This is further to Jim’s post below on the Precautionary Principle and climate change; it also goes obliquely to a couple of Eric’s posts on the climate change debates. I’ve been meaning to raise Cass Sunstein and his very interesting book Worst-Case Scenarios in this context, but I’ll be very brief.
Jim points out that Friedman wants to “go Cheney on climate change” – meaning by that, Vice-president Cheney famously embraced the so-called 1% doctrine, according to which if some horribly, truly unacceptable catastrophe has a 1% chance of happening, you have to treat it as 100%. Sunstein points out, correctly, that Cheney has a potential contradiction here, because although that is his stance regarding terrorism, it is not his position regarding climate change. Cheney would have a response in this debate, that a single discrete event, such as a catastrophic terrorist attack, or even a series of them, is not really like the diffuse accumulation of changes over a long term that constitutes climate change. Several commentators made that observation with respect to Eric’s asteroid post, and I don’t want to carry that discussion further here, though I do think the disanalogies are very important in dealing with policy.
What I wanted to point out is that Friedman characterizes Sunstein’s view as follows:
[T]he legal scholar Cass Sunstein, who then was at the University of Chicago, pointed out that Mr. Cheney seemed to be endorsing the same “precautionary principle” that also animated environmentalists. Sunstein wrote in his blog: “According to the Precautionary Principle, it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events — such as climate change. Indeed, another vice president — Al Gore — can be understood to be arguing for a precautionary principle for climate change (though he believes that the chance of disaster is well over 1 percent).”
Friedman goes on to endorse the Cheney view as applied not to terrorism, but to climate change. What he does not mention is that Sunstein has an entire book, Worst-Case Scenarios, explaining why the Precautionary Principle is a bad idea whether applied to terrorism or to climate change. Sunstein’s book substitutes for the Precautionary Principle a far more subtle and complicated set of principles instead, principles that go precisely to the issues above that Friedman bulldozes over in the name of urging Cheney-ism with respect to climate change. (I, at least, did not think that evident from the Friedman column; one might have come away plausibly thinking that Friedman thought Sunstein would agree with him.)
Sunstein does, I take it, think climate change is real and that serious steps ought to be taken, perhaps even exactly those that Friedman urges. Those steps are much more, I also take it, than, say, a CBA consequentialist such as Bjorn Lomborg would see as justified. But certainly Sunstein does not reach whatever his exact views are on the basis of Friedman’s simplistic reasoning. (Friedman quotes from Sunstein’s blog but, with all respect to our scholarly blogging, sometimes one needs to read the book.) I won’t try to do justice to the many steps in Sunstein’s view, but just quote from early in the book (p. 14):
[N]otwithstanding its international influence, the Precautionary Principle is incoherent; it condemns the very steps that it requires. To see the point, imagine if we adopted a universal One Percent Doctrine [Cheney doctrine], forbidding any course of action that had a 1 percent chance of causing significant harm. The likely result would be paralysis, because so many courses of action would be forbidden. (Even doing nothing might be prohibited…) But narrower and better precautionary principles can be devised.
Sunstein’s insight here is the incoherence of the Precautionary Principle, in the form that Friedman (or Cheney) endorses it; it can’t be universalized as a guide to action. I have some problems with the alternatives provided in the book – to some extent, it seems as though principles are introduced ad hoc. I also don’t think the discussion of catastrophic terrorism is correct – although, to be sure, climate, not terrorism is really the focus of Worst Case Scenarios – for reasons that I discuss in part here (not brilliantly, alas, but anyway it makes this point). In any case, Sunstein is no fan of the Precautionary Principle as endorsed by Friedman – an observation that I think is more than merely pedantic.
ShelbyC says:
The precautionary principle seems demonstrably false. If you have a 100% chance of a catastrophe occuring that will kill 100% of the population, and you can avoid it by doing something that has a 90% chance of killing 100% of the population (or a 100% chance of killing 90% of the population), you should probably do it. No so with a catastrophe that has a 1% chance of killing 100% of the population.
Not to mention scenarios where there are two potential 1% probabily calamities that have opposing remedies.
December 9, 2009, 1:12 pmElliot says:
I’m not sure one can call a gradual increase in sea levels over a 100 year period a high impact event. We’re not talking about a tidal wave. A century gives each specific location quite enough time to deal with it’s particular situation.
December 9, 2009, 1:22 pmBrianMac says:
Does anyone, outside of Friedman, actually support that lunatic-version of the precautionary principle? I mean, Sunstein’s arguments are very persuasive, but I’m just not sure who he’s actually arguing against.
December 9, 2009, 1:24 pmArtifex says:
The universe has a mean sense of humor. I am convinced of we spend all of our resources fighting global warming, we are probably going to get whacked by a big space rock. Either that or the Yellowstone super cauldera will blow, releasing titanic amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and shrouding the skies for a year so all our nifty new solar tech doesn’t work and we all die of starvation. If that fails, some other low probability event will occur. Another possibility is a war with another aggressive nation so that it turns out that those resources should have been spent on the military. That would probably win the irony award.
Maybe if you can’t come up with real probabilities, we should just do what humans have always done:
Deal with the short term problems as best we can, sacrifice the vocal and annoying part of the population to appease the gods, and sit back and have a beer. Some things are just out of our control.
December 9, 2009, 1:40 pmArthurKirkland says:
A trip to Iraq (or any Federalist Society event involving foreign policy) could provide an answer to that question.
December 9, 2009, 1:58 pmwfjag says:
How is it than anyone can seriously argue for reliance on the precautionary principle in any situation:
President Clinton, V.P. Gore, Clinton’s NSC, his CIA Director and the intelligence services of the UK, Russia, France, Egypt, and many other nations, all contended that Saddam had or had an active program to develop WMDs, and so represented an immediate threat, or would soon represent an immediate existential threat to Iraq’s neighbors and vital U.S. interests. President Bush acted on that — applying the precautionary principle. I seem to recall that U.S. Senate Candidate Obama criticized that line of thinking.
The EPA (under the Nixon administration) declared in the absence of scientific evidence that DDT caused cancer, so that no nation DDT would receive foreign aid. Given that there are 500,000 to 1,000,000 annual deaths in Africa (together with several times that number in severe long term disabilities) from malaria, which could be easily controlled by proper use of DDT. This is a shining example of the effects of the precautionary principle in the environmental area.
Now, it is proposed — based on the precautionary principle — that we completely undermine our economy and the economies of most developed nations and ensure that the billions of people (and their descendents) in developing nations are trapped in lives that are short, brutish, and subject to famine and diseases that are easily avoided when the standard of living is raised. What a great idea!
December 9, 2009, 2:04 pmAnderson says:
Among the many problems identified in the report, the biggest one would be threats to coastal communities from rising sea water — a problem to which North Americans would gradually adapt.
I am trying to picture how New York City “gradually adapts” to being underwater. To say nothing of Miami, or any other number of coastal cities here and in other countries.
December 9, 2009, 2:07 pmSteve says:
I don’t think Friedman really believes there is only a 1% chance of serious harm from climate change. For that matter, I don’t think Cheney ever believed there was only a 1% chance of another terrorist attack. As explained in Suskind’s book, the 1% doctrine was more of a management philosophy than some kind of mathematical analysis.
December 9, 2009, 2:07 pmShelbyC says:
Upon reflection, the Precautionary Principle is a great idea for a beauraucracy. It’s a great way to get 100x the resources you need.
December 9, 2009, 2:08 pmSteve says:
I am trying to picture how New York City “gradually adapts” to being underwater.
We would gradually migrate to Albany, I think is the point.
Lindgren is another one who talks about the 1% doctrine without really meaning it. Clearly he thinks economic catastrophe is the guaranteed outcome of government action to address climate change, not merely a remote possibility.
December 9, 2009, 2:09 pmray_g says:
Many support it. It is often brought up in debates about genetically modified food crops, to name one example.
