A reader in a previous thread asks if I'm a climate change skeptic. Nope. Not being a meteorologist, physicist, geologist, chemist, etc, myself, I go with the scientific consensus on the matter, much as I assume that the biologists are right about evolution and the physicists aren't pulling my leg about this gravity stuff. I do not have the time, expertise, or inclination to investigate every single scientific claim about the world, and so I trust in the scientific method, the peer review process, and the wisdom of crowds to deliver me a reasonably reliable answer.
I'm still working out how much I think we should be prepared to do about this, but I believe it's happening.
This just happened in my head (or head-equivalent):
me: Why should I care what science has to say?
Megan_McArdle: Well, you see, science is a solid method for truth-seeking, which is grounded on the ability to reproduce results. It is robust against human error or malice because each claim details what observations would render it false, and can be carried out by any independent third party.
me: And why should I believe that humans are causing global warming through CO2 emissions and should be reduced in order to avert catastrophe?
Megan_McArdle: Because that is the scientific consensus.
me: So, the scientific consensus details which future observations would falsify the above claim, and scientists have historically been able to predict climate changes for a set of emission schedules?
Megan_McArdle: Yes.
me: When and where did they do that?
Megan_McArdle: I don't know, but I trust it must have happened somewhere.
me: Because you trust science.
Megan_McArdle: Yes.
me: Why?
Megan_McArdle: Well, you see, science is a solid method for truth-seeking, which is grounded on the ability to reproduce results. It is robust against human error or malice because each claim details what observations would render it false, and can be carried out by any independent third party.
me: *falls out of chair*
Person's imagination, starring Ray Bolger as Megan McArdle.
Am I the only getting getting sick of Mr. Al Gore and all of his sunshine and roses talk about how things are getting warmer and pretty soon things are going to be so much better?
I start to get hopeful, then December comes and I open my front door and what do I find? Cold! And last night? Hella snow shovelling.
Is there more I could be doing? I've got no time for flourescents. I bought an SUV and let it idle as much as I can afford (those things use more gas than you might realize - but hey, change comes at a cost, right?). I keep my thermostat set to uncomfortably hot, but frankly that just makes the bitter cold outside that much more difficult to take. I don't know - I really feel like I'm doing my part.
I guess I appreciate Mr. Gore's optimism, and his enthusiasm can be contagious. I just hope he's not setting our expectations too high and we're not in for a big letdown.
To what extent is human activity contributing to global warming? I too lack the expertise to know the answer to this question.
But even if one accepts the dominant view that human activity is the main cause of warming, that does not suffuce to decide what, if anything, to do about it. Many of the proposed soutions might well be worse than the problem. CAFE standards, for example, are a particularly inefficient way to address carbon emissions.
I'm inclined to agree with Bjorn Lomborg that there are more pressing problems than a 1 degree rise in gloabl temperatures--like nuclear proliferation, malnutrition, AIDS... It isn't clear to me why global warming should be higher on our list of priorities than these and other problems.
rew-
May I parse your logic, puleeze?
a)human activity contributes to global warming
b)regardless, human activity should maintain the status quo, even though that will exacerbate global warming because...
c)some proposed solutions may make it worse
d)there is aids
e)global warming is no big deal
Scientist: Let me show you all this data we have...
Person: I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA
Also, Sean E. does not know this difference between "climate" and "weather".
does this logic transfer to economic theory and policy? and if so, why would you ever refer to the Laffer Curve with anything other than mocking contempt?
Megan, You are so brilliant, but I have 2 simple questions that I hope you can answer (for yourself, if not your huge following):
1) What about the scientific consensus on global cooling in the 1960-80s? Was that just an outlier artifact, like it's contemporary "trans-fat margarine is much better for you than butter, or trans-fat Crisco better than lard"?
2) Are you familiar with "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn? One of the main themes is how scientific consensus a victim of groupthink (like every other institutional consensus, such as religion).
Person:
You are raising what, to my mind, are deep methodological questions.
Rather than clog the comments thread, I'll make one point and point you to two things that I've written for National Review on this.
Point: CO2 has been demonstrated in replicated lab experiments to be a greenhouse gas, i.e., it will capture and redirect infrared radiation, but not shorter wavelength radiation. All else equal, more CO2 in the atmosphere will raise temperatures. It turns out that “all else equal” is the crux of the prediction problem that you have highlighted.
Two things:
1. An article on the uncertainty of climate predictions: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmViY2Y3YzY1YmVkYTg4NjczODhkYWU1Mjg1YzhjMTI
2. An online debate I had with a scientifically-sophisticated global warming skeptic: http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjFiMDdiYzRmMjkzZGIyNjVjNjhkZDgzODMwYzU1ZTM
"What about the scientific consensus on global cooling in the 1960-80s? Was that just an outlier artifact, like it's contemporary "trans-fat margarine is much better for you than butter, or trans-fat Crisco better than lard"?"
That was irrelevant because there was no scientific consensus on global cooling in the 1960s-80s.
No one is saying that science is infallible. Scientific consensus is obviously a subject to change on many issues. That said, the scientic consensus represents the current view of a broad range of people who have greater than average knowledge on the subject, and it would be foolish to ignore it.
