December 14, 2018

"You, Too, Are in Denial of Climate Change."

Writes David Wallace-Wells in New York Magazine.
Why can’t we see the threat right in front of us?... There is, to start with, anchoring, which explains how we build mental models around as few as one or two initial examples, no matter how unrepresentative — in the case of global warming, the world we know today, which is reassuringly temperate. There is the ambiguity effect, which suggests that most people are so uncomfortable contemplating uncertainty they will accept lesser outcomes in a bargain to avoid dealing with it. In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action — much of the ambiguity arises from the range of possible human inputs, a quite concrete prompt we choose to process instead as a riddle, which discourages us. There is anthropocentric thinking, by which we build our view of the universe outward from our own experience, a reflexive tendency which some especially ruthless environmentalists have derided as “human supremacy,” and which surely shapes our ability to apprehend genuinely existential threats to the species — a shortcoming which many climate scientists have mocked. “The planet will survive,” they say, “it’s the humans that may not.”

These biases are just drawn from the “A” volume of the behavioral-economics literature — and are just a sampling of that volume. Among the most destructive effects that appear later in the library are these: the bystander effect, or our tendency to wait for others to act rather than acting ourselves; confirmation bias, by which we seek evidence for what we already understand to be true rather than endure the cognitive pain of reconceptualizing our world; the default effect, or tendency to choose the present option over alternatives, which is related to the status quo bias, or preference for things as they are, however bad that is; and the endowment effect, or instinct to demand more to give up something we have than we actually value it (or had paid to acquire or establish it). We have an illusion of control, the behavioral economists tell us, and also suffer from overconfidence. We can’t see anything but through cataracts of self-deception....

213 comments:

1 – 200 of 213   Newer›   Newest»
rehajm said...

It's that your policy solutions suck. They aren't grounded in science.

SeanF said...

"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action..."

Does that even make sense?

Oso Negro said...

I consider the people who write in New York Magazine a much greater threat than global warming. As far as the planet goes, global cooling scares me a lot more. And appears much more likely.

rehajm said...

Much of the science is not based in science either. Outside of computer models no evidence severe weather events are getting more severe or more frequent but if you don't panic when these events occur you're a denier. Think Progress will be along shortly to try and ruin your life.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I, also, am in denial of anything NYM has to tell me.

I guess that makes us even?

Roger Sweeny said...

People don't care that deficits are high and we'll have to pay significantly more a lot sooner than climate change will hurt us. They don't care that Social Security and Medicare are costing more and more, and will almost certainly force unpleasant measures before climate change bites us. In fact, both Republicans and Democrats agree, "No problem, man."

This is where a responsible journalism would pummel us with some unpleasant truths. Instead, we get the same old s**t: We need bigger and more powerful government. We need what the Democrats are offering. And, of yeah, Donald Trump is awful.

tim maguire said...

The phrase "word salad" comes to mind. You know why I think no more than 10 people in the entire world actually believe in CAGW? (Let's call it by it's real name, shall we?) Because I look past the words to the behavior. Their behavior tells me that none of these chicken littles actually believe their cries of doom.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Or, your mental models are ones that promote climate change, because panicking about climate change fits in so well with your political and economic philosophies.

Skyler said...

That was some amazing cognitive dissonance in that article.

“We can’t see anything but through cataracts of self-deception.“

Yeah, there’s that log in your eye I’ve been meaning to tell you about.

WK said...

Are the “cataracts of self deception” something that clouds our vision by blurring our eyesight. Or are the cataracts a raging whitewater carrying us forward to an unseeable future?

Darrell said...

Lefties need total control and they need it NOW.
That's what I got out of the article.

Wince said...

...what’s important is getting those 70 percent to feel their conviction fiercely, to elevate action on climate change to a first-order political priority by speaking loudly about it and to disempower, however we can, those forces conspiring to silence us. Even the ones in our own heads.

Maybe when those feeling that "conviction" most "fiercely" first start acting themselves like it's a crisis? In economic contract theory, it's called signaling.

We have an illusion of control, the behavioral economists tell us, and also suffer from overconfidence. We can’t see anything but through cataracts of self-deception.

Back at ya, pal.

Darrell said...

The yellow vests need to show up to the NY Mag offices.

narciso said...

That's why I call it the skydragon effect.

tim maguire said...

SeanF said...
"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action..."

Does that even make sense?


Sounds like a form of the "worst case" fallacy. "It could be really awful so we better take action!" Really common among "climate change" alarmists.

There's another term for it that I like better, but I can't think of it or find it. Maybe someone here knows.

Temujin said...

When they can simply explain the East Anglia emails to me- something they've never done- I may start believing. Until then, from a scientific point of view, until the models are shown to be correct and the theories can be reproduced without any skulduggery, and verified by other scientists (all others, not just the UN Panel of Lets Confiscate the Wealth of Nations), I remain unconvinced.

It was global cooling for years. Then it was global warming. Now, finally, they've gotten smarter and given us Climate Change. But that's so innocuous as to mean nothing. As you all know, the climate has, is, and will always be changing, with or without us.

So where are we? Point fingers and scream at those who question your methodology calling them Deniers. Apostates. Witches.

I think we've seen this movie before.

rhhardin said...

The climate effect will be taken care of by the asteroid effect.

AllenS said...

From what we know of this earth for millions of millions of years that it has existed, it went from hot, so hot that there were ancient forests on the poles, and yes, no ice at all, to a couple of really cold spells that produced glaciers that lasted for hundreds of thousands of years to melting about 15,000 years ago, to what we have today. Our climate today is what is abnormal compared to what the earth has been through, and the thought that we humans are or can ruin everything is ludicrous.

Amadeus 48 said...

Physician, heal thyself. Self-delusion is a powerful drug.

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rehajm said...

We’ve tried all our manipulative tricks and they aren’t working!!! Wa! Wa!

Molly said...

I don't deny that humans cause climate change, and the the changes in climate could impose significant costs on people in the future. But I am not willing to impose costs on the relatively poor people of today in order to reduce those significant costs borne by relatively rich people of the future. I guess behavioral economists would say I have "redistributionist bias".

Fernandinande said...

"Pennsylvania State University’s Michael Mann, a climate researcher known for skewering skeptics of climate change, took the lead in debunking the Wallace-Wells story Monday, writing, “The article argues that climate change will render the Earth uninhabitable by the end of this century. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The article fails to produce it.”

ga6 said...

"Your honor Judge I thought "In theory, ..., uncertainty should be an argument for action" so even though I did not see a gun in his hand I shot him dead, thirteen rounds. Now can I please be released you honor?

tim maguire said...

Temujin said...
When they can simply explain the East Anglia emails to me- something they've never done-


Well...they were hacked, you see. You shouldn't even know about them. Therefore we don't need to explain them.

Gahrie said...

How long until they start throwing virgins into volcanos to prevent climate change?

MadisonMan said...

So many people I know would be quick to castigate Trump's decisions with respect to taking action to slow the inexorable increase in CO2 in the atmosphere -- and then drive in their car, alone, to a destination, listening to NPR decry the state of the atmosphere.

When people perceive a genuine threat, things might happen -- as happened in WWII. I think people *read* about a threat, but they do not believe it in their core, they only believe it as a tool to use to bash political opponents. At least, they don't believe it enough to take action. They will show me pictures of their trip to Europe instead.

Perhaps remediation of the damage wrought by increased CO2 can occur when a genuine threat is there. We'll see. I'm optimistic.

Carol said...

Ann, have you noticed a change in the Wisconsin climate since you've lived there? Def in Montana. But I don't know what to do about it.

Lost the rest of my comment..

RNB said...

When you cannot rebut your opponent's position on a logical or factual basis, psychoanalyze him.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Philadelphia's historical average temp is 56 degrees. I think the final average for 2018 will be no higher than 56.7. So I ain't worried.

And Penn State's Michael Mann is full of soup- I think he was one of the hockey stick originators. I don't believe in man-caused climate change and I don't believe anything Mann says.

Balfegor said...

Part of the problem is that their pitch is that the problem is apocalyptic. Look at that summary -- 2 degrees C warming is supposed to be the end of days. But the policy "solutions" are penny-ante stuff like emissions trading, windmills, and gas taxes, that -- even in the most optimistic scenario -- don't have impacts even remotely commensurate with the problem they claim. They wouldn't even add up to their stretch goal, which is keeping warming to 1.5 degrees C. Which will still be apocalyptic, the way they portray it, just not an extinction level event.

If they really believed their projections, they wouldn't be bothering with all this environmentalist pettifoggery. It would be moon-shot time: Positioning giant mirrors at the L1 Lagrange point to blot out the sun! Geoengineering! Or at least pouring a lot more money into developing cheaper and more energy efficient carbon sequestration technologies.

Ficta said...

"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action"

Oh yes, Pascal's wager. When you resort to that you know you're losing the argument.

Koot Katmandu said...

What a bunch of gobbledygook BS. Someone trying to sound smart I assume.

tcrosse said...

"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action"

We have to do something
This is something
Ergo, We have to do it.