December 9, 2009, 2:14 pmEric Rasmusen says:
Sensibly applied, the idea behind the Precautionary Principle could be useful for global warming. The idea is that we should worry a lot about catastrophic low-probability events. The standard warmist scenario is not at all catastrophic. Adjusting to even a rise of 10 degrees farenheit over 100 years is just not that bad. It’s the difference between Atlanta and Boston, and people survive in Atlanta.
But there is a possible catastrophe. It would be because of runaway effects caused by, for example, methane being released from Siberian swamps.
Correct use of the precautionary principle would say that we should forget about little things like cap-and-trade and instead (a) study possible catastrophes very hard,and (b) work on geoengineering, since mere cutbacks don’t address the problem (we could well be heading to catastrophe just with our present warming, and maybe it’s too late to go back unless we can get rid of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere).
Thus, the precautionary principle really has the opposite implication of its standard use, which is to call for expensive CO2 cuts that won’t help with the small-probability, really-bad outcomes.
December 9, 2009, 2:14 pmShelbyC says:
It’s also clear from the article that Friedman thinks that the global warming countermeasures are something we should do anyway. It’s not hard to justify taking a risk if you think either outcome is beneficial. But he engages in a bit of the broken window falacy.
December 9, 2009, 2:17 pmAllan Walstad says:
It seems to me that the US Founders utilized a precautionary principle of sorts. They wanted to head off the possibility of tyranny. So we got a Constitution with limited and enumerated federal powers, with separation of powers and checks and balances, with a retrofitted Bill of Rights including 9A which makes clear that our liberty (unlike federal power) is not limited to the enumerated liberties, and 10A which makes clear that federal powers are indeed limited to the enumerated. At this point, given the trampling of Constitutional limits by several generations of pols, aided and abetted by their black-robed political appointees, I’m a lot more worried about the potential catastrophic results of giving additional power to people like Cass Sunstein (or Dick Cheney for that matter) than I am about climate change.
December 9, 2009, 2:24 pmPubliusFL says:
Land reclamation. Parts of New York City used to be underwater. Keeping it from going back under is an engineering challenge, but I doubt it compares to the one posed by keeping 60^ of the Dutch population living below sea level.
December 9, 2009, 2:25 pmEric Rasmusen says:
Suppose we are limited to spending at most one trillion dollars dealing with climate change. Suppose, too, we think that(a) there is a 99% chance that if we do nothing, the temperature will rise and cause 3 trillion dollars in harm to the global economy , (b) there is a 0% chance that the temperature won’t rise, and (c) there is a 1% chance that the temperature will rise dramatically, killing off 90% of the world’s population. The standard global warming line is that we should spend the trillion dollars on substituting other inputs for energy, to reduce CO2 output and prevent the loss of the 3 trillion dollars. The precautionary principle says that we shouldn’t waste the trillion dollars on that— we should spend it on geoengineering research and technology to deal with the 1% probability of disaster, instead.
You may be tempted to reply that both the CO2 reduction and the geoengineering projects should be undertaken. Well, suppose we have 5 trillion dollars to spend. Why shouldn’t we spend all 5 trillion on dealing with the 1% probability of disaster? The more we spend, the higher probability we avoid the disaster, so why divert any of the funds to non-disaster scenarios?
December 9, 2009, 2:27 pmwm13 says:
It wouldn’t be that hard. Seawalls, mostly. Most of New York City is many feet above sea level, so it’s just a few areas like the eastern end of Wall Street and Rockaway that face a problem.
December 9, 2009, 2:29 pmMark Buehner says:
Friedman writes:
Fascinating. But if Friedman bothered to check the sources of his own link, the WMO
So the study Friedman points to to support his ‘conventional wisdom’ that there are many independent research centers is getting its data from… the CRU.
It is critical to recognize that although there are many studies and scientists working on climate change there is only 1 database (since CRU ‘misplaced’ theirs) holding all the raw temperature data, and only 3 facilities that have developed the major datasets all these studies are based on (the CRU being one of them, and the other two working closing in concert as shown in the leaked emails).
December 9, 2009, 2:34 pmChrisIowa says:
Pullman, who created the Pullman railroad car, made his first fortune by raising the buildings in downtown Chicago, jacking them to a higher elevation and filling in the streets so that sewers could be installed.
Many buildings in your example, NYC, already have basements below sea level. It would not be a large technological leap to make what is now the first floor into anther basement, fill the streets to the top of the first floor and go on with life. You would only have to do this on the outer blocks, as they would for a dike to keep the sea out of the inner blocks.
Your lack of imagination does not mean that adaptation is impossible.
December 9, 2009, 2:34 pmRPT says:
This was Dick Cheney’s operating principle in the GWOT.
December 9, 2009, 2:36 pmMark Buehner says:
I’m trying to picture what study is suggesting NYC will be under water. Certainly not the IPCC, which estimates 10-23 inches in sea level rise over the next century as the very worst case scenario. Two feet of water over the next hundred years (worst case mind you) doesn’t exactly get me out working on an ark.
Demagoguery and hyperbole are a huge problem in this debate.
December 9, 2009, 2:38 pmguy in the veal calf office says:
What is a “CBA consequentialist”?
December 9, 2009, 3:10 pmpmorem says:
It seems to me that the “Precautionary Principle” is a variant of “Failure modes and effects analysis“.
I don’t believe it’s being applied correctly. In proper FMEA, all identifiable failure modes would be included in the analysis. This application of “Precautionary Principle” includes only a single failure mode.
As has been noted, we might get hit by a big rock, or Yellowstone might blow, or we might get into a nuclear war. By focusing on this single failure mode, we are potentially hampering our ability to address other faillure modes.
If you’re going to use “Precautionary Principle”, then use it. Analyze the potential adverse impacts of your application of the principle.
December 9, 2009, 3:11 pmDilan Esper says:
Friedman’s invocation of the precautionary principle is stupid. But it’s interesting that people are ignoring the other half of Friedman’s argument, which is that it isn’t at all clear that the costs of moving to a low-carbon economy will outweigh the benefits even if it is not needed to prevent a catastrophe.
I suspect that a lot of the opponents of carbon taxes and the like (at least not the ones who are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the coal industry) lack the imagination to foresee how a society can make itself richer while reducing consumption of particular resources. Or maybe they can see it happening on a micro level (I don’t think anyone doubts, for instance, that a carbon tax would be good for the manufacturers of solar roof panels) but can’t imagine how it couldn’t impose a gigantic cost on the economy as a whole. And it might impose that cost. But it also might not– if we can get the technology to work to power the same amount of human activity with less consumption of fossil fuels (for instance, with greater use of alternative energy sources), and/or shift human activities to less fossil-fuel consumptive habits (for instance, moving the focus of agriculture from big corn and big beef to more sustainable crops), it could be entirely possible to do this without a great cost. You just have to get the regulatory incentives right and see what the market can come up with.
The precautionary principle works best only on the margins– if we try this, we also get the side benefit of potentially heading off a low-probability high-magnitude harm.
December 9, 2009, 3:12 pmChrisTS says:
I saw an interesting series on TV last night (avoiding grading), called something like How the Earth was Made. One of the episodes focused on NYC, its geology, history, and vulnerability to hurricanes and earthquakes.
While global climate change might or might not increase the problem of earthquakes, it is likely to increase the strength and frequency of hurricanes. The Narrows, apparently, pose the greatest risk, as storm surges from the Atlantic would be forced through them at great speed and with great volume. I don’t think raising the buildings and creating seawalls would help to prevent underground – and subway – flooding or destruction of the bridges.
December 9, 2009, 3:13 pmMark Buehner says:
Yes, best to be judicious and acknowledge that the warming of the earth’s atmosphere MIGHT not increase the chances of earthquakes.
See my note above about demagoguery.