Rickm is right. Today no serious scientist disagrees with Al Gore. There are some kooks and nuts with PHDs though.
Hinheckle-
No. There are serious scientists that disagree with mainstream opinion on the extent of global warming. However, they are a small minority of the scientific community. This isn't news.
Regardless, there was no scientific consensus on global cooling in the 60's.
Rickm, I think you need to keep saying it, while simultaneously clicking your ruby slippers.
It is reasonable for Megan to take this position. After all, she is an economist/journalist, not a scientist. Scientists have a duty to follow the scientific method.
My question is: are they? Or are they using the same arguments as Megan?
BTW: Here is a roundup of the kooks
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=c6a32614-f906-4597-993d-f181196a6d71&k=0
caveat-
The filter won't let me post the link, but goto realclimate dot org and search for global cooling. They have an article showing that the notion that there was a scientific consensus on global cooling in the 60s and 70s is a myth.
On public policy issues, how often do we really get to the right answer via "the scientific method, the peer review process, and the wisdom of crowds"?
The best political scientists and economists gave us price controls, rationing, wage caps/floors, tariffs etc... Until Milton Friedman (and others) finally caught traction.
Educational "scientists" gave us the self-esteem movement and the silly American public school system. (Milton has not yet caught traction here.)
Social scientists push for censorship, the "fairness doctrine", and campaign finance "reforms" in broadcast speech.
Long story short... When everyone believes the same thing, and incentives for all stakeholders reinforce that belief... Not enough people are looking for the evidence against the prevailing view.
This is true of dominant religions (Crusades, anyone?), economic ideologies (Communism, anyone?), and possibly the global warming movement.
You're too smart to be a joiner for joining's sake. The proper course of action with this and all beliefs: Be agnostic until you know better. Acknowledge the "consensus" (which every politician tries to claim on every issue); then dig deeper before forming a true opinion of your own.
A person may be raised in a Catholic, Socialist house... That person is not sentenced to a lifetime of those beliefs. Instead, he/she should check his/her assumptions before being confirmed or imposing 75% tax rates on his/her neighbor.
No one has yet mentioned what I think is one of the major driving factors in the discussion. There are a fairly large number of people who spend their lives looking for an excuse to control society. A few hundred years ago you could find them in the Catholic church, but that effort crashed (after hundreds of years of reasonable success). A hundred years ago you could find them in the "scientific" economics of Marxism, which was going to change society. That also crashed. What to do? Find some "scientific" issue that can be used to assert control, such as "global warming".
That does not mean I dispute that there will be global warming, or global cooling, for that matter. It does mean that 1)human contributions to climate are fairly small compared to other influences, and 2) we would be better off figuring out how to respond to warming (or cooling, for that matter) rather than launching major ill-advised initiatives to control every detail of human society. Those who think they would naturally be the controllers disagree, of course. No doubt we will hear more after their luxury meeting in Bali.
All things considered, it doesn't matter whether or not increased CO2 will lead to a warmer world (I think it will, for what it is worth)- there is simply no alternatives at hand that will prevent carbon dioxide from increasing in the atmosphere for the next 100 years. Only nuclear can replace the energy we use today, but there is, at the moment, no real initiative to actually start building the plants that will be needed.
Thinking we will voluntarily cut our carbon emissions by 50-80% by whenever without nuclear power taking up not only the present energy consumption, but also the future increases in energy consumption is just simple naivete. If you think global warming is a serious threat, then you have two options: (1) live with it or, (2) start building nuclear power plants now.
I am mostly appalled by the low quality of the discussion. I see appeal to authority, I see proof by repeated assertion, and I see ad-hominem attacks.
I do agree that things seem warmer than they once were.
Colonel Henry Knox brought cannon captured at Fort Ticonderoga down the frozen Hudson River to the siege of Boston. General Washington was then able to drive the British out. The Hudson River no longer freezes solid in the winter.
Further back, though, Greenland at the time of the Viking settlements did actually support dairy farms. That time was known as the Medieval Warming period.
The cooling afterward was known as the Little Ice Age. That did not end until after the Napoleonic wars, in the mid 1800s.
An earlier cooling period may have helped kill off the Roman Empire. North Africa was once the breadbasket of the empire.
Then it turns out that 1998 was *not* the warmest year on record. That was 1934. Five of the ten hottest years in U.S. records were during the 1930s.
We *know* climate changes. The time scale is longer than a human life. It is really hard to see a trend when you're a flyspeck on it. It is even harder to determine the causes for each swing.
Yes, global warming is all just a plot by the Illuminati.
Look, either you trust science, or you don't.
It's like the Near Earth Asteroids Tracking project. There are hundreds of asteroids whose orbits bring them near or across Earth's orbital path. Some of those are large enough that if they impacted Earth would cause severe damage and/or catastrophic loss of life; a big enough strike could make the planet uninhabitable. The odds of such a strike in any particular year are vanishingly small; and yet, since we don't know all the orbits of all the objects that are out there, one could be on its way to hitting us tomorrow. Science says that these things are out there. So what do you do? Do you accept the risk and simply go on with business as usual, or do you work to locate all those objects even if the return on your investment might not be realized in tens of thousands of years? (Or ever.)
