Mounting Evidence

The rest of the world is waking up to the facts.  We are doing harm to this planet that we live on.  The question is have we gone beyond a tipping point of no return.

Audeamus points us to a report released today by the British government written by a respected economist.  It states the cost of beginning the process to turn the tide of global warming now underway will be one percent of global wealth - if we begin today.

The cost of waiting, according to Sir Nicholas Stern - formerly the chief economist at the World Bank - will be anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of all global wealth.  Read this article at Forbes.com.

Global warming is a sad example of an issue that has been clouded by political rhetoric instead of being made clear through reasoned research and science.  This is not a partisan political issue.  But it is clearly a vital economic issue that is already having an impact.  And as this report points out, the worst is on the horizon unless we put our best minds to work to solve it.

The technology exists.  The ideas are abundant.  The question now is do we have the will to put politics on the shelf and apply ourselves to identifying the extent of this problem and developing a plan to fix it.

We all can make small contributions toward a solution.  Let's all make an effort.  It is going to require the world working together to solve this one.  Can we do it?

Comments

[Jeff Risley]

I like your post. I agree that humanity has done harm to the planet. The big debate is how much harm and how much will it take to fix it. Unfortunately, I don't think world governments will ever "fix" the problem; I think nature will.

I believe humans will continue to consume more and favor economic choices over environmental ones until nature is altered to the point it can no longer take it. Then nature will repair itself via whatever means necessary. Unfortunately, those means probably won't be good for humans.

The earth is 4 billion years old. I think it's arrogant to think humnas can destroy it. Earth has survived through a great deal in its history, and I'm confident it can survive the human race. And the human race will survive as well, but not without a big slap on the wrist by nature.

[mike Swenson]

That's a very good point. 4 billion years and there have been a few catastrophes in that time. I don't think governments can do anything alone anymore. It will require all of us doing anything we can. If we each make one small change, it might move us down the right path. Time will tell.

[Mike]

Thanks for the linkback, Mike. As far as any doom and gloom goes, Stern is actually optimistic that things can be done to slow the process down to a managable level ... if, of course there is the will. That will take some doing. But when it's either not do anything and suffer the economic consequences, or do something and take an economic hit as well, you may as well do the latter, right? In the meantime it could spur a lot of economic success in technological innovations. That has my vote.

[Bob Cormack]

Please, Mike: A public relations guy lecturing us on science? How absurd.
I've spent half my life either learning or doing science -- I read the journals, I don't get my opinions from book reviewers. My take is that the whole global warming thing has been spun out of control by those with political agendas. The proper thing to do right now about global warming is nothing; which, coincidentally, is all that we can do.

Think I'm a nut? Think about this: How many times have you heard that the Maldive Islands are about to be inundated by rising sea levels? Now, how many times have you heard that studies of the sea level history in the Maldives show that it has been falling for the last 1000 years, with the rate accelerating in the last 50? As a public relations guy, what do you conclude when someone tries to mislead you like this?
Expand your input range a little -- it takes less than 30 seconds to find the above mentioned studies on Google Scholar.

The much ballyhoed concensus is that the Earth has been warming (on average) since about 1850 -- like it's hard not to notice that we're not still in the Little Ice Age. Other than that, the debate is still pretty brisk. Not that concensus has any real meaning in science anyway -- it certainly has a poor track record: consider the concensus' that 1) Continental drift was impossible and 2) We were rapidly entering a new Ice Age (to mention just two within my lifetime.)

[Mike Swenson]

Sorry Bob if I came off as lecturing. I'm not a scientist for sure. I do read a lot and my take away has been that there are more people who are experts that believe the problem is real. I will look for other points of view as you suggest. Thanks for the comment.

[Bob Cormack]

Mike,

Thanks for your calm reply – maybe I was too harsh. My complaint is not that you’re not a scientist – my complaint is that you’re being gullible, when you should know better.

I was going to try to write up a coherent essay, but I don’t have the time right now, so I’ll just email you with some random thoughts.

I believe you are a good person, who wants to make the world a better place. You are willing to spend time trying to accomplish this – witness your blog. That said, I really want you to get over this idea that experts are people who should be believed without question. You are in public relations – you should know that anytime you believe someone uncritically, you are asking to be conned; and when you ask to be conned, sooner or later someone will. If experts were always unbiased and right, then it would be impossible for both sides of a lawsuit to have “experts” testify for them.

One of the reasons that there is so much hype in the subject of climate is that non-scientists, like you, think that they have no option but to pick a side to believe. This is not an optimum strategy. It is not necessary for you to believe anyone uncritically, myself included. Ordinary people have more than sufficient skills at due diligence to navigate the conflicting claims, if they would apply them. Unfortunately, there is this myth that scientists are, somehow, above the petty contests and struggles that we mere mortals engage in. As a result, scientists get away with stuff that everyone would immediately flag as manipulation if they heard it from a used car salesman.

Doctors are “experts”, but you do due diligence before making an important decision – you get second opinions, you have other tests done, you find out about the success and failure rates of the procedures (and the doctors too, if you can). You check references.