December 9, 2009, 3:18 pmwm13 says:
If it’s a good idea, the free market will produce this result. If Dilan Esper is so convinced that it’s a good idea, let him invest his money in solar energy startups. Let him find additional investors, if he wants. But I have noticed that people like Thomas Friedman (maybe Dilan Esper too, I don’t know) cannot conceive of any activity which doesn’t involve themselves being in charge and forcibly coercing financing from other less enlightened people.
December 9, 2009, 3:19 pmMark Buehner says:
Btw the study Friedman points to as an independent source of warming evidence draws its data from… the CRU. Its a misnomer that there is tons of independent data out there, there are 3 datasets (one of which is the CRU) based off 1 database, and the 3 facilities work closely together.
December 9, 2009, 3:21 pmwws says:
Re: Eric Rasmussen, I understand your point and it’s a valid one. I want to seize on one condition of your hypothetical and use it to illustrate the greatest flaw in using this “precautionary principle” in solving real world problems.
one of your conditions was “(b) there is a 0% chance that the temperature won’t rise.” The problem is that is an *impossible* condition. Forecasting science is not that good, can *never* be that good. There is always going to be a chance with this kind of statistical measurement and forecast that the conclusions are going to be completely wrong.
A more realistic condition is that (a) there is a 1% chance of a runaway heating that would destroy the world, and (b) there is a 1% chance of a new ice age that would cover the world in glaciers again. (c) there is a 98% chance that the earth is self regulating and temperature will revert to the mean all on it’s own.
One remote possiblity would call for curtailing CO2, but the other equally remote possiblity calls for pumping out as much CO2 as possible as quickly as possible. The most probable turn of events calls for doing nothing at all. How can the precautionary principle help to choose a course of action? It can’t.
The best course of action is to use available money on real problems, of which this world has many, and not on theoretical problems that may or may not happen.
December 9, 2009, 3:26 pmDilan Esper says:
If it’s a good idea, the free market will produce this result.
For all sorts of reasons, markets don’t always work.
As I said, this is a failure of imagination. And people who repeat the mantra “markets always work” over and over again REALLY lack imagination.
December 9, 2009, 3:37 pmAnthony says:
Not exactly. If we’re just looking at instrumental temperature records, the NASA dataset is independent from the set used by the CRU (not that ‘two’ is ‘tons’). In general, you’re not going to get a lot of competition in this kind of data collection because it’s fairly expensive to do right and the benefit of multiple sources is quite limited. However, temperature records are not the only source of evidence of warming — melting polar ice is pretty strong evidence of global warming, and there are plenty of independent sources for that.
December 9, 2009, 3:37 pmMark Buehner says:
CRU says they lost/didn’t retain their raw data, and the only compilation left (as I understand it) is at the GHCN. I don’t believe they were ever entirely ‘independent’ considering they were drawn from the same stations.
True. All the less reason for claims to be made of multiple independent sources. I think a large number of AGW warriors don’t understand just what a high percentage of all the studies is linked to Jones and the CRU.
All of which have a variety of problems (the tree rings show a decline in temps since 1960). The Arctic ice is warming and melting, but the Antarctic is colder and growing. We only have 30 years worth of satellite data to work with, far too small of a window to draw conclusions about whether the current warming is unprecedented (and cataclysmic) or entirely within the norm, or (as I suspect) somewhere in between.
And that’s ultimately the only question that matters. The historic data is critical because its the only thing that can tell us if the pace of warming is actually dangerous, and just HOW dangerous. That tells us what level of resources we should be spending to deal with it.
December 9, 2009, 3:52 pmSteve says:
If it’s a good idea, the free market will produce this result.
Thank you, Stephen Colbert. Yes, the free market has repeatedly proven itself flawless at long-term planning as well as dealing with externalities!
December 9, 2009, 3:57 pmMark Buehner says:
And for the record, the antarctic ice is not melting:
December 9, 2009, 4:05 pmAnthony says:
The GHCN(NOAA) dataset is not the same as the GISTEMP(NASA) dataset.
The Antarctic is shrinking, several major ice shelves have collapsed. It’s possible that the ice is getting deeper in areas, but given sea level measurements, it’s clear that globally, net melting is occurring.
December 9, 2009, 4:11 pmMr L says:
Yes, the free market has repeatedly proven itself flawless at long-term planning as well as dealing with externalities!
Compared to the government?
December 9, 2009, 4:13 pmNobody At All says:
Is there any reason to believe that ice patterns may differ between:
1) A body of water, surrounded by land; and
2) A body of land, surrounded by water?
Also – I’m somewhat befuddled as to why Jim Lindgren does not accept comments. It doesn’t seem very likely that comments on this site would take issue with unsupported assertions such as that it is “highly likely” that climate legislation will “impoverish” the world, or refute or distinguish contrary studies.
December 9, 2009, 4:14 pmBlue says:
Why does anyone take Friedman seriously on any issue??? I mean, this is a guy so mindnumbingly stupid that he thinks turning a globe into a flat sheet of paper is an effective analogy for increasing levels of closeness!
December 9, 2009, 4:20 pmMark Buehner says:
I’m not talking about the GISS dataset, i’m talking about the GHCN database that GISTEMP draws its data from. GHCN is the clearing house that all of the worlds climate stations send their data to.
Err… not according to the people, you know, drilling ice cores and monitoring sea ice:
…
December 9, 2009, 4:24 pmMark Buehner says:
Fine- forget ice patterns. The thermometers say the antarctic has grown physically colder (see above link).
December 9, 2009, 4:27 pmShelbyC says:
Of course it hasn’t proven itself flawless, nor does it have to. But it has proven itself generally significantly better than centeral planning, which is enough to say we should presumptively allow the free market to deal with the energy problem, absent compelling evidence that centeral planning would result in a better solution.
December 9, 2009, 4:30 pmShelbyC says:
Well, government programs don’t always work either.
December 9, 2009, 4:31 pmwm13 says:
But the Carter synfuels program, now that was a Dilan Esper triumph! I guess I just lack the “imagination” to appreciate how brilliant it was. Also the Concorde, it’s amazing how the stupid U.S. private sector didn’t appreciate how important supersonic transport was going to be, and permitted the farseeing French and British governments to dominate this vital industrial sector. And the . . . o, never mind, I guess the tiresome recitation of actual historical examples just proves my lack of imagination.
December 9, 2009, 4:35 pmsk says:
“meaning by that, Vice-president Cheney famously embraced the so-called 1% doctrine, according to which if some horribly, truly unacceptable catastrophe has a 1% chance of happening, you have to treat it as 100%. Sunstein points out, correctly, that Cheney has a potential contradiction here, because although that is his stance regarding terrorism, it is not his position regarding climate change. Cheney would have a response in this debate, that a single discrete event, such as a catastrophic terrorist attack, or even a series of them, is not really like the diffuse accumulation of changes over a long term that constitutes climate change.”
Am I the only one that instantly recognized that Cheney has another (self-evident) out from this contradiction-namely that he doesn’t think catastrophic climate change has a 1% chance of happening?
Sk
December 9, 2009, 4:44 pmDilan Esper says:
Compared to the government?
Depends.
Unfortunately, it’s possible to be really simple-minded about economics, but economics isn’t that simple.
December 9, 2009, 4:50 pmDilan Esper says:
Of course it hasn’t proven itself flawless, nor does it have to. But it has proven itself generally significantly better than centeral planning
1. Not all government intervention in the economy = central planning (a term that generally refers to public administration of sectors of the economy, rather than taxes and regulations of private economic activity).
2. Even with respect to central planning, it depends what activity you are talking about and what you are trying to accomplish.
December 9, 2009, 4:51 pmDilan Esper says:
shorter wm13:
Because I can name some specific public sector investments that were unwise, this proves that there’s no way a carbon tax could incentivize economically beneficial activity.