Qwinn said...

You, too, are in denial over Hillary taking bribes from Russians in return for selling off our uranium. Get back to me on ANYTHING you care about once that's been addressed. Till then, FOAD.

Defenseman Emeritus said...

CAGW is a conjecture, not even a hypothesis, with at least as much contradictory evidence as supporting evidence.

Francisco D said...

AGW is a scam to increase government control over our lives.

We should be responsible stewards of our environment, but instituting a tax scheme to "combat" climate change is absurd.

Darrell said...

I don't deny that humans cause climate change, and the the changes in climate could impose significant costs on people in the future.

Then you are stupid. None of this has been proved in the least. All the "weather" that we have experienced over the last hundred years is within the normal range of past experience. "Weather" always had costs. No sense in increasing those costs or giving control of energy and prices to fucking Lefties so that they can fund their unfunded pensions.

chuck said...

These flying saucer, alien invasion nuts are getting tiresome.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Who is exactly denying climate change?

The climate always changes. Always has. For BILLIONS of years the climate and the configurations of the continents have changed. Try to stop that too. There are forces in effect that are much much larger than a species that has only been on this Earth for a mere blink of the eye in geological terms.

The question, which has NOT been answered, is are humans causing a change in climate change. Unknown.. and to deny that there is a clear and undeniable answer to that question is purely a logical agnostic scientific process.

We don't know the answers. We don't know anything concrete. It is all speculation and horsefeathers. Just like the Government dietary guidelines which have been proven to be faulty if not actually dangerous.

Then to suggest that we should do drastic things to "cool" the Earth, with no clear idea of the consequences of that action....new Ice Age anyone?......is beyond stupid.

When the people who insist that Climate Change (AKA Global Warming) is a real emergency, begin to act like they really believe it, I might pay more attention to them. When they stop changing the name to try to trick people into believing them, I might also pay some attention.

Instead they do everything that they tell the rest of us peons NOT to do. AND they do it in grand style. In spades. Jet around the world to tell us to turn off our lights. Live in giant mansions and preach poverty to the rest of us.

They can stuff it.

MikeR said...

"Arguing past the sale", as Scott Adams like to describe. Sorry. Convince us first that your disaster prognoses are correct - the IPCC considers them "very unlikely".

Paul Zrimsek said...

When you cannot rebut your opponent's position on a logical or factual basis, psychoanalyze him.

Yep.

Henry said...

“The planet will survive,” they say, “it’s the humans that may not.”

I'm fine with that outcome. So I don't need to worry about all the philosophy.

Cataclysmic Climate change is a self-solving problem.

If you are worried about non-human species extinction, the only answer is less humans. We busily extinguish species just by roaming around the planet spreading ourselves thick. The cities we build, the species we domesticate, our current and past histories as forest clearers, river diverters, crop-growers, fishers, and hunters has inevitably doomed other species. Climate change is the least of their worries compared to everything else we do.

TrespassersW said...

First off, it would help if they would stop with phrases like "climate deniers." That's just a stupid smear, used by stupid people. What, there are people who deny the concept of climate?

Yes, I know what they mean--"climate deniers" are people who deny climate change. That's codswallop. Science--real science--has given us plenty of evidence that the planet's climate has been changing as long as there has been a planet. I do not know of anybody who denies that the climate can, has, and does change. What we don't believe is that anybody has yet built a convincing case that that the climate changes we're currently experiencing are: (a) caused primarily by human activity; or (b) necessarily a bad thing.

And as Instapundit is fond of saying, I might start believing it's a crisis if they start living their lives as if they believe it's a crisis.

gilbar said...

as many others have pointed out...
" In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action "


if you're uncertain, YOU MUST ACT! No time to think, JUST ACT! This is best summed in the phrase
LEAP Before You LOOK

Hagar said...

Humans may be causing "a change in climate change" and it would be nice to know a little more about this, but it becomes impossible when belief in "climate change" is treated as a test for PC religious orthodoxy and proof of party loyalty.

Dave Begley said...

One of the thing I hate about the climateers is their use of the word "denier." The only other place you really see that word used is Holocaust denier.

Now the Holocaust is a historical fact. It is not a prediction about a future event.

I consider the phrase "global warming denier" to be an absolute disgrace and sacrilege. They picked that word on purpose. To put us in the same basket as anti-Semitic loons.

Henry said...

Blogger Gahrie said...
How long until they start throwing virgins into volcanos to prevent climate change?

You want to bury them, not burn them. Sequestered, not vaporized.

Paul Zrimsek said...

Uncertainty is indeed an argument for action. But among sensible people, the action it's an argument for is gathering more information. There is no reason to expect the costs of climate change, assuming these to exist, to be anything other than a smoothly increasing function of our delay in addressing it; when advocates come at us with talk of tipping points and arbitrary deadlines, people recognize it for the high-pressure sales technique that it is, and respond correctly.

Ambrose said...

I confess to not reading the whole article, but noticed the following in the intro:

"Last month, scientists warned that we had only about 12 years to cut global emissions in half, and that doing so would require a worldwide mobilization on the scale of that for World War II."

Anyone who suggests that something like that would be even remotely possible (put aside wise) is in deep deep denial and really should not be lecturing the rest of us on the philosophical roots of our disagreement.

gilbar said...

Hagar said... "Humans may be causing "a change in climate change"

Yes! it could Well BE that the Only Thing that's keeping away the resumption of this Ice Age is Man's wisdom in burning Coal.
It Could Well BE that IF we Stop coal consumption: WE WILL ALL FREEZE TO DEATH!!

I don't know this for sure, in fact, i'm uncertain about that; BUT!
"...with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action "

Keep Burning COAL! OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT!

Carol said...

The Boomers grew up hearing a lot of doomsday warnings about thermonuclear war!11! so probably don't have many fucks left to give.

Likewise our parents lived through WWII and were a bit worn out when it came to comforting us about the End of the World. My parent assured me it would all be over so fast, we wouldn't even know it happened. Boy, did I feel better!

So the younger generations will have to be the ones to immanentize the eschaton. I feel sorry for the kids who have to listen to all this wailing...opioids,anyone?

Greg Hlatky said...

Together, Henry and Tommie Aaron hit 768 home runs.

tim maguire said...

Dave Begley said...I consider the phrase "global warming denier" to be an absolute disgrace and sacrilege. They picked that word on purpose. To put us in the same basket as anti-Semitic loons.

Yes, yes they did. Everything about their argument is dishonest. No one denies there is a climate, no one denies the climate changes, mainstream skepticism doesn't even deny that humans affect the climate. The question is, is human activity the primary cause of catastrophic change? (two parter!)

For that there is absolutely no evidence. There isn't even evidence that the climate has moved outside of its historical norms. That is, we cannot measure human affect on the climate because we cannot identify any unnatural behavior.

mandrewa said...

Molten salt reactors: Inexpensive electricity. Safe electricity. No CO2 emissions.

And we already know how to do this.

Why aren't we doing it? Who is blocking this?

Search for ThorCon pdf.

If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer.

gilbar said...

"Last month, scientists warned that we had only about 12 years to cut global emissions in half

How long has it been? Since the first time that 'scientists' warned us that we only had X years to cut global emissions in half? Seems like X keeps getting longer, not shorter

Roy Lofquist said...

If these guys can tell us what the temperature is going to be 20 years from now how come they can't tell us what it's going to be next week?

William said...

What do behavioral economists say about the widespread belief of educated people to believe in the Apocalypse. It used to be Armageddon or Judgement Day. Then it morphed into the crisis of capitalism and later into nuclear winter. Now they're working with climate change. Climate change doesn't have the dramatic effect of a nuclear war, but you have to work with what's available.

William said...

I'm reading a book about daily life in Tudor England. There used to be Sumptuary Laws. Common people were proscribed from wearing garments that were beyond their station. This is a variation on the Sumptuary Laws. Common people are banned from owning internal combustion engines, but the annointed and blessed can own private jets.......Back in Tudor times, actors could wear elaborate clothes in their stage productions because that was just make believe. Likewise actors in our era are permitted lives of massive self indulgence while preaching to us of the need to tighten our belts because their lives are just make believe.

Ficta said...

Thorium Salt Reactors: I'm not sure it's quite that simple, but it may be almost that simple. I'm optimistic.

Darrell said...

We are living in an Ice Age. All of human history has taken place in this same Ice Age. The average temperature has increased a little over one degree in the last 150 years--and the IPCC accepts that number. The top 60% of our country was under miles of ice previously. It will be again some day. Anyone worrying about any amount of warming now needs their head examined.

Hagar said...

Never believe any article mentioning "scientists say" without giving names, ranks, and employing institutions!

William said...

I think it would be kind of cool if life on earth perished because of cow farts rather than a nuclear Armageddon. That would be darkly ironic.

narciso said...

Or an unsanitized telephone, as in Doug adams

MadisonMan said...

Ann, have you noticed a change in the Wisconsin climate since you've lived there?

