30 Comments

1. Buddy Larsen:

I too have to default to trust/distrust the messenger, on almost everything outside of what’s in the fridge at the moment. But, heck, it seems to work pretty well–that ‘walks like a duck’ thing is pretty truthful.

Nov 17, 2007 - 8:48 am 2. Lem:

If climate history is to be believed, ice ages, interrupted by short warming snaps are the norm.

If things are going to get warmer, I look forward to it.

It could worse, they could be predicting the ice age that will at some point come.

Nov 17, 2007 - 9:22 am 3. Tom Holsinger:

Roger,

If the UN told you loudly enough, and often enough, that you must give them all your money, would you do it?

Consider the symptoms of rectal-cranial inversion.

Nov 17, 2007 - 9:56 am 4. Buddy Larsen:

To me, this latest from the UN is akin to what you would do if you had previously, a few months ago, run through the building screaming that the sky is falling. If you just left it at that, you’d be embarrassed by now, and would want to run through the building again, screaming “No really, it IS, it IS!”

Nov 17, 2007 - 10:32 am 5. jrdroll:

The report said notably:

ñ Evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet is now ìunequivocalî and the effects on the climate system could be ìabrupt or irreversible.î
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071117/sc_afp/unclimatewarmingipcc

If it is “irreversible” then there is nothing we can do about it. So maybe we should just adapt.

Nov 17, 2007 - 10:37 am 6. maria horvath:

What dreadful times we’re in. Now you can commit blackmail by just announcing that you have some devastating information about someone else.

I’m not a writer of world-famous mystery novels, Roger, but I do read them. Is it too far-fetched of me to think that there is some connection between the Robert Novak sneak, sneak, wink, wink, revelation and the Case of the African-American Presidential Candidate Who Doesn’t Want the Job Anymore, at least judging from his performance in Las Vegas this week?

Nov 17, 2007 - 11:14 am 7. heather:

A couple of years ago, Michael Crichton gave a speech to a Washington thinktank about global warming (he had published his book on “Fear??”)

Anyway, one of his most interesting segues was his item on ‘product liability’: that is, if you sell something unsafe; or you misrepresent the products you are selling.. then you are financially liable to the customer.

And, he said, with some relish, there is every reason to believe that this concept of ‘liability’ will (and should) be extended to ideas. We are living in a ‘knowledge society’ are we not? I think that it is past time to make this happen.

Nov 17, 2007 - 11:29 am 8. Buddy Larsen:

Roger’s link is spooky. Talk about an alternate reality–between every line is the real message: “the UN desires that all its little governments be successful in their task of totally subjugating their people.”

Nov 17, 2007 - 12:08 pm 9. Anthony (Los Angeles):

This “devastating information” the Clinton campaign claims to have wouldn’t be the same as the “big secret” Ron Rosenbaum claimed a few weeks ago that the LA Times was sitting on, would it?

http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/ronrosenbaum/2007/10/29/shocking_inside_dc_scandal_rum.php

Regarding the IPCC’s latest report, their work has been shot so full of holes in the past that I’ll wait before panicking.

Nov 17, 2007 - 12:38 pm 10. LarryD:

Whenever someone is trying to silence or supress critics, they are not comitting science, but politics. And remember, the front pages of these reports are done by UN nomenklautra, not scientists.

And how often have the details of a politically sensative scientific report contradicted the front pages? After all, most people never get past the front pages.

Nov 17, 2007 - 12:44 pm 11. Buddy Larsen:

Heather –just think what that concept–tort liability for deliberate misinformation–would do to the modus operandi of the Democratic party!

Nov 17, 2007 - 2:04 pm 12. David:

Just one global warming comment. For the last century the hottest year was 1934. The second hottest was 1999 and it hasn’t been as hot since. 5 of the 10 hottest years wear between 1915 and 1940.

Nov 17, 2007 - 3:35 pm 13. bill-tb:

The normal state of Earth’s climate, i.e. average climate is a snowball, much colder than today. Been this way for the last 4,000,000 years, roughly 100,000 year ice age cycles. The Holocene climate optimum, the maximum if you will, occurred at about 6-8,000 years ago, so it is expected we should be going down in temperature about now — and we are. The current warm period began about 11-12000 years before present time — We may be now headed towards a new ‘Dalton Minimum’ or worse. The average duration for interglacial periods, what we are in now, is 10,000 years. We have about overstayed our welcome.