December 9, 2009, 4:52 pmSteve says:
But it has proven itself generally significantly better than centeral planning, which is enough to say we should presumptively allow the free market to deal with the energy problem, absent compelling evidence that centeral planning would result in a better solution.
Well, it’s evident to most people that the free market is better at some things, and government is better at other things. I wouldn’t even disagree with you that markets should be the default position. But we don’t have to be stupid and pretend that free markets will necessarily take care of a pollution problem or there must not be a problem.
When Bush wanted to invade Iraq, where were all the conservatives saying “we should let the free market handle this problem”? In retrospect, it might have done a better job…
December 9, 2009, 4:55 pmShelbyC says:
I’ll take you one step further: Given the complexity of the economy, vs. the capacity of the human mind (cheap shot opening :0) it’s impossible not to be really simple-minded about economics.
December 9, 2009, 4:56 pmShelbyC says:
I didn’t see him saying that the costs outweighed the benefits, I thought he was saying that the benefits were nonzero and that that was reason enough. Maybe that is what you meant about people being simple-minded about economics? :-)
December 9, 2009, 5:04 pmlgm says:
This is a false equivalence. Qualified scientists around the world, including the 90% of them not connected in any way to climate-gate, believe that the scientific evidence in the public domain for global warming is overwhelming. Cheney made his 1% remark as claims of Iraqi WMDs were being exposed as deliberate fabrications on his part.
In a different world we could have a debate about what to do about a 1% chance of global warming. In our world, global warming is a near certainty. All major scientific bodies, many independent data sources, many different modeling groups in different countries, many early predictions confirmed, large rapid (in a climate time scale) temperature increases measured, … .
By the way, Lundgren doesn’t seem to allow comments on his posts. Maybe he doesn’t have the courage to read them?
December 9, 2009, 5:06 pmShelbyC says:
You got me. The extent to which oil prices affect our foreign policy is a great example of externalities.
December 9, 2009, 5:07 pmMark Buehner says:
Name them.
December 9, 2009, 5:07 pmwm13 says:
So everyone here agrees that a Obama/Friedman style subsidies for the development of “green” technology are a really dumb idea, possibly dumber than the Concorde, and all of us oppose that sort of plan, and the open question is whether some sort of broad-based carbon tax, with offsetting income tax reductions, would be a good idea? Wow. I’m glad that’s settled.
December 9, 2009, 5:11 pmAnthony says:
GISTEMP doesn’t draw its data from GHCN. CRU draws its data from GHCN.
Sea levels are rising. The water is coming from somewhere, and the only candidate is glaciers melting, because there is no other sufficiently large water source.
December 9, 2009, 5:18 pmMark Buehner says:
The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations. The basic analysis method is described by Hansen et al. (1999), with several modifications described by Hansen et al. (2001) also included.
GISTEMP home page.
I see. The facts are wrong. How do you argue against that?
December 9, 2009, 5:22 pmRPT says:
By blocking comments on the most hysterical and bandwith grabbing posts on this site, Lindgren demonstrates his lack of faith in the freemarket of ideas.
December 9, 2009, 5:25 pmTaltos says:
I can’t speak for him, but I imagine it had something to do with the tendency for the comments on every post he made turning in a sea of “you’re an evil shill(stooge, etc.) for the republicans(bush, oil companies, insert your favorite boogieman)…” in a matter of minutes.
December 9, 2009, 5:36 pmroad2serfdom says:
The left will never forgive him for exposing Bellesiles.
December 9, 2009, 5:42 pmCrust says:
Actually there are two reasons for sea level to rise. The other is thermal expansion of water. But yes the glaciers are melting.
December 9, 2009, 5:44 pmKen Arromdee says:
Since this site is not government-run, free market principles do not require letting everyone comment in it. In this case, the free market of ideas means that other people can have other blogs with different ideas.
December 9, 2009, 5:44 pmRPT says:
So much for the value of “robust debate”; “They said mean things about me so I turned off their microphone…..” Pretty weak.
December 9, 2009, 5:45 pmAnthony says:
Okay, I’m wrong on that, GISTEMP is just a different processing method on the same raw data. Given that it’s working off of raw data, however, methodological errors by other sources wouldn’t be relevant, so unless the data is wrong it doesn’t matter how anyone else has misused the data.
Not what I said. Data can easily be correct and yet be missing something important (in this case, the data is for a single location, and thus is nearly certain to be missing things of importance). I just said that global ice levels had to be decreasing to account for the extra water, not that ice levels in any one area were decreasing.
December 9, 2009, 5:50 pmMark Buehner says:
1.Sea levels have been rising gradually since the last ice age. They are currently rising perhaps 3mm per year.
December 9, 2009, 5:53 pm2.Glaciers melting are a tiny percentage of this
3.Thermal expansion is real, and since indeed the earth has warmed over the last few decades, it is the prime culprit.
4.None of this indicates the antarctic is melting, because it isn’t.
RPT says:
Th debate is over. Dr. Palin has spoken.
December 9, 2009, 5:59 pmFrancis says:
Mark: how does the non-melting of antarctica disprove the current GCMs that demonstrate AGW?
[note: the correct answer is that the question is poorly posed, because the situation in the antarctic is consistent with current models. see here.] Claiming that the current situation in the Antarctic disproves AGW is similar to arguing that the failure of cats to give birth to dogs disproves evolution. It just ain’t so.
December 9, 2009, 6:04 pmMark Buehner says:
Which is exactly what I said in the first place. NASA(GISSTEMP), NOAA(noaamergedtemp), and the CRU(HADCRUT3) all use raw data collected by NOAA at the GHCN. They are the 3 datasets used in nearly all the studies that rely on historic temperature measurements.
The question of whether the data is wrong or has been damaged is always something to consider when you are drawing from a single source. The question of whether 3 datasets are enough is a bigger questions- because within the datasets you introduce qualitative assumptions (as opposed to just reading a thermometer). It is the adjusted data of the datasets the has been called into question at the CRU, and they can’t produce the metadata that explains their adjustments. GISS, NOAA, and the CRU all work very closely together indeed (read the leaked emails). My point is that groupthink and confirmation bias are very dangerous when you have a very small group of scientists from 3 organizations working on 1 set of raw data and talking to each other constantly.
But you are wrong about that. See my note above. Its entirely possible for the sea levels to be modestly rising (at most 3mm a year) and not have the poles cataclysmically melting.
December 9, 2009, 6:08 pmMark Buehner says:
It doesn’t, and I never claimed it did. Anthony posed the assertion that the ice caps were melting as strong evidence of AGW. I simply rebutted that assertion with the facts.
Astonishing, considering the models are designed to mimic the current and recent state. Now if they can predict anything that comes true i might take note.
Claiming that I made a claim I didn’t make is an easy way to slay a straw man.
December 9, 2009, 6:11 pmNobody at All says:
The last post that I can find in which he allowed comments is “Governor Confuses Democracy With Socialism.” He might consider whether his considerable gift of hyperbole invites a class of responses different from that which his co-bloggers invite.
It is also unclear what reproducing posts virtually verbatim from other blogs accomplishes, which a simple link would not.
December 9, 2009, 6:26 pmAnthony says:
Let’s see: my original assertion was that rising sea levels indicated an increase in global temperature. Apparently my argument is flawed because global temperature is increasing?
December 9, 2009, 6:34 pmIcePilot says:
What parts of the U.S. economy aren’t evil?
Bad: insurance companies, surgeons (amputate feet & tonsillectomies), drug companies, big oil, Halliburton, Blackwater, Wall street, weapon manufacturers, etc.
Good: Unions, Hollywood, Congress (but only the liberal majority) and community organizers……
December 9, 2009, 6:38 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Quick Note on Sunstein and the Precautionary Principle -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ella Chou and PostRank – Law, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: Quick Note on Sunstein and the Precautionary Principle: This is further to Jim’s post below on the Precautionar.. http://bit.ly/7OvXtz [...]
