred from one system to another
2) Increased energy in a system can lead to some areas cooling
3) The Earth is a system
4) Increasing energy of the Earth can lead to some areas of the Earth cooling
5) Increasing energy is called heating
6) Warming is a type of heating
7) Warming the Earth can lead to some areas of the Earth cooling.
Perhaps the most egregious lie is at 43:27
“If you suggest any research that might suggest a solar cause its immediately banned and you career goes sideways”
Now, he is using the deniability technique of saying somebody told me” this, so when it is proved to be wrong he can say “I was just quoting what someone told me”
A very quick google search revealed this review “Solar influences on climate” with 166 references:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009RG000282
It is very clearly not the case that research into solar causes of climate change is banned.
Very similar story comes from many different people.
Ed Krug describes what happened to him when he gave his honest research results on acid soil and the type of trees that both love acid soil and also generate acid soil. The EPA promptly trashed Krug’s career because he wouldn’t toe their line on acid rain.
David Evans experienced this first hand, getting kicked out because he started asking questions. You have not seen it first hand … so I believe David.
Judith Curry resigned from Georgia Tech, John Christy and a bunch of others have reported being targeted.
https://dailycaller.com/2015/03/25/climate-witch-hunt-is-bad-for-science-bad-for-witch-hunters/
Then there was the Mann lawsuit against Tim Ball which has been dragged out for years (to best of my knowledge Mann never has been able to deliver his working for the “hocky stick” despite a Judge requesting this data). Has all the hallmarks of a SLAPP style action.
You can also search the article: “The BBC froze me out because I don’t believe in global warming: Outspoken as ever, David Bellamy reveals why you don’t see him on TV any more”
Long time polar bear researcher Mitchell Taylor was kicked out for saying that there is no problem with Canadian polar bear populations because mostly they are increasing (and that’s true, but runs counter to the panic narrative). This is from the Wikipedia page:
Almost everyone has accepted that money can have a corrupting influence … and scientists are by no means immune to that. Strangely though, we are supposed to believe that “big oil” corrupts the climate science while at the same time we have to pretend to ignore that massive corrupting influence of government grant money.
Probably one of the most extreme examples of what government grant money does would be David Finnigan paid out of tax dollars to write a play, “Kill Climate Deniers” which has recently run a season in Sydney. No that isn’t a scientific grant, it’s a political grant, but the purpose is clear: get people used to the idea of inflicting violence on those who disagree.
Then there were the leaked emails where the climate scientists saw themselves as gatekeepers, ensuring no alternative views would be published: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is”.
It’s a rather consistent pattern of behaviour.
Tel, we have proof that research on solar causes of climate change are not banned or career limiting because I have shown you 166 papers on that exact topic after a ten second search.
That is the point.
“Probably one of the most extreme examples of what government grant money does would be David Finnigan…”
I had not heard of this. It is funny how conservatives are all up in arms about free speech when racists are prevented from speaking at universities, but they shut down this play.
You just made a moral equivalence between murdering people and measuring IQ scores. I’m not sure if you are quite comfortable with that; or perhaps you simply don’t see the logical connection.
At any rate, this business of Charles Murray and his IQ research reveals a lot about the “Progressive” movement and their relation to science. They have never attempted to refute Murray (although I think there’s legitimate reasons to question how significant IQ tests are in the scheme of things) instead they shout, scream, misbehave, call for “incivility” and not only refuse to look at Murray’s results but also refuse to allow anyone else to hear Murray talk about his results. This is from the people who pretend to worship “Science” and “Reason” but what they really worship is power and see the scientific establishment as a convenient political tool.
You can see the same thing in the choice of words like “denier” and “believer” … these are the words of religion, not science. I’m happy for Christians to say, “We believe in God” because they openly admit this is an article of faith. It would be strange and confusing to hear Christians say, “We have measured God.”
You can see it again in the way “Progressives” attach moral virtue to certain scientific measurement and attach evil to other scientific measurements. It’s like a ruler or a clock might have a political opinion. True science is distinct from religion in as much as a true scientific observation cannot have a moral position. Possibly some interpretations of those scientific results might include personal bias, but not the measurements. It’s a fundamental category error. But “Progressive Science” is a whole different ballgame… EVERYTHING has a moral and political implication. That’s how you know it isn’t real science.
I did not mention Murray.
Conservatives tried, mostly successfully, to shut down “taking the knee” by imposing boycotts. Political correctness gone mad.
The term “denier” is appropriate where someone refuses to acknowledge all the evidence and only selects those parts that support their beliefs, even when that evidence is from discredited sources. It is important to maintain a distinction between genuine skeptics and deniers.
Just wanted to let people know that Communists have, in the past, explicitly admitted that the Climate Change agenda was really just an agenda to try to destroy Capitalism.
Van Jones Is The Ultimate Watermelon (Green Outside, Red Inside)
[www]https://www.epaabuse.com/537/watermelon-patch/van-jones-is-the-ultimate-watermelon-green-outside-red-inside/
PERSONNEL is POLICY Obama’s Marxist Green Jobs Czar Van Jones from Glenn Beck
[www]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgs1lq9PFXA
You’ll see the Left try and write Glenn Beck off as a conspiracy theorist for these claims, but the fact that Van Jones is a communist is proven not only in his beliefs, but also in his own words:
The New Face of Environmentalism
[www]https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-new-face-of-environmentalism/Content?oid=1079539&showFullText=true
“Jones’ fixation on solidarity dates from this experience. He took an objective look at the movement’s effectiveness and decided that the changes he was seeking were actually getting farther away. Not only did the left need to be more unified, he decided, it might also benefit from a fundamental shift in tactics. “I realized that there are a lot of people who are capitalists — shudder, shudder — who are really committed to fairly significant change in the economy, and were having bigger impacts than me and a lot of my friends with our protest signs,” he said.
“First, he discarded the hostility and antagonism with which he had previously greeted the world, which he said was part of the ego-driven romance of being seen as a revolutionary. “Before, we would fight anybody, any time,” he said. “No concession was good enough; we never said ‘Thank you.’ Now, I put the issues and constituencies first. I’ll work with anybody, I’ll fight anybody if it will push our issues forward. … I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.””