Think of it as watching someone playing with a yo-yo whilst going up an escalator.

If you just watch the yo-yo there are obvious ups and downs but if you step back and watch the overall direction of travel it’s up.

I shall now explain nuclear fission using lego

‘Only the left can see clearly’ seems to be the message from Sunny.

I read the same article and drew very different conclusions. To my eyes it was an article of a journo coming to terms with the fact that the simple narrative of ever rising temparatures is and was always wrong. it is a great deal more complex, and although the sceptic and beleivers both share the view that we are in an cyclical cooling period, the believers point out that this is consistant with their own models that show an underlying warming trend.

This is the worst case scenario for science. A prediction about the future that has deep political implications.

Sunny exemplifies my point. “Once the Conservatives come into power here, expect this sort of denialism”. He can’t help making it partisan. He has no evidence for that. Certainly not if David Cameron is primeminister.

Worse, Sunny is not a scientist (economics is not a science), and quoting a few selectively chosen graphs is not a substitite for scientific debate. Sunny is by no means unique in this left right and indifferent are all equally guilty of this cavalier approach.

For myself I agree that AGW is a real effect, though the degree of that effect is still deeply uncertain.

What I hope will change is the approach to the solution. The emphasis might shift for ‘do less capitalism’ (the orthodox lefty school of ecology), to a somewhat more practical ‘do capitalism differently’

Did you notice that one side of the argument is attributed to Piers Corbyn, a well known climate crank? Something the BBC journo, and Thompson, Brogan et al., didn’t realise or didn’t care. Also, his argument is apparently based on a conference presentation, the lowest form of evidence in scientific terms, so low that many conferences have bans on the reporting of presentations (albeit also for reasons of confidence). The BBC journo is their official climate change journalist and comes from a meteorological background. This mistake is fundamental, it is remarkable that he has made it.

2. Dontmindme, the article is bunk because the counter argument is provided by Piers Corbyn, who is a crank.

Gimpy – thanks, I don’t know much about the guy. I was just amazed that something so simple was presented as a confusing and debatable position. No mention of long term temperature trends at all. Breathtaking that BBC journalism has sunk so low.

Dontmindme – I actually agree with ‘do capitalism differently’ but first it’s important to accept not only the facts, but the people trying to twist them to present an opposite view.

He certainly does appear a little eccentric. But the general point still stands. The climate debate is damaged by politisazation on all sides. Scientists should spend less time telling us how to live tomorrow. Thats politics and not their problem.

I say that because saying AGW is real and coming to a cosatline near you is one thing. People may be doubtful or sceptical, but if the science stays out of politics then people will more likely take it at face value. As soon as that same scentist says lose your car and go by train, then they lose any goodwill thay had.

Equally (some) politicians should take their head out of the sand and get on with taking the remedial action that is easy. Replacing and expanding the existing power station stock is an easy one, and it is by far the most important one. Just get on with it (Gordon)

Simple look around I use to build snow men every year, I use to go ice skating on our local park, I’ve done very little ice skating in ten years in fact none, we have not had a hard frost never mind ice, we had snow last year which lasted two days, it’s warming up folks.

7. The Romans used to grow wine extensively in what is now Southern England. the climate then was extremely condusive to the cultivation of the grape. Then the local climate went down hill, and grape production stopped, and has never regained anything like former levels.

The moral. Local climate trends are no indication of global ones

‘Is the BBC buying into global-warming denialism’
So, the author decides, that there must be no discussion, no debate. He is right, and that is the end of the matter. A token scientist is wheeled out to support his assertions.
Now, that global temperatures are cooling, ice in the polar region growing and polar bears procreating and the ‘science’ behind the hockey stick graph show to be based on fraud, we are treated to ‘Ocean Temperatures’? How long before this too is shown to be dubious???

dontmindme, frankfisher, jay, etc

The point is that Piers Corbyn is an established crank, therefore his arguments are not to be taken seriously. The BBC article presents two sides when in reality there is only one. This is terrible science journalism. It cannot be taken as support for your positions, to do that you need to consult the peer reviewed data, not the appeals to prejudice by strange men in strange articles.

What a wondrous life is this I lead
Ripe apples drop about my head
The luscious clusters of the vine
About my mouth do crush their wine
The nectarines and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach
Stumbling on melons as I pass
Ensnared with Flowers I fall on grass

Thoughts in a Garden was written by Andrew Marvell who died in 1678. Judging by the Loire valley conditions evidently prevailing it would appear the world has got a lot colder , is that long term enough for you ,? Furthermore 6000 bore holes world wide show that temperatures were higher in the middle ages than now The ocean cooling you quote after the Second World War came during a period of exponential industrial growth and yet you say you have conclusive proof that man causes warming …. If its is true it is not the simple given the debate-deniers would have us believe

The uses of apocalyptic doom mongering as a kristallnacht for the global left to spread unaccountable super state power and the is more than sufficient to make scepticism the default position of any sane person.

The debate deniers are a worrying fascistic tendency overall . My suspicion is this is no more than the old international authoritarian instincts of left resurfacing with green camouflage

Thersites

9 Made me laugh out loud but facepalm at the same time, largely because of this:

The hottest year was a decade ago – not last year.

Genius. The exact thing highlighted as fatuous and woefully uninformed in the article and the video, repackaged and trotted out as an attempt at masterful refutation.

Reminds me of the inevitable chorus of tabloid articles each Winter, annually repeating the ‘Ha! It just snowed! Where’s your global warming now, beardies?!’ line.

By the way, I rather like Louis Mazzini’s illustration of fluctuating increase in the first comment. It’s stunning how many people refuse to notice the escalator.

13 ” It’s stunning how many people refuse to notice the escalator.”

That’s because it isn’t an escalator, it a roller-coaster. We are just on the upwards section of it. If you widen your view from (say) 50 years into the future to (say) 500 or 5000 years then you will see downwards section too.

gimpy
The debate on global climate change is biased by vested interests. Those very same papers you refer to have been shown to be based on unscientific method. When asked by an interviewer what replace the stock exchange, Peter Mandelson replied ‘carbon trading’.
The alarmists voices are becoming shriller as the possibility of a fair debate raises its ugly head. Name calling: ‘established crank, denialist’.
Zealots may be willing to queue up and pay for the privilege of breathing in the belief that our politicians and scientists are telling the truth, me I am a sceptic.

‘Personally I think MMGW is a crock of shit, but that’s an opinion – no more or less valid than the “science” which as we know’

Are there any other areas of basic science you feel the need to disagree with?

I mean, astrophysics has no control, we can’t run experiments with a few gazillion tons of hydrogen and helium in different proportions to see exactly how a star burns. Nevertheless, the Sun is hot.

Or human biology? I doubt anyone has built a complete computer model that can crunch the numbers to show that if you eat 5 hamburger meals a day, it is overwhelmingly likely you will gain weight.

Try that as an experiment: you will find that sometimes the scales do go down from day to day. Just rarely week to week, and never month to month or year-to-year.

13: Jay, if you’re unwilling to believe that scientists (who you oddly categorise as analogous to politicians) tell the truth, is there any point arguing either way on climate change? If science itself is flawed there’s no proof that the Earth is getting warmer, colder, or remaining constant. Or that it’s round, or not stacked upon a never-ending pillar of tortoises.

There’s a very strange anti-science vein running through the climate change deniers’ arguments, as seen in jay and FrankFisher’s comments, and in the broader ‘debate’. It’s almost as if denialists are envious of the attention being heaped upon creationists, but are unwilling to deny dinosaurs. Instead they settle for the more acceptable, if equally silly, arena of denying long-term temperature rises. How long til we hear that there is no climate change because God likes it like this?

Jamie…
Cuts both ways.
Back in the day, where people who asserted that the earth was round and thought that burning witches a ‘bad thing’ accused of ‘anti-science’ too?
Sorry that I appear to you to be a ‘heretic’.

Jay, it’s funny you should mention heresy. Back in the day, people who asserted that the Earth was round and thought that burning witches wasn’t on were accused of heresy, not anti-science. I think you may be confusing your heresies.

Thankfully, things have changed since the days of witch-burning, although there are still a great many people who distrust science as strongly as the Church did then.

I doubt anybody would accuse you of being a ‘heretic’ today, just a bit misinformed.

“Had we but world enough and time…..”

Delighted to see my favourite poet quoted on the thread so I couldn’t resist (though I understood The Garden to be English rather than French).

The point about Sunny’s article is that it implies there is no scientific debate to be had on this subject. And that is just not true.

The data the AGW theory is based on is suspect as anyone taking more than a cursory glance at the evidence would divine. Even I know that the size of tree rings is likely to be dependent on a number of factors- not just temperature.

For all that, the global warming scientists may be correct, I don’t know.

BUT NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE.

I seem to remember that the CJD computer models a few years ago predicted millions of deaths by now and it is entirely correct that the BBC should present the issue in a balanced fashion. And it is entirely wrong to label people “deniers” (invoking holocaust deniers).

Doing so creates a concern that the ground is being prepared to make it illegal to express a view that denies AGW just as it has been made illegal to express racist or homophobic views.

I hope this concern is ill founded.

Soru can you direct me to the experiment that in your view is the equivalent to a fatty scoffing burgers over a few weeks . This would presumably be the last occasion when industrial activity , the presumed villain , took place in a world such as this. It does not exist does it The “Proofs” you mention are proofs of basic physics not of scale or their operation in a complex system

If ‘evil man’ and his fallen ways are to blame then we are collectively shoving eight hamburgers a day down the global gob. If he is not then we are perhaps shoving a stick of celery and an Evian into the said orifice The physics is the same , the basic science the same , the relevance effect and scale widely different ..

This reference to “Basic science “ is a conjurors feint designed to distract attention for the highly conjectural science of modelling climate change based on information no more than fifty years old an entirely inadequate period to base firm conclusions .

Do stop this witch doctor incanting about science its not magic.

Thersites

@20

I read that Devil’s Kitchen post too (I guess that’s where the information came from), but it only proved that some of the PR friendly science is less than reliable, there is an overwhelming body of evidence in favour of AGW.

“Doing so creates a concern that the ground is being prepared to make it illegal to express a view that denies AGW just as it has been made illegal to express racist or homophobic views.”

No it doesn’t.

Chris’ post on evidence and effectiveness is worth thinking about in this context.

We cannot run experiments on the planet of the sort we’d need to settle this question conclusively, we have only sparse, often inferred, historical data, or short-run contemporaneous data etc. to go on – it is always going to be possible to doubt the evidence, and/or come up with alternative explanations for it.

When did evidence start emerging that smoking was bad for you? Say you smoked 2 packs a day …. when would have been the rational time to give up, assuming that all that mattered to you was the availability of evidence? At what point would it have been rational for doubters to shut up and accept the balance of probabilities indicate that smoking causes lung cancer?

Paul the defence is the exceptionalism of the UK .Nationalism here is not a source of shame as on much of the continent nor is it bound up in the moral catastrophe of Soviet occupied Eastern Europe . It is a source of justifiable pride, as is Parliament and the dislike of unaccountable elites. We do not wish to sacrifice our country to the super statist dreams of the left and this shows the purpose of all the lies over Lisbon was precisely to isolate the views of the British . You might just as well imagine the odd selection of superannuated nutty Communists the British left would be allied with if we joined The USA .You are making an arguments against the EU not against the Latvians.

David Milliband is an intelligent if unscrupulous man. He knows the dangers to his dreams inherent in this line of idiotic attack very well .It really shows the desperation of the Labour Party that he feels he has to should attack the very faults of the institution that he is personally responsible for lying about to a Euro Sceptic. Country.

This is a core vote strategy and a hostage to fortune . I am disappointed to see the generally thoughtful Sunder Katwala whipping up the partisan mob. I thought his claim was that we all had a place in Europe .If only people that agree with him do , then we must leave .

Thersites

16/soru: bad example with the hamburgers. After a relatively short time, in fact, you’ll reach a new metabolic equilibrium – your base metabolism will increase, your processing of nutrients will adapt to the new diet, and after a few months your weight will stop increasing. Experiments where people have been given 10,000-calorie diets: there’s initial weight gain, but not as much as you might expect, and after a relatively short time all that extra energy is going into maintaining an above-normal weight for that person against their accelerated metabolism (and if you return them to their normal diet, they lose the extra weight quickly, too).

Well, maybe not such a bad example: there’s maybe an analogy to be made here with the various buffers against atmospheric change that the planet has that are gradually running out of capacity: if we stop before they run out, things should be fine. If they run out, things will get very bad very quickly.

Jamie
Says you whilst conflating my opinion with that of creationalists

That seems a little extreme, pagar. Of course it will never be made illegal to express scepticism over climate change and similarly, I’m not sure that the label ‘denier’ invokes the Holocaust.

What you say about suggestions that there is no scientific debate to be had is an interesting point. There is most definitely scientific debate to be had, between scientists, over the bewildering array of data that informs various schools of thought of climate change. However, what is mentioned in Sunny’s post is ascientific: it’s poor reporting based on poor sources, using questionable or just plain wrong information to arrive at a poor conclusion that serves neither side.

I see a major problem in the politicisation of climate change. There are too many non-scientists using the topic for point scoring and evidence of the opposition’s ignorance/zealotry/whatever. It should be a scientific debate: if the majority of evidence shows a long term rise in temperature, which it does, and it can be attributed at least in part to human activity, which it can, then clearly we should accept this. If there are occasional inexplicable cases that seem to contradict the science, this doesn’t mean the science itself is incorrect and the whole concept should be abandoned, but that research must continue to understand where the gaps in understanding lie. This is how science works.

I have heard more scientific arguments that the Earth is warming and seen more evidence than I have otherwise, so I will continue to believe it. I’d rather believe it wasn’t true but the science suggests it is. I really can’t see why anyone would go to such lengths to refute and ignore it (barring loony Melanie Phillips style conspiracies)

@22 No it doesn’t.

Yes it does.

I am concerned.

pagar, can you point to some peer reviewed published evidence that suggests AGW is not a real phenomena?

It’s bloody hilarious when people turn up to claim that the hottest year was a decade ago and therefore global warming is crock.

If any of you spent 2 min watching the video – you’ll see this is dealt with. Just because the hottest year was a decade ago doesn’t mean the long term trends are going down too.

This isn’t just stupidity – this is wilful distortion because some of you chumps are conspiracy nutjobs.