Rickm: I did google for "global cooling" but saw a set of results that is not consensual.
I am frequently visiting NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies site for the latest in surface temperature trends, and we are in the middle of a decade long cooling trend.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
There is a very clear difference between the "scientific method" and "consensus". Without such a distinction and a respect for the former, we might never have made the leap from the hysterical mob rule over policy that characterized the backward thinking that ridiculed some of our greatest scientists merely for their dissent. We might do ourselves some good as a society by looking back at the tyranny which resulted when we allowed so-called "scientific consensus" to rule state policy.
Caveat Bettor,
Why don't you find for us all of those papers demonstrating this global cooling consensus you think existed?
I'll tell you why. They don't exist.
I searched INSPEC and Web of Science. I found one promising article from 1976 titled "Global Cooling?" It was about global warming. I did find some articles about global cooling, but they were about cooling at the end of the pliocene and mesozoic periods.
There were pop-science articles about a coming ice age, but they were written by quacks and given no credence.
liberalrob,
Your analogy can work the other way, you know. North America has been covered (as far south as Ohio- Long Island, itself, is the result of a glacier's bulldozing) in glaciers miles thick several times in the last 10,000,000 years. The payoff from a warmer earth might not happen for 50,000 years, but what if it prevents further glaciations?
JRM:
I am completely unable to understand how the totally-unsubstantiated speculation about the motivations of believers in climate change constitues scientific evidence that "human contributions to climate are fairly small compared to other influences". You've obviously made some kind of major breakthrough that's overthrown much of what we thought we knew about logic, and I am anxious to know more about it.
I see nothing wrong with appealing to authority. Climate is a complex and difficult subject, and most of us here probably have amateur level familiarity with it at most.
Megan makes me cry.
There is an obvious conflict of interest here that should make any rational person skeptical.
Do you really expect unbiased claims from the very parties that stand to gain in direct proportion to the degree to which the public is riled up about some "end of the world" issue?
Seriously, relying on climatologists and the UN for objective analysis and prescription regarding AGW and environmental policy is like relying on Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Halliburton to run our foreign policy.
Add "the War on Global Warming" to the "War on Terror" to the "War on Drugs" to whatever convenient apocalyptic prediction will justify further state control and erode our freedoms.
As a former chemist and current political economist who has worked in academia for a decade, I can't see how any intellectually honest person can ignore the known, well-established biases in academia (including those in the peer-review process as well as the incentives of funding), which are in this case multiplied by the biases and perverse incentives of the public choice aspects of virtually unaccountable global government.
Does the fact that many people who are listed as being part of the "consensus" have vocally denied any agreement with the results of the IPCC process not raise at least a few alarm bells?
Even granting the assumption of AGW, is it not obvious that the publicized "Arrestment" solution may be worse than an "Adaptation" solution? Guess which general strategy more empowers the U.N.?
(Yahoo news told me today that divorce is bad for the environment, since high-density homes are more energy efficient - I wouldn't be surprised if soon the social conservatives are going to be jumping on the bandwagon with Archer Daniels Midland/the corn lobby and the other interest groups which stand to gain from the hype)
I would like to point out that the so-called consensus of scientists includes ALL scientists who have weighed in on this matter, but the only consensus that should count is the subset consisting of climate scientists. And my understanding is that there is no clear consensus among climate scientists that AGW is occurring.
Jim Manzi suggests reading two of his articles above in the comments.
I've taken a look at the first: 1. An article on the uncertainty of climate predictions: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmViY2Y3YzY1YmVkYTg4NjczODhkYWU1Mjg1YzhjMTI
I think he has done an exceptionally good job of summarizing the current uncertainty of climate predictions.
As to "you either trust science or you don't":
The scientific method has strong limitations. Climatology is an area dealing with complex, chaotic-dynamic systems, which science can't do very much at all with. You can't put a global environment in a lab and test it. Statistical treatment isn't much better, as you have a sample of n=1, and extremely noisy (or virtually no) historical data.
"Trust the scientists" is basically a faith-based statement in this area.
As to asteroid collisions:
It is very possible (perhaps even very likely) that the expected harm from an asteroid collision is much greater than the expected harm from AGW. This means that resources diverted from asteroid detection and diversion towards dealing with AGW are making us worse off.
Again the public choice insights speak to why we see AGW being marketed much more than asteroid collision - efforts to combat AGW do much more to empower the U.N. and the tranzis.
For some information on climate scientists who do not think that AGW has been established yet, visit www.climateaudit.org.
Yancey Ward is correct. I will start taking Global Warming enthusiasts more seriously when they start pushing, en masse and with a passion equal to that they display on Kyoto, etc., for an immediate, nation-wide build-up on nuclear power plants. Barring that, I can only assume that they consider nuclear power itself as bad or worse than GW, in which GW can't really be everything they are saying.
Also, when they stop reacting to questions by merely pointing to The Consenus.