I've not lived here quite as long as Althouse, but I have noticed a delay in the onset of winter (esp big snows) since I moved here in the 80s. Also, it's been many years since Madison has hit -20 - since Xmas day, 2001. That's an unprecedentedly long stretch. I think part of that has to do with development near Truax. But not all of it.

Lake Ice season, which is a better metric of climate than a single temperature, has also been shortening.

(Madison != The Globe, of course)

Anchovy said...

When you read a line like, "Scientists believe.......", it is not science. Belief is the realm of religion, understanding is the realm of science.

M Jordan said...

I can argue point by point against any global warmist but really, it all comes down to intuition on this topic. It’s like meeting a person who speaks okay, is friendly enough, etc., but you just don’t trust him ... and then you read two weeks that he’s going to prison for murdering someone. That’s how I feel about the warmist crowd and argument: you just know they’re lying.

jaydub said...

"So many people I know would be quick to castigate Trump's decisions with respect to taking action to slow the inexorable increase in CO2 in the atmosphere..."

According to the 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy the US has reduced its CO2 emissions by 758 million metric tons since 2005, or 2.3 tons per person. That is by far the largest decline of any major country in the world over that time span, is nearly as large as the 770 million metric ton decline for the entire European Union and is 153% of the 1.5 ton/person reduction the EU achieved. At the same time, China's carbon dioxide emissions grew by 3 billion metric tons, and India's grew by 1 billion metric tons, or 1.3 tons for each of their combined 3.11 billion people. Nor do China and India have to even attempt to reduce their emissions until 2030, but the AGW alarmists are telling us that we are all going to die next week if we don't kill our own economy?

Fracking and natural gas usage has done much of the heavy lifting for the US, i.e., it was done by the marketplace after government got out of the way WRT fracking and pipeline construction. Europe's gains have been forced by government at tremendous cost to the citizens of Europe, including electricity and fuel rates about 300% of the US and grossly inefficient, government subsidized and mandated wind and solar energy sources. If the AGW movement had an ounce of honesty it would be celebrating Trump for letting the marketplace fix this purported problem, but they aren't. This whole movement is nothing more than Marxism dressed up in a green suit. Fuck 'em.

AllenS said...

“The planet will survive,” they say, “it’s the humans that may not.”

A lot of us are going to survive. We have guns.

MadisonMan said...

I can argue point by point against any global warmist but really

So you're saying microwave measurements of the decrease in 'old' ice over the Arctic are incorrect?

Why?

Sebastian said...

So, does behavioral economics prove that knowing behavioral economics gets rid of the biases behavioral economics has shown?

Anyway, there is no more "human supremacy" than the environmentalist conceit that if only humans do x the climate will be y and "the planet" will be saved.

Leland said...

When supporters of Climate Change (a canard, as most people really do accept the climate can and does change, so they really mean anthropometric global warming, but they can't prove it other than a two factor equation claiming it must happen, so they use the canard) can accurately predict the climate without attacking skeptical scientists using pseudo psychology; then I might accept their arguments as having merit.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

MadisonMan@9:42 It's been a cold year in Los Angeles, and it was cold last year too. The summers of the past few years were not hot. At night, I've had to wear a sweater, in summer, in Los Angeles. My first Christmas in this town, it was 75 degrees. It hasn't been that warm on Christmas since. This is evidence of global cooling.

Amadeus 48 said...

Pascal’s wager was of course about religion. Nothing says “science” like using reasoning regarding the existence of God.

LA_Bob said...

gilbar said, "Seems like X keeps getting longer, not shorter".

So true. See President 'has four years to save Earth'


Bob from Alhambra

Smilin' Jack said...

“The planet will survive,” they say, “it’s the humans that may not.”

Humans will survive. It's your beachfront condo that may not.

I live 500 ft above sea level, and it's chilly out. Bring on the AGW!

robother said...

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

Nothing says science like all caps.

FIDO said...

No one here can tell me definitively if Climate Change is a thing or not. I don't know. I don't have the math or science.

However, when East Anglia refuses to reveal their data and encourages scientists to DESTROY their evidence and even illegally avoided any freedom of information requests

When Michael Mann plays shenanigans with his Hockey Stick math slight of hand

When prominent voices in the Climate Sciences tries to silence and discredit people questioning their findings and pressure literature from publishing findings which contradict their narrative

When every 'current state of the climate' is always on the LOW end of the hyperbolic warnings 'but it will turn around ANY DAY now' ( said for the last 20 years)


Are these the actions of actual scientists or some Pope Borgia Curia? It is hard to tell the difference.

So would I trust these people with a dinner check, much less command of a few trillion dollars?


I am going with 'no' on that front. They have shot their credibility without showing their work.

So I am not a denialist. I am a 'your side is untrustworthy of that kind of power' guy.

Rance Fasoldt said...

It's all about THE MONEY!

LA_Bob said...

Michael Fitzgerald,

I, too, live in Los Angeles. This last summer had the longest stretch of very warm, humid days I can remember. Usually we get a few days to a week of heat and humidity three or four times, typically in August and September.

I've also noticed nighttime summer temps have been warmer the last two or three years than in the past (high 60's vs low 60's). These are signs of warming, not cooling.

But, to be clear, LA warming, not global warming.

Bob from Alhambra

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jupiter said...

Ficta said...
"Thorium Salt Reactors: I'm not sure it's quite that simple, but it may be almost that simple. I'm optimistic."

Don't be. If shills like Wallace-Wells were serious about their supposed concern, they would recognize that the only remotely feasible alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power, and they would doing everything they could think of to convert the World's economies to nuclear. Everything! What is a little nuclear waste lying around, compare to the END OF LIFE ON EARTH?

But in fact, only a small fraction of Alarmists are sufficiently alarmed to even consider building more nuclear reactors, the only course of action that could conceivably obviate the disaster they claim to believe is about to descend upon us. The rest of them are still in denial.

Big Mike said...

1000 years ago it was possible to survive on Greenland using nothing more than Mefieval farming technology. I challenge Wallace-Wells to try that today. The warming alarmists try to convince the gullible that this was merely a regional effect, except that it continued for 400 years so that’s some regional effect. I will bet it was a very large region. Like global.

Big Mike said...

Medieval.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

I also note that there are numerous ways to combat global warming. The fact that Wallace-Wells can only see one solution, a hideously regressive tax, tells me that the global warming hoax is about making the middle class into poor people and the already poor into wards of the state. That the people who push carbon dioxide taxes don’t see the evil in that, says a great deal about them.

Original Mike said...

"The warming alarmists try to convince the gullible that this was merely a regional effect, except that it continued for 400 years so that’s some regional effect. I will bet it was a very large region. Like global."

The Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska has 1000 year old tree trunks underneath it, so it seems that it had to have been, at the least, the northern hemisphere. IIRC, they in fact argue that it was limited to only the northern hemisphere. I'd really like to know more about their evidence that it was not global.

Bruce Hayden said...

"I don't deny that humans cause climate change, and the the changes in climate could impose significant costs on people in the future. But I am not willing to impose costs on the relatively poor people of today in order to reduce those significant costs borne by relatively rich people of the future. I guess behavioral economists would say I have "redistributionist bias"."

I don't see why you accept that humans cause climate change, whatever that means. There is no real evidence either way. Most of those who start out like that, accepting global warming or climate change, are just bowing to liberal orthodoxy. The "experts" don't know, and everyone else who tries to use these theories to leverage public debate don't have a clue. This is a virtue signaling thing - you prove that you are virtuous by buying into the scam. And, for some, it is religion.

MadisonMan said...

It's been a cold year in Los Angeles

Contrary to the belief of Angelenos, LA is not the globe.

Bruce Hayden said...

"I also note that there are numerous ways to combat global warming. The fact that Wallace-Wells can only see one solution, a hideously regressive tax, tells me that the global warming hoax is about making the middle class into poor people and the already poor into wards of the state. That the people who push carbon dioxide taxes don’t see the evil in that, says a great deal about them."

I think that you have a point there. If much of the middle class is eliminated, then all that you will have left are a small elite ruling a vast peasantry. Which sounds a bit mideaval to me, because that is what we had before the Industrial Revolution. Of course, many of those preaching this religion expect to be in the small elite running things, because, I suppose, they have spent their lives hearing how special they are.

Original Mike said...

"Contrary to the belief of Angelenos, LA is not the globe."

It's where the globe dumps its trash.

(couldn't resist)

Original Mike said...

MM: Can you point me to the argument that the Medieval Warm Period wasn't global?

Freedom89 said...

"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action..."

Hilarious. The left has lectured us for years on the "Precautionary Principle," which is the stupid idea that we should never do anything unless we are sure it will do more harm than good. Of course, under strict application of this "Principle," we would never do anything and all be dead. Now they are upset that people are applying it to their proposed policies.

FullMoon said...

Bob said... [hush]​[hide comment]

gilbar said, "Seems like X keeps getting longer, not shorter".

So true. See President 'has four years to save Earth'


On December 13, 2008, junk scientist Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years.