December 9, 2009, 7:36 pmNedLudd says:
As a working environmental lawyer I’ve heard people cite “The Precautionary Principle” innumerable times. Yet, from what I can tell, there really is no such “Principle.” I have yet to see any formal expression of it. Instead, what I see is code for “we’re gonna do this even though it makes no sense because we’re scared.” I don’t regard this as crazy, even if it is irrational. We all act on our fears. The problem, in my view, is the pretense that doing the irrational makes rational sense.
The idea that applying such a “principle” is like buying insurance is silly. Insurance is the exact opposite. What insurance does is establish a monetary amount to deal with the consequences of a contingent event. Such an event can be merely uncertain as to time, like death or earthquakes, or unlikely to occur at all, like a terrorist attack. But the insurance is never intended to prevent the event, only to fund the recovery from it. The insurance point of view is the Lomborg approach to AGW. His idea, as I understand it, is to get richer and healthier so you can afford to deal with the consequences when they come. So, it seems Tom Friedman actually agrees with Lomborg.
What a surprise.
December 9, 2009, 7:40 pmmark buehner says:
Anthony, for the record you said melting polar ice was a strong indication of warming. I simply corrected vis the south pole. If both poles were radily melting away (as per pop culture), that would be strong evidence of unprecidented, cataclysmic warming.
I don’t doubt the earth has warmed- the question is is it still warming and is it unprecidented and hence dangerous. On that score the science is both limited abd growingly shady (see hockey srtick controversy).
December 9, 2009, 8:25 pmRobert Goodman says:
If the climate were already as feared global warming would cause, and then some feared the climate would change to what we actually have now, wouldn’t our existing climate be described as a “living hell” to be avoided at all cost?
December 9, 2009, 9:05 pmElliot says:
When new buildings are constructed they are on higher ground or in different cities. Populations gradually migrate from low areas to higher areas. We have seen this in the growth of suburbs. There are lots of places that were farmland fifty years ago and are now thriving towns.
December 9, 2009, 10:21 pmElliot says:
How do you know that is true?
December 9, 2009, 10:40 pmThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Applying the Precautionary Principle Consistently says:
[...] to reject all the available options, which isn’t exactly helpful. For that reason, I agree with Cass Sunstein’s view that it is ultimately a poor guide to policy. But those who do believe in it have to be consistent [...]
December 9, 2009, 10:45 pmIcePilot says:
“Qualified scientists around the world, including the 90% of them not connected in any way to climate-gate, believe that the scientific evidence in the public domain for global warming is overwhelming.”
The more non-climate scientists, mathematicians and engineers learn about climategate, the sooner the term “climate scientist” is recognized as an oxymoron. Now that the raw data, tweaks to the data and the computer code for the model are being analyzed, truth will out. And by not admitting that the raw data had been tossed, until forced to by the (hacked or leaked) emails, the credibility of Jones, et al, are destroyed. I know how science is supposed to be done – this ain’t it.
December 9, 2009, 11:46 pmBruce Hayden says:
Actually, it is irrelevant. AGW =/= GW, or maybe GW =/=> AGW (with =/=> meaning “does not imply”). Coming our of the Little Ice Age would likely result in GW. Also, while some have shown rising sea levels, that has primarily been through indirect methodologies, and direct measurements seem to indicate the opposite, that there is very little sea leve rise.
December 10, 2009, 12:45 amBruce Hayden says:
I am not sure if I can agree with that. Apparently, a number of schools have instituted climate studies programs, which may indicate that the subject is here to stay.
And, that may be somewhat to the good. Once we get over the attempt to utilize the flawed climate studies of today to socialize much of the 1st World countries, and admit how much is not known about the subject, we are rapidly coming to the place where we will have the capabilities to seriously study this subject.
BTW – one of the funniest things I saw today about Copenhagen was that Cuba is being held out as the example that we should all live by in terms of Global Warming (as well as health care, and several other areas in which they apparently excel). Another is all the advocacy groups of liberal/ progressive/ socialist/etc. bent that have congregated there that have no real tie to climate study. Oppressed women of the world for protection of polar bears endangered by global warming. That sort of thing.
December 10, 2009, 12:54 amzuch says:
Ummmm, nope. The RW/hawks handed around a bunch of quotes that purported to show this, but they did nothing of the sort.
Cheers,
December 10, 2009, 7:55 amlgm says:
(Might one say the same about “Federalist scholar”?) That’s not what the professional societies think. The APS (American Physical Society) endorses the opinions of climate scientists in this matter, as does the NAS (National Academy of Sciences).
As an actual working scientist who spends ten hours a day in the company of other working scientists, I can tell you that the general opinion is that the “climate-gate” emails are normal scientific chatter. They do not indicate fraud or falsifying data or other unethical behavior. They do show concern about their field and frustration with non-scientific political opposition to their research. Read James Watson’s book “Double Helix” for more examples of science trash talking.
December 10, 2009, 8:05 amMark Buehner says:
So when the emails specifically discuss fraud and unethical behavior, this doesn’t indicate unethical behavior?
Do the scientists in your company typically tell each other to erase emails during a FOIA saga? Do they threaten to destroy data rather than turn it over? Do they conspire to get journal editors fired and keep papers out of publication?
If what you are saying were true (which obviously is not the case) we’d have a FAR bigger problem on our hands than we thought.
December 10, 2009, 9:18 amEd Darrell says:
I’d like to see that declaration from the Nixon administration. I have never found anywhere that anyone decared DDT to be a potent enough carcinogen to cause serious worry, and no case whatsoever where any regulatory action on DDT was premised on human carcinogenicity. But of course, now we know that DDT is a carcinogen, though probably very mild in humans. Every cancer-fighting agency on Earth notes it as a “probable” human carcinogen. Were it found not to be carcinogenic in humans, it would be the only mammal carcinogen that does not also affect humans with all other mammals.
Under the Delaney Clause, an addition to FDA’s governing laws, which is of 1958 vintage, DDT would be disqualified as a food additive — but the Nixon administration, supernatural as it may have been, did not have the power to reach back a decade to change laws.
When EPA changed the label on DDT in 1972, it left DDT legal for manufacture in the U.S. for export to Africa and Asia specifically. If you have a foreign aid block on spending U.S. funds to purchase DDT, I’d like to see that, too. The only official action I’ve found is a mysterious rule during the most recent Bush administration, which USAID refused to explain in a hearing to pro-DDT Sen. Tom Coburn. Coburn simply asked why USAID wasn’t spending money on DDT. To that point, I think it was unknown that there was any official restriction on the use of U.S. funds for such purchases. WHO, or a nation that wanted to, could have purchased DDT on its own, with money freed up by U.S. foreign aid.
No malaria-fighting agency has asked for more DDT. As WHO noted, mosquitoes in Africa began becoming resistant and immune to DDT in the middle 1960s, which was why WHO stopped using it then.
Personally, I think it’s quite patronizing, in all the worst ways, to suggest Africans aren’t smart enough to spend their insect-fighting money wisely, and to assume that DDT isn’t broadly used in Africa because those patronized Africans were frightened into that stance by a phantom rule by some intergalactic agency that has never been identified which tried to stop the use of DDT in Africa.
South Africa used DDT constantly from 1946 to 1996, and then sporadically thereafter. Oddly, malaria clings on in those countries where DDT use is legal and/or unrestricted, but has been eliminated in those nations where DDT was banned for some uses. It may be, the natural evidence suggests, that DDT is no panacea against malaria.
Darrell’s Corollary of the Precautionary Principle as modified by Murphy’s Law and Santatyana’s Observation: If there’s even only a 1% chance someone will get history wrong, it will be stated incorrectly. And then we’ll all pay.
December 10, 2009, 12:22 pmEd Darrell says:
For those skeptical of the case for global warming, I have a couple of questions: How did all these scientists get the birds, plants, agricultural crops, forests, glaciers (especially those in conservative Utah), Ross Ice Shelf, and polar bears to go along with their scheme?