Gimpy – this is what I meant earlier when I said that even if you present the science, there are certain people who will take a political view and decide they just don’t want to agree with lefties, regardless of the evidence.

The debate is political, whether we like it or not.

Soru can you direct me to the experiment that in your view is the equivalent to a fatty scoffing burgers over a few weeks .

http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/greenhouse-effect/37442.html

Increasing C02 concentration causing increasing heat retention really is basic physics, any philosophical scepticism that applies to that is equally valid wrt Ohm’s or Boyle’s Law. The only even vaguely open question in the science is that there might turn out to be some unknown effect that counteracts, slows or makes irrelevant the straightforward physical prediction. A lot of scientists have spent a lot of time looking for such a thing, and none have found it so far: a Nobel would certainly await anyone who did.

By analogy, the cheeseburger man might take up running marathons, catch some wasting disease, or drop dead of a heart attack.

Back in the day, where people who asserted that the earth was round and thought that burning witches a ‘bad thing’ accused of ‘anti-science’ too?

Yeah there were people who thought the Holocaust was rubbish too – until they were confronted with the science.

All I see are some people with their hands on their ears screaming la la la I can’t hear you when presented with basic facts.

Jamie @26

I’m not sure that the label ‘denier’ invokes the Holocaust.

Sunny @31

Yeah there were people who thought the Holocaust was rubbish too – until they were confronted with the science.

Can anyone see why I am concerned???????

I think holocaust deniers were confronted with the evidence not the science. Climate change is definately happening – I think we can all agree on that. I think the dispute comes as to whether it’s a natural phenomena based on solar flares or other such things or if it’s based on CO2 & other greenhouse gasses. A Calvinist would say better to believe in MMGW and if wrong, no matter rather than denying it out of hand and waking up in 50 years in the middle of the Atlantic. We need more nuclear power stations but the Finnish one which has been hailed as awesome is turning into the Scottish Parliament building in that it’s vastly over budget, behind planned completition and has run into significant opposition – other than that – whey hey hey urgh.

29 Sunny, perhaps an issue for another day when I have more time. I don’t disagree that climate debate in the public sphere is more political than scientific in practice, I think this is a bad thing though and I also don’t think it is as simple as left/right. I suspect people on both sides use politics to hide their lack of a scientific understanding, one side is right though, and it’s not those who say AGW isn’t real.

“A Calvinist would say better to believe in MMGW and if wrong, no matter rather than denying it out of hand and waking up in 50 years in the middle of the Atlantic.”

This. Hell, even *don’t* believe but follow the practices of avoiding it anyway.

Why not post a graph of the data in question? Recent ‘cooling’ years are pretty clearly within the expected variability around a longer term trend.

Sunny

I saw Franks’ post earlier and can remember nothing in it that breached the comments policy. Please tell me if I’m wrong.

Of course you can delete anything you wish but it would be nice if you could tell us why you did it.

If AGWDs are being added to “misogynists, racists, homophobics and xenophobics” it would be fair if you told us so.

I like Louis Mazzini’s analogy above. Very simple. Very effective.

I see the deniers are all rushing in to make fools of themselves.

Yet again.

Realclimate has an excellent post up about this with attendant graph where deniers can go and see how misplaced their current bout of about-to-be short-lived triumphalism is. 2005 was way, way hotter than 1985 – in line with the rest of this decade, which is much warmer than the whole of the 1980s.

Climate is long term. The trend is ever upwards in line with rising CO2. That is the science.

I’ve yet to see any AGW denier overturn 250 years of aggregate knowledge of physicis and chemistry in order to prove their position. I’m willing to change my mind and join their dwindling ranks when that nobel prize winning effort is published.

I love how the whiny ‘zomfg you deleted my comment, you must be a librul fascist!’ crew never mention the ‘Abusive, sarcastic or silly comments may be deleted’ clause.

Just because global warming is not such a big part of popular culture as it was in the past few years does not mean that it does not exist. Carbon levels in the oceans are rising at an alarming rate.

‘Increasing C02 concentration causing increasing heat retention really is basic physics, any philosophical scepticism that applies to that is equally valid wrt Ohm’s or Boyle’s Law’

And something you can easily demonstrate in school. Kids prefer practical demonstrations they can carry our themselves to abstract theory..

I am concerned by the use of the term ‘denier’ though, which IS used to stifle debate by drawing exactly the Holocaust paralels Sunny did at comment 31, and since Frank Fisher’s comment clearly did not violate the rules of the Forum their deletion is inexcusable.

‘No platform’ is a mark of political failure, and has still less place in science.

pagar, you realise holocaust denial is not illegal? Not a great comparison.

So long as you don’t incite anti-AGW violence I’m sure you’ll be okay.

So the thousands of scientists who disagree with the global warming theory are not scientists?

Oh I see, you define “scientist” as a “liberal with a PhD”. Conservative scientists are not scientists of course, because in the modern world being liberal is part of the scientific method, isnt it?

The main tenet of the Global Warming theory is that so-called greenhouse gases directly cause the Earth’s temperature to rise. CO2 output has INCREASED this decade and yet the average temperatures have fallen. This Fall has brought record low temps across the US. But we are supposed to believe that Global Warming is still occurring? Why aren’t these gases causing the temperature to rise this year? Did they go on vacation? Why aren’t they functioning the way the Global Warming theorists say they are supposed to? I understand about long term trends. I know math and statistics very well. It seems awfully convenient to me to say that even though temps are falling, Global Warming is still in full effect. So convenient, that the Liberals can just change the name to Climate Change without even batting an eye. Maybe our understanding of global climate change is in it’s elementary stage. It seems pretty complex to me. Anyone who thinks that there isn’t an agenda with big time dollars or euros behind Global Warming policy is misinformed or in denial themselves.

I’m going to start counting the number of times commenters pop up to say ‘this year/last year was colder than the year before lol so global warming must totally like be a lie and stuff.’

Eric’s comment is, appropriately enough, number two (unless I’ve missed any).

@Eric.

I feel sorry that those who are interested in the evidence genuinely epistemologically sceptical have to share a platform with someone who writes nonsensical posts like you.

Shall we?

The main tenet [oooh, comparing science to a church, risque]of the Global Warming theory is that so-called [just one question on this: huh?]greenhouse gases directly cause the Earth’s temperature to rise[I think you'll find no one says this, they contribute certainly, but they're not the only thing]. CO2 output has INCREASED this decade and yet the average temperatures have fallen[within the range acceptable]. This Fall has brought record low temps across the US. But we are supposed to believe that Global Warming is still occurring[weather is not climate, they are even different words so you can tell!]? Why aren’t these gases causing the temperature to rise this year[they're within the predicted variation]? Did they go on vacation[hilarious (!)]? Why aren’t they functioning the way the Global Warming theorists say they are supposed to[they are, temperature fluctuation are within predicted limits]? I understand about long term trends[no you don't]. I know math and statistics very well. It seems awfully convenient to me to say that even though temps are falling, Global Warming is still in full effect. So convenient, that the Liberals can just change the name to Climate Change without even batting an eye[yeah everyone remembers the Intergovermental Panel on Global Warming report in 1990]. Anyone who thinks that there isn’t an agenda with big time dollars or euros behind Global Warming policy is misinformed or in denial themselves [As Tom Cruise would say "show me the (oil) money"].”

I love how the whiny ‘zomfg you deleted my comment, you must be a librul fascist!’ crew never mention the ‘Abusive, sarcastic or silly comments may be deleted’ clause.

Given that plenty of abusive comments aren’t deleted, one can be forgiven for wondering about the somewhat haphazard application of the policy.

“Is the BBC buying into global-warming denialism?”

Says all you need to know. To doubt man-made global warming is a disease called ‘denialism’ that one has to ‘but into’, rather like a dodgy timeshare on the Costa del Sol.

Climate change is a potentially serious issue that needs a real debate, but much like the US healthcare debate, the arguments from both sides have degraded into a slanging match where the ‘other person’ is not only wrong, but is an evil doer and his mother took money for favours.

A lot of this has come from the politicisation of the issue, and as long as governments continue to use climate change as a cash-cow there are always going to be those who doubt the research on the ground of vested interests.

That, added to the ‘closed science’ issue alluded to by another poster (all good science should be open to peer review yet AGW research is often shrouded in secrecy) means that we just about always end up with slanging matches rather than a serious debate.

Government scientists have predicted that half a million Britons will die as a result of global warming in the next few years and by 2016 it will be half a million every year.

Oh. Just a minute. Sorry. That’s BSE.

We haven’t really evolved much beyond the stage where we need to believe witches can push a pin through a doll’s body and we’ll drop down dead. In fact we seem to have a primeval need to believe such stuff.

We may be causing the planet to warm and it may mean oblivion and our grand children might all die and……

maybe they won’t.

“Gimpy – this is what I meant earlier when I said that even if you present the science, there are certain people who will take a political view and decide they just don’t want to agree with lefties, regardless of the evidence.”

Those on the Right might be more sympathetic if global warming wasn’t used as an excuse by the Left to attack capitalism and expand state control.

Given that plenty of abusive comments aren’t deleted, one can be forgiven for wondering about the somewhat haphazard application of the policy.

FrankFisher is banned from here because he’s a troll and he only comes here to troll. In fact he says that himself on other blogs. No conspiracy – just a straightforward ban. There are plenty of other deniers here who haven’t been censored. FrankFisher though is generally a twat and I don’t want this blog soiled by his crap.

gimpy – sure, another debate for another time. But part of the reason why I keep pointing out that it’s political is that you see mostly right-wingers who think this is part of some grand conspiracy, and want to ignore the science.

Amusingly, the same people turn up in other places to say that its lefties who are governed by emotion and not evidence.

“This isn’t just stupidity – this is wilful distortion because some of you chumps are conspiracy nutjobs.”

Some are, and but nutjobs can be found everywhere, the extreme wing of the environmentalist movement has its fair share too.

Using the latent heat content estimate is not very smart, this is the output of a
computer model: rather like “proving” Santa exists by drawing me a map of his living room. Give me enough computer power, and I’ll “prove” where his cat normally sleeps too.

The RSS network (empirically) show a recent cooling and overall no significant heating of the upper oceans, a fraction of the 0.85w/m2 Hansen predicted, which should by now be evident.

If the observational evidence doesn’t fit the theory, do you get a better theory or throw away the evidence? Anyone for post-modernist science?

@Mark M – your momma taught me all I know! Unfortunately there seems to be a drought in Kenya and it’s made worse by their reliance on hydroelectricity. I don’t think you can liken the British electoral cycle with America – that’s really quite inaccurate. I don’t mean to be partisan but sometimes it shouldn’t be glossed over that New Labour morphed into Corporate Britain & War Shop R Us. Some happiness survey determined that we were the richest in Europe but also the saddest – I think that’s kinda sweet.

Jamie,

You can count how many times people bring up the fact that there hasn’t been a temperature rise in 11 years and I’ll count how many times people don’t answer why. If the “science” behind Global Warming is so simple and straight forward why isn’t there an equally simple and straight forward answer? Man-made CO2 only works to increase temps some of the time? Acoms razor would stipulate that CO2 has nothing to do with temperature increase. You simply make the “science” fit your theory. It’s very transparent.

Eric: That’s three.

It really is as simple as a straight line. Try the link provided @ 36 (or – hell! – even the graph, video and text in the article your commenting on!)

Surely that’s simple and straight forward enough for anyone?

Well I have a graph in front of me that shows the average surface temperature on our planet was significantly hotter 2000 years ago than it is now. Yet you all say the general trend is upward. Mmmmmm, funny how how you only use certain information to fit your opinion.

Eric: four.

Funny how you ignore the vast body of evidence that contradicts your opinion, while selecting the odd tidbit of data that fits your politicised interpretation of the science isn’t it?

Once again, the science is imperfect (as all science is and, indeed, must be) but a few unexplained points does not mean the whole issue is as black and white as you’d like it to be.

Pager re comment 32:

Spot on.

“Funny how you ignore the vast body of evidence that contradicts your opinion, while selecting the odd tidbit of data that fits your politicised interpretation of the science isn’t it?”

You mean “vast body of anecdote”. The radiative forcing estimates which show CO2 is anything greater than a negligable warming influence are purely speculative. There is no science to support them.

See the ocean example above.

I do not preclude a human influence on climate, but it will need a new
theory and new scientists to demonstrate it convincingly.

“Well I have a graph in front of me that shows the average surface temperature on our planet was significantly hotter 2000 years ago than it is now. ”

This is a reasonable point. Sunny thinks it absurd to comment on the temperature trend over the last decade because the trend looks different if you set the parameters further back. But he is being equally arbitrary in setting the parameters to exclude data that contradicts his preferred interpretation of the data; it is possible to set the parameters such that you can show an overall cooling or warming trend. It just depends on your time reference.

I bet there are more global warming deniers in the autumn than in the spring.

Is it “denialism” to wonder why some critical underlying data is withheld?
Is it “denialism” to query that statistical validity of such data?

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/

Slowly but surely the fragility of the AGW theory is being revealed.

cjcjc,

To what extent does the status of the AGW theory rest on this set of papers that (allegedly) used cherry-picked data sources? Because if you are in the business of criticizing exaggerated assertions made on the basis of unrepresentative data and faulty extrapolation, you wouldn’t want to make the very error you are accusing others of. Specifically, you would want to bear in mind the difference between: “some of the research in the set of research that supports the AGW theory has been discredtited” and “AGW has been discredited”.

[N.B. if bishophill has everything right, these particular scientists ought to be hung out to dry]

Luis

You are correct of course, this discredits only one set of (important) data on which the hockey stick was constructed. But you will be aware of question marks over some of the other data also?

What is clear from this is that climate change scientists have a personal interest in the AGW theory turning out to be verifiable and that such interest can seriously affect the quality of the science.

pagar,

I am sure there are many instances of doubtful data I am not aware of … but see my comment #22 – doubtful data goes with the territory here. I think climate skeptics can be easily misled by their own bias / interests… if you were to roam the internet, scientific journals etc. looking for instances where the evidence for AGW can be doubted, you would be committing a gigantic sampling error of your own. An overview of all the evidence and theory is required. I’m nowhere near possessing such an overview myself. And let’s not forget, if the rational, “based on current best evidence”, Bayesian probability of AGW being true = 0.75, that’s both high enough to justify things like investment in low carbon technology, and low enough to leave lots of room for uncertainty and skepticism. So you could call yourself a climate skeptic, in that you think the current consensus (implicit) probability is too high, and also be a strong advocate of spending money to reduce carbon emissions.