Gore made the prediction to a German audience on December 13, 2008. Al warned them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”


“Five Years”

This wasn’t the only time Al Gore made his ice-free prediction. Gore had been predicting dire scenario since 2007. That means that the North Pole should have melted completely five years ago today.
Junk scientist Al Gore also made the same prediction in 2009.

MadisonMan said...

MM: Can you point me to the argument that the Medieval Warm Period wasn't global?

Short answer: No.

There must be Antarctic Ice Cores that would show it (if it was or wasn't global).

Alternatively, if the Medieval Warm Period was related to the Thermohaline overturning, its affects might have been localized. I seem to recall, though, that Tree Ring data over the Desert SW showed climate anomalies (dryness) at the same time as the MWP. This is recalling something from decades ago though, now.

Kevin said...

Step 1: You too are a racist.

Step 2: You too are a climate denier.

Step 3: You too need to step into the oven.

Anonymous said...

That's a hell of a lot of verbiage just to say "I don't know why the people who disagree with me about any aspect of this subject disagree with me; I've never engaged seriously with them. I'm just going to burble on about the flaws in reasoning and psychological defects afflicting the heretics in my head. Cargo-culting all this vocabulary from 'behavioral economics', etc., makes me sound really scientific and fact-y and objective and irrefutably right, doesn't it?"

Seen on sidebar of article: "America's New Religions". Do tell.

Original Mike said...

MM: That's something to get me started. Thanks.

Antarctic cores had occurred to me, but I don't know where to get started. I guess I'll turn to the googles. Was Mann's tree ring data from the SW? I believe at one time he was arguing that the MWP never really occurred which, to me, seems ridiculous. Not sure if he's still arguing that.

Howard said...

I like me some hippie punching

tim in vermont said...

What he is saying is true about how people think, but does he ever critically examine the climate literature? Because those of us who do don't ever see our questions answered. Not to mention that anchoring also applies to the belief that climate change would not occur without human agency and that the climate snuggled in to its permanent state 10,000 years ago had we just not dragged ourselves out of brutality and poverty.

tim in vermont said...

Hippie punching is a term that I only hear from the left quoting the voices they hear in their heads.

tim in vermont said...

The argument that uncertainty should be a cause for action is a clear demonstration of my point that warmies are trapped in their own anchoring. We should be merciless about the accuracy of our data and merciless about critiquing the science to minimize the risk of a wrong move.

tcrosse said...

I like me some hippie punching

At least he's punching up.

Birkel said...

Hey, maybe it's the Sun that is causing the majority of the climate trends on this planet and on other planets, too. That might explain the episodic nature of the trends.

Imagine that the scientists had manipulated the data in order to increase the power of the state. And imagine that they wanted more power and prestige for themselves.

How does my hypothesis fit the facts that are known?

Mikec said...

Many of the arguments against the article are correct. However the best argument is that UAH temperature data set, which is satellite based, only shows a 1.3 degC temperature trend increase per century! If the worlds temperature increase is so little, surely we can wait a couple of generations to take action if it's needed.

And by the way, there is only one substitute for fossil fuel, and that is nuclear power. Jim Hanson, who is the "father" of global warming, has said that supposed substitute of windmills and photoelectric panels are a "fantasy." Actually, I would prefer the word "silly" but "fantasy" is OK too.

Gospace said...

I remember way back when I was a kid an article in one of the magazines that had Popular in it's title an article about how the Russians were considering covering a few square miles of pristine sea ice in the Arctic with coal dust. Once those square miles were melted, total albedo of the Arctic would be decreased and the rest of the ice would soon melt. Giving the Soviet Union (And Canada!) year round shipping and ice free ports in their great north. Well, since then, we've had seasons with even more open water than the Soviet's proposed making, and that damn ice cap keeps reappearing, year after year after year. And scientific expedition after scientific expedition travelling the Northwest passage to show us deplorables about how global warming is melting the ice caps keep getting stuck in the ice. And a year or two ago a similar expedition got caught in Antarctic ice that was thicker than the scientific predictions said it should be.

Scientists using science wizardry can track global temperature on Mars. Seems like global average temperatures on mars go up and down pretty much in track with global average temperatures on Earth. Yet- there is no industry on Mars! No CO2 emissions from evil privately owned vehicles with IC engines! How could this be? Perhaps it has something to do with that ginourmous fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that has variable output. Looks like right now it's in a cooldown phase. Which is far worse for us humans. And other planetary life forms.

Human effect on the global environment is negligible compared to natural forces. In local areas it can be huge. Especially noticeable in socialist paradises. Air pollution in several Chinese cities is a well known problem.

tim in vermont said...

The Medieval Warm Period only happened where there are historical records, just like most of the current warming tends to occur where the thermometers aren't, or deeper in the ocean than probes can reach. The models prove it.

There are lots of papers that show the warming was global. On my phone at the airport or I would link some. Maybe tomorrow.

tim in vermont said...

The sixties and seventies were the coldest decades of the last century, so most people have memories of mostly warming. We don't remember the thirties and the dust bowl.

iowan2 said...

So you're saying microwave measurements of the decrease in 'old' ice over the Arctic are incorrect?

Are saying the decrease is too much? Or not enough? What is the proper number? What is the proper rate of movement? Or must it stay static? Higher or lower? As compared to when? 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 15,000 years ago. What were the microwave measurement from 100 years ago? What is the scientific basis for using this particular proxy measurement? It is an exceedingly random choice of measurement.

The more important question is what exactly do you propose to get your desired outcome, and cite the proof those actions will in fact move the needle.

Getting past the fake debate about CAGW, is the more real debate about if actions recommended will affect the climate by what ever proxy measurement you pull from your randomizer of proxy data machine.

gilbar said...

remember way back when I was a kid an article in one of the magazines that had Popular in it's title an article about how the Russians were considering covering a few square miles of pristine sea ice in the Arctic with coal dust
which is basically what we're doing with coal soot (mostly from china)

here's my hypothesis
lots of coal plants => coal soot
coal soot drifts down onto northern ice
northern ice melts, then refreezes = > lost of 'old ice'
southern ice doesn't get (as much) soot, less melt

I'll listen to people about how this doesn't explain MOST of it

Original Mike said...

Blogger tim in vermont said..."The Medieval Warm Period only happened where there are historical records, just like most of the current warming tends to occur where the thermometers aren't, or deeper in the ocean than probes can reach. The models prove it.

There are lots of papers that show the warming was global. On my phone at the airport or I would link some. Maybe tomorrow."


I'd appreciate that, Tim. In my mind, understanding the MWP is important. The warmists think so too, because the big deal about Mann's hockey stick (beside the "blade" at the end) was that the MWP had disappeared.

Milwaukie Guy said...

The Quaternary Period, the last 2.6 million years, is characterized by periodic ice ages alternating with warm periods. There were many such shifts during the first two-thirds of the Quaternary. 800,000 years ago, a cyclical pattern emerged with ice ages of about 100,000 years and interglacials of 10 to 15,000 years.

We are in the Holocene Epoch, the current interglacial, which began about 11,650 years ago. Do the math.

I'm in favor of the burn more coal concept.

Milwaukie Guy said...

CO2, keeps you warm and your plants happier!

virgil xenophon said...

Carol@8:59AM/

"....immanentize the eschaton..."


I see Carol is an Eric Voegelin devotee.. :)

Milwaukie Guy said...

The MWP is most documented in the Northern hemisphere, where 68% of the land is. And a good part of the Southern hemisphere is Antarctica.

A few months back someone announced that Antarctica had lost 3 trillion tons of ice over the last 30 years based on satellite measurements. It sounds impressive until you know the denominator. The loss of ice, if the data is really that precise, is .03% of the ice mass.

Milwaukie Guy said...

Sorry. It's .011%. Sometimesheimers.

Anonymous said...

"You, Too, Are in Denial of Climate Change."

The headline is right, of course. We are all climate deniers. To channel Mr. Foxworthy:

Use a clothes dryer? You might be a climate denier.
Ever flown internationally? You might be a climate denier.
Vacation more than 200 miles from your home? You might be a climate denier.
Heat your home higher than 60 degrees? You might be a climate denier.
Air condition your home? You might be a climate denier.
Leave your phone charger plugged in? You might be a climate denier.
Drink coffee? You might be a climate denier.
Eat fresh fruit/vegetables in the winter? You might be a climate denier.

I could go on and on, of course. My point is that nobody really makes significant personal sacrifices.

MadisonMan said...

What is the scientific basis for using this particular proxy measurement? It is an exceedingly random choice of measurement.

Which proxy measurement? The age of the ice? Or Microwave? Microwave data are used because they aren't much affected by clouds.

Multiyear ice is certainly not a random measurement choice. You want to be able to identify ice that has stuck around for a while, vs. ice that melts and refreezes. The implication for albedo changes and ocean-air interchanges are big.

mandrewa said...

Milwaukie Guy said, "a cyclical pattern emerged with ice ages of about 100,000 years and interglacials of 10 to 15,000 years. We are in the Holocene Epoch, the current interglacial, which began about 11,650 years ago. Do the math."