I'm glad someone made the analogy to the war on terror. Similarly, most do not deny that terrorism exists, and will not cease to exist for a very long time. However, most self-proclaimed progressives assert that the threat of terrorism is not sufficient to curtail our civil liberties. I submit that the threat of climate change is similarly no greater as to necessitate any similar curtailment of our liberties, civil or economic.
Peter-
Right. Because 'the world' is not a public space, like a park, or the atmosphere, or the homeland.
Opinion and consensus are irrelevant to science. One man with dispositive data trumps 100,000 clowns with opinions that all agree with each other.
Anthropogenic global warming is a conjecture, nothing more. It has not been tested scientifically, because it cannot be (at this point). A conjecture plus a potentially falsifying test constitutes a hypothesis, but testing hypotheses is notoriously difficult in observational sciences, because we cannot readily device control experiments.
Meanwhile, please note, if the atmosphere were likened to the population of the US (300 million):
Total CO2 would correspond to 150,000 people
Anthropogenic CO2 would correspond to 4,500 people
Water vapor - a potent greenhouse gas) would correspond to ca. 5,000,000 people (depending on humidity)
(all on a partial pressure/molar basis).
Kinda hard to believe adding 4,500 people (people identical in every respect to 150,000 already here) to the US would make much difference, isn't it?
meg's semi-abdication makes little sense because, even as framed by GW proponents, this is not a science question, but a policy issue.
that is, while GW may be happening -- whether anthro or no -- that does not necessarily mean we need to or should take steps to fight GW. that's a very, very complicated cost benefit analysis (more in the realm of econ) that must take into account what we can reasonably do given the scope of the problem, the tragedy of the commons, externalities, the lack of world gov't that can force all relevant actors to abide by certain rules, etc.
as far as i understand it, there is no scientific or econ consensus on the costs and/or benefits of GW left unattended, let alone a scientific or econ consensus on what effect our actions might possible have on stopping or slowing GW. without a consensus on both (i) the severity of the problem and (ii) the costs/benefits of ameliorative action, you can't really calculate what's worth doing/not doing to stop GW.
non-rhetorical question: would a thoughtful, knowledgeable GW proponent pls let me know what's wrong with the analysis above? yes, this is effectively warmed over lomborg, but i haven't seen any hint of a scientific/econ consensus on the issues raised. and pls don't provide the pascal's wager response -- GW so serious a problem we should do anything we can on the off chance it has an effect -- because i don't buy it (too many assumptions, it's effectively circular/begs question). thx.
"regardless, human activity should maintain the status quo, even though that will exacerbate global warming because..."
rickm, you're ascribing something to me that I never wrote and don't believe. I myself think gas taxes or carbon taxes make sense, and the revenues they raise could be used to reduce corporate taxes, for example.
I just doubt that the situation is as dire as some, like Mr. Gore, are making it out to be. Their tone reminds me of Paul Ehrlich's, when he was predicting armageddon: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines--hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." That prediction didn't fare so well. And neither will Gore's prediction that sea levels will rise 20 feet.
Now, please don't accuse me of denying that the earth is warming or of opposing any remedies for it. I just object to the apocalyptic ravings of some "greens" who seem never to have heard the term "cost-benefit analysis." If I were in the White House, I would advise the President to hire some very good economists like Mankiw, Feldstein and Nordhaus (and not Stern) who would come up with a reasonable proposal for a carbon tax.
What I would not do, though, is pay much heed to radicals who are using global warming as an excuse to implement socialist policies they would favor anyway.
-rwe (aka rew, aka mildly dyslexic)
I guess if politics doesn't quite work as a substitute for religion, "science" is the next lady-in-waiting for the honors.
The problem is that scientists are also people, and as such they are not immune from bias, groupthink, political agendas, territorial competition, limited vision, and various other crooked timber traits of humanity. Many scientists, especially as the growth in scientific knowledge forces its practitioners onto ever-narrower precipices of specialization, have wrapped their entire lives -- income stability, families, career goals, ego, sense of accomplishment -- around a very narrow range of achievements, with corresponding influence on their unconscious ability to respond without prejudice to something that might not support the conclusions they have previously produced or consented to. Or worse, something that is technically agnostic and could fit neatly into any of multiple competing frameworks, is always interpreted as evidence for one's own view.
The common response to this charge is, "Sure, scientists are fallable, but scientists use the scientific method, which is the best option we have for limiting these problems." But the scientific method is not a Jonesesque holy grail that carries simplicity and mystical power in one gold-plated package, but cannot be carried beyond the gate for inspection in sunlight. The scientific method is not a living and indepdent thing, capable of speaking on its own initiative and judging what is truth. Thus, it is only as good as those who apply it.
Some scientists undoubtedly apply the method with due rigor and come away with what could reasonbly be termed 'objective results'. But other scientists are just as capable -- especially in an area like climate change, where the subject is hideously complex and no model to date comes close to replicating the real thing -- of reaching the conclusions they expect, and then wearing the ephod of the scientific method while actually speaking as a priest and prophet.