Can Eric or any other of the sceptics on here please explain which bit of global warming science they reject?

A genuine question – in all these debates I’ve never seen this clearly explained by a sceptic. The basics of conventional global warming science are explained in many places on the web, but where can I go to see the basics of the science that sets out the cause-effect showing why man-made global warming wouldn’t be happening now?

The basic measurement that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are up appears to be accepted. (Is that correct?)

So, is the physics that a greenhouse effect exists questioned? Or is it the calculation that a given increase in greenhouse gas concentration will lead to a given increase in the amount of heat retained by the earth+atmosphere system in total? Or is it questioned that the source of the increased CO2 concentration is the combustion of fuels & forests by man?

You mean “vast body of anecdote”.

Not really – watch the video. In fact Nature and New Scientist magazine have a hoard of information taking down these silly accusations.

Or you could have a look at:
http://www.skepticalscience.com

cheers

“Can Eric or any other of the sceptics on here please explain which bit of global warming science they reject? ”

Strategist, many aspects of the science are contested, often by leading experts in the field, but the thing that tends to unify the ‘sceptical’ voices is frustration at claims of ‘consensus’ where there is none. The reporting of AGW is pitiful with phenomena that clearly have nothing to do with AGW being presented as evidence for it (think Hurricane Katrina).

There is good evidence to my mind of a steep upward temperature trend in recent years and the hypothesis that human activity is contributing to it seems plausible. But I doubt there is anything much else we can say at the moment. Whether the effects of AGW will he broadly beneficial or not, for example, is something none of the models can help us with. This is all pretty moot, since nothing effective can or will be done about AGW, but it is interesting to watch and speculate. I would like to think that in 30 years we will have a good picture, but I suspect by then a new generation of modelers will be there to say that while the old models were wrong, the newer, better, shinier ones are all predicting disaster in the next 30 years after that. The cataclysm is always 30 years away, have you noticed? It is funny how just about everyone now accepts that it is impossible to make predictive models for something as relatively simple as a financial derivatives market, but there is still lots of confidence that we can predict the climate 100 years from now, which is infinitely more complex.

Millenarianism seems to have an eternal appeal.

Just in case anyone missed it I have copied an extract of John Meredith’s third paragraph from message 69:

“……..It is funny how just about everyone now accepts that it is impossible to make predictive models for something as relatively simple as a financial derivatives market, but there is still lots of confidence that we can predict the climate 100 years from now, which is infinitely more complex.”

Kojak, what aspects of that para do you wish to draw to our attention?

I read it and thought:

1. seeing as some financial derivatives have a value that is conditional on orange juice prices, which are in turn influenced in complicated ways by the climate, modeling financial derivatives might even be harder than modeling the climate.

2. I bet the (majority of) people involved in making long range climate models would not describe themselves as having “lots of confidence” in their predictions. Far from it.

It is funny how just about everyone now accepts that it is impossible to make predictive models for something as relatively simple as a financial derivatives market, but there is still lots of confidence that we can predict the climate 100 years from now, which is infinitely more complex.

Arse. Climate (rather than weather) isn’t as complex as you might think – at the end of the day, it boils down to the balance between energy coming into the system and energy leaving it. Secondly, climate is not magical – it’s driven entirely by the well-known laws of thermodynamics and fluid motion. When someone can come up with equally solid laws describing economic behaviour, we’ll be able to model economics as well as we can climate.

Economics is not like physics.

@69 OK, what I think I’m getting from John Meredith & Kojak is that the mainstream of global warming sceptic opinion:

(a) accepts that global average temperatures (say, the 30 year average) are rising

(b) doesn’t question the basic physics of an explanation based on humans changing the composition of the atmosphere (“the hypothesis that human activity is contributing to it seems plausible”)

But does consider that the earth-atmosphere system is so complex that we are completely unable to say anything of value on what the effect of a continuing increase in global average temperature will be on the climate experienced at any given location on the planet. The impacts might be beneficial as easily as they might be adverse, we simply cannot say what they will be. Existing climate models might be wrong as easily as they might be right.

From this I am assuming the global warming sceptic position is not to say “things are going to be OK, the climate won’t change that much”, it is to make no prediction as to what the climate will be in 30 or 100 years from now and argue that no such prediction can be made from the tools we currently have.

Is that a fair representation? (cjcjc appears to be a dissenter from this position with his confident prediction that a “disaster” won’t happen.)

What does Kojak say to an argument as follows: “Physics allows us to measure the total amount of solar energy arriving at the top of the atmosphere in a given year, and calculate what the overall average temperature of the earth+atmosphere will be, dependent on the composition of the atmosphere.” ? Namely, that although there is a lot of complexity about how things are distributed within the system, there is a simplicity to calculating a bottom line figure for any given future year. Or, in short, an analogy with modelling the financial derivatives market is not valid, and it is not correct to call the climate system “infinitely more complex”.

Luis Enrique re comment 72:

Fancy that? You willfully misunderstand a very simple comparison.
I’ll make it a little bit simpler for you so that you can misunderstand it at greater length:

Financial derivatives markets – Quantifiable number of transactions, quantifiable resourses, many many variable factors ……… and it is accepted we cannot make predictive models.

Future climate predictions – Unquantifiable events, unquantifiable resources, unquantifiable human reaction, many many many many unknown factors, many many many variable factors ………. yet people accept with certainty predictive models and predictions about what will happen in 100 years time.

“2. I bet the (majority of) people involved in making long range climate models would not describe themselves as having “lots of confidence” in their predictions. Far from it.”

Luis, I think you are probably right. But most of the green politics surrounding AGW does assume a lot of confidence in those models. Unless we have a high level of confidence in them, there is really no good basis for policy making.

“Arse. Climate (rather than weather) isn’t as complex as you might think – at the end of the day, it boils down to the balance between energy coming into the system and energy leaving it. ”

Climate and weather are enormously complex and simply refusing to admit it doesn’t do your case much good. Your reductio is, frankly, absurd. It is like saying there is nothing complicated about qantum mechanics, it’s just particles pinging off each other.

Kojak:

Financial derivatives markets: no known predictive laws.

Radiative energy transfer: well known and thoroughly tested predictive laws.

Or perhaps more simply:

Economics: not really a hard science.

Physics: the hardest science there is.

Thermodynamics is not magic. It’s the science of the Industrial Revolution, for Pete’s sake.

“Namely, that although there is a lot of complexity about how things are distributed within the system, there is a simplicity to calculating a bottom line figure for any given future year. Or, in short, an analogy with modelling the financial derivatives market is not valid, and it is not correct to call the climate system “infinitely more complex”.”

Strategist, ‘how things are distributed about the system’ is, pretty much, a definition of climate, and that is where the complexity lies. It does not matter (even if it were true) if any one of the many thousands of variables were simple to measure.

Derivatives markets seem to me like a pretty good analogy to me, but I am sure there are others if you prefer them. Maybe we could do it the other way around, what future predicting models for anything do we have that work reliably?

“Thermodynamics is not magic. It’s the science of the Industrial Revolution, for Pete’s sake.”

You are right both times, but we are talking about climatology.

Climate and weather are enormously complex and simply refusing to admit it doesn’t do your case much good.

The fine details of exactly how the energy in the system is distributed, and what the local effects of that distribution are, are indeed very complex. The question of the total heat content of the system is extremely simple, thanks to the first law of thermodynamics. The change in the total heat content of the Earth’s climate system is simply the difference between the energy absorbed and the energy radiated.

By the way, the point about using financial modeling as an analogy was because until very recently there were lots of very clever people telling us that they could model the market, even though Nicolas Nasseem Taleb was screaming in their ears that they were idiots.

“The change in the total heat content of the Earth’s climate system is simply the difference between the energy absorbed and the energy radiated.”

Yes, although that may be difficult to measure reliably on a global scale. But even if we can, it is only one of the things that we need to take account of in attemtping to model the climate.

When we go to the next level of complexity and try to predict not only how the climate will change, but how that will effect human communities and, then, how those communities will respond politically and otherwise, you are looking at something, well, very complex indeed.

You are right both times, but we are talking about climatology.

And what exactly do you think drives climate – fairies? It’s all applied thermodynamics.

Strategist re comment 74:

Thank you for your message.

Like many people who was raised expecting an ice age, Soviet invasion, perpetual hyper-inflation, a Malthusian overpopulated world outstripping all the food in it’s wake I’ve become a bit more sanguine about these kind of predictions. Especialy predictions based upon relativly simplistic computer modeling (it always is simplistic even if it’s very complicated).

What I see nowadays are the commendable aspirations for people to use fewer resources, cause less polution, be considerate in their objectives all co-opted beneath the banner of preventing global warming.

I don’t think any sane person want’s to kill the world and I resent being labeled a denier if I dare to question the basis upon which Man Made Gobal Warming predictions are made.

If you suspect that on Saturday evenings people are dumb for conforming to vote for ‘The X Factor’ or ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and in so doing accepting that’s what we deserve, how can you just sit back and accept Grobal Warming predictions accept that it’s all true without questioning the models upon which they are based?

Kojak,

Check your attitude please. If I misunderstood anything, it wasn’t “willfully”. I fear further misunderstandings …. financial derivatives may be quantifiable in the ways you mention, but their prices are functions of real world events that involve many variables, many unknowns. Anyway, my model of your behaviour forecasts that you are unlikely to be persuaded by this. And what does it matter? We are all agreed that modeling derivatives and modeling the climate are both difficult tasks, and the degree of uncertainty surrounding predictions is hard to quantify.

John,

We find ourselves in a position of having to take decisions under uncertainty, so isn’t the best basis for policy to take a probabilistic approach and use the best available predictions, even if those predictions are made with a low degree of confidence? (I’ve no objections to pointing out the misuse of models and over confidence by AGW campaigners)

Let’s please not divert off talking about derivatives and the credit crunch! I would like to press John Meredith on @79 & @81.

John, you are accepting Dunc’s point that (a) the total heat content of the system can be calculated, and also (b) that how it is going to rise in the future can also be calculated for a given change in atmospheric composition.

You also accept, I assume, that (c) the climate now at any given place can be measured and summarised (as average maximum temperature, average annual rainfall etc), as well as experienced.

What you appear to be saying is that although we know (a), (b) and (c) there is absolutely nothing useful we can say today about (d) how climate may change in forthcoming years at any given place. The system is just too complicated.

What you are *not* saying is that forecasts of future global warming from the IPCC and others are definitely wrong, and over-estimate the change there will be.

Is that a fair representation of your position? Are cjcjc, Kojak and others all agreeing that also?

For those who dont know the laws of thermodynamics are as follows

The First Law: There is no such thing as a free lunch
The Second Law: You do not even get what you paid for.

Seriously. Just because the basic physics is extremely well understood, that does not mean complex systems can be predicted.

The gravity “three body problem” exemplifies it. If two bodies are modelled, you can use basic physisc to completely model their behaviour and interactions. However, introduce a third body, and the equations become unsolvable. All that can be done is to model incremental changes in one body and see how it incrementally affects then next, and the next etc. From that very accurate forecasts, but not completely accurate ones of (say) the orbit of the planets into the future can be derived.

However that is simple compared to the vast number of variables in climate modelling. It is simply not true to say its a energy in-energy out equation therefore it is simple. What matters to humanity is exactly the detail of what will happen in any particular here. So even if the AGW forecasts were to be accurate enough to be relied on to tell us how much warming there will be globally (which as yet they can not) whether ‘here’ gets hotter, cooler, wetter, dryer, windier is not much better than an educated guess

As an after thought. It is not even true to say that the basic physics is well understood. Solar and cosmic radiation and its interaction with the atomoshphere is not at all well understood. and vice versa We are still learnng today how storm systems leak energy into space.

Well, if we’re going to talk about science then perhaps we might point out that it is traditional to label the axes on your graphs? We can work out one, the date. The other? Earth heat content has gone from 0 10×21 joules to 220 10x 21 joules in 60 years?

I think not really.

However, on to anthropogenic climate change itself. There’s actually a great deal that we don’t as yet know: it is nowhere near as cut and dried as anyone is saying (and please note, I’m one of those saying it is happening).

If you actually read the IPCC reports then you’ll see that the temperature rise from a doubling of pre industrial CO2 (or more accurately, CO2-e) is about 0.75 oF (this is from memory so don’t abuse me if it’s oC or something).

That’s the sort of amount that we’re really not very worried about at all. Certainly not to the extent of curbing the use of what is, after all, the cheapest method we have so far of generating energy: fossil fuels.

We also are almost 100% certain that this result is correct: it’s simple physics and isn’t all that much of an advance on what Arrhenius told us.

Excellent: so, how do we get from that to the vastly larger temperature range which the IPCC actually tells us is the likely result (do note, their range comes with a 95% confidence interval, it ain’t certain, just good enough for science)?

Feedbacks. We know absolutely that there are positive feedbacks. Permafrost starts melting, we get accelerating emissions. Those emissions themselves lead to more permafrost melting etc. Lower snow cover, less ice, methane hydrates, there’s tonnes of potential positive feedbacks.

However, there are also negative feedbacks which we are also certain about. More plant growth as a result of more atmospheric CO2 will lead to greater storage in the cycle. We’d certainly expect there to be more stored in the soil as well (highly respectable people like Freeman Dyson speculate that all of the increased amount could be stored there….although that’s his opinion, not scientific fact) and so on.

But here’s the bit we really do not know: the cumulative effect of all those positive and negative feedbacks. We really would love to, but we don’t. We can estimate, which is a lot of what is being done with models and observations. We’ve seen this much CO2 rise, we’ve seen this much temp. rise, so we’ve got our multiplier for how much more we get from nett positive feedbacks.

But again, there’s nothing to say that all feedbacks which are nett positive at a 0.5 oC, or 1.0 oC, will also be nett positive at 2.0 oC. They might be nett negative at that point.

I’m not trying to say that they will be mind, only to try and point out that the *physics* part of global warming, the bit we really do know about, is very much the minor part of what is being talked about. The bit that we actually might want to worry about is indeed a chaotic system of hundreds if not thousands of interacting and largely unknown processes. Which we attempt to estimate but we’ve no proof or even logical reason to think that if they’re positive feedbacks at one temperature gap that they will necessarily be positive at another.