The discovery of the Greenland impact crater invites the hypothesis that the current interglacial may have begun early and therefore the next ice age pulse might be longer away than normal.

iowan2 said...

Which proxy measurement? The age of the ice? Or Microwave? Microwave data are used because they aren't much affected by clouds.?

Nice obtuse non response. "the decrease in old ice over the Arctic" Microwave measurements over how long? 50 years? 100 years? Were there micro wave measurements 100 years ago? Or are you using some other random proxy to determine what was going on 100 years ago. Now you're stacking proxy on top of proxy.
Decrease by how much over how long? As compared to the optimum? Right? The optimum rate of decrease. Or is it supposed to be static? Maybe the decrease is too slow.
What does it prove? The ice, isolated in a very small chosen area. You say that measurement is a proxy for something, but what? Climate change? The Arctic used to be rain forest.
You spit out some random stuff, but you cant tie that information to any hypothesis..

But again, Mr Master of the obtuse response. What is optimum and what to propose we do? Be specific and show your work.

blogger said...

The point the article makes about relying on multiple data sources is an excellent one. Unfortunately, looking at other types of data make a pretty strong case against the current warming narrative.

Record high temperatures for each of the 50 states are here. Only 6 states have set high temperature records in the last 50 years. If the science were so overwhelming that we're seeing substantial warming, you would expect many more records to be set. But the 1930s were where the action was.

Oh, and that Wikipedia article is an excellent example of the liberal bias there among their editors. There are several additional states listed as a high record within the last 50 years, but there is an asterisk next to the date. The explanation is that an earlier date had the same temperature (i.e. the date listed was not the date that the record was originally set). It's a subtle bias, to be sure, but points out how you need to read carefully over at Wikipedia.

Oh, and the all time high temperature for the entire USA was set in 1913. You'd think after repeated "Hottest year EVAH" that this would have been broken sometime in the last couple decades.

It's quite a strange warming that raises average temperature but not record temperature. Maybe not so strange when you consider that the average temperatures are adjusted (changed after they were originally recorded) but record temperatures are not.

- Borepatch

MadisonMan said...

You spit out some random stuff, but you cant tie that information to any hypothesis

My hypothesis is that Microwave imagery shows a decrease in a particular type of ice in the Arctic Ocean.

I'll even add in that such a decrease is consistent with a warming Pole.

Do you think either of these statements are false?

Henry said...

The Arctic used to be rain forest. You spit out some random stuff

MadisonMan, your random stuff is nothing compared to this random stuff.

You think the climate is warming, Mr. Scientist? I bet you think continents drift!

MadisonMan said...

@Henry, I really like seeing animations of Continental Drift, from the past and into the future. Awesome stuff. And to think they though Wegener was nuts!

Drago said...

MadisonMan: "@Henry, I really like seeing animations of Continental Drift.."

I particularly like watching the animations which show Trump's personal 757, Ajit Pai's Net Neutrality ruling and tax cuts present an impenetrable barrier to the continents drifting and creating a cataclysmic loss of human life.

Its one of the more reasonable analyses by the lefties on Man's impact on the environment.

funsize said...

Whatever happened to messages like "only you can prevent forest fires"? Now all we get is, "Everything is awful, its all your fault, and the only thing you can do about it is to cede all control to us forever".

BUMBLE BEE said...

Seems to be a shortage of crises. Superbug is gonna trump all this nonsense.

MadisonMan said...

an impenetrable barrier to the continents drifting and creating a cataclysmic loss of human life.

Isn't there a movie coming out along those lines by Peter Jackson? City of London as a big machine? After the big cataclysm kills most everyone, that is.

Another dystopian future, avoidable only if you vote Democratic.

John Ray said...

Back to the article. David Wallace-Wells is not a scientist, never was a scientist. [-1 for Wallace-Wells].

Wallace-Wells as written and spoken often of "climate change", in particular that created by humans. In fact, the most well ever read article of the publication for which he writes concerns "climate change". He was most severely criticized for that work, even by Mr. Mann and is friends-in-crime. His critics, same being on the same side in the jury box, including Mr. Mann, said such as: extremist; untrue statements; unfounded in data; no references given; and more, much more. None of them called him a damned liar, because they are on his side. [-10 for Wallace-Wells].

Mr. Wallace-Wells has stated in recorded interviews that we the people cannot be guardians of our climate -- it must be done by the government, for only it can enforce control our habits and activities. Notice the word "enforce", that was his choice of word.


I quit reading Wallace-Wells quite a while ago. He obviously has a thesaurus, maybe several.

Simply ignore the writings of this idiotic, control freak wordsmith.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"You, too, are in denial of climate change."
But David Wallace-Wells isn't! He must have some kind of God-like intellect!
The belief that right now, this moment, is uniquely hazardous in the long history of humanity is not a scientific belief. It is a religious belief.
The idea that we can make a choice to believe in CAGW and will ourselves to work against it is also not a scientific belief. Belief that the human will has the ability to alter the material universe is a spiritual belief, completely unproven by science.

iowan2 said...

My hypothesis is that Microwave imagery shows a decrease in a particular type of ice in the Arctic Ocean.

A decrease from when? And then the measurement. Thickness, area, mass, density, temperature...? What?

Now you're back to warming, instead of climate change.Seems like the official term is Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change. So why is all the proxy evidence attempting to show warming, when the temperature data fails to do so? Why not use temperature instead of the proxy of microwave measurement for temperature? Because the temperature was not statistically higher?

For people that claim science is driving their debate, very little science is used.

Gospace said...

If you believe human actions are driving the Earth's temperature I have three questions you should be able to easily answer:
1. What is the ideal global average temperature?
2. How did you compute this?
3. How do we achieve it?

Paul Zrimsek said...

What's wrong with hippie punching? It's the only known use for them.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

blah, blah, blah. Didn't read beyond the first two sentences because its an attempt to medicalize disagreement with AGCC. Critics can't have doubts because they have actual criticisms. Computer models used to "prove" climate change do no such thing. Climate change scientists have been caught doing some dodgy things. Climate change scientists keep making predictions that don't pan out. Nope, they just can't accept the obvious because they're cognitively incapable of doing so.

MadisonMan said...

A decrease from when? And then the measurement. Thickness, area, mass, density, temperature...? What?

You are being obtuse. From the beginning of microwave measurements. The measurement is of multi-age ice. Volume.

Also, you are asking me questions that I have not brought up. Why?

And you avoid the question I ask: Do you agree or disagree that microwave measurements show a decrease in the volume of multi-year ice in the Arctic? Why or why not?

Original Mike said...

Well, these guys, the Medieval Warm Period Project are performing an ongoing literature review to:

"document the magnitude and spatial and temporal distributions of a significant period of warmth that occurred approximately one thousand years ago. Its purpose is to ultimately determine if the Medieval Warm Period (1) was or was not global in extent, (2) was less warm than, equally as warm as, or even warmer than the Current Warm Period, and (3) was longer or shorter than the Current Warm Period has been to date."

My initial perusal of their data indicates the MWP is global in extent, which is a big deal if true. The greatest import of the hockey stick wasn't the much ballyhooed uptick of the present-day, but rather the absence of the MWP. Mann et al. sought to kill off the MWP in order to make the current warming look unique and, thus, more likely man-made.

tim in vermont said...

"
I'll even add in that such a decrease is consistent with a warming Pole.

Do you think either of these statements are false?"

Since the coldest decade of the last century, which is when the satellite era began.

John Ray said...

MadisonMan:

How are we to believe the microwave measurements?

We are urged to believe the "worldwide" temperature measurements, showing an increase in temperature measurements when:

1. So-called "certified stations" are on airport tarmacs, measuring temps affected by jet blasts;

2. the same stations in parking lots;

3. the same stations immediately outside the air-conditioning exhausts of government buildings;

4. the same stations having metal roofs (a no-no for these measuring stations);

and more, all photographed and documented.

And we are supposed to assume that the microwave measuring crews' instruments are correctly calibrated and "certified"?

Next time a cop "microwaves" you for speeding at 95 with you and your pal on a Vespa, don't call me to defend you.

Tommy Duncan said...

Climate change is the club the socialists have chosen to enact their agenda, since threat and force are required for them to get their way.

iowan2 said...

A decrease from when? And then the measurement. Thickness, area, mass, density, temperature...? What?

You are being obtuse. From the beginning of microwave measurements. The measurement is of multi-age ice. Volume.

Also, you are asking me questions that I have not brought up. Why?

And you avoid the question I ask: Do you agree or disagree that microwave measurements show a decrease in the volume of multi-year ice in the Arctic? Why or why not?


The earliest microwave measurement I come up with is 1982. So you are using data sets that span 36 years and conclude the destruction of the planet is eminent. Yaaa...got it.
Do I believe the measurement? Sure, I have no reason to disbelieve it. But I don't believe the data means squat. You have done nothing to support the hypothesis tying together two disparate subjects.

To support my position, this from an earlier post of millwaukie guy. 300 trillion tons of ice lost=.0011% That's a rounding error, not proof of anything.