It's one thing to say, "Well, this is the data we've got, and my inexpert examination suggests it's reasonable, so let's work with it and see where it goes." But to place trust in the individuals on the basis of the theoretically-best application of their methods? Forget it. Walking forward with an open mind and an open nose is the best way to go about it. Close either and you become either the believes-everything crackpot, or the believes-nothing crackpot.
The reason to not "BUY" global warming is as simple as this discusion... even the science is difficult and some places contradictory and so forth.
So? Do you need a scientist to tell you not to pee in your own pool?
AGW is a scare tactic because 'not polluting' and 'only using what you really need' isn't sexy enough...
remember when our parents told us to turn off the lights when we leave a room?
It makes sense to do certain things, and to avoid other things. My feeling on AGW is that in 20 years we will wonder why this was the most important thing, when we ignored "X" thing...
This article in the WSJ seems entirely on point here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/hjenkins/?id=110010947
Hmmm, hmm, hmm again.... some people here want to "turn history around" - as if the scientists and environmentalists had been in some form of majority over the last decades and have bullied politicians and economists around? Do we not all know deep down that if Freud had read your arguments - he would have used them as examples of "projection". It was and often still is - the other way around. Scientists are usually ignored for decades because most people do not believe in nature anymore - they have found God in currency and scripture.
Some people here claim that if we took action - it would be too expensive. That the poor worldwide would starve because of environmental policies (contradicting the claim of ecologists that the economy is build on top of the ecology and NOT the other way around), etc. I love it how soo many people are concerned for the "poor". Can anybody here explain to me how much they think saving the ecosystem for our children may cost and why it would be too expensive? The Economist does not think so anymore as long as market clearing is practiced? Harvard economist Mankiw does not think so?
Can anybody compare the projected costs of reducing emissions to pre-1990 levels to say livestock subsidies ($280 billion) or to nation building of countries that have no WMD and no direct link to terrorists ($1+ trillion)? ROI??? Can anybody compare the goals of such policies beyond the costs?
Bear in mind the GCC is not a cause of a problem but a symptom of a cause. Water shortages, nitrogen imbalance, land erosion and worst of all species extinctions are other symptoms that confirm an unsustainable ecological footprint. The last time we have experienced species extinction of that scale was 60 million years ago when a major meteoroid is speculated to have hit earth. Today humanity has become a meteoroid. We are consuming more than can regenerate here and now.
Scientists like Harvard's E O Wilson have therefore stressed for decades that GCC is merely the most pressing issue time wise but not the most important overall. That would be species loss. Land can regenerate in theory within life-times. When species are extincted - there is no coming back for millions of years and there is no adopting to the "benefits" of climate change either. That species go extinct due to human activity (mainly livestock) is beyond doubt. (PS: Al Gore is NOT a scientists. He is worse than a journalist - he is a politician. You will have to go against the IPCC, Harvard, Stanford, etc if you want to counter the realclimate.org arguments)
When gouging the potential risks of unsustainable living and the investments needed to balance ecological the budget - the whole thing actually seems like a good deal compared to MOST OTHER POLICIES HERE AND NOW: health care, agricultural subsidies, nation building, education, social security, etc etc compared to THESE issues - insuring our children's ecological basis for survival is CHEAP and is a prerequisite if we wanted to discuss their economical improvements.
Who here does not believe that the economy is merely a value-added service of a functioning ecology? It does not matter what we use the brain for - believing in god or making as much money as possible - but we do need a body for that?
More E O Wilson due to popular demand:
Environmentalism is still widely viewed, especially in the U.S., as a special-interest lobby. Its proponents, in this blinkered view, flutter their hands over pollution and threatened species, exaggerate their case, and press for industrial restraint and the protection of wild places, even at the cost of economic development and jobs.
Environmentalism is something more central and vastly more important. Its essence has been defined by science in the following way. Earth, unlike the other solar planets, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on its living shell to create the special conditions on which life is sustainable. The soil, water, and atmosphere of its surface have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their present condition by the activity of the biosphere, a stupendously complex layer of living creatures whose activities are locked together in precise but tenuous global cycles of energy and transformed organic matter. The biosphere creates our special world anew every day, every minute, and holds it in a unique, shimmering physical disequilibrium. On that disequilibrium the human species is in total thrall. When we alter the biosphere in any direction, we move the environment away from the delicate dance of biology. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we degrade the greatest heritage this planet has to offer and thereby threaten our own existence.
Humanity did not descend as angelic beings into this world. Nor are we aliens who colonized Earth. We evolved here, one among many species, across millions of years, and exist as one organic miracle linked to others. The natural environment we treat with such unnecessary ignorance and recklessness was our cradle and nursery, our school, and remains our one and only home. To its special conditions we are intimately adapted in every one of the bodily fibers and biochemical transactions that gives us life.