The actual science just isn’t as clear as many try to make out.

Anyway, just to make it absolutely clear as apparently climate change denial is now akin to holocaust denial: the important question is “what do we do about it?” for I’m already on board with the idea that it is happening.

Although I so seem to be marching terribly out of step on that one too: having read the IPCC reports and the economic models they are based on it is obvious that at least part of the solution is accelerating globalisation. But few seem to want to hear that…..

Luis Enrique re comment 86:

It looks like I thought you were trying to wind me up and you weren’t. Appologies if i was a tad rude.

Just as an aside ….. I come into contact with a lot of 3D modeling as part of my work and it never ceases to amaze me how the results vary if you input exactly the same information. It has led me to be very cautious and exacting and to doubt the reliability of computer modeling which is quite often being used for purposes other than which it was written.

@88 Maybe your response has crossed with mine @87?

Reading 88, you appear to be accepting my (a), (c) and questioning (b).

Just to double-check, and repeat my (d), does that represent your view?

There is absolutely nothing useful we can say today about how climate may change in forthcoming years at any given place. The system is just too complicated…. What you are *not* saying is that forecasts of future global warming from the IPCC and others are definitely wrong, and over-estimate the change there will be.

Kojak,

nae worries, thanks for response.

Maybe we could do it the other way around, what future predicting models for anything do we have that work reliably?

Well, what time will the sun rise tomorrow?

More generally:

If you apply a current of 30 amps to a fuse rated at 10 amps, what happens?

if, at 4:00 PM tomorrow, a bank clerk will add together the numbers 7 and 32, what is the total likely to be?

if a major european country adopts fascism as its political system, will EU military budgets and plans remain unchanged?

if a major bank goes bust tomorrow, are the stock markets likely to continue their normal trading pattern?

If you change the heat retention properties of the atmosphere, is it likely that the climate will somehow be unaffected?

The idea of general-purpose comprehensive prediction of the future is a red herring when discussing global warming. Apart form anything else, you couldn’t assess some plan unless you knew whether it would be acted on or not.

What you need to know are the probable consequences of actions.

But here’s the bit we really do not know: the cumulative effect of all those positive and negative feedbacks. We really would love to, but we don’t. We can estimate, which is a lot of what is being done with models and observations. We’ve seen this much CO2 rise, we’ve seen this much temp. rise, so we’ve got our multiplier for how much more we get from nett positive feedbacks.

That’s something of an oversimplification. Many feedbacks can be constrained to quite a tight range – for example, the effect of albedo feedbacks can be calculated quite accurately thanks to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and there is no conceivable way for them to suddenly change sign. And we can be quite sure that the net feedback over a wide range of climatic conditions must always have an absolute value of less than 1, as the Earth’s climate hasn’t run away to either extreme yet.

The net effect of all known feedbacks currently operating on the relevant timescales is unequivocally positive. Now, it could be argued that there is some currently unidentified negative feedback out there, but then you might as well be arguing about the existence of unicorns – show me some evidence and I’ll take it seriously. Until then, we go with the best understanding currently available.

91

I have said in an earlier post that on balance AGW is a real effect, but the quantum of the effect is still deeply uncertain.

NB. The IPCC does not know to within 95% what the prediction is. It ‘knows’ that, for a defined set of assumptions, for a defined understanding of the climate, that it is 95% certain the outcome will fall within a defined range. That is very different.

If we ‘know’ to a 95% confidence the range is 2-5 degrees in 50-100 years (say), well the consequences that we have to deal with are vastly different depending on which end of the range the number actually transpires to be, and the local consequences are therefore impossible to predict because we cant be even be confident what the global outcome will be.

It really is about the detail

Continuing from Dunc @94 responding to Tim Worstall @89

Tim says: “here’s the bit we really do not know: the cumulative effect of all those positive and negative feedbacks… feedbacks which are nett positive at a 0.5 oC, or 1.0 oC, will also be nett positive at 2.0 oC. They might be nett negative at that point.”

On the issue of the negative feedback processes, Tim mentions “more plant growth as a result of more atmospheric CO2 will lead to greater storage in the cycle. We’d certainly expect there to be more stored in the soil as well (highly respectable people like Freeman Dyson speculate that all of the increased amount could be stored there….although that’s his opinion, not scientific fact)”

That would appear to be a feedback ensuring that CO2 atmospheric concentrations don’t rise as fast as they otherwise would. Presumably this can be tested against the observed CO2 concentration.

Are there any other feedbacks that Tim can draw our attention to, in particular the ones that would as Dunc says, “change the sign”, ie lead to a cooling effect on climate at a given location.

I am interested in this because I am interested to find out if there are any global warming sceptics who go further than a position of “we can say nothing” to a position of saying something – for example, “we do not need to worry about global warming” and what the scientific basis is of any prediction that global warming will not occur as the IPCC forecasts.

[via MR, recent econ nobel winner talking about climate change, with transcripts]

NB. The IPCC does not know to within 95% what the prediction is.

Which of course it can’t, because it does not know whether radical carbon-reduction measures, or even geo-engineering, will be adopted.

The argument ‘it is possible something will be done, therefore the situation is uncertain, therefore we should do nothing’ really is a thing of beauty.

“The gravity “three body problem” exemplifies it. If two bodies are modelled, you can use basic physisc to completely model their behaviour and interactions. ”

There are various things here I would like to repond to, but I haven’t go t time today. I’ll ccome back tomorrow if the discussion is still live.

I think this comment is worth repeating though. A lot of people seem to massively underestimate the difficulties of predicting the behaviour of complex systems. Taleb claims (and I have not see the claim contradicted) that to predict accurately the passage of a billiard ball after the eighth bounce would require a model that took account of the precise position of every atom in the universe. It becomes impossible long before that, of course. And there are a lot of ‘billiard balls’ in a climate model.

“Are there any other feedbacks that Tim can draw our attention to, in particular the ones that would as Dunc says, “change the sign”, ie lead to a cooling effect on climate at a given location.”

Not without me going and doing a great deal more studying than I’m prepared to do, no.

As a non-scientist those sorts of details can get extremely confusing: I’m much happier sticking with the economics of what we ought to do about it: at least there I’m an interested amateur and can get some grasp of the arguments.

98. Thats not what I was saying. I was infact taking the IPCC predictions at face value, and saying even when we do that, the range of outcomes makes choosing the right avoidance strategy very complex.

For the UK however, we are about to have to replace basically most of the power generating capacity of the UK. So since we have to do that anyway, it is a simple to suggest that we replace it with low carbon generation. The marginal cost of doing that will be quite small in comparison with the cost of replacement like for like.

I am not a do-nothing denier, I am however keen to avoid doing self destructive things that mean we will be worse off in any scenario. (I.e. the end capitalism/ end industry/ end consumerism extreme of things)

There is the question of precision: you may not be able to solve the three-body problem with mathematical perfection, but you can get pretty bloody close with an iterative numerical approach. Similarly, you may not be able to predict the exact position of that billiard ball, but you can say with some confidence that it’s nearer the baulk cushion than Alpha Centauri.

You don’t need to know the precise trajectory of the bullet as it ricochets through your skull to be fairly certain that shooting yourself in the head is a bad idea.

I’m reminded of an old joke involving a physicist, an engineer, a naked woman, and one of Zeno’s paradoxes… The punchline is “But I can get close enough!” – I’m sure you can figure out the details for yourself.

102 Its the degree precision thats at issue. It is entirely wrong to believe that the climate modellers are prediciting anything like precise outcomes. They are predicting ranges,and sometimes very wide ranges of outcomes with extremely varied consequences.

The billard ball may be nearer the baulk cushion than alpha centari, but if you live on the billard table and are worried about being crushed by a passing ball, then the level of precision of knowledge of where on the table it will be is rather important to you.

@103: that’s a pretty misleading metaphor – a billiard table is big, a cue-ball small.

It’s more like there if is a building about to fall on top of you, you can’t completely discount the possibility that all the falling rubble will miss, like the famous silent movie stunt.

Unlike with derivatives, the bet is not that the model is precisely correct, or wrong ‘in some way’, but without being able to say what. Those who want to do nothing about carbon emissions are betting that the model is wrong _in precisely the right way_ that the expected physical result gets exactly counteracted by some currently unknown feedback factor.

104. I was not trying to make a billiard table a metaphor for cliamte change. I was simply extending one already used. I kind of thought that was obvious

The fact is neither, you, I or the IPCC can say with any reasonable certainty what will happen to the environment and climate of an area as small as the UK , even taking at face value the IPCC’s current consensus view of the likely range of warming globally.

Equally you seem to be implying the prediction is right in such a specific way you know what to do. It is that with which I disagree. The range of uncertainty is far too large to know what exactly needs to be done to change the outcome in a predictable way .

We need to keep options open, not fix on a single solution in the mistaken belief we know the future with certianty.

OK

1) There is a real scientific debate about whether or not global warming exists.

2) If it exists, there is a further debate about whether or not we are causing it.

3) There is a political dimension to the debate.

4) Whilst it’s great fun for us all playing at amateur scientists based on Google searches, nobody should be making any decisions based on our results.

5) The professional scientists have no more idea than we have regarding what is going on. Maybe less.

6) If we are heading for global warming Armageddon, nothing we do in the UK will make any difference.

Trying to reverse our world’s reliance on emitting CO2 is not going to happen. We all need to understand this and stop pretending that it could. Globalisation is just not that advanced. As a species we are not that advanced.

So, we’re either fucked or we’re not. Let’s move on.

Oh, by the way, I don’t think we are.

1. there is a real scientific debate as to whether food is necessary for human survival
2. if it is necessary, there is a further debate on the optimal balance of vitamins and minerals.
3. food is related to a bunch of political issues, all of which would be influenced by a discovery that you didn’t need to eat food to live. Therefore whether food is necessary is a political issue.
4. Anyone can google facts on food, therefore you should not trust the opinion of non-experts as they may be idiots.
5. Non-idiot professional scientists all tell you to eat food, therefore you should not trust their opinion, because they are expressing a scientific opinion on a political issue
6. if you are going to starve, nothing you can do will avoid that destiny. Therefore you should not eat.

pagar,

Science progresses by debate, the overthow of shibboleths and the like. It also has fora for doing that. Usually, these are scientific journals and the debates and conferences which are not of the slightest interest to the general public.

But we now have a huge series of comments on here from opinionated non-scientists who are bringing their own, very selfish and uninformed, points of view to the debate. It is frankly wrong.

Where I would agree with the anti-AGW lobby is that there are a lot of trained scientists, specialising in this field that consider it to be anything but a debating point for naivé political wannabes. My point of departure from these illiterates is that they assume that because they have read up on the views of other illiterates on the subject, like, oh I don’t know, journalists or professional contrarians, that they have somehow turned themselves into experts. that their ‘views’ are worth setting against the scientific consensus.

No, they are not.

Their complete refusal to debate this topic in a forum where they could be corrected, say Deltoid or Real Climate suggests to me that their agenda is selfish nonsense. We are seeing the anti-AGW line being pushed by folk with a perfectly clear political agenda, and devil take the hindmost.

I see these people as deluded fools and I call bullshit.

Douglas

Your faith in the probity of scientists is touching. I used to feel like that about politicians.

The problem with this area is that scientists, like everyone else, seem to fall on one side or other of the argument and, like all human beings, want to see themselves proved right. Thus the report of a selective choice of trees with rings that come up with measurements that help prove AGW.

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html

Mann, who started the scare, was the most guilty.

Thus, for example, the failure to spot that a temperature measuring station in Arizona originally sited in a desert is now surrounded by a small town. And when it is pointed out to come up with his own unproven formula to adjust the data.

This kind of the happens when there is a major scientific issue that needs to be resolved and little or contradictory evidence is available. The scientists then chase and find ‘evidence’ that seems to back up their theory but is, in fact, pretty meaningless. A small amount of data is extrapolated by predictive computer modelling to produce sensational forecasts.

On the balance of probabilities, I believe that there is an element of AGW going on but my hunch is that it will not prove cataclysmic in the long term and that reversing industrialisation (if that were achievable) would be a serious over reaction.

Gaia.

Pagar, your hatred of scientists is palpable. Did a man in a white coat bully you as a child?

Or are you just clutching at conspiratorial straws?

pagar,

Funnily enough, I see myself as quite sceptical really. However your charactersiation of this story just doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever. The overwhelming majority of Climate scientists consider AGW to be a proven fact. There is no real debate to be had within the field.

Within the chateratti it is however, a different matter.

There are other, non computer generated proxies for global warming, such as glacial retreat and stuff like that.

If you are even reasonably open minded you might care to read this:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

I am not a climate scientist, but the stacked up evidence seems to me to be pretty well overwhelming….

Last point.

I have posted this before, but I consider it to be the logical arguement and pretty well irrefutable, whatever your politics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

It is worth a look.

@96 I asked: ‘I am interested to find out if there are any global warming sceptics who go further than a position of “we can say nothing” to a position of saying something – for example, “we do not need to worry about global warming” and what the scientific basis is of any prediction that global warming will not occur as the IPCC forecasts.’

So far we have had Tim Worstall @100 decline, for the best of reasons no doubt.

@105 we have Dontmindme doing no more than clutching to the line that we can say nothing: “neither, you, I or the IPCC can say with any reasonable certainty what will happen to the environment and climate of an area as small as the UK…the range of uncertainty is far too large to know what exactly needs to be done…we need to keep options open.”

And @109 we have pagar’s beliefs and hunches to go on: “On the balance of probabilities, I believe that there is an element of AGW going on but my hunch is that it will not prove cataclysmic in the long term and that reversing industrialisation (if that were achievable) would be a serious over reaction.”

Is it too early to declare that the sceptics on here accept that they do not have a scientifically-based testable hypothesis for why what they want and hope to be true – that we do not need to alter our carbon-emitting behaviour – might be true?

“for example, “we do not need to worry about global warming””

Yes, sorry, even I wouldn’t go that far. As I say, I’m much happier talking about what we should be doing about it. Slap on a carbon tax (a good old Pigou Tax as Lord Stern suggested) and go hell for leather for globalisation and economic growth.

This is what the economic models the IPCC themselves use say would give us the best possible result*.

(* Not quite, for their models assume no mitigation: the carbon tax provides that added extra.)