RMc said...

When they can simply explain the East Anglia emails to me- something they've never done- I may start believing.

I remember interviewing someone about the East Anglia E-Mails, and she basically replied, "Why do you want to destroy the earth?"

Never interview true believers.

Henry said...

It's quite charming to read the once-collected-never-updated arguments against global warming measurement. It's like being offered rock-hard divinity by a doddering great-aunt.

Hockey stick! Metal roofs! Leather helmet!

Oh wait, that last one is about why Otto Graham is better than Tom Brady.

tim in vermont said...

I guess that a lot of these tired old arguments against global warming being a catastrophe will go away when refuted.

tcrosse said...

We are urged to believe the "worldwide" temperature measurements, showing an increase in temperature measurements when....

Ceteris paribus?

MadisonMan said...

How are we to believe the microwave measurements?

What an odd question!

Microwave measurements are either right or wrong. Belief doesn't enter into it.

This link might answer some questions. Microwave estimates of ice age are really interesting (well, to some people ;) ) and are driven by changes in emissivity of ice as that ice ages.

Original Mike said...

"It's quite charming to read the once-collected-never-updated arguments against global warming measurement."

That does not appear to be an accurate characterization of these guys.

Balfegor said...

Re: Birkel:

Hey, maybe it's the Sun that is causing the majority of the climate trends on this planet and on other planets, too.

Sure, but whether climate change is caused by man or some natural process really shouldn't matter for our first order policy response. If it is going to be a problem for us, why would we do anything different for natural warming vs man-made. We're not obliged to sit idly by and accept discomfort merely because it arises from natural causes. Nor does our solution always have to target the natural mechanism -- we can just put roofs over our head rather than trying to stop the rain.

Henry said...

@tim -- The hockey stick has been refuted -- by subsequent research by climate scientists that have replaced it more gradual trends. The ground temperature argument isn't really an argument, just a generic accusation derived from a grab bag of anecdotes. The idea that ground temperature stations were systematically unreliable turned out, upon thorough investigation, to not be true.

Yet these canards get rolled out again and again as if they're fresh news when a) the are shoddy science that have long been abandoned or b) shoddy anti-science that has been completely refuted.

As I suggested, it's like the natterings of someone whose mind stopped working in a different century.

Original Mike said...

"If it is going to be a problem for us, why would we do anything different for natural warming vs man-made."

Maybe because IF carbon emissions (cheers, John Henry!) aren't raising temperatures, lowering emissions won't lower temperatures. Just a thought.

Howard said...

Gilbar I'm on the same page regarding black soot

walter said...

"In theory, with climate, uncertainty should be an argument for action "
--
That's a pretty shitty theory.

Original Mike said...

Blogger Henry said...@tim -- The hockey stick has been refuted -- by subsequent research by climate scientists that have replaced it more gradual trends."

What are you referring to?

Balfegor said...

Re: Original Mike:

The greenhouse effect is still sound, consistent with what we know about how gasses store heat etc etc. So even if emissions isn't the cause, it could still be a solution. But emissions restriction is expensive! And involves coordination problems with third world development that render it impractical. The equivalent of trying to stop rain. Much cheaper and more effective to pursue unilateral technological solutions, which could work regardless of the warming mechanism.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Balfegor,
"We're not obliged to sit idly by and accept discomfort merely because it arises from natural causes. "

If the warming is natural - not caused by human activity - then why would changes in human activity eliminate the warming?

stevew said...

So long as the strongest argument in favor of action is based on the precautionary principle I shall remain unconvinced to act.

We know, at a high degree of certainty, that the recommended CO2 reduction actions will result in a significant reduction in the overall quality of life for most people. We also know that human caused global climate change (formerly: warming) is true at a much lower confidence level. We also know that the recommended CO2 reduction actions are largely unworkable and unlikely to produce the desired results. So the demand is that we toss a whole bunch of people back into poverty for the unlikely chance to reduce an unproven environmental threat.

Got it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Nothing exemplifies the stupidity and recklessness of the right-wing more than the comments in this thread.

A veritable smorgasbord of denialist tactics.

Take this one:

The climate always changes. Always has. For BILLIONS of years the climate and the configurations of the continents have changed.

And before the earth existed there were unloveable conditions in outer space, also. WTF is the point - other than to illustrate her ignorance over the fact that there's no remote possibility at the moment of reverting to the frozen earth of the proterozoic or the fireball of the Hadean or the deoxygenated atmosphere of the Archean.

The statement is simply an appeal to ignorance that says that just because conditions were different at one point, differing, alterable reasons can't change them in other ways now. The writer is saying that because natural phenomena occur, humans can't (or shouldn't) control their own destructiveness. You might as well have every murderer plead the insanity defense and say he couldn't change his murderous activities. His nature was unalterable.

DBQ pleads that human societies should commit themselves to mass endangerment because, hey - naturalistic fallacy.

Try to stop that too.

It takes a special kind of idiocy to accept that humans can change every manner of their physical environment with buildings, dykes, ditches, moats, bridges, roads, air conditioning, lighting, plumbing while proposing the rest of the race be consigned to helplessness over how much of the very gas whose tiny presence keeps us 60 degrees warmer already on average we should keep carbonizing the atmosphere with.

Keep your helplessness to yourself. People like you are the types of dildos who would have disbelieved the moon landings.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The greenhouse effect is still sound, consistent with what we know about how gasses store heat etc etc.

Very sound.

The denialists used to tell me that CO2 concentrations are too "small" to affect climate.

Without that small amount we'd always had pre-industrialization, global average temperatures would have been 60 degrees cooler.

That's a hell of a lot of an effect for a "diluted" gas that they want to ignore and pretend that forever increasing will do nothing.

So even if emissions isn't the cause, it could still be a solution. But emissions restriction is expensive!

It's becoming harder and harder to ignore the much greater "economic" devastation of ruining the very agricultural, ecological and hydrological settlement patterns that civilization has always been built on in the first place.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

"The discovery of the Greenland impact crater invites the hypothesis that the current interglacial may have begun early and therefore the next ice age pulse might be longer away than normal."

"We are in the Holocene Epoch, the current interglacial, which began about 11,650 years ago. Do the math.

I'm in favor of the burn more coal concept."


Lol!

IOW, fuck your data! These douchebags have a hypothesis! And a stopwatch!

Waiting for Godot.

Humans have caused all the burning and change already in less than 200 years. If another ice age were to come it wouldn't be overnight, but slow enough to ramp back up that 200-year (so far) process.

Deal with things as they are. Not as your carbonizers can get you to wish for them to be.

Big Mike said...

Ritmo believes in AGW. Is there any better reason to assume its falsity?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Ritmo believes in AGW. Is there any better reason to assume its falsity?

You mean, the fact that FOX Noise does and all the big donors who have a vested interest in its falsity?

Good to know you do science by way of politics, Big Bowel Mike Movement! (Truth and falsity as an extension of whom you hate or fellate).

If a 60 degree global temperature rise relied on the CO2 already in the atmosphere and I denied it, would Big Bowel Mike Movement believe it?

The question is immaterial. He's been duped by the same schmucks that were hired by Phillip Morris to do P.R. for smoking-cancer denialism. FACT.

Big Bowel Mike Movement: Here's a question for you - Do you also deny that smoking causes cancer? The people who sold you on AGW denialism spent (and made) A LOT of money trying to convince degenerates like you to believe just that.

Big Mike said...

@MadMan, what I'd like to see is separation of the question. As I see it, there are (at least) four questions involved:

1) Is the climate changing? Answer seems to be affirmative, because it changes continuously and would change continuously even if hominids never came down out of the trees. (N.B., according to some hypotheses trying to explain the origin of upright walking, our ancestors came down out of the trees because of climate change.)

2) Is it changing for the worse? Answer seems to be negative. The data I've seen (but I haven't seen all of it by any means) suggests that tropical areas are not much affected, but temperate zones now have longer growing seasons.

3) To what extent has man contributed to climate change? Answer is not clear. The CO2 people are hypothesize that eventually CO2 will warm the atmosphere to the point where H2O -- a vastly more heat absorbing greenhouse gas -- takes over. But so far none of the models appear to have accurately predicted what has happened over the past twenty to twenty-five years so should absolutely not be trusted for future predictions. Reasons include increased CO2 contributing to increased plant growth leading to lower levels of CO2 and that H2O in the atmosphere tends to clump into clouds, where reflect solar energy back out into space (as anyone who has flow in an airliner above heavy clouds would realize).

4) Most importantly, is a carbon tax the only, or if not the only then is it the best, or if it is the best then is it the most equitable way to deal with AGW? Answers here are clear: not the only, and horribly regressive in its effects on people. But the sort of people who contribute heavily to political campaigns would get to keep their private jets and multiple houses and gas-guzzling limousines.

And, of course, if Valentina Zharkova is right, we are heading for a thirty year cycle of very cold termperatures, sooner rather than later.

Big Mike said...

@Ritmo, you throw up a lot of strawmen. How about you start by answering my questions?