The last time CO2 went up, it was about 20 times today’s values, the last time the temperature rose, many degrees higher than today, the net effect was lots of big plants grew quickly. You see, plants and all the things that depend on them, do really well when it’s warm.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, about that CO2 thing, CO2 lags temperature, does not force temperature. CO2 is a minor trace gas in the atmosphere. About 95% of all greenhouse effect on Earth is caused by water vapor. Without the greenhouse effect, think Mars — No carbon life forms.

The hysteria is about the UN wants your money, so they can pretend to control the weather — Here is a question you should ask yourselves before forking over the money — how will you know what they are doing with the money, what effect it’s having, or how well things are going? They want with it, no strings attached, including making it theirs — Just like Oil For WMDs program they ran for Iraq, remember that?. Nothing new here.

BTW, the UN IPCC says that if they implement all their recommendations, it will do nothing to change the climate. Yep zero, or so close it won’t matter. Ask them.

Nov 17, 2007 - 3:38 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:

The whole AGW crowd–the instigators–can’t slack off now. They know the story of the boy who cried wolf. The reason the boy turned out a fool is because he couldn’t convince the villagers to bust the budget on wolf defenses.

If he had just been able to get a few wolf defenses built, then he could take credit for no wolves, and be the village boss, instead of the village dunce.

That “one third of all species dead” headline out of UN is the panic sound of looming duncehood.

Nov 17, 2007 - 3:58 pm 15. Barry Dauphin:

The IPCC has lowered its estimates of warming for the next century over a couple of its reports. Given that, what is this dramatic new evidence in the last several months that the earth is literally going to hell in a hand basket? Their forecasts now appear to be yo-yoing, if the latest report is true.

This is hardly inspiring science or public policy. Ask yourself if you want to trust the same bureaucracy that brought us the Oil-for-Food program. Gee, can we put Benan Sevan in charge of climate policy? The timeframe for big changes happens to coincide with the time Bush leaves office? As the Church Lady would say, well isn’t that special!

Nov 17, 2007 - 5:05 pm 16. Wellspring:

Climate change in some direction is inevitable. I’ve heard that the way the continents are laid out, we’re in a long-term cooling cycle as bill-tb points out. I’ve also heard multiple views of the effects of water vapor– but I’m a layman and honestly don’t know if the net effect has finally been determined. I know it was debated for years by climate scientists.

On the other hand two of my friends are genuine, credentialed experts, and they’ve looked at the models and both strongly agree with the data that says temperatures are moving upward and that this effect is man-made. So I’m inclined to go with that*. If nothing else, we have a few hundred million years’ worth of carbon built up underground that we’re releasing all at once and I’d be surprised if that didn’t have some effect.

Whichever it is, any change in climate is likely to be one for the worse. Our crops, our ports and our industries are laid out with a certain set of conditions in mind. Change those conditions and you cause gigantic disruptions. The more socialized and centrally planned, the less flexibility your economy has for adaptation.

For now, my feeling is that we have to go with the experts. NOT necessarily the UN, and certainly not a treaty that exempts half the world and is abrogated by the other half. No cause is so righteous that you can’t find idiots or crooks following it.

It’s prudent based on the risks that we replace much of our electrical power generation with nuclear plants, and switch our vehicles over to electrical, hydrogen or some other technology that draws from a nuclear-powered grid. That Putin, Chavez, the Saudis, the Iranians, and other oil-fueled troublemakers would have the rug pulled out from under them is a pleasant side effect.

It’s a little ironic that while I tentatively agree with the environmental lobby on climate change, they’re the main opposition to the only solution that has any chance of actually accomplishing anything.

* P.S. I don’t expect you to believe my unnamed techie friends. But Roger, maybe you should call up Caltech, since it’s in your neighborhood, and do some interviews. If you’re serious about learning more, you could do a lot of good writing an article for Pajamas Media that bypasses the lobbyists and politicians. I’d LOVE to read something like that.

Nov 17, 2007 - 5:38 pm 17. Barry Dauphin:

There’s problem and then there’s solutions. Based upon what economic credentials should one listen to the “solutions” of climatologists?

Furthermore, too many in the AGW community have simply not come to grips with the shennanigans of the Hockey Team. Whatever the credibility of climate models, the serious climatologists would do themselves and their cause a big favor by calling a spade a spade and taking the Hockey Team to task and demand to see the data and the code themselves.

Gee, even BushMcChimphitler asked Rumsfeld to step down. Surely, members of the IPCC can distance themselves from bad statistics.

Nov 17, 2007 - 7:16 pm 18. heather:

at one time, pre 1492, Indians in the Iowa region were farmers, with great corn crops. Then, there was a drought, a long one. Climate change. They had to stop farming, and migrate somewhere else.