“…that we do not need to alter our carbon-emitting behaviour”

That’s a political judgment. Scientists, whatever their views on climate may be, are in no more position to dictate policies to the rest of us than Lords, horse racing jockeys, or footballers.

Specifically, altering our carbon-emitting behaviour may prove to be harmful or even impossible – we can’t suddenly start to emit silicon. Adaption strategies may prove to be cheaper.

Either way, social and economic choices are ultimately decided via politics – through democratic processes.

But you knew that, didn’t you?

94

“Now, it could be argued that there is some currently unidentified negative feedback out there, but then you might as well be arguing about the existence of unicorns”

Er, no. That may be how pseudoscience works, but not how science works. You’re in the position once occupied by Kelvin, who declared that there’s nothing new to discover about physics, it will merely be a question of increasingly accurate measurement. Then Einstein came along.

You really do need to read the IPCC reports again. The level of scientific understanding of feedbacks is low, which is a diplomatic way of saying it’s non existent. No Einstein is needed here; the best science will win.

Douglas

The overwhelming majority of Climate scientists consider AGW to be a proven fact.

Yes because they are disciples. I followed your link to Realclimate and found polemics, not scientific debate.

There is no real debate to be had within the field.

You can assert that as much as you like. It will not make it true.

Tim Worstall’s position is coherent.

My interest is in pinning down Pagar with his “hunch is that it will not prove cataclysmic in the long term” and try to see if we can tease out some science from him on why that will be the case.

@115 Paulo: “The level of scientific understanding of feedbacks is low, which is a diplomatic way of saying it’s non existent. No Einstein is needed here; the best science will win.”

There’s a challenge out there @96, which Tim has declined, for the very best of reasons no doubt. Paulo, do you fancy a crack at it, or are you just outgassing?

“Are there any other feedbacks that Tim can draw our attention to, in particular the ones that would as Dunc says, “change the sign”, ie lead to a cooling effect on climate at a given location.”

[Tim's quoted feedback was carbon stimulating faster plant growth which is then sequestrated into richer, deeper soil.]

116. pagar, way back in 28. I asked you to provide peer reviewed evidence against AGW. In the subsequent effluence poured into your comments since you have failed to provide any. I have another question for you, what would it take for you to change your mind on the existence of AGW?

115: Are you saying we should assume the existence of these as-yet unidentified negative feedbacks despite the complete absence of any evidence for them?

There is certainly plenty more to learn about feedbacks, but that doesn’t mean you get to make up whatever you like in the absence of evidence. That is how pseudo-science works.

Sunny – You are trying to have it both ways – short term increses in global temperatures have been held up by climate change zealots as evidence of global warming all the time (everything from polar ice cap shrinkage to droughts, floods, famines and the decline of the bee population have occured and been attributed to MMGW in the past decade) and yet when climate change sceptics use short term downward fluctuations as evidence agaisnt MMGW it is somehow invalid as evidence ? Basic rule of science, if correlation x=y holds, then so must correlation y=x.

Of course the long term trend is important, but long term trends generally lie between the extremes of short term fluctuation, so if the tempertaure goes up as well as down in the short term it suggests that if current trends contine (a huge IF, which the climate change zealots have somehow made an unquestionable fact in the eyes of the gullible) the world probably will not, on average, get significantly hotter. This of course is nothwithstanding the fact that the doomesday effects of increased temperature are at best a guess.

and Douglas:

“The overwhelming majority of Climate scientists consider AGW to be a proven fact”.

No they don’t. No scientist worthy of the name would use the phrase “proven fact”, Man Made Global Warming is a hypothesis, in laymans terms an unproven theory. It amuses me when lefties (for whom opposition to science is second nature) try to “do” science without even understanding it’s essential methodology.

120. Matt Munro
Man Made Global Warming is a hypothesis, in laymans terms an unproven theory.

Just like evolution is a hypothesis, in laymans terms an unproven theory.

Just like evolution the evidence for AGW is overwhelming if a little fuzzy round the edges.

112. You seem to misunderstand my point. Quite the contary to your interpretation of my comment 105, I was saying that we can say a very great deal based on IPCC consensus forecasts. The problem I was describing is that the range of consequences that are derived from those forecasts are so great that there is no single approach to addressing ‘the problem’ that can be derived. The difference between (say) a 1 metre or (say) 5 metre sea level rise is extremely consequential to any ‘solution’.

Therefore the actions we take should be ones that have the greatest mitigating effect across the range for smallest marginal cost to otherwise unchanged activities. (Hence my power generating capacity renewal argument, equally it could apply in the slightly longer term to the move to post oil fuel technologies).

If we knew to a much narrower range of consequences what would happen, then the mitigating actions could be much more targeted at that specific consequence.

e.g. If we knew sea levels were going to rise by (say) 1.5m+-0.25m then we could evaluate solutions such as (say) sea wall defenses that we know would cope with that narrow range. the cost-benefit of doing so would be a great deal easier to calculate and justify.

I repeat: I am not arguing for ‘do-nothing’. It is about evaluating what is the best course of action and recognising the limitations of the forecasts we have prepared and can prepare.

There is another point. People here seem unwilling to accept it, but we have to factor in to any ‘solution’ we (the UK) adopts in the context of the behaviour of the rest of the world. We can not guarantee what the ‘world’ will do. Therefore our actions need to factor in to our approach the possinbility that our actions will not be coordinated with the ROW and therefore our ‘solution’ might best be a selfish one which protects the UK from consequences that can not be avoided because of what the ROW does.

Of course the long term trend is important, but long term trends generally lie between the extremes of short term fluctuation, so if the tempertaure goes up as well as down in the short term it suggests that if current trends contine … the world probably will not, on average, get significantly hotter.

This is the sort of bollocks you end up with if you don’t actually use numbers. If the upward fluctuations are larger and more prolonged that the downward fluctuations, then you have a rising trend.

Of course, there’s a hell of a lot more to climatology than statistical trends. There’s a whole lot of basic physics, for one thing.

It amuses me when lefties (for whom opposition to science is second nature) try to “do” science without even understanding it’s essential methodology.

Says the man who’s just claimed that as long as there’s both positive and negative variation in the noise, then the signal must be flat, and who seems to be entirely ignorant of the actual majority of the work done in the discipline he’s talking about. Fucking hilarious.

@120 Matt Munro. I think you’ll find that climate change “zealots” have been pointing to longer term trends (eg changes in the 30 year average) whilst the climate change “sceptics” have been pointing to changes in the 10 year average, or just single year data. So Sunny is not “trying to have it both ways”.

Thanks for your mathematical insight in your comment “long term trends generally lie between the extremes of short term fluctuation, so if the tempertaure goes up as well as down in the short term it suggests that if current trends continue… the world probably will not, on average, get significantly hotter”.

What I’ve been searching for on this thread is whether there are any global warming sceptics who go further than a position of “we can say nothing” to a position of saying something – for example, “we do not need to worry about global warming” and outline some kind of scientific basis for any prediction that global warming will not occur as the IPCC forecasts, or that the effects of increased temperature not be as the IPCC forecasts (with respect to sea level, for example).

@122 Dontmindme. Thanks for that clarification. So would it be fair to say that you 100% support New Labour’s existing policy on this? Your comment appears to echo the government’s approach precisely.

Meanwhile. “…we have to factor in to any ’solution’ we (the UK) adopts in the context of the behaviour of the rest of the world. We can not guarantee what the ‘world’ will do. Therefore our actions need to factor in to our approach the possinbility that our actions will not be coordinated with the ROW and therefore our ’solution’ might best be a selfish one which protects the UK from consequences that can not be avoided because of what the ROW does.”

Isn’t that what the Copenhagen process is precisely all about? Every country is in the same position as the UK. Nobody is prepared to act unilaterally; everybody sees the need for a multilateral agreement. If one is definitively not reached, then we may need to reconsider our current plans.

But who makes the emissions and who’s fault it is we failed to cut them won’t affect the response of natural systems to the forcing. You think we can opt to “protect” the UK from unavoidable consequences. I’d like to see you expand on what we could do to make that possible. Do you concede there might be unavoidable consequences against which we will be unable to protect ourselves by battening down the hatches?

Polly put the kettle on, kettle on, kettle on
Polly put the kettle on, let’s all have tea

Sukie take it off again, off again, off again
Sukie take it off again, they’ve all gone away.

125. No I was not endorsing New Labour policy. But I think you knew that…

I dont have a problem in principle with the copenhagen process, I just have a low expectation of it working. Therefore we have to plan for the the eventuality that the process fails, or that even if it works, people dont stick to it.

The mistake in my view is to beleive that everyone, accepting AGW as described by the IPCC, will look at the global problem and see it as the worlds problem that affects us so we better get together and do something.

A cynical game theory view might be to say that yes that AGW might have X effect, but on balance it is better to let that happen, and in the meantime increase our own GDP to the point where the costs of AGW are less than the lost income in avoiding AGW.

I am not advocating it. I am pointing out that you cant exclude the possibility that some countries might make that determination. You can not rely on a global sense of responsibility at Copenhagen in my view.

Are there things we can’t protect from? Yes. Could concerted global action help protect from some of those things. Yes. Does that men we should abandon all self help in favour of reliance on global action? No. That way risks being exposed to the largest number of negative outcomes when the world does not behave the way you relied on.

@128 Dontmindme, you seem not to be a “global warming denialist” and therefore we appear to have no quarrel on this issue on this occasion. I think your views do closely mirror New Labour’s, as it happens, but I shan’t embarrass you further on this. My view is that like them, you are too complacent about how bad it is going to be, and too ready to believe that battening down the hatches and carrying on on this small island is a viable option for the 21st century.

What to do in the event of the collapse of Copenhagen is another question, but I think the people who will that collapse, or would rejoice in it, are bizarre in the extreme. When asked politely for a scientific explanation of their position that global warming is nothing for us to worry about too much, they have nothing to offer.

I still await anything from the denialists/sceptics on the science of “global warming won’t be so bad”, and I wonder if anything is going to come. Instead up pops one of the most oafish of trolls ever seen on this site @127.

The sceptics are firing a barrage of blanks. Have they got anything that lands a real punch on the conventional wisdom that we have a serious problem to address?

Strategist, you’re the Troll, singing your Troll songs. You can mess up your country all you want. Stay out of mine.

There is CO2 that is naturally released every day. It has been happening long before humans ever set foot on Earth. Many of the same scientists that you prescribe to, would agree that an increase of CO2 in the environment would lead an increase in plant life in many areas of the world. Plants can act as a clean air filter sorts. Don’t you Greenies love plants?

Most importantly how do you know how much CO2 is bad for the environment? How could anyone possibly know? Mankind produces about 4% of the CO2 that’s in the atmosphere in any given year. The amount naturally varies by more than 4%.

We can talk about this all you want. I appreciate the debate. You have failed to prove anything to me, however. My main concern is what we are going to do about it. You can work on your theories in the mean time. Let’s just slow down on the push for extreme action for now. Got CO2?!

My interest is in pinning down Pagar with his “hunch is that it will not prove cataclysmic in the long term” and try to see if we can tease out some science from him on why that will be the case.

pagar, way back in 28. I asked you to provide peer reviewed evidence against AGW. In the subsequent effluence poured into your comments since you have failed to provide any. I have another question for you, what would it take for you to change your mind on the existence of AGW?

I have an open mind on whether AGW exists. It’s not proven either way.

119

“Are you saying we should assume the existence of these as-yet unidentified negative feedbacks despite the complete absence of any evidence for them?”

http://tinyurl.com/ylasjl4

I’m not asking you to assume anything. You can read the science on cloud radiative feedbacks, starting with the IPCC Chapter 7. You may have heard of the IPCC. The evidence of negative cloud feedbacks is cited right there, in paragraph of the cloud radiation.

You seem to prefer making sweeping declarations that evidence doesn’t exist, instead of find it and evaluating it. Is using Google so hard?

“The sign of the cloud cover feedback is still a matter of uncertainty and generally depends on other related cloud properties ”

Some evidence of positive feedbacks, some evidence of negative feedback.

that doesn’t mean you get to make up whatever you like in the absence of evidence

Ah, but you can make up whatever you like in a computer model, though. Give that a whirl.

@132 Thank you, Paulo. Cloud radiative feedbacks. So, as the atmosphere retains more heat, it gets cloudier and then reflects more radiation than it used to. So, for a given unit increase in CO2 concentration, we get less heating than we would otherwise expect.

This is the kind of scientifically based argument I am looking for. But you quote the IPCC, and their assessment is that there will be significant global warming, even after the effect of this negative feedback. Are you saying that the effect of the increased cloudiness will be greater than the IPCC assess, and that there will not be the amount of global warming the IPCC predict, i.e. that we can rely on increased cloudiness to counteract the effect of increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2? Or are you simply saying that the IPCC ought to say nothing about likely future global warming until we have more information on this effect?

@131 pagar: OK, I’ve got here that Gaia is your reason for your “hunch that [global warming] will not prove cataclysmic in the long term”. Thanks for that. Perhaps we need to firm up our respective definitions of long term. I was thinking over perhaps the next 50-200 years. Maybe you were thinking in terms of millions? To clarify, do you think Gaia will ensure that global warming will not prove cataclysmic in the next 50-200 years? (Better define cataclysmic… let’s say, causing the premature deaths of more than 1 billion people.)

Finally. Eric @130: “Strategist, you’re the Troll, singing your Troll songs. You can mess up your country all you want. Stay out of mine.”

Hi Eric. Too late buddy. We’re already deep into your country and we’re coming right into your home to prise it out of your cold dead hands. Us and our dark lord, your President, Barack Hussein Obama. BWOOO HA HA HA HA!!!

“To clarify, do you think Gaia will ensure that global warming will not prove cataclysmic in the next 50-200 years? (Better define cataclysmic… let’s say, causing the premature deaths of more than 1 billion people.)”

I don’t think we need to postulate “Gaia” there. I’m not sure that anyone is actually predicting such an event. Not anyone with, you know, reasonable evidence, at least. Certainly the IPCC aren’t.

Matt Munro,

‘Proven Fact’ was a tad stronger than it ought to have been, however in terms of the scientific establishment, you really are farting against thunder. In any event your side of this debate tend to use hyberbole all the time.

You too should look at this video, which pagar has failed to comment on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

It really is the point.

I’m not asking you to assume anything. You can read the science on cloud radiative feedbacks, starting with the IPCC Chapter 7. You may have heard of the IPCC. The evidence of negative cloud feedbacks is cited right there, in paragraph of the cloud radiation.