Big Mike said...

BTW, no one had to "sell" me on AGW "denialism." I am a mathematician, with probably twenty or more models -- validated models -- developed by me over the years. I am pretty appalled at what passes for climate modeling. I deny AGW for the same reason I deny that 2 + 2 = 5.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Whatever one's living, there's no mathematical excuse for denying how to figure out that the atmosphere is not anywhere near as cold as space. Your AGW denialism is simply not possible without denying the entire greenhouse effect.

So once you find a way to live at ambient temperature in the uncontrolled vacuum of the Kuiper Belt then I will believe your "mathematical modeling" of how it's not atmospheric heat-retaining gases that keep you slightly more comfortable on earth.

Really. How stupid or evil does someone have to be to pretend not to understand something so fucking straightforward?

Balfegor said...

re: exhelodrvr1:

If the warming is natural - not caused by human activity - then why would changes in human activity eliminate the warming?

It's a single system. Just because output A is caused by input B doesn't mean that changing input C will have no effect. If the inside of your car gets hot because it's been sitting in the sun, there are ways of remedying that that don't involve turning off the sun. Assuming that the only solution to a problem is to eliminate the supposed causes of the problem is precisely the mental trap that people advocating solutions to climate change fall into. Don't try to move the world. Look for the lever that moves the world, and focus your energies there, not on this ludicrous effort to coordinate the activities of 7 billion people spread across over an hundred independent polities when your own projected effects are piddly.

Also regarding carbon dioxide, its specific heat is quite low (lower than nitrogen!), and the concentrations infinitesmal, so it's hard to believe it could have much direct effect on global temperatures. The critical mechanism -- which seems plausible to me -- is that it causes fractionally more water vapour to remain in the atmosphere. The table here seems quite good, in that it shows that carbon dioxide absorbs a piece of the electromagnetic spectrum that otherwise would pass freely through water vapour or the nitrogen that makes up much of our atmosphere. The direct effect is miniscule given the miniscule concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it is amplified to the extent that even a slight increase in temperatures results in a corresponding increase in water vapour, which absorbs a lot more energy. Over time, if you have constant energy radiating in, and reduced energy radiating out (due to increased water vapour), the overall temperature of the system will increase.

Of course, an increase in the energy radiating into the system could easily dwarf these effects -- that's why some people are more concerned about solar activity than they are about greenhouse gases. And why some of the lower cost solutions to global warming include seeding the upper atmosphere with small concentrations of particulate matter to radiate slightly more solar energy back out before it even hits most of the atmosphere, sunshades at the L1 Lagrange point, etc.

Big Mike said...

there's no mathematical excuse for denying how to figure out that the atmosphere is not anywhere near as cold as space.

Folks is this Ritmo's all time worst non sequitur? Or has been even stupider than this? He does remind me, though, that some AGW devotees cite the apparent warming of the moon (a place without an atmosphere) as proof of AGW because mankind was there, after all. (N.B., the last astronauts departed in December 1972.)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Hey Mike - since I'm either impatient tonight or having to wait too long for you to respond, I'll cut to the chase. Once your "mathematical model" figures out how the earth's surface gets to be at least 60 degrees F hotter than space, then I'll take your denialism seriously. In the meantime, being a mathematician is no excuse for denying that the real world, however numbers are made to apply to it, still fucking exists. And that includes chemistry, astronomy, geology and a whole lot of other basic concepts that you out-thought yourself into denying away.

You can't deny AGW without denying the greenhouse effect. Basic science here. It's like a mathematician bitching about specific pH values who can't even accept acidity or alkalinity as basic concepts.

Amazing.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's not a non sequitur to note that your AGW denialism relies on denying the basic fact accepted by every astronomer of the very greenhouse effect that keeps the earth 60 degrees F warmer than it would otherwise be.

Try modeling that before you ask to publish your denialist alternative-to-AGW model.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Also regarding carbon dioxide, its specific heat is quite low (lower than nitrogen!), and the concentrations infinitesmal, so it's hard to believe it could have much direct effect on global temperatures.

Note to observer: "Hard to believe" is not how scientists make their case. It's how people who hold to superstition make their case.

A dead giveaway.

Water vapor changes phase way more easily than CO2 and is not increasing - in a way that can't fall back to earth as rain - to contribute to warming.

Talk about easy to disbelieve.

Conservatives are insanely narrow people. Just refuse to see the big picture to anything and confuse themselves on irrelevant "alternative facts" details.

Big Mike said...

@Ritmo, it is well known that the surface of the earth is heated from three sources: solar energy (the sun can't heat space because there is nothing there to absorb IR energy), heat radiating outward from the molten iron core of the planet, and heat from radioactive decay. I don't need to model it; Lord Rutherford did just fine.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What Big Bowel Mike Movement doesn't want to admit is that his rejection of the greenhouse effect leaves him sputtering with the other conservatards who believe that volcanoes and sunspots keep the earth's surface warmer than space.

I'm beginning to wonder if he's capable of wiping his own ass.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

@Ritmo, it is well known that the surface of the earth is heated from three sources: solar energy (the sun can't heat space because there is nothing there to absorb IR energy), heat radiating outward from the molten iron core of the planet, and heat from radioactive decay. I don't need to model it; Lord Rutherford did just fine.

Here's a decoder ring for the non-liars: When Big Bowel Movement Mike says "there is nothing there to absorb IR energy" he is trying to sneak away from admitting that the "there" there is CO2.

That "there" keeps the earth's surface on average 60 degrees F warmer than it would otherwise.

Mike, it's a good thing you're a mathematician because you'd obviously make a shitty lawyer - as much as you admire their deceptive word games.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And Rutherford came a decade or so after Arrhenius, whose work also holds up just fine.

Big Mike said...

Ritmo has topped his own non sequitur.

@Ritmo, try this simple experiment. Build an airtight box, clear on the top, pump all the atmospheric gases out, and leave it in the sun. The floor of the box will heat up. CO2 is not the only thing on the earth that absorbs solar radiation.

Danno said...

What Gilligan said.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The floor of the box will heat up. CO2 is not the only thing on the earth that absorbs solar radiation.

You're a pretty dumb guy, Mike. Have you ever noticed how the air above the earth's surface can get even hotter from the sun than the ground?

But by all means, your hypothesized "experiment" sounds ingenious. Go contact Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, and the corpse of Stephen Hawking and let them know that you reject what's known about the heat retention of CO2 because you were the first person to think of heating the plexiglass encasing a vacuum.

What a creative design. I'm sure no one's thought of anything that simple and revealing before. You should win a Nobel Prize. You're almost as clever as Phillip Morris.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Make no mistake, people. Eventually Big Mike WILL reject the smoking-cancer link. No doubt about it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And basically, Mike's "experiment" can't account for why the earth's surface is hotter on average than the moon's.

Damn. We were anticipating magnificent explanatory power with his "the ground is doing all the heat distribution of our air" thing.

Danno said...

When we start shooting down private jets (particularly ones headed to climate conferences) and we ground the airline industry, I won't even think about why I should make my life difficult. All of the government solutions make it prohibitively expensive for the middle class to heat and cool their homes for almost no climate savings. (Look at the clowns in charge of Germany for an example.)

We should look at having our capitalist economy create solutions through technology to adapt to any serious effects of climate change, whether man-made or nature-caused.

Lewis Wetzel said...

tommy Duncan said...
Climate change is the club the socialists have chosen to enact their agenda, since threat and force are required for them to get their way.
12/14/18, 4:45 PM


Back when the cold war was a going concern, the threat was nuclear winter, which only the US could eliminate (not the Soviets) by unilateral disarmament. Carl Sagan, a red diaper baby, was a big nuclear winter guy. Then the USSR collapsed from the internal contradictions of the Marxist-Leninist system, and, wow! Within a decade a whole new threat to world was given birth by the same people who invesnted the "nuclear winter" scare.
I am not 60 years old, and so far I've seen the imminent end of the world predicted due to:
1) overpopulation
2) pollution
3) acid rain
4) nuclear winter
5) over fishing
6) the ocean dying
7) peak oil
8) global warming
9) climate change (this is particularly stupid, since the climate is always changing, it cannot be disproven & therefore is not science)

The freedom-hating socialists were behind all of these panics, and the solution is always the same: give us power over the behavior of individuals and the wealth they produce & we will make the boogie man go away.
Needless to say, the world continues to do just fine.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's so good to have Lewis Wetzel drop by to tell us that nuclear war might have been a really nice thing for our environment. And that fishing stocks are infinite. Just ask the cod fisherman of the north Atlantic.

Danno said...

Gotta leave. I see Pee-Pee Tape has defecated all over this thread.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

..defecated all over this thread.

AGW denialism is the sewer of an intellectual toilet. I did the most appropriate thing.

Henry said...

@Big Mike -- A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Figure 8 : 50-year binned composites stratified by archive type, for all types comprising 5 or more series.

It's pretty simple. What you have with metadata analysis of multiple proxy data sets is evidence for a strong 20th-century warming trend, coupled with more variation and uncertainty than earlier researchers presented.