Between the Aswan Dam and Khartoum, on the Nile river, there are the remains of pyramids, etc., indicating a place where lots of people once lived. Now, of course, it is desert. Very few people live there now, and certainly, none of them are building pyramids, they are too hot.

Around 1000 AD, the Vikings were all over the northern hemisphere, and they settled in places like Greenland. They noted that there were grapes in (what is now) Newfoundland. Well, then there was a “little ice age”, ALL OVER THE WORLD (ie, in China too). Oops. There is no wine industry in Newfoundland, or Greenland.

There is a theory that the people we are all descended from, were forced to leave Africa because of Glaciation, which mean there was a huge drought in the old homestead (Africa). These people (our ancestors), unguided by United Nations, wandered over the earth, and settled far and wide, and now, some of their descendents are running around like Chicken Little, squawking about CHANGE. I think those ancestors of ours would be ashamed of their descendents.

Change happens. When an ice age begins again, some people will adapt. But… like the Pueblo People, those people will have to find other ways and places to live their lives.

Honestly, this weirdness about global warming/global change/ global cooling… I say, stop whining.

Nov 17, 2007 - 10:39 pm 19. Wellspring:

Good point Barry– I’m not sure if I was explicit enough about that in my last comment. Yeah, pretty much by definition the physical scientists who are the only ones qualified to say whether the climate change is happening and why are NOT social scientists, policy makers, or voters. They have no special credentials on how to implement a solution, other than to say “THIS set of proposed emissions will have THIS effect, and THAT set will have THAT effect.” Though of course as voters I’m sure they have their opinions.

That’s one of the issues here. You have a long list of laymen who are weighing in on a scientific debate they’re simply not equipped to judge. Then there’s the policy question, which is a totally different story. I see a lot of policymakers and pundits trying to pretend they’re scientists, and scientists who are trying to pull rank on the separate policy question.

Anyway, the stakes really are pretty high. Heather, the reason this is such a big deal is that our social systems are infinitely more complex and entrenched than those of agricultural or nomadic cultures. A port city’s location (for example), layout and infrastructure is geared to a narrow set of conditions; change those, and you’ve lost a massive sunk investment. Mass migrations that historically accompany big changes typically lead to refugee crises and wars.

Think about it this way. Imagine the al Qaeda of a thousand years ago. They’re a world away, hardly a threat, right? Their local branches, if any, are going to knife a few people and then be killed. Problem over. It’s in the modern age of global transport and communications, modern weapons and explosives and the fragility of our infrastructure, that these people are able to do so much harm. Now imagine al Qaeda if we had let it fester for 50 more years. Armed with nuclear or, G-d help us, biological weapons? Or forget al Qaeda, imagine what ONE madman with appropriate training and equipment could do in a few decades. As civilization advances, its vulnerabilities and the stakes involved change.

Our world is far more intricate and fragile, and our population far more numerous. We’re not highly dispersed subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers anymore. That’s what makes this so important.

I’m not saying panic, I’m saying we need to be realistic about our vulnerabilities.

Nov 18, 2007 - 6:20 am 20. Buddy Larsen:

It’s pretty clear that climate is naturally in a state of flux, and that there is no ”right” weather. That this circumstance is continually destructivbe of trailing adaptations is also clear as a bell–how could it be otherwise?

Frank Buckles has seen some changes in a mere single lifetime. Who in 1901 could even imagine our world–just pick any human endeavor & compare. So yes the human race is in for some more drama. As always and evermore, survival, and sometimes prosperity, comes (if at all) via adaptation.

Wellspring’s posts are excellent but I think the point of contention is not that change is upon us but that there is a force in the world (the ‘collective’) trying to collect the human race along certain preferred lines and that this inevitable climate change is being used as a tool in that effort. Climate change is a problem, yes of course, but let’s be very very careful here how we cope with it.

Let’s first of all recognize that the nature of the political conflict and the nature of the climate are two different items entirely. the clue here is in how perfectly neatly the science has coalesced around the two classic political ideas of left and right. This peculiar phenom is a certain indication of poor (insufficient) data, and an almost-as-certain indication of an exogenous political drive operant in the debate.

The left–ever activist–is casting the conflict as the smart & good vs the greedy & stupid, and the right–ever wrong-footed by the seeming altruism of activism–is just trying to slow down the Borg before it finds another way to use human nature against itself.

Nov 18, 2007 - 7:59 am 21. Old Dad:

bill-tb:

Spot on. Follow the money. The AGW scare is all about cash. Look who’s getting paid–fringe environmental groups, right thinking scientists, opportunistic politicians, UN flunkies.

And AGW is a fairly safe political issue. Hell, who wants the planet to die? And guess what? We really don’t have to do anything but talk, and feel good about our green credentials.