While there is a significant degree of uncertainty related to cloud feedbacks (including whether they’re negative or positive), nobody who’s studied the matter (least of all the IPCC) thinks that they’re likely to be sufficient to negate the radiative forcing from increased CO2 levels and the associated positive feedbacks. Cloud cover is certainly likely to increase as the atmosphere retains more water vapour as a result of global warming, but that water vapour is itself a very powerful positive feedback – indeed, it is the single most significant known feedback mechanism, by quite a large margin.

You don’t get to cherry pick out one factor and ignore the rest of the context. The reason I was asking about “as yet unidentified negative feedbacks” is that none of the identified ones are likely to be big enough to neutralise the problem, in even the most optimistic of scenarios.

You too should look at this video, which pagar has failed to comment on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

The problem with this video is that it assumes (supposing the AGW doom mongers are correct) that we are capable, as a planet and as individuals, of the necessary action to reduce CO2 levels to a degree that will have any serious effect on reversing global warming (if it is in fact occuring).

Percentage decreases in CO2 emissions in the developed world can only be tinkering at the edges- the real battlefield would be in preventing the Third World from developing and producing carbon emissions.

That could only be achieved at the point of a gun and I, for one, am not prepared to stomach the hypocrisy of doing so- I’d rather drown or melt or whatever.

pagar,

Why would it only be achievable at the point of a gun? There are mega plans to provide the Indian Sub Continent with electricity with hydro-electricity from the Himalayas, China is working flat out on pebble bed reactors, there are reasonably sensible plans to generate electricity in desert areas, etc, etc.

These ideas require investment, not gunfire. They also require stability.

@134 Tim. “I’m not sure that anyone is actually predicting such an event. Not anyone with, you know, reasonable evidence, at least.”

Disingenuous. As you probably already well know, the Met Office Hadley Centre said last month 4 degrees is likely by 2099 if we do not change course.

From http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/news/latest/four-degrees.html

“Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, presented the new findings at a special conference this month. 4 degrees and beyond at Oxford University, attended by 130 international scientists and policy specialists, is the first to consider the global consequences of climate change beyond 2 °C.

Dr Betts said: “Four degrees of warming, averaged over the globe, translates into even greater warming in many regions, along with major changes in rainfall. If greenhouse gas emissions are not cut soon, we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes.”

In some areas warming could be significantly higher (10 degrees or more).
•The Arctic could warm by up to 15.2 °C for a high-emissions scenario, enhanced by melting of snow and ice causing more of the Sun’s radiation to be absorbed.
•For Africa, the western and southern regions are expected to experience both large warming (up to 10 °C) and drying.
•Some land areas could warm by seven degrees or more.
•Rainfall could decrease by 20% or more in some areas, although there is a spread in the magnitude of drying. All computer models indicate reductions in rainfall over western and southern Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia.
•In other areas, such as India, rainfall could increase by 20% or more. Higher rainfall increases the risk of river flooding.

Dr Betts added: “Together these impacts will have very large consequences for food security, water availability and health.”

That’s a cautious scientist’s way of announcing the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Tim Worstall knows that the Met Office does not pronounce without “reasonable evidence”. He also knows that he has nothing whatsoever in his peashooter that can seriously call into question the Met Office’s science. He has a kind of slippery, dishonourable wisdom that his more idiotic friends on here do not.

“Dr Betts added: “Together these impacts will have very large consequences for food security, water availability and health.””

There’s still a gap here. The claim of serious consequences was that 1 billion would die. There’s nothing in this Met Office piece which states that 1 billion will die.

Indeed, if we actually look at the IPCc and supporting evidence (specifically, the SRES) we see that a high emissions path will lead to global GDP being between 7 and 11 times higher in 2100 that in was in 1990. And in one of those two families of scenarios we also see convergence: the poor world essentially becoming rich, at about our own current level of consumption.

This is one of the reasons that it’s so damn annoying reading some of the stuff written about climate change. “But it will be the poor that suffer!”. Yes, but in our very assumptions about what will produce that level of climate change we have already assumed that there will be no more poor people!

If Niger, Nigeria, Congo etc etc etc don’t in fact develop and get rich like we are then we don’t end up with a high emissions path!

“If Niger, Nigeria, Congo etc etc etc don’t in fact develop and get rich like we are then we don’t end up with a high emissions path”

Your claim is wrong (but a clever try, as usual). The existing rich world on its own is more than capable of taking us down a high emissions path (ie is to emit about as much as we are doing now). Especially if we go for coal-fired electricity, oil from tar sands and this kind of shit.

I agree the Met Office are pulling their punches on the implications. To translate “food security” means famine and “water availability” means water wars and/or famine.

Because you are climate illiterate, you can’t imagine what warming of 10 degrees would mean for central and southern Africa. Agricultural output would be zero and mass migration an inevitability – most likely provoking war. God knows what such a destabilisation would do to South Asia. No doubt there is a secret report that spells it out. If you can’t get hold of that I suggest you learn to read a map – the one in the Met Office link.

The gravity of the situation forces me to be brutally frank.

“The existing rich world on its own is more than capable of taking us down a high emissions path (ie is to emit about as much as we are doing now). Especially if we go for coal-fired electricity, oil from tar sands and this kind of shit.”

That isn’t a scenario that the IPCC has even considered. There are four economic scenarios which everything else is based upon. No, really, everything is based upon four basic models used in the SRES. The *minimum* rise in global GDP over this century is x 5. $250 trillion (and yes, of course after inflation) as against the 1990 $50 trillion or so.

Absolutely everything that the IPCC talks about is based on the world getting rich *first*.

I’m glad to see you agreeing with me. It’s the emissions and atmospheric concentrations that matter. What are the emissions levels in the four scenarios, as a percentage change over a baseline of today (or 2000)?

A couple of questions for Tim:

1. Has global GDP grown over the last 100 years, and if so, by how much?
2. Has the number of “poor” people in the world increased or decreased over that time period?

And in one of those two families of scenarios we also see convergence: the poor world essentially becoming rich, at about our own current level of consumption.

And in the other, we don’t.

“What are the emissions levels in the four scenarios, as a percentage change over a baseline of today (or 2000)?”

Might I suggst trying to go read the IPCC report? And the SRES? You seem not to quite understand the basics here.

There are four familes…..roughly speaking, economic models. These determine population and the wealth of that population. They break down into (as very broad brush) global capitalism, localised and regionalised capitalism, global “with equity” (ie, a great deal more attention paid to the distribution of wealth and income that its production as in the first two) and localised and regionalised with equity.

Emissions are detailed at the next stage of the modelling process: in the scenarios. Each scenario belongs to one of the four families (of course!) and is a variation on the basic economic model looking at the technological paths that might be followed while still being consistent with the overarching theme of the family. There are 40 scenarios and it is each scenario that has an emissions number attatched to it, not a family.

Worth perhaps noting that globalised (ie, both global capitalism and global with equity) have lower cumulative emissions than localised or regional of either.

But to ask what are the emissions paths of a family is to miss that families don’t have emissions paths: only scenarios do.

We might also note that global capitalism has one of the scenarios with one of the lowest emissions paths (Essentially by doing something very simple: projecting into the future the last century’s annual GDP growth and the last century’s decline in carbon intensity per unit of GDP.) and localised or regional capitalism one of the highest (and it was this second which Stern used in his report).

But to ask “What are the emissions levels in the four scenarios” is to show that you’ve not actually read or understood the relevant parts of the IPCC research.

“1. Has global GDP grown over the last 100 years, and if so, by how much?”

Yes but I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess. Other people guess at anything between 9 times per capita and 20 times gross over the century.

“2. Has the number of “poor” people in the world increased or decreased over that time period?”

Depends upon your definitions. If you mean relative poverty obviously it’s increased. Because inequality has. If you mean absolute poverty well…..

It also depends upon how you’re defining “more people”. Do you mean more in absolute numbers? Sure. The population has grown about sixfold over the century (that’s from memory but sounds about right). So we’ve got more of everything. Short people and tall people, rich people and poor people.

Do you mean as a percentage of the total population living in absolute poverty? Then the number has very much declined, for any consistent definition of “absolute poverty”. Take, for example, the level of $2 a day. Global GDP per capita up to about 1700 was, on average, about $600 a year (yes, of course in constant dollars). So just about everyone was in aboslute poverty. Now there’s what, a billion, two billion people not in such absolute poverty? Or is it 5 billion? Some huge number, anyway.

So to say whether poverty has fallen depends a great deal on how you’re defining it.

“And in the other, we don’t.”

Correct: but convergence is the idea that the incomes of the poor increase faster than those of the rich: thus they converge. Even in the one where we don’t see convergence the incomes of the poor rise substantially: just not faster than those of the rich. Poverty, in absolute terms, falls, which inequality remains constant.

Well, since the most salient issues as far a the human impacts of warming are concerned largely relate to things like access to reliably dry land and (relatively) declining food supplies, I would argue that relative poverty is the measure we should be interested in. It doesn’t matter how much cash you have in absolute terms when you’re engaged in a bidding war for limited resources against other people – all that matters is who’s got the most money. We can see this effect happening already, with rich consumers in the developed world able to outbid relatively poorer people in the developing world for the feedstocks for first-generation biofuels (aka food).

Dunc,

Or more prosaically, the bigger guns. I’d have thought that might be a bigger issue for the future.

“Well, since the most salient issues as far a the human impacts of warming are concerned largely relate to things like access to reliably dry land and (relatively) declining food supplies,”

Well, again, I don’t in fact see any scientific reports predicting these things. I see a lot of not very scientific at all pieces from various Greens and the likes of Monbiot (who, err, insists that there cannot be more economic growth because resources will run out. Missing entirely that we assume continued economic growth to get climate change.).

I do see predictions of 200 million climate change refugees….over a century. That is, a lower number than the number of international refugees we already have each year. A problem, certainly, absolutely not nice or cuddly for those involved: but not a global catastrophe or something that cannot be dealt with.

As to food supplies: well, my bet is that agricultural productivity is going to continue (unless we do something really stupid like ban pesticides or fertilisers) is going to continue as it has for the past century or so. Up 1% per annum. It doesn’t take that many decades of that for whatever changes (say, a 20% fall in crop production because of rainfall changes) climate change might bring to be almost not noticed.

Do also note that the IPCC models have a range of population outcomes: fully 50% of them assume a peak at 9 billion then a fall back to 7 billion by 2100. Food just isn’t one of the problems we’re likely to have.

Tim Worstall @ 149,

You are an arguementative sort of chap, aren’t you?

Forget all of your economic / demographic forecasting for a moment. Forget, just for a second the possibility, slim chance that it might be, that you are right.

Do you want to take the risk that you are wrong?

For that says something to me. That you bet on long odds. And it is not for you to bet on my future, nor that of my kids.

I am entitled to insurance.

“Do you want to take the risk that you are wrong?”

This isn’t *my* forecasting. It’s the IPCC’s forecasting. The same forecasting that gives us the reports about global warming.

As to insurance? Sure, I’ll go for that. Let’s take the Stern Review’s idea. 1-2% of GDP paid as Pigou Taxes on carbon emissions (more correctly, CO2-e emissions).

We in the UK already pay 1-2% of GDP in CO2-e related emissions. There we are, we’re done! That the money being raised ain’t being spent the right way is another matter of course. But again, by Stern’s numbers, petrol duty should come *down* by 12 p a litre. Air Passenger Duty is about right…..and adding the cap and trade part of insisting aviation buys into the EUTS would over tax it.

To repeat: I’m entirely happy with the idea of purchasing insurance about climate change. Let’s do it, let’s get right on it. As we have done already.

Of course, if you’re not aware that we already are doing the things that Stern says we should do, if you’re not up to date with the fact that we have already purchased that insurance: well, sorry, but that’s not my mistake, is it?

@ 123 “This is the sort of bollocks you end up with if you don’t actually use numbers. If the upward fluctuations are larger and more prolonged that the downward fluctuations, then you have a rising trend.”

Yes, but they aren’t longer or more protracted. The upward fluctuations are more than cancelled out by the downwards, unless you are VERY selective about the time period you look at. What I said isn’t bollocks its called interpolation – what you and most climate change zealots are doing is called extrapolation. Look up the difference in their predictive reliability

@ 120 “I think you’ll find that climate change “zealots” have been pointing to longer term trends (eg changes in the 30 year average) whilst the climate change “sceptics” have been pointing to changes in the 10 year average, or just single year data. So Sunny is not “trying to have it both ways”.

Quite the opposite, supporters of MMGW tend to look at the last 150 years of temperature data, which is an eye blink in the climate cycle of the planet.
Sceptics on the other hand, will point to evidence that Europe was warmer in the middle ages than it is now, or that the hottest year of the 20th century was 1912, both pre dating the mass carbon carbon consumption that is held to be a central cause of global warming.

Tim Worstall,

As to insurance? Sure, I’ll go for that. Let’s take the Stern Review’s idea. 1-2% of GDP paid as Pigou Taxes on carbon emissions (more correctly, CO2-e emissions).

I’d rest my case there, except I consider our friend Tim to be a bit a a wiley character who plays this as a game, when it certainly is not. Tim games the system as if it was a joke, or a wager or summat.This is intellect over reality. Another childish endevour.

So, I see him as a very dangerous voice. A complete utter appeal to blanket ignorance.

He is almost definitely wrong.

Yet he tries to pretend that his game is your game, that idiots have a right to reply, or have equal knowledge, or have equal credibility, when he and they do not.

Tim.. I have now had a look at the SRES stuff. Thanks for that, I suppose.

You are correct that the scenarios do not assist in adjudicating who is right between us on the matter of your claim versus my claim. So let’s take recourse to basic logic and common sense.

You claim: “If Niger, Nigeria, Congo etc etc etc don’t in fact develop and get rich like we are then we don’t end up with a high emissions path”

I claim: “The existing rich world on its own is more than capable of taking us down a high emissions path (ie is to emit about as much as we are doing now). Especially if we go for coal-fired electricity, oil from tar sands and this kind of shit.”

If you accept that a “high emissions path” constitutes emissions at about today’s level (and I think you have to), your statement (which posits a certainty) is obviously nonsense. My statement (which posits a possibility) is obviously plausible.

Your weedy peashooter of pedantry cannot dent my rock wall of the bleeding obvious.

Now, why don’t we actually address something important?