And, taking careful note that socialism is not friend of the environment and that Marxists perpetrated some of the greatest environmental disasters of the last century or so, and considering that there is no great purse of money for climate researchers who discover warming, what in hell is their motivation?
December 10, 2009, 12:38 pmMark Buehner says:
A better question is how any of that is relevant to the case for AGW? Unless you have some actual data to point to of course. Haven’t we seen enough of the old ‘everybody knows’ routine (and seen it demolished pretty spectacularly)?
December 10, 2009, 1:41 pmJohn Moore says:
There’s a couple of problems here.
First, you will find lots and lots of folks who adhere to various forms of Marxist theories who simply ignore the environmental disasters caused by the Communist regimes. They believe that when *they* are in charge of the socialist state, they will do *good things.* These well meaning folks are, by selection bias, ignorant of the dangers of their ideas.
As to the motivations of scientists, these days big science runs on funding and ego and professional advancement. All of those incentives are subject to distortion by those with a true agenda, and the earth scientists I know, including climatologists, stay clear of the AGW field exactly because it has become so distorted by politics (with its impact on that agenda, and the integrity of those who work in the field). They know that in order to work in the field, their results must support AGW, and they are unwilling to prostitute their scientific integrity to such requirements.
December 10, 2009, 2:17 pmEd Darrell says:
Seriously? 58 species of birds in the continental 48 states of the U.S. have significantly altered their migratory and nesting patterns because of warming. Robins stopped nesting in much of the Rockies, for example, and moved lower. Lake effect snows keep their nesting sites and brood-feeding insects covered up longer.
Spring moves up about 8 hours each year. 30 years ago the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival was timed for the start of the buds, on April 5. This last year the blossoms were gone by March 30.
No big deal, unless you’re a farmer trying to match planting or harvesting with temperature and rainfall, or if you’re in shipping and you need to watch storms, or you’re in the airline business and you need to watch migrating flocks, or . . . a dozen other industries where spring really means something.
Plant zones are moving. No big deal, of course, unless you grow
flowers in Los Angeles(oops — air pollution took that industry out 50 years ago) wheat in Kansas or Nebraska, or corn in Iowa, and suddenly the growing temperature hits optimum about the time the rains start, instead of when the corn or wheat can really use it, later.What will Kansas do when wheat is gone?
Our insurance rates are higher in Texas due to global warming. It is likely that yours are, too. Frankly, I’d prefer to have that $1,000/year back.
How big a rock have you been living under the past century? How can anyone miss this stuff? Haven’t we seen enough of this “I don’t know, so nobody else knows either” routine?
What do you think your county extension agent is for?
December 10, 2009, 3:31 pmMark Buehner says:
I see an assertion. I don’t see any proof. How often in the 1800s did these species change their patterns? The 1000s? Oh, you don’t know. Rather a relevant question isn’t it? I’ve changed my migratory patterns in the last 20 years from kindergarten to pub crawls. Does that prove AGW? Or is it possible that correlation does not imply causation?
Yes. The big rock where I learned that the earth is not a static ecosystem. I learned that it would be incredibly simply to note every change on the planet and attribute it to global warming and probably get some buckethead in the media to advertise it.
Tell me- exactly what year was the ‘perfect’ year for flowers to bloom and robins to nest? Assumedly every year before and since was a disaster. I’d just like to know what your imaginary Eden looks like.
December 10, 2009, 4:17 pmMark Buehner says:
San Francisco 49ers haven’t won a Superbowl in 20 years. Global Warming.
No more Seinfeld Episodes in 10 years. Global Warming.
Tens of thousands of US Troops in Afghanistan. Global Warming.
Decline of the Big 3 auto makers. Global Warming.
Prove I’m wrong.
December 10, 2009, 4:24 pmMark Buehner says:
And btw, its 15d below zero wind chill in Chicago today, you picked a bad day for this nonsense. Oh, I forgot- that’s just weather. Don’t draw any crazy conclusions from so minuscule an amount of data. Heh.
December 10, 2009, 4:27 pmEd Darrell says:
I forgot to provide the link to Audubon’s site with the recent migration findings, my error.
Audubon has 110 years of the Christmas bird count data. So far as I know, there is no database even 1.0% that long to contradict the findings of migration change. Can anyone offer such data?
December 10, 2009, 5:52 pmEd Darrell says:
[This post didn't show up -- did I forget to click "submit" after preview? I hope this doesn't result in a double post. My apologies if so.]
And I see less than an assertion from you, and wild rantings. So, now that we’ve established you grant no credence to well-known and well-established findings of science, where do we go? Should I scoff at your claims in the same manner? Perhaps we could look for data.
You assume that you have questions the ornithologists haven’t thought of, which is, to me, rather hubristic. Do you watch birds? Do you check the ornithological journals?
From the Royal Society, we find a paper relying on 42 years of direct observations. These observations are rather unequivocal for warming in those 42 years, a period in which many denialists I’ve spoken with also want “proof.” Your completely unfounded assertion is that there are no data for earlier years. Interesting hypothesis. What are your data? What does the literature show? The Royal Society is the group that has sun observations for nearly half a millennium, and moth observations dating back at least 150 years on a classic example of evolution. If you wish to argue that there are no earlier data, please offer some evidence that there are none, or that they would be different somehow. Have you looked?
Nature published an article in 2002 showing several species across different animal types. Some of the historic data you seek will be found in the 1990s publication of an earlier Swedish book, Bird Migration. This book, also called Bird Migration, urges that Aristotle was the first to make serious studies of bird migration — I assume some of his data have been lost, but none was lost at Hadley. Some data go back 1,000 years.
This 2004 piece in Oecologia notes that rising temperatures affect birds and plants differenty, which may pose difficulty for seed-eaters, or birds dependent on insects from one species of plant.
This 2001 article in Science hints at how solid are the data for certain periods in certain places over the last 150 years.
Now, I have not provided anything here that clearly and perfectly rebuts the unevidenced assertions made. But when one dives into the actual journals, and realizes that we’ve had bird banding for more than a century, plus more recent satellite tracking, and that these records correlate powerfully with observations dating back about a thousand years, I think it should be clear that the burden of proving allegations that migrations have fluctuated wildly in the past is not one borne now by those who take note of warming, but is instead a burden borne by those who argue that we don’t know. Why should we not assume, as scripture tells us, that these patterns are ancient, and that they are continuations of patterns that remain relatively static, until signficant change pushes them in one direction or another?
We have good observation records in the U.S. back to 1750 on most bird migration and population numbers. We can relatively accurately track the decline of the bald eagle from 1750 through 1972, and pin changes in that decline on particular causes. We can pin ‘em well enough to stand up in court, and that’s good enough for me.
In the face of massive mountains of data on migratory changes attributed by observation to warming, it takes more than a mere assertion that the authors didn’t know what they were talking about.
Do you think your migration to pub crawls is caused by warming? What evidence have you of that? Are the flowers you eat blossoming in pubs now? Do the insects you eat breed, or molt, or go through a critical life-cycle in pubs now?
Or is your hypothesis an anti-science SWAG? Scientists generally don’t start from such hypotheses, but instead record the data that lead them to make the hypothesis they test.
I wish some in the denialist cabal would do the same. I wish anyone in the denialist cabal would do the same. In creationism, we now after two court cases 20 years apart that it is not bias that keeps creationists out of the science journals, but sloth or complete lack of data on the creationist side. There are known migratory shifts caused by other changes in habitat, or crowding, or opening of niches (such as the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1913). One would think that to oppose the claims of migratory shifts, one might hit those studies. Of course, if one does hit and cite those studies, one will find ornithologists are quite aware of them, and consider those issues in working to conclusions.
Very little in science is shoot-from-the-hip. Sometimes when I read legal blogs, I grow concerned for the law professions. Little there should be shoot-from-the-hip, either, I think.