Gospace said...

The entirety of Earth's atmosphere acts as an insulation blanket on the planet. Not just CO2. Water vapor is especially important to that. Especially cloud cover which reflects heat back to the surface. It's one of those well known facts for outdoor campers that cloudy nights are generally warmer. Lack of clouds and water vapor is why deserts in Earth have the widest day/night temperature swings. Part of current job is recording outside air temperature hourly. I haven't seen the sun's orb for two days. Yesterday's and today's temperature swing is a whopping 10 deg F. Desert Valley Park AZ has a projected swing tommorow of 27 deg.

Nov79.com/gbwm/nytg.html is a good place to start for some facts about CO2 and atmosphere warming.

That giant fusion reactor about 93 million miles away controls temperature. Infrared temperature measurements of the other planets go up and down in sync with us. With no human activity.

Big Mike said...

@Ritmo, let's get to my fourth question (repeated for convenience):

"Most importantly, is a carbon tax the only, or if not the only then is it the best, or if it is the best then is it the most equitable way to deal with AGW?"

If AGW is right -- and for that to be the case then we need models that actually explain the observations since the late 1990s instead of substantially overestimating the impacts of CO2 -- even then is there a case for a carbon tax? If there were other solutions (hint: there are) that more equitably spread the costs across the entire economic spectrum, would that not be better?

Big Mike said...

@Henry, what happened to the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age? Both are well-documented in the historical record, and neither shows up in the charts you linked to.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Mike seems to not understand that I never read his "list." Why? Because he's boring and obtuse. I almost never read him. I read what he writes when insulting me because I can usually pound him back ten times as hard, but that's different.

He still can't admit how gases behave in relation to heat sources so I'll conclude that his goalpost shifting to policy changes is a distraction designed to pretend that he doesn't have to concede that point.

It's impossible to get to prescriptions and fixes when AGW deniers and their pimps have made so much of a mess of the public discussion regarding the basic science in the first place. I'm not about to play that game. We're way past that point.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

...and for that to be the case then we need models that actually explain the observations since the late 1990s...

Oh, then why don't we wait... until 2050? Or 2100? I mean once Fiji and Florida are flooded then it will be so much harder to deny! Can't you see the logic in waiting that long? Surely if it's too late then that's the best time to start acting. Hey, at least our certainty (or your certainty) would be that much stronger! I'm so glad to know what it takes to persuade someone willing to take such a risk with civilization.

Big Mike said...

Because he's boring and obtuse.

Don't feel bad, Ritmo. Lots of people don't grasp mathematics. So you're in the bottom percentile for intelligence. Someone has to be there, and it's you.

Henry said...

@Big Mike -- I suggest you actually look at the charts. They definitely track with the history of the little ice age. Some of them show more alignment with the medieval warming period more than others. As I mentioned, where the most recent science departs from Mann's crude models is in showing more variation, both within proxy data sets and between proxy data sets.

I will restate my original point: The state of the science now is much different than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. More data has been gathered. It is managed better. Some specific counterarguments against global warming have been examined and found wanting. Despite hysteria in the popular and scientific press, much of the science is devoted to careful, incremental improvement in achieving better models. Any argument that has to reach back before such improvements is farcical. A weak argument is the opposite of convincing. It discredits itself.

To look at this another way, most climate-change skeptics know of Steve McIntyre, who pointed out basic statistical flaws in Mann's published research and helped expose Mann's indefensibly sloppy data handling. Well, McIntyre has largely been vindicated. The work published since his critique has exhibiting increasing mathematical rigor and improved data handling. His calls for data to be made public and subject to audit have improved the science. The meta-analysis papers, such as the one I linked above, wouldn't be possible without those improvements.

Big Mike said...

@Henry, besides "documents", which of the charts depicts the MWP? And I could readily interpret four of the charts as suggesting that the earth has been warmer in the past than it is now, and that the perceived rise in temperatures is merely the earth climbing back out of a cooler period of time on its way to normal temperatures.

I would not mind if you answered my four questions at 7:27. In fact, of all of the dishonest things tied to AGW, perhaps the most dishonest is trying to focus on whether or not it really is happening. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that it really is happening. Is it bad? Everyone seems to assume so, but the data I have seen suggests that the effects are mostly felt above the Tropic of Cancer and below the Tropic of Capricorn. Does it hurt to have longer growing seasons? And if it is bad, is a carbon tax the only, or the best, way to remediate it? Or should we inflict a disastrously regressive tax on the middle class and poor people so that plutocrats can keep their private jets and gas-guzzling limos?

Big Mike said...

@Henry, have you ever studied numerical analysis? Models that might make sense on paper where infinite precision can be assumed can totally blow up when run on a computer. For example I recall a government project back in the 1970s where we had to do a rapid conversion from one geospatial coordinate system another, and the government scientists came up with a fast, but approximate, solution that had an acceptable radius of error. I couldn't confirm analytically that their method would work, so I tried applying their transform once to known features, then applying it again in reverse to see how far off we were. And we were several kilometers away from where the latitude and longitude should have been. The problem was that we were inverting an ill-conditioned matrix. Once I fixed the conditioning problem everything worked out -- the approximation algorithm put the geographic features within a couple meters of where they really were, and consequently within the error radius of their original measurements given those pre-GPS days.

But I doubt any climate scientist who managed somehow to get through linear algebra has ever heard of matrix conditioning.

Original Mike said...

@Henry - Thank you for the paper. It's going in my reference list.

A couple of things. I'm afraid I'm with Big Mike; I don't see the MWP in the data which begs for an explanation. I do see in general the period from 0 to 1000 AD as being warm. I don't see compelling evidence for the present being warmer than periods in the past.

Global ice: present same temp as 400-600 AD
Lake sediment: present maybe a smidge warmer than 200 AD
Marine sediment: present cooler than 0-1500 AD
tree rings: 0.2 degrees C warmer than the warmest periods in the past.

One has to assume that the blade of the hockey stick (I know you have belittled that term but face it, several of these curves have that characteristic coming out of the little ice age) continues higher into the future. And isn't that what the current debate is about?

I look forward to any comments you may have.

Krumhorn said...

Ice core studies from 8000 years ago forward show that centennial variations in temperature have never exceeded one standard deviation in one direction or the other. Moreover, when compared to CO2 concentration, the CO2 lags temperature. Not the other way around.

The anthropogenic global warming campaign is nothing more than a vehicle to advance the socialist political agenda. It’s no accident that the key feature of the solution is a massive wealth transfer. And it’s no accident that the high priests in the church of global warming are, without exception, lefties. Those that value real science are not those promoting this scam.

When a Nobel Prize winning physicist says it’s all pseudo science, he is speaking for those that have actually read the climate “science” papers. That would include me.

- Krumhorn

Martin said...

Yes, all of us are pathetic slaves to our cognitive shortcomings--- except David Wallace-Wells, who is totally free from any cognitive biases or distortions and sees only the total and complete truth in every respect.

Uh huh.

MadisonMan said...

Most importantly, is a carbon tax the only, or if not the only then is it the best, or if it is the best then is it the most equitable way to deal with AGW?

A carbon tax will not work until people actually start changing their behavior -- and by 'people' I mean everyone. I think enacting a carbon tax is political people trying 'to do something' so they can go back to the fools who elected them and say "See? See? I'm doing something!!"

As Althouse is fond of saying, better than nothing is a high standard. A carbon tax is not better than nothing.

Market forces could help, if the Government allowed individuals to write off most of a solar installment (for example) -- or wind. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, solar subsidies go to the politically connected who do nothing but vacuum up funds. (See: Solyndra)

Big Mike said...

@MadMan, thank you for your observation. But please look at my comment from 10:07 last night. Do you have numerical analysts working with you to be certain that your numerical techniques are valid?

tim in vermont said...

You think the climate is warming, Mr. Scientist? I bet you think continents drift!

It’s funny that you should bring up continental drift, since that is an area in science where there was an unbreakable consensus until actual, you know, scientific evidence showed up that was irrefutable and that a child could understand and suddenly a “consensus” was replaced by actual knowledge of the truth, which was the opposite of the consensus of which the scientists at the time were so certain.

MadisonMan said...

@BigMike, my opinion on Climate Models is that they are -- brittle, for lack of a better term. Finely tuned, but one change might throw things awry, which speaks to the ill-conditioning you note. I give plaudits to modelers for their work (my own work on modeling -- weather, not climate -- was enough to push me back to observations). And I think you can glean information from them, but the specifics of the future? Not really there yet. I admit, though, that I'm not on the cutting edge of modeling (Ha!) so things might be happening that I don't know about. Maybe the annual meeting in January will teach me. (Although, honestly, that meeting is so huge, with so many things going on, that it's hard to find things out sometimes. Still, not as big as AGU).

Computer resources are the limiting factor at the moment. I look forward to ensemble climate modeling -- those might help identify points of interest. Still boggles my mind that you can run a good weather forecast model on a desktop! And here I had to use the Cray back in the day!

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 213   Newer› Newest»