Why don’t you describe to me your expectations of the ecology and agriculture of a central & southern Africa around 6 degrees warmer (annual average temp) than today and an Amazon basin 10+ (!!!) degrees warmer than today (the latest Met Office forecast out last month).

@154

I’d rest my case there, except I consider our friend Tim to be a bit a a wiley character who plays this as a game, when it certainly is not. Tim games the system as if it was a joke, or a wager or summat.This is intellect over reality. Another childish endevour.

Translation.

I’ve got in out of my depth. All my arguments have been neutralised. I can’t compete in terms of rational debate.

He is almost definitely wrong.

Almost definitely. But maybe not.

I think I’d better think it out again.

Help!!!!!!!

pagar,

I am not out of my depth. Perhaps you are?

Try being quite a bright spark when you’ve nowt to say.

Is that what you are about?

I have not seen your evidence apart from quoting me:

Almost definitely. But maybe not.

You are stupid enough to take the risk?

Well, fuck me, you and Tim are a pair of panglossian tits.

The risk is not worth my gaming on your result. I think you are both long shots.

You both appear to me to be unable to comrehend risk, and minimise it for cheepskate political expediency.

Least, that’s why I think you are both mad.

OK Douglas.

I withdraw the allegation that you are out of your depth.

Anyone who can use an adjective like panglossian has my admiration and is clearly someone to be reckoned with.

So I hope we can agree to disagree.

pagar,

We certainly disagree.

However, I think Tim Worstall is a bad influence on you. ‘Cause he is just a cheapskate. ,@ 151 when it comes to actually dealing with the issue, he surrenders to an economic arguement. Which, seem to me to be naive, stupid and Tim Worstalls’ best shot at being an idiot.

The arguement against climate change can be seen as a bet. Either you believe in the long shot, that Tim Worstall is right, or you don’t.

Which is it?

“If you accept that a “high emissions path” constitutes emissions at about today’s level (and I think you have to),”

Well, no, I don’t have to and I don’t. For we’ve the IPCC reports in front of us and they talk about emissions rising from today’s levels into the future. Higher emissions than now: so current day emissions are not “high emissions”.

You could say that current emissions are consitent with that high emissions path, this is true: but that’s of course because we’re still pretty close to the beginning of the forecasts. Of course emissions are close to all and every forecast, simply because we’ve only just made the forecast using current emissions as the baseline.

I would even be willing to agree that future emissions look like being, or are at least consistent with, some of the high emissions path forecasts: precisely and exactly because large parts of the Third World are indeed getting richer.

Which is, if you recall however many comments ago, part of my point. Or one of them or something. High emissions are consistent (because they are in part caused by) with economic development in the poor parts of the world. Thus. when the effects of the high emissions arrive those poor parts of the world will not be as poor as they are now and will be better able to deal with the effects than they would be if they were at current levels of economic wealth.

This isn’t a controversial or odd view: it’s one that’s spelt out quite clearly in the literature. It’s just one that many seem to avoid the implications of. We want, of course, to maximise the future human utility. That of course is determined by more than just what the climate will be….hugely important will be the economic resources with which the people of the future can meet that climate, whatever it turns out to be. That’s why the SRES is so important. It makes clear that there’s a trade off here.

For example, the A1 family has global GDP at $550 trillion in 2100: 11 times what it was in the baseline year of 1990. And a population of 7 billion. A2 has (from memory) 16 billion (or is that B2, cannot remember, sorry) and a GDP of $250 trillion (or $350…..early in the morning here). A1 also has several or the lowest emissions paths: A2 some of the highest.

Now, a world with fewer richer people is arguably a better one than one with more and poorer people. The major policy difference between these two families is the extent of globalisation. A1 assumes that we accelerate it. A2 that we reign it back in and have, in 2100, more local and a more regionalised global economy.

Which leads us to a very interesting conclusion. The best way of dealing with climate change is to accelerate globalisation (basic economics would make the same point: via trade we can have a higher standard of living for any particular level of resource consumption or a lower level of resource consumption for any specific standard of living. What is important here is that this assumption is built into the very fabric of the IPCC reports. If you’re going to believe the output of them, then you’ve got to accept the inputs.)….which rather puts the Greenies in a bit of a spot. For they are consistently arguing that we need to regin it in, have very much more local economies.

Something which the scientific consensus tells us is exactly wrong. (BTW, this works for both the A families and also for the difference between B1 and B2, the global and not global variants of an economy more concerned with equitable distribution).

“Why don’t you describe to me your expectations of the ecology and agriculture of a central & southern Africa around 6 degrees warmer (annual average temp) than today and an Amazon basin 10+ (!!!) degrees warmer than today (the latest Met Office forecast out last month).”

I have no idea. As I’ve said before, I’m happier playing in the economics sandpit. At least I know something about it.

“However, I think Tim Worstall is a bad influence on you. ‘Cause he is just a cheapskate. ,@ 151 when it comes to actually dealing with the issue, he surrenders to an economic arguement. Which, seem to me to be naive, stupid and Tim Worstalls’ best shot at being an idiot.”

Snigger. But it is an economic argument! This is what the Stern Review was all about. (And there are others, Richard Tol, Dartha Pasgupta, William Nordhaus etc). I think there are problems with the Stern Review but I’m willing to accept, for the sake of argument, that he’s right. It all really boils down to the following:

1) Continuing economic development with large CO2-e emissions will cause problems in the future as a result of a warming climate. This will reduce future human utility.

2) Not continuing economic development with large CO2-e emissions will slow down economic growth. This will reduce future human utility.

So, what we really want to know is how much of 2) should we do to avoid the effects of 1)? And how much of 1) are we prepared to put up with for the sake of 2)?

That is an economic argument and it’s exactly the one that the Stern Review (as I say, amongst others) addresses. I tend to side with Nordhaus (who argues less 2) now and more 1), but over time raising 2) strongly) as opposed to Stern (more 2) now) simply because I think it takes better account of technological cycles (I should mention here perhaps something personal. I’m heavily involved in the research behind a certain type of fuel cell. We’ve funded certain of the research ourselves and are now out on the hunt for the next stage of research backing. My *personal* interests are heavily aligned with the “spend everything on it now” crowd but I try not to let that cloud my views.).

But even if we take Stern’s view then we have already bought that insurance policy, at least as far as the UK is concerned.

Just to repeat. Start with the climate science. The IPCC reports. OK, the important question is, OK, what do we do now? And that’s entirely an economic argument: we want to maximise future human utility and that means allocating scarce resources and involves trade offs between reducing emissions and increasing material wealth. It’s very difficult to think of this as anything at all other than an economic argument. Thus we should be using the language and techniques of economics to try and answer that question: what do we do now?

The classic answer to this (and the one that everyone gives, although there are different assumptions about the technological cycle and so on) is that we should limit emissions up to and only up to the point where the benefits from doing so outweigh the losses from doing so.

“The classic answer to this (and the one that everyone gives, although there are different assumptions about the technological cycle and so on) is that we should limit emissions up to and only up to the point where the benefits from doing so outweigh the losses from doing so.”

In other words, your position is an identity with that of the Government and you are entirely behind them in the approach they are taking to the Copenhagen talks. It has an internal logic, but needs to be alive to physical reality – we need to do what is necessary, not what is convenient.

My view is that you, and they, are mispricing risk.

It’s happened before.

“My view is that you, and they, are mispricing risk. ”

My view is also that they are mispricing risk. I think they’re overpricing it. As, indeed, the Stern Review tells us that they are.

Tim @ 160,

At least you have a sense of humour!

Whilst economics can indeed describe a total human catastrophe, it is perhaps not the best tool for avoiding it.

What is this ‘utility’ arguement that you rely on so much?

I’d have thought that there were economic benefits as well as deficits in a low carbon economy? You, personally, would appear to benefit if that is the case. Is that not, a sort of economic arguement?

The classic answer to this (and the one that everyone gives, although there are different assumptions about the technological cycle and so on) is that we should limit emissions up to and only up to the point where the benefits from doing so outweigh the losses from doing so.

I understand the arguement. I just don’t think we should be gaming on our future.

If something is avoidable, like me crashing my car into yours perhaps, then it seems obvious that avoidance of that consequence is my best bet. It also seems to be quite good for you too. It is what everyone does, every day.

My point is that you are gaming the arguement. You are arguing that a bet on your beliefs is something we should all back. I am arguing the opposite. That we shouldn’t be gambling at all. I am saying it has nothing whatsoever to do with economics, it is to do with human survival.

A 0.6 degree C warming over the last 100 years is irrefutable evidence of an overall trend, that is an ambitious assertion indeed.

Nobody has a monopoly on AGW, even righteous politicians on the left. The IPCC scientists did not speak with one voice, and their reports were produced to suit political ambition and necessarily a compromise based on limited data sets, many of which have changed in the interim. AGW may be as a result of human activity, but it is well within a range that may be a natural phenomenon – irrespective it would be sensible to adopt technological mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of pollution, recycling and other “Green policies” – where it makes sense, what does not make sense is the suspect evangelical adoption of a Green Shock Doctrine, this is a stand that can only alienate.

A debate, without recrimination and allegations of bias (one way or t’other) on the implementation of the obvious ‘sensible’ Green policies would go a long way to negating the need for the pseudo religious “deniers vs believers” entrenched warfare, an argument that will only delay appropriate modernisation.

“What is this ‘utility’ arguement that you rely on so much?”

It’s the very basis of economics. Human utility is all those things that go up to make the good life. Everything from fine food on the table, a glorious Georgian mansion to live in to the pleasure in a grandkiddies smile and the knowledge that the polar bears are still doing just fine.

It is, of course, somewhat difficult to measure so we tend to look at how people themselves value what’s on offer. That is, rather than trying to work out a “value” for polar bears, we look at what value humans put on polar bears. And grandkid’s smiles and all the rest.

It’s a very much wider description of what makes the good life than simple mechanics like GDP and the rest.

Another way of putting it is that maximising human utility is similar to trying to maximise human happiness. Given the limits that we face (the planet, the Laws of Thermodynamics, the current level of technology, the amount of human labour around, everything) how can the world best be organised to produce the maximum amount of near popping with joy at what a glorious world this is?

That is our goal, the maximising of human utility.

And we might think that, for example, actions that lead to 1 billion people being fed properly are worth losing 50% of the polar bears. Or we might not think that worth it. But in getting to that maximal utility state that’s (OK, it’s an absurd trade off but used as an explanation) the sort of trade off we do have to make.

“I’d have thought that there were economic benefits as well as deficits in a low carbon economy?”

Sure, there are costs and benefits to everything. That’s what we all try to work out: what are those costs and what are those benefits? Then tot them up and see what we should be doing. A highly imperfect science, of course, but the best we’ve got available.

“I understand the arguement. I just don’t think we should be gaming on our future.”

I’m afraid that this version of the universe doesn’t allow us not to game or gamble with the future. We have limited resources. So we must indeed make choices. Any and every choice has the opportunity to be the wrong one. We just have to do our best.

To give you an example of the sorts of things that do get included in these calculations. The Stern Review includes in its calculations (no, seriously, it does) the possibility that we all get wiped out by an asteroid and thus all our concerns about climate change and human utility and the rest are entirely moot.

“You are arguing that a bet on your beliefs is something we should all back.”

No, I’m not. What I’m actually doing is going and reading a huge amount of what people much much brighter than I am have worked out about what it is that we should do, given our starting point. I am then regurgitating it. Please understand me here. I am not passing on anything from some vast right wing conspiracy. Nor the delusions of some foam flecked free marketer. These are the facts and the arguments at the very heart of the entire debate over what we do about climate change. They are the motivating factors behind Kyoto, the IPCC, the Stern Review, Copenhagen, the EUTS, cap and trade, carbon taxes: all of it.

Absolutely all I am doing is pointing out where all of this factual and real stuff diverges from what we’re being told by the more excitable Greenies.

For example, globalisation is good for climate change: that’s what the IPCC says, that’s what all the science says. But it ain’t what Caroline Lucas or George Monbiot say, is it?

Polaris,

Your assertions are just that. Assertions.

I would hesitate to argue with an expert on any subject whatsoever. On the grounds that they probably know a lot more about it than I do.

The attempts by people like you to support or deny a scientific consensus are pathetic.

negating the need for the pseudo religious “deniers vs believers”

Unless you have a PhD in climatology and an enormous amount of peer reviewed literature, why should anyone take you seriously?

It is becoming obvious ,is it not, that god botherers would like to take us down to their frame of reference?

Ignorance.

@ Douglas Clark – I think you prove my ‘Assertions’ perfectly – might be worth you reading this, should help you secure a quick end to anybody who may dare to contribute anything you do not agree with, the cheek of me!

Polaris, to be brutal, you are coming into this too late. Your arguments have been dealt with.

Tim, I think if you looked carefully you would find you are foam-flecked free marketeer. But you are without question an economist looking at this from a particular perspective common among economists of being entirely divorced from full or careful consideration of the natural environment.

You use the Stern Report to justify your claim that we are “overpricing risk”, in others words, that the British taxation system is currently overtaxing carbon.

I use the evidence of the climate predictions to say that our present course sees a complete disaster – the Amazon basin a hot desert, for Christ’s sake! – and therefore think, in the parlance, that we are underpricing risk. You acknowledge by contrast that you have no idea what environmental changes will result from the climate change forecast.

I know I have previously refuted any real analogy with the financial crash, but with respect to that, who was right about risk being over or underpriced on that occasion?

A valid lesson from that recent balls up is that blind faith in free markets risks (or inevitably leads to) systemic crash.

You do sometimes answer questions which are bugging me about your position, for which I am grateful. Here are a couple for you.

1) Do you think the risk is greater that from Copenhagen etc will emerge a system which effectively “overprices risk” and overconstrains economic growth and the net sum of human happiness, or that Copenhagen will be ineffective in reaching an agreement that does enough to curb emissions?

2) Will you be rejoicing when Copenhagen collapses or reaches an agreement that is nugatory?

3) What would it take for you to acknowledge that your present position that risk is being overpriced needs to be amended?

“But you are without question an economist”

No, I’m not an economist. An interested amateur only. I keep saying this but it is true, I have no advanced degrees nor do I work (nor haver I ever) as an economist. I am not even attempting to argue from authority.

“You use the Stern Report to justify your claim that we are “overpricing risk”, in others words, that the British taxation system is currently overtaxing carbon.”