That is the essence of environmentalism. It is the guiding principle of those devoted to the health of the planet. But it is not yet a general worldview, evidently not yet compelling enough to distract many people away from the primal diversions of sport, politics, religion, and private wealth.
illustration
The relative indifference to the environment springs, I believe, from deep within human nature. The human brain evidently evolved to commit itself emotionally only to a small piece of geography, a limited band of kinsmen, and two or three generations into the future. To look neither far ahead nor far afield is elemental in a Darwinian sense. We are innately inclined to ignore any distant possibility not yet requiring examination. It is, people say, just good common sense. Why do they think in this shortsighted way? The reason is simple: it is a hardwired part of our Paleolithic heritage. For hundreds of millennia, those who worked for short-term gain within a small circle of relatives and friends lived longer and left more offspring--even when their collective striving caused their chiefdoms and empires to crumble around them. The long view that might have saved their distant descendants required a vision and extended altruism instinctively difficult to marshal.
The great dilemma of environmental reasoning stems from this conflict between short-term and long-term values. To select values for the near future of one's own tribe or country is relatively easy. To select values for the distant future of the whole planet also is relatively easy--in theory, at least. To combine the two visions to create a universal environmental ethic is, on the other hand, very difficult. But combine them we must, because a universal environmental ethic is the only guide by which humanity and the rest of life can be safely conducted through the bottleneck into which our species has foolishly blundered.
Hugo,
The lives of 7 billion people are dependent on the energy consumption curve. If you want to cut the emissions of carbon you will have to either find a way to replace the energy levels consumed today (and the increases in energy consumption tomorrow), or you will have to find a way to cut the human population of the planet.
Let me ask you: are you in favor of nuclear power?
"I would like to point out that the so-called consensus of scientists includes ALL scientists who have weighed in on this matter, but the only consensus that should count is the subset consisting of climate scientists. And my understanding is that there is no clear consensus among climate scientists that AGW is occurring."
I would further observe that what is called "the consensus" may be subject to many interpretations. One commenter above suggested that no serious scientist disputes Al Gore's position. This is interesting news to me as the IPCC itself takes many positions that are much more conservative than the positions expressed by Al Gore.
Perhaps the viewpoints expressed in the IPCC represent some type of consensus. The range of uncertainty about climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 that is acknowledged in the IPCC is very large. The low ends probably would not be controversial to most "deniers" and high ends would probably satisfy most "alarmists"
I would further note that many aspects of the conclusions expressed in the IPCC are contested by credible scientists. Take a look at just about any of the threads over at www.climateaudit.org.
If the AGW alarmists are correct, the only way to avert a catastrophe is to massively cripple the world economy, an act which would probably cause a catastrophe of a different sort.
Ignoring the questionable science and vague predictions and assumptions in the models (that all give somewhat different results), predicting the climate over the next 100 years is not easy and practical problem of getting the entire world to massively reduce carbon output is impossible.
Environmentalists seem to be a fringe movement because they often act like a fringe movement. Asking Jews to light one less candle for Hanukah is just silly. Saying that we must reduce carbon output 80% by 2050 is just like saying that we should all grow a third arm. It's not going to happen. Demanding that we build wind farms everywhere and acting like solar panels are cost effective is just silly.
When the environmental movement grows up and starts pushing for practical and effective solutions, then people will take them more seriously. As long as they are idealists who preach solutions that are technically or politically impossible and condemn those who don't agree with them as immoral or evil, then they will be treated as nuts and not taken seriously.
If environmentalists really want to save the world, then they need to figure out how to be taken seriously. If they just want to stand on the moral high ground so they can say "I told you so!" when the coming catastrophe hits, then they are on the right track.
Now, there are certainly reasonable people out there, but I'm speaking of the most visible envorinmentalists who are defining the movement in the eyes of most people.
EI
Could we historically normalize what "scientific consensus" is? And does the pre-Copernican 1400 years of the ptolemaic view of planetary orbits fall into that consensus?
hugo, your discussion isn't limited to GW, so it doesn't explain much (put less kindly, it's a rant, not an analysis). and you didn't begin to address my question (not that you should care or feel you should, but it's the obvious gap i see in your "analysis") -- namely, that even if GW's happening, the question is whether we should care (what's the real harm likely to be) and, if we should care, can we do something about it (cure worse than disease, practical impediments).
i'm going to stop asking, because clearly no GW proponent is going to bother to answer (seemingly because they think it's so self-evident or the consensus demonstrates we're both rushing into armageddon and have means to stop it, even though the UN report indicates no such thing (i've seen nothing to indicate we can't easily cope with the predicted increase in sealevel and temp)). which leads me to think there isn't a definitive answer (i've looked for one). which means the jury's still out on whether we should do anything, let alone radically restructure society.
This is why there are "deniers". Too many times the scientists have misled us. Hansen had to be force to fix his work to show that 1934 was the warmest year, Mann had to be forced to abondon the hockey stick that was falsified, and this below:
"Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Friday, February 02, 2007
Story Tools
December 8, 2006
You're a respected scientist, one of the best in your field. So respected, in fact, that when the United Nations decided to study the relationship between hurricanes and global warming for the largest scientific endeavour in its history -- its International Panel on Climate Change -- it called upon you and your expertise.