There is no prima facie case for any of those assertions. Surely we know the difference between valid and invalid claims, between a case that needs rebutting, and summary judgment.
Good point. It’s good that you note North America is the exception this year, and that the rest of world makes this among the warmest years ever recorded, on the way to making the past decade the warmest ever. Look at the entire case — a good reminder.
December 10, 2009, 5:55 pmEd Darrell says:
There is also a post prior to 5:52 with a lot more stuff in it that, I assume, has gone to moderation because of the number of links.
December 10, 2009, 6:00 pmShelbyC says:
I didn’t see any “hockey sticks” in the audubon data. Have these patterns been static for a gazillion years and suddenly start changing over the past hundred years, or did they always fluctuate?
December 10, 2009, 7:21 pmEd Darrell says:
Good point. It’s good that you note North America is the exception this year, and that the rest of world makes this among the warmest years ever recorded, on the way to making the past decade the warmest ever. Look at the entire case — a good reminder.
December 10, 2009, 10:18 pmEd Darrell says:
There is no prima facie case for any of those assertions. Surely we know the difference between valid and invalid claims, between a case that needs rebutting, and summary judgment.
December 10, 2009, 10:19 pmEd Darrell says:
Shelby,
Yes, the migration patterns have been relatively stable since Europeans got here, with a few exceptions. The stories of the extinction of the Great Auk and passenger pigeon are well known; counts on eagles go back to at least 1750 (they were heavily targeted by hunters and farmers from 1750 to 1941).
December 10, 2009, 10:22 pmEd Darrell says:
Name the “Marxists” pushing for action on global warming, please. I find more people who adhere to various Marxist theories at our local Tea Party confabs than in the mostly-science-literate ranks of people pushing for action to mitigate effects of global warming, and perhaps target the causes. There are a lot of Tea Partiers who are quite happy to co-opt the propaganda techniques of committed Marxists. The mau-mauing of the Congress and press is a prime example.
What principle of Marxism is historically favorable to environmental protection? I know of none. Protection of property and collectively-owned real estate is a powerful principle in capitalist nations, but not so much in other places. Take a look at Ken Burns’s series on the National Parks. Prior to the U.S. setting aside Yellowstone, such parks were created from the estates of monarchs and the hyper-rich. Marxism rejected much of that, by rejecting the idea of great wealth amassment by anyone other than the state.
Our American conservation tradition arose in the Republican Party among committed capitalists who foresaw the dangers of letting valuable things slide into decay because of uncaring or unwitting actions on the parts of people who didn’t know better — from the Rockefellers, Carnegie, Ford, Edison, and even J. P. Morgan to some extent. It’s an occasionally offensive noblesse oblige argument, but it’s based in history, and it’s a fact. Where in Marxism is there anything similar? Even African nations with very few resources have done better at setting aside lands of great beauty and biodiversity value than the old communist monoliths. Let’s stick to facts.
I find your cross-selection of scientists unrepresentative. There are wild claims of bias in journals all the time. But again, as we’ve discovered in two trials on creationism, such charges are almost always from people who have no research to publish themselves. If you look at the purloined e-mails carefully, you’ll see that there are papers published that take quite skeptical looks at the data offered and the conclusions drawn, all the time, in many places. And while there are allegations of ethical breaches in those e-mails, it’s not accurate to say that the ethics of the “skeptics” are above reproach. At a minimum, critics have outstanding access to the letters sections of Science and Nature.
But where are the research papers affected by bias? Were there such a powerful trend to bias, why don’t those people take their research to the crank publishers like Sen. Inhofe? At least they would be published.
If you think there is big money in university research because someone advances an agenda, it seems clear to me that you’ve not had to compete for an NSF grant, nor an NIH grant, nor any other kind of research money lately. Quite the contrary, we should wonder at the apparently well-funded groups who claim the research is in error, while doing precious little research of their own — the Marshall Institute, for one.
Our research establishment is not fat enough that people trained for 20 years to research climate change can afford not to compete for serious grants because they choose to avoid the politics. I suspect anyone who says they won’t compete in the field to avoid politics, wasn’t competing in the field in the first place.
Got counter examples? Tell us who they are, and let’s look at their publishing records to the point they decided to get out of the climate business.
December 11, 2009, 6:19 amMark says:
Ed:
thank you for all the work you put in your replies. But, unless I read them wrong, they only deal with the “GW” part of “AGW” don’t they? That part of the debate, until recently, I had always thought was a given–at least when applied to the past couple of centuries.
The more problematic issues for me are all in the “A” part of AGW. We know climate fluctuates, do we really know this fluctuation is unique? Even if it is unique, is it cause by CO2 and, if so, will reducing CO2 at the levels that are being discussed really do anything? And is it really true that it will be a disaster if it does get warmer? All these things seem problematic. The climate modeling (the only part of this debate I have any expertise in at all) I know is problematic.
You seem to thing it’s overwrought to talk about what amount to a global nationalization of energy, transportation, construction and planning as being “Marxist”. But if it’s not Marxism, it surely is a vast expansion of government to a place that is very close to public control of all economic activity. All conservatives and libertarians see this a pernicious.
-m
December 11, 2009, 9:44 amJohn Moore says:
Ed Darrell:
Hey, don’t argue with me. Argue with all the people on left and far left whose politics, among Americans, are most congruent with Marxism. Those are the people most in favor of environmental extremism. That they didn’t learn anything from the environmental depredations of the USSR et. al. is not my issue, it’s theirs.
And yes, I use the word extremism advisedly – lots of conservatives are in favor of conservation – but not the vast central control bureaucracy that goes way beyond that. The left likes the government to run as much as possible (you can argue with them as to why); environmental extremism leads to that. It leads to things like the the government declaring polar bears, whose numbers have been increasing significantly, as endangered species.
Where do we start… The research papers affected by bias are those that get selected to be published – since bias appears in the selection process. Maybe in your field there isn’t a strong push for AGW correctness, but there is in the areas of climatology that affect the AGW hypothesis. Hell, the AMS has talked about decertifying meteorologists who do not adhere to the AGW line. Furthermore, those who would publish skeptical papers need to get funding, without which not many papers appear. Guess how that funding gets decided in the AGW area.
Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why it is that the scientists who out themselves as skeptics on AGW are all very secure in their careers – very senior scientists? It’s because those who are not retired or otherwise in safe positions no better than to pipe up.
That’s really rich. They don’t like tangling their science with their politics, which means they are not competent! There is lots of money flowing into the climate field, and it is quite possible to do research without getting into the AGW maelstrom, as anyone can see by reading the journals!
You ask me to give examples. Right, like the skeptics who are avoiding the politics want to be outed in a public forum, so their careers can be wrecked? Nice little catch 22 you set up there. Very Stalinist.
December 11, 2009, 11:32 amEd Darrell says:
Name one. Name the most influential one. Name any known Marxists who are potent environmentalists and claim to have gotten there through their Marxist beliefs. Just one would be a start.
December 11, 2009, 4:28 pmJohn Moore says:
Me thinks you are defining Marxism in a very narrow sense. The influence of Marxism on the belief systems of the left extends far beyond formal Marxism itself. It is the Marxian left that most on the right are referring to (which doesn’t mean that small band of fools who are pure Marxists). Hell, I don’t know which figure on the left is a “Marxist” but I know a whole lot whose general philosophy is strongly influenced by Marxism – and I don’t know of any of those who are NOT global warming alarmists.
Marxism tends to influence leftist thinking in a couple of ways:
1) it pushes people towards analyzing economic AND political issues in terms of perceived class and oppressed vs oppressor. In the climate debate, this leads to automatically assuming that “big oil” or other class enemies are behind the skeptics, and that therefore the skeptics are wrong.