I’m a damn good expert at what I do (Optical Engineering), but I would be shocked if someone hired me without investigating me – I would wonder when the company was going to crash and burn. (Like driving without watching the road.)

Used car salesmen are “experts” at selling cars – that doesn’t mean you should take them at face value.

Scientists are just people. They aren’t any better people than those in public relations, or used car sales. All you have to do is use the same type of due diligence on science claims that you use to navigate the conflicting claims from advertising, salespersons, and advocacy groups, and you can get fairly good information. And sometimes the answer is “we don’t know yet.”

Here are some common tactics that indicate BS is being slung:

1. The “Consensus” argument (argument from authority): This is simply an attempt at intimidation. The subtext here is “You’re too dumb to understand this; all the smart people believe it, so what about you?” Some of the problems with this argument are:
a. Consensus is never invoked when the data are convincing. If you want to know the distance to the Moon, that can be measured to inches – no one would dream of doing an opinion poll of astronomers to find out. When consensus is the argument, it means that the data don’t exist.
b. There is a presumption that consensus is meaningful. One might want to know how often the consensus scientific opinion has been wrong in the past. This is never brought up, since the answer only casts doubt on the value of consensus opinion. “When everyone thinks the same thing, no one is thinking.”
c. A significant amount of effort is spent attacking those who don’t agree with the “consensus”. How does a “consensus” that must be maintained by intimidation tell you anything about reality?
2. The “ad hominem” argument (personal attack): Government scientist: “The skeptics are funded by Big Oil Companies!” (Subtext: “They’ll tell any lies to get paid!”) This is kind of like the salesman in a car lot telling you, “Watch out for the salesmen in the lot across the street – they’ll tell you any lie to get you to buy!” Uh-huh, thanks. Many scientists are funded by industry, and they are undoubtedly subject to pressures. But what about the gov’t scientists? My wife knows a lot about this – she was a scientific programmer for 20 years working almost exclusively for the Atmospheric Science community here in Boulder (NCAR, NOAA, UCAR). Much of the money here (and there is a lot of it now) is “soft money” – you have to write proposals and win grants to get it. No grant, no money, no job – my wife lost three jobs this way. (The similarity to a salesman working on commission is obvious.) You win proposals by projecting urgency and danger – not by proposing basic groundwork.

An interesting point is how grants get awarded. The funding agency (almost always government) sends the proposal out to the scientist’s colleagues, who review it and advise for or against funding. If this sounds like an Old Boy’s Club, it is. A major reason that there is so much money now in this field, is the scare factor -- those who might threaten the gravy train by suggesting that the Emperor’s new clothes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, won’t be welcomed.

Funny -- in any other industry, “peer review” would immediately be recognized as an open invitation to corruption: “Let’s let the chemical plant operators decide what environmental regulations should apply to them. After all, they’re the experts and nobody else really understands the industry like they do.” Sure thing. The scientists get away with it because you let them.

It’s interesting how many “skeptics” turn out to be tenured university professors who are nearing retirement. Their reputations and their futures are secure, and (I can testify) as you get older, you stop caring so much about others’ disapproval. You tend to say it the way you see it.

Here are some interesting things you can check out, with a little effort:

• Runaway global warming is predicted only by computer models – there is no historical or geological evidence that suggests it can or has happened, despite widely ranging temperatures and extremely high CO2 concentrations in the past.
• Currently, computer climate models have a perfect record – they have not yet made a correct prediction. They have, however, made many incorrect ones. Most folks would conclude that they are not yet ready for prime time.
• The scariest predictions (the ones that the advocacy groups and most of the media focus on) are made using the “Business as Usual” (BAU) assumptions in the models. This is supposed to be what will happen if we keep going on as we are now. It’s strange, however, how much BAU assumptions differ from reality. For example, Business as Usual for CO2 increase is often the “reasonable” assumption that it will “keep” climbing at 1%/year. Actual measurements on Mauna Loa, however, show that CO2 concentration has been increasing at less then 0.5%/year for nearly 50 years.
• The actual climate for the last 3 million years or so has been oscillating in and out of ice ages. The glaciation periods (think a half-mile thick ice sheet over all of Canada) have been lasting about 90,000 years and the interglacial periods (what we are in now) about 10,000 years. The current interglacial is about 12,000 years long. The only reason we “know” that we aren’t going to get another glaciation is that the computer models tell us so. The models are incapable of predicting a glaciation, however, because they are seeded with positive feedbacks that produce runaway warming and hence are incapable of oscillating. If this makes you feel warm and confident, I want to know what medications you are taking.

Just like you shouldn’t buy a car or get an operation without doing the proper checking, you shouldn’t be too quick to agree to government policies that have the potential of depressing the economy and seriously reducing economic and personal freedom without asking some tough questions and demanding complete answers. High pressure techniques are simply a way of avoiding answers and should be ignored (“This car will be gone tomorrow!” “We are approaching a tipping point where change will be irreversible!” &etc.)