Two things will stick a fork in the craziness. Good science and political reality. We’re not going to ever do anything remotely Kyoto like without a helluva lot better data, and that data will kill not bolster the AGW alarmists.

Until that happy day, let the blow hards yammer.

Nov 18, 2007 - 9:05 am 22. Jamie Irons:

Like many here, I don’t have the technical credentials to comment meaningfully on the AGW question.

But it seems to me the people screaming loudest about the terrors we are said to face are the same group who have been wrong on virtually every major question of the past century.

When I was a student of physical chemistry and molecular biology in the sixties and seventies, I counted myself (politically speaking) among this benighted group, and I remember trying to persuade less enthusiastic comrades of the putative dangers of Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb.”

Which seems to have been a dud.

Jamie Irons

Nov 18, 2007 - 9:31 am 23. kcom:

One of the most important paragraphs in the global warming story linked above is this one:

“After five days of sometimes tense negotiations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopted its fourth and final report this year, along with a summary, on the science of climate change and the effects of human-produced greenhouse gases.”

Does that sound like a scientific report? Tense negotiations. Science isn’t a matter of negotiations and if it needs five days of argument it’s obvious the data aren’t all that clear. As has been pointed out many times, the IPCC is as much a political process as a scientific one and any conclusions they draw need to be looked at in that light. The reports might be well meaning, but they are political reports when all is said and done.

Nov 18, 2007 - 9:34 am 24. Buddy Larsen:

Mathmatics & Economics could lend a hand. Even with Climatology in its current disarray on the AGW question.

It should be pretty easy to rationalize all the possible AGW cures and let us see the cost/benefit ratios.

For example, how much greenhouse gas can we eliminate? I mean before we go to far and turn into Mars? Can we eliminate mankind’s ‘extra’ greenhouse gas for say ten trillion dollars?

Who will be the end-user of those dollars? Who will fork them over?

Will the capitalist running dogs have to fork them over–or is that just the propaganda, when the truth is that slowed global growth cements the existing power structure via eliminating competition, which will mean the third world will fork it over and the investor class in the first world, now pouring cash into green venturess, ultimately gain those dollars?

Or will those dollars just disappear, or not appear in the first place? Lets hear from some non-partisan economists. Oh, there aren’t any? Well that sucks.

Nov 18, 2007 - 10:16 am 25. David:

Jamie, I like you don’t really know much about global warming per say, but as an astro-physicist I know something about the sun. Current thought and evidence suggests that the sun will be putting out less energy for the next decade if not for the next several hundred years.

It seems to me that if the sun is putting out less energy the earth should cool, despite anything we humans do.

On the other hand, I must ask the GW crowd exactly what the optimal temperature for the planet is and why. Nobody seems to be addressing that question.

Nov 18, 2007 - 10:37 am 26. Buddy Larsen:

David, CNN seems to think optimal is whatever will prevent natural catastrophes.

Heck, maybe they’re right, it sure makes sense.

Nov 18, 2007 - 11:08 am 27. Wellspring:

Jamie makes an excellent point (though CFC’s and ozone depletion are one good counterexample). Ehrlich’s theory was great right up until the demographic data totally disproved it. I used to worry about the population bomb, too.

Buddy, thanks for your kind words. Your point is well taken. Most of the people hollering for carbon control are against the one obvious solution that doesn’t require massively intrusive regulation, and are for all kinds of other social and economic controls when they’re talking about other issues. My point is that they can be malicious and the science can STILL be right.

That’s part of why I’d love Roger and PJM to round up some experts who can explain clearly the risks and our level of uncertainty. Not a list of policy points– I’m a voter and I weigh risks and costs and benefits as well as the next guy. Hell, I live near a prestigious tech school if he doesn’t want to do it.

If it turns out that climate change is our doing and is harmful, I’m going to tell you all “I told you so”, buy a submarine and move to Europa. You have been warned.

Nov 18, 2007 - 4:24 pm 28. Barry Dauphin:

I guess CNN must be using plants to reduce its carbon footprint.

Nov 18, 2007 - 4:31 pm 29. Buddy Larsen:

My point is that they can be malicious and the science can STILL be right

Yep, that’s the problem with hype, generally. Best way to hide something is to point to it obnoxiously (Al Gore).

(Barry, go to your room!)

Nov 18, 2007 - 5:05 pm 30. LarryD:

An example of why UN reports ought to be taken with a bag of salt:

The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year’s estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV — estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising — now will be reported as 33 million. …

“There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda,” said Helen Epstein, author of “The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS.” “I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way.”

Nov 20, 2007 - 6:36 am

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