2) like many utopian systems, it appeals to people who believe government should control many or all aspects of life – especially in the economic sphere, which happens to be just about everything except sex. That means that if these people subscribe to climate alarmism, they automatically assume “the government” (AKA “we” by the left) should do something about it.
December 11, 2009, 8:21 pmEd Darrell says:
Methinks you are defining Marxism in a very expansive and not necessarily historic or traditional sense. The only influence of Marxism I see on this issue is the powerful denial of some and the intentional distortion of information for propaganda purposes.
Here’s what your claim looks like to me: By “Marxist,” we don’t mean Marxist, we really mean stuff-we-disagree-with-but-don’t-want-to-bother-to-make-a-case-against, so-we’ll-label-the-guys-on-the-other-side-something-offensive-enough-to-do-their-reputations-damage, but-vague-enough-it-won’t-look-like-outright-slander-though-the-effect-will-be-the-same-on-them. And by “socialist,” we don’t mean socialist, but we mean a political position opposing ours.
Lysenko would be proud.
As one of the 20th century pioneers of the “sowing doubt” and “attack the scientist, not the science” schools of propaganda, Lysenko probably be thrilled to see it at the level it’s practiced today by people who don’t even realize they’ve bought the dialectic, and who in fact would swear they’re opposed to it.
Marxism doesn’t influence greens on this issue to any significant degree. Here’s the principle, as we of the Cowboy School of Philosophy see it: Don’t drink downstream from the herd, and don’t put your herd upstream of someone else’s drinking water because their herd is mobile, too. That’s not Marxism in any sense. It’s Biblical (see Ezekiel 34.18 et seq.).
Frankly, I’m at a total loss as to where anyone would think Marxism gets injected into the discussion from the greens side. No one has suggested any nationalization of any industry. No one has suggested closing down any industry. On one hand we have those anti-greens who claim the greens are all Marxist, and on the other hand their close allies who argue that Al Gore will make billions off of clean air, somehow, though they can’t really quite figure out how that works, especially since they say no one will buy any product or service that makes clean air.
And through it all, there’s not a hint of any Marxist thought. There’s no argument of any oppressed people, except from your side, arguing that clean air will hurt poor people — the standard claim of Lysenkoists and big business oppressors of poor people for at least 80 years. Still untrue, by the way (look up “environmental justice” sometime, and re-view the movie, “Erin Brockovitch”).
There’s no automatic claim of “big oil” backing the skeptics — there’s sad experience. Jay Rockefeller wasn’t making it up at the last two Exxon-Mobil stockholders meeting. Nor is there much animus, especially among those of us who recognize Rex Tillerson as a generally stand-up sort of Eagle Scout that he is. It’s not an evil cabal that asks for clean air and clean water, nor is clean air and water an anti-capitalist goal in any sense.
Clean air and water, and an Earth that lasts a bit longer, didn’t used to be considered a “utopian ideal.” Thomas Lincoln famously claimed that when he could see the smoke from a neighbor’s chimney, it was time to move on. Here in the United States we’ve been blessed with a superabundance of natural resources for exploitation, enough that we don’t have to exploit it all, and enough that we fortunately perceived there is also value in preserving some of the Earth as wild. Earth’s defenders don’t get their ideas from Marx. They get their ideas from Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Mark Twain, John Muir, John Wesley Powell, Thomas Jefferson, Merriwether Lewis and William Clark, Thomas Moran, Ansel Adams, Dan Beard, Baden-Powell and Galen Rowell. I suspect most of those works are mysteries or complete unknowns to critics of the movement to stop global warming, and so far I’ve not found anyone to dissuade me of that view, with the possible exception of Tillerson (I’ve never discussed it with him).
There’s a lot more Marxism in the opposition to action than there is among greens. It’s evident chiefly in the attempt to label clean air advocates as something they are not.
When has free enterprise ever cleaned a river, cleared the skies, or made the sausage safe from e. coli? Advocacy for food safety and good health is not the special province of Marxism, nor should it be, and I think no one should surrender free enterprise so easily as to make the claim on such gossamer evidence.
December 12, 2009, 1:12 pmEd Darrell says:
Hmm. AP’s analysis of the e-mails probably won’t be happy reading for climate “skeptics.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091212/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails
December 12, 2009, 3:16 pmJohn Moore says:
I guess you’ve never heard of “environmental racism,” then. Perhaps you should read up on it.
BTW… interesting that you should characterize us as Lysenkoists, since Lysenko was the hero of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy of the USSR. Lysenko was so wonderful for them because he denied the unchanging genetic basis of human nature, which was and is stubbornly resistant to conforming to the communist ideal.
Marxism and communism, if reduced to practice (i.e. anything other than an obscure theory) needs a governing philosophy to make it “work.” That philosophy has universally turned to totalitarianism, and frequently (USSR, China, Cambodia, etc) required people to change their very nature. So if one is to assign Lysenkoism to any philosophical stream, it would be the one closest to Marxism.
If you are familiar with the American political debate at all, you know that Marxism is a significant influence on the left. Does that mean that they are doctrinaire “Marxists?” No, far from it. Marxism flows from and into a stream of philosophical thought that strongly influences the left, rather than defining it as “Marxist”.
Do you deny the strong association between Marxism and the American left? Do you deny the strong association between the American left and the environmental movement?
December 12, 2009, 5:11 pmJohn Moore says:
Yeah, everyone should use the AP writers ( SETH BORENSTEIN, RAPHAEL SATTER and MALCOLM RITTER, Associated Press Writers ) as the authoritative source on science. I’m sure they really know their statistics and climatology.
Hell, you can get a Masters in Journalism from Columbia without ever having to take a hard (calculus based) science course.
The output of the US mainstream media on controversial issues can be easily modeled by feeding pink noise into a left/environmentalist (oops – redundant) tilted bandpass filter.
December 12, 2009, 5:19 pmEd Darrell says:
Sure, I’ve heard of environmental racism, and racism. It’s awfully telling that you think only Marxists work against racism. You’ve probably heard all the accusations that desegregation would make America a Marxist nation, too, haven’t you? Those claims were false then, just as claims that modern concern with clean air is Marxist. Marxism as practiced in the Soviet Union wasn’t exactly a non-racist paradise. Racism hasn’t disappeared in the few remaining Marxist strongholds.
That’s why I keep asking for examples, for evidence. I wasn’t trained as a Marxist. I was trained as a scientist, journalist, and lawyer. I need evidence before things become clear to me.
My mention of Lysenko wasn’t accidental. Glad you caught it, regret you missed the point. Lysenko also was fond of making claims without evidence, even contrary to the evidence, and he was fond of trying to label scientists with the facts as political outcasts or radical enemies of the state — rather like recent claims that scientists just doing their jobs and reporting the weather are Marxist, totalitarian, and trying to bring down the world economy. Lysenko crippled Soviet science and the Soviet economy. There’s a moral there. One shouldn’t deny the unchanging basis of chemistry and physics just because they don’t support one’s hatred of Al Gore and the Clean Air Act. It’s a moral lost on so many these days.
And you’re right, the side closest to Lysenkoism is probably the side closest to Marxism. If you’re worried about promoting Marxism, maybe you ought to think about paying attention to the facts, contrary to the Lysenkoist practice and line.
I’m rather used to being called Marxist for advocating conservation of our natural resources, though. I was one of those who stayed in the Boy Scouts despite the Bircher criticism that we practiced communism with the patrol system.
We also built a lot of check dams, trout ponds, and taught a lot of no-trace camping. I can still fold a flag better than most of those who call us Marxist, too. Boy Scouts aren’t communists, either.
All this talk of Marxism in advocacy of environmental protection reinforces my perception that the anti-AGW side is completely out of science. If there were any data to support a claim that warming isn’t happening and that humans are a significant cause, someone would bring out the data.
Funny, in Copenhagen, it was the Marxists still standing who most resisted the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. And Joe Barton. Strange, strange bedfellow travellers.
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