You are Christopher Landsea of the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory. You were a contributing author for the UN's second International Panel on Climate Change in 1995, writing the sections on observed changes in tropical cyclones around the world. Then the IPCC called on you as a contributing author once more, for its "Third Assessment Report" in 2001. And you were invited to participate yet again, when the IPCC called on you to be an author in the "Fourth Assessment Report." This report would specifically focus on Atlantic hurricanes, your specialty, and be published by the IPCC in 2007.
Then something went horribly wrong. Within days of this last invitation, in October, 2004, you discovered that the IPCC's Kevin Trenberth -- the very person who had invited you -- was participating in a press conference. The title of the press conference perplexed you: "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity." This was some kind of mistake, you were certain. You had not done any work that substantiated this claim. Nobody had"
Yancey
The lives of 7 billion people are dependent on the energy consumption curve. If you want to cut the emissions of carbon you will have to either find a way to replace the energy levels consumed today (and the increases in energy consumption tomorrow), or you will have to find a way to cut the human population of the planet.
Yes – that is why E O Wilson and other scientists call it a “bottleneck” (see link and text above)…
Let me ask you: are you in favor of nuclear power?
It depends. There are two nuclear plants, units 3 and 4, in Bulgaria right now that have past IAEA inspections and have received green light for another 2-3 years. Nevertheless the EU wants to shut them down. I am not in favor of this decision. At this point they provide insanely low base load costs of 3 cents / kWh. You cannot even match that with coal. And even more importantly – they do not emit CO2.
But then again – the EU can afford this because they have plenty of case studies how they can become more fuel efficient while switching to greener sources. RE in Germany has passed the 10% mark and clearly if it continues with that growth for another 42 years until 2050 – they can lower overall emission drastically without new nuclear plants.
I am not a fan of new nuclear energy for the very reasons we feel now a tad anxious about places such as Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. Nuclear energy – the enrichment of uranium… just read the latest NIE report and you will know. Had a sunny place like Iran or Pakistan devoted this money to solar… well I know you folks do not believe in this technology. It was invented 10 years after nuclear and hence must be some child’s game? Ahh.. those crappy small computer on our desk.. No – in places like Iran and Pakistan solar would be price competitive today for about 20% of all energy, peak energy, without any subsidies.
EI
If the AGW alarmists are correct, the only way to avert a catastrophe is to massively cripple the world economy, an act which would probably cause a catastrophe of a different sort.
I do not know who the alarmists are but we are predominantly talking about the IPCC and the hundreds of Ivy League climatologists that have partaken? They as well as the UNEP and the World Watch Institute have claimed that there is no need for crippling the economy. Harvard economist Greg Mankiw did not sound very concerned when he suggested the Pigou Club? In fact when it comes to long-term economic growth he sounds much more concerned about free trade and immigration as well as social security, health care and schooling, etc?
Also – most ecologists living in the West hope that people look at Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street for wealth creation via human capital and not natural resource exploitation as it happens in the middle-east.
Environmentalists seem to be a fringe movement because they often act like a fringe movement. Asking Jews to light one less candle for Hanukah is just silly. Saying that we must reduce carbon output 80% by 2050 is just like saying that we should all grow a third arm. It's not going to happen. Demanding that we build wind farms everywhere and acting like solar panels are cost effective is just silly.
Really – tell this to Google.
Regarding RE solar being silly – please read through the US Department of Energy’s paper on solar thermal heating. Solar at this point does not get more incentives than other energy related infrastructure.
And since Intel was mentioned. Co-founder Gordon Moor is a personal friend of E O Wilson who I have quoted above. They have founded Conversation International together as they have realized that the world is wasting time over climate change. Species extinction might not be perceived as urgent a problem but it is more important and dangerous.
I am afraid you have missed a few decades old man? Natural resources should not be key to an advanced economy as the US. Creativity is worth more than oil – believe it or not. We are not Russia or Saudi. If anyone can handle it – it is the US. As long as it is done via the market of course – which the Pigou Club represents.
Quite many Atlantic readers here seem quite ignorant to what is actually happening around them? It has been a long long time since Kyoto! Even GOP candidates have energy plans to follow the IPCC. Both Clinton and Obama have come up with similar energy policies in the light of the IPCC report. $50 billion as well as a cap & trade (not much different to a tax) should reduce emission by 80% in over 40 years.
How does that compare to other “policies”. Why should saving the environment so that it can feed us be worse than the social security long-term challenge, increasing health care costs, coal, gas and oil subsidies, $280 billion agricultural subsidies, education, free trade and free immigration..
There are many ways in which we can improve existing policies to make the economy or weaker. But the economy depends on the ecology and not the other way around. Just as positive rights cannot go far without negative rights first. Just like a government run welfare state would go bankrupt if the market is crippled. We CAN recover from bad policies in health care, education, social security but we CANNOT recover from bad policies regarding the ecology. On a human timescale the ecology poses a point of no return risk and the economy does not.
Again - why are people here against the suggested policies of both left and right that either a tax or a cap & trade be introduced? Compared to all other economic factors - why do they think that it will be this and only this legislation that will cripple the economy. Please make comparisons to other economic costs.
When the environmental movement grows up and starts pushing for practical and effective solutions, then people will take them more seriously. As long as they are idealists who preach solutions that are technically or politically impossible and condemn those who don't agree with them as immoral or evil, then they will be treated as nuts and not taken seriously.
Where do I start.. When ecologists do their research – they are not thinking: what would be the best economic policy to eventually mitigate some risks that I pinpoint? The only thing that ecologists say is that unless we want to experience X we have to cut /increase Y to Z levels.
It is up to citizens, economist, policymakers, entrepreneurs and consumers to now come up with effective solutions. Of course – we only defer responsibility for that when we use the joker: the ecologists are all wrong.. there is no consensus among real ecologists..
But the idea is that ecologists do ecology.. citizens vote for representatives, economists suggest policies, politicians make policies, engineers and entrepreneurs make technology, and consumers buy it, etc. Are you saying that somehow environmentalists should take over all these functions..
Why, how, etc? What is wrong with the McCain plan or the Clinton or Obama, etc plan? Why do you want environmentalists to come up with other plans?
caveat
Could we historically normalize what "scientific consensus" is? And does the pre-Copernican 1400 years of the ptolemaic view of planetary orbits fall into that consensus?
When has the enlightenment started after the classical break?
where have ecologists said anything as specific as "unless we want to experience X we have to cut or increase Y to Z levels"? that is, where can i find this calculus laid out? first, the UN can't really agree on what X is (the temp/sealevel ranges are pretty braod).
but leaving the aside, have they really said definitely that cutting carbon to a certain level will allow us to avoid X? and if they have, can they say that doing what's necessary to cut carbon to Z levels is worth more than doing other things with those resources or doing nothing?
i'm not trying to take you casual statement too literally, but let's play this game with actual numbers. e.g., what's the harm from UN predicted temp/sealevel increases (no avoiding benefits, please), what measures would avoid those increase, what's the cost of those measures, what's the benefit from expending that cost on other things. all i've seen is some potentially scary stuff and lots of handwaving glossing over the details that are just about everything.
Hugo,
Iran and Pakistan are too poor to implement solar and/or wind technology. The same applies to India and China. Even the OECD countries face real financial obstacles to implementing renewables for the simple reason that fossil fuels are so much cheaper, scaleable, and intensive.
I don't doubt that renewables will continue to increase in their outputs, but I simply see no way for them to be more than complements to the large-scale, baseline power that is supplied by fossil fuels and nuclear. Power consumption is almost certainly going to double, or more, in the next 30 years- renewables are trying to hit a moving target, one that is moving away at a high pace. And we have not even yet gotten into the topic of costs of maintenance useful lifetimes of the renewable infrastructures being built today.
Though, at least, I can take you seriously since you do clearly recognize the scope of the problem-something so few people actually do.
Townleybomb:
I am not interested in a flame war on the subject. I merely want to point out that we should always look to motivation. Motivation has little to do with logic, but a great deal to do with how people try to use or abuse logic.
For further technical discussion of the actual technical issues by a more prominent member of my profession, see
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
For a discussion of motivation by Vaclav Klaus, see
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e9df7200-19c7-11dc-99c5-000b5df10621.html
It's great that Google has the money to invest in solar power and low-energy lighting, etc... but as I've said before, solar power is still very expensive. My research found that solar panels for my house would be prohibitively expensive even with government incentives. Solar water heating would reduce my gas bill, but that's only a small portion of my total energy bill.
The population of the US and the world are growing. All those people are not going to eat movies or live in laptop computers. They are going to need houses, cars, refrigerators, beds, etc... all of those things require resources to build and transport. For the foreseeable future, burning hydrocarbons is going to be the main source of that energy. Renewable sources can supplement this, but without radical technological breakthrough, they won't replace burning hydrocarbons. Nuclear power is the only real alternative and, as you say, that's not really an option for many poor countries (where most of the growth in carbon output will most likely be).
I hear a lot of global warming alarmists (I'm not sure they are "ecologists") telling everyone that they need to turn off their lights, walk to work, stop eating meat, light fewer candles, etc... And then environmentalists oppose wind farms (here in Texas), oppose building nuclear plants, etc... the entire movement is incoherent and internally inconsistent.
If the US really reduces its carbon footprint by 80% in forty years, I'll be astonished. If it does so without crippling the economy or killing off 80% of the population, I'll be pleasantly astonished.
EI
"light fewer candles,
Honestly, what are you talking about, and why do you think it has any relevance to the situation?
If you google "Green Hanukkah" you'll find what I'm talking about. It's just silly.
EI
Strange, isn't it, that on one seems ever to realize that the issue of global warming, anthropmorphic or not, really involves for mankind Pascale's Wager. Uncertain about something as potentially apocalyptic, why don't we just - logically - play the odds?
Strange, isn't it, that on one seems ever to realize that the issue of global warming, anthropmorphic or not, really involves for mankind Pascale's Wager. Uncertain about something as potentially apocalyptic, why don't we just - logically - play the odds?
Strange, isn't it, that on one seems ever to realize that the issue of global warming, anthropmorphic or not, really involves for mankind Pascale's Wager. Uncertain about something as potentially apocalyptic, why don't we just - logically - play the odds?