Yes, because by the Stern Report’s own standards, we are.

“A valid lesson from that recent balls up is that blind faith in free markets risks (or inevitably leads to) systemic crash. ”

Umm, wait a moment here. I am absolutely not proposing some blind faith in free markets here. I’m agreeing that there is something (carbon emissions) which is not currently priced into the prices that people are paying in markets. Thus we need to intervene in these markets so as to make sure that they are. This is *the opposite* of a blind faith in free markets. It is the statement that I agree that sometimes markets fail and when they do we need to do something about it.

1) “and overconstrains economic growth and the net sum of human happiness,”

Yes. Because, and I keep trying to point out that this is not my opinion, this is what the economists who have studied this keep saying, they’re going to clamp down too hard and too fast upon emissions. We will end up paying more in reduced human happiness for the climate change that does not happen than the reduction in human happiness that the climate change would cause.

2) Neither. At this point I think collapse is inevitable.

3) A decent study by economists, using real world data, that the position is wrong.

So what you need is a green economist’s critique of Stern.

I’m sure they’ll be out there. Not right now, but I’ll have a look into it.

Thanks for answering my questions 1 & 2. I’ve not got the full meaning of your answer to 2. I also agree that a collapsed or nugatory Copenhagen deal is highly likely. My question is, do you think that will be a good or bad thing, ie will you be rejoicing? My position is that it will be a bad thing, but we have no choice to keep on having another go.

You also need an authoritative description of the expected effect of the forecast climate change on the environment in the various parts of the world. Something that draws out what the IPCC’s forecasts will mean on the ground.

Mark Lynas’s book “Six degrees” tries to do precisely that. Do you reject that book as a useful source? I am unaware of any demolition job on it, though I don’t doubt one has been attempted – any pointers?

@ Strategist, fair enough on my timing, I missed the start date. Just a bit shocked by the response to my innocuous, if untimely, comment.

Apologies, peace

“Mark Lynas’s book “Six degrees” tries to do precisely that.”

Not read it, sorry.

Cheers Polaris. Thanks for not upgrading to Trident.

Tim. Do so. As we are being nice to each other at the moment, I won’t say “and don’t comment any more about risk until you have”. However, unless I see a convincing refutation of its core message (not of its language, or of detail), it will shape my view of the attitude we should take to the risk question. Obviously I recognise that popular science books are no substitute for official reports, there must be stuff out there (presumably in the index of Six Degrees) so I may come back and recommend something in a form more to your taste.

However, Six Degrees rightly points out that there is a dearth of information on the implications of the global warming forecasts – governments & scientists not wanting to frighten the horses being blamed. It is an interesting question to wonder whether Brown, Obama, Hu Jintao et al are getting official reports which we don’t see that spell out what the future may hold in the same way that Six Degrees does for us.

PS Just found this good, firm but fair review of the book http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/mark_lynas_4470.jsp

From that review:

“The summary of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, for example, indicates a rise by 2100 in the range of 1.1 to 6.4°C, depending on various factors. ”

OK, which family provides that lower estimate? Yes, A1, the globalised capitalism one. OK, so, that’s the first step then. We go gung ho for global capitalism. That reduces risk according to the IPCC.

Then we add mitigation: please do note that no IPCC esimates include any form of mitigation at all. So, we add a carbon tax (or cap and trade, I would prefer the former) and we’re done.

The argument “what would the world be like if it were 6 oC warmer” isn’t all that useful if we already know how to stop it becoming 6 oC warmer. ( iam of course skimming over many complexities.)

But the basic point still stands: Assuming that the IPCC is correct then we really ought to be doing what the IPCC says is the best thing to be doing. Which is, first, accept the globalisation is part of the solution.

Unfortunately for you, I’ve now checked out the SRES, so can be pedantic back.

The A1 family of scenarios (which you call globalised capitalism) contains scenarios that include both the lowest and the highest level of emissions in 2100.
From a base of 8.5 gigatonnes carbon equivalent in 2000, the various A1T scenarios give us a range for 2100 of 5-9 GtC/yr, whereas the various A1F1 scenarios give us 26-35 GtC/yr. The difference is emphasis or otherwise on fossil fuels. (To be pedantic, we should note that emissions in the “central” scenario for B1 – which we might call LibCon’s dream green, cuddly world – is below that of A1T.)

At the moment, with the current amount of intervention, globalised capitalism is giving us an emphasis on fossil fuels (even in our country, where allegedly it is overtaxed). So, at present, globalised capitalism is giving us a disaster.

But you are a supporter of intervention, so you know that giving the free market what it says it wants is disastrous. Just to remove all doubt on that matter, may I pose for the third time my question: “A collapsed or nugatory Copenhagen deal is highly likely. Do you think that will be a good or bad thing?”

“At the moment, with the current amount of intervention, globalised capitalism is giving us an emphasis on fossil fuels (even in our country, where allegedly it is overtaxed). So, at present, globalised capitalism is giving us a disaster.”

Ah, no, sorry, but this isn’t true. We are currently using fossil fuels, yes. But we have also set in motion a whole series of processes to wean us off them. Anything and everything from new nuclear in the UK through the sort of projects I’m very peripherally involved with (the next generation of fuel cells, making lighter aircraft, making jet engines more efficient etc).

Globalised capitalism, if to be fair given the right nudge, is the only thing that is actually going to create and deploy the non fossil technologies. And a shit load has happened in the past 10-15 years on this front (no, really, this is as I say a field that I vaguely work in (in more detail, I supply some of he materials that make some of them work).).

It’s just that having been nudged it does take time for products to be developed and then deployed.

To say “current levels of emissions are terrible therefore we’re all doomed” isn’t correct. What we actually want to know is what are emissions going to be given the nudges we’ve already given? And on that the IPCC is silent, for they don’t consider any scenarios with mitigation at all.

“We are currently using fossil fuels, yes. But we have also set in motion a whole series of processes to wean us off them.”

But most of those technologies won’t make it to the mass market without continued intervention to make coal and oil shale more expensive. Nuclear as a case in point.

You have said you think the main risk from Copenhagen is bringing in a system which makes that intervention too heavy (which seems to me incredible), and you keep avoiding answering my second Copenhagen question, which is making me nervous.

If Copenhagen collapses or is nugatory, will you rejoice?
If Copenhagen collapses, will you agitate to dismantle Britain’s unilateral system for making the nudges?

But we have also set in motion a whole series of processes to wean us off them. Anything and everything from new nuclear in the UK through the sort of projects I’m very peripherally involved with (the next generation of fuel cells, making lighter aircraft, making jet engines more efficient etc).

Two more questions for Tim:

1. Are you fully aware of the almost inconceivable scale of our current fossil fuel use, the tremendous amount of energy that represents, and the difficulty of replacing that energy (especially in a convenient high-density form) from other sources?
2. Have you ever heard of “Jevons Paradox”?

“But most of those technologies won’t make it to the mass market without continued intervention to make coal and oil shale more expensive.”

Well, nooooo, not really. Certainly we would want to maintain the nudge we’ve already given but that’s not the same as saying that the nudge needs to be converted to a shove.

Allow me to offer just one data point here. Rolls Royce (the turbines people, not the cars) has been working for years on using SOFC fuel cells in combination with gas turbines. You get to raise the usuable energy output for any given fuel input by doing so. The largest cost is in the technology development. Once that’s done then the marginal costs of adding a unti to each new turbine are small. The nudge was needed to degin the tech, not to deploy it. OK, that nudge has been given, the tech is nearly done in development. They don’t need higher than now carbon taxes to deploy.

Or another project: making aircraft lighter. Without going into the boring tech side of it changing alloys on a jet is a 10 year process. It started 9 years ago. The nudge has been given: no further nudge is required.

Or solar cells and increasing performance. Unlike the two above projects I’m not even vaguely involved: but I am watching from the sidelines of the weird metals business. They are getting more and more efficient and no, we don’t need more shoves. We’re just one more technolotgical cycle away from them actually being economic when competing (at the point of consumption) with coal derived electricty. The nudege has been done, billions went into design and research. Hoorah! ^But that’s the point. Billions have already gone into this. Now we’re getting the results (BTW, do not listen to Jeremey Legget on this. He is an installer, not a manufacturer of cells. He keeps arguing for more subsidiy to keep his teams crawling over roofs….but dresses it as if it is subsidy for the basic research.)

“Are you fully aware of the almost inconceivable scale of our current fossil fuel use, the tremendous amount of energy that represents, and the difficulty of replacing that energy (especially in a convenient high-density form) from other sources?”

Very much so. Which is why I prefer the Nordhaus approach to the Stern one. Nordhaus is essentially saying that, look, we’re going to replace all these things over the next 30-50 years in the normal capital and technological cycle. So, as we do so, let’s make sure that they get replaced with top notch low carbon technology.

We do this not by whacking on huge great carbon taxes now. We do this by stating that we’re going to whack on great huge carbon taxes *in the future*. Thus no one ends up paying the taxes because by the time they come into play we’ve replaced the whole generating structure with that new low carbon stuff. And everyone will use low carbon stuff for the new factories because ithey know they’ll get hit with huge taxes if they don’t.

It’s precisely *because* the sector is so huge that we don’t want to go around insisting that everyone close every coal fired station yesterday….although sadly that’s what the EU seems to be insisting. Shutting these things down before we’ve finished using them is another way of making us poorer.

“Have you ever heard of “Jevons Paradox”?”

Yes.

Interesting stuff.

Let’s look at solar. Obviously I’d like to think you are right. But Shell have just divested out of solar and gone into oil shale big time. What’s that all about?

Getting nearer the knuckle, there is a really telling point about your involvement in materials technology to make aircraft lighter. This puts some some self-interest behind a position that looks to see some nudge, but is extremely concerned that it should not be large, and holds fast to that position even when what the science demands is something large.

Obviously a technology that saves airlines’ fuel bills at the margin is going to fly, so to speak, but I think everyone knows that emissions from jet travel are going to be unsustainable unless there is transformational rather than this kind of incremental change in the technology. Some data on the fuel saving from the technology would be interesting (and for the Rolls Royce fuel cells too, although I’m not clear here if you are talking about aero engines).

I don’t decry what you are doing, and I don’t rejoice that air travel will probably need to be severely constrained; I like jetting about as much as anyone else. But if that’s what it’s going to need, then that’s what we must do. I hope you’ll agree with that, despite your personal stake to the contrary.

PS What about my Copenhagen question?

If we manage to increase the fuel efficiency of aircraft, that will simply make flying cheaper, resulting in more of it. It’s a classic example of Jevons Paradox.

“But Shell have just divested out of solar and gone into oil shale big time. What’s that all about? ”

It was BP big in solar (for many years the world’s largest). Shelçl has just got out of wind.

But so what? What value added does an oil company have in electricity anyway? Neither BP nor Shell have access to houses (like an electricity distributor, or even a phone company). They don’t know all that much about electricity (it’sd only in hte god forsaken parts of thw rold that oil is used to generate it). They know how to drill holes and pump stuff. What in fuck has that to do with solar power?

Just to say “well, they’re energy companies” is meaningless. It’s like saying that because some Scottish Building company lends money on houses they should go into lending on commercial property. Whoops! that did happen and they went bust because it’s a very different business.

“Getting nearer the knuckle, there is a really telling point about your involvement in materials technology to make aircraft lighter. This puts some some self-interest behind a position that looks to see some nudge, but is extremely concerned that it should not be large, and holds fast to that position even when what the science demands is something large. ”

No, sorry. The incremental income from plane technology would be interesting, of course. But vastly outweighed by the income from fuel cells. If one particular flavour of those takes off I’ll be buying planes not renting a seat occasionally.

“but I think everyone knows that emissions from jet travel are going to be unsustainable unless there is transformational rather than this kind of incremental change in the technology.”

I’m certainly not of that view. Imagine that we can only have 20% of current emissions. OK, so which emissions are we going to keep and which spend money to get rid of through low carbon or no carbon technologies? Well, we’re going to keep making those emissions that give us the highest bang for our buck, the most human utility for this now constrained resource.

Now I don’t know here, for I cannot forecast what other people value. But my guess is that we’d all prefer to insulate our houses but keep on flying, drive electric cars but keep on flying, eat less meat but keep on flying.

If we do cut emissions by 805 there’s still room for jet planes in there.

As to possible savings: one technology might lead to a 2% fuel reduction on each flight, another to 10%. A third works on the tradeoff between efficiency and noise (if we’re really worried about CO2 then we’d lift the noise restrictions at airports: lowering noise levels costs fuel) in an engine at takeoff and landing. About another 2% there.

Now please understand, I am not pushing these, these are not my technologies or work. I just supply some of the materials the wonks are playing with which is why I know about them.

“If Copenhagen collapses, will you agitate to dismantle Britain’s unilateral system for making the nudges?”

Certainly not. I have consistently argued for a carbon tax. It’s simple and effective (and is also what Stern argues for). I’ve absolutely no problem with the thought that there are externalities and that we make them internal to market prices through taxes. Further, you’ve got to raise the tax dosh somewhere, might as well be on bad things, not good ones like incomes, work and profits.

However, I would prefer that green taxes were revenue neutral: that we reduce some other tax at the same time. As we used to do with Landfill Tax: we reduce employer’s national insurance payments by the same amount as landfill tax raises.

“It’s a classic example of Jevons Paradox.”

Actually it isn’t. For we don’t know. Jevons said it might, it depends. It might be that lowering flight prices again will lead to more flying. It might be that we fly enough already. I know that I can afford a European flight a month, easily. I also know that I don’t fly each month for I’ve other and to me better things to do with my time.

Do you really think you’re representative of the average inhabitant of planet Earth, Tim? Most of the population has never set foot on a plane in their lives. It may be that you fly enough already, but I very much doubt that the same can be said of everyone. Hell, I very much doubt it can be said of a majority of people in Britain, never mind the rest of the world.

If making air travel cheaper doesn’t increase its uptake, that would (a) be a dramatic break with the observed trends so far, and (b) make it absolutely unique in the whole of human history, as far as I know.

Thanks for your full replies, Tim. You argue well, and happy to withdraw my suggestion that personal interest may have come into play in the positions you are taking.

I’m going to sign off for the rest of today.

As an interim conclusion, I think you see some of the trees well, others less so. As far as the wood as a whole is concerned, I’d be far happier when you were able to fully visualise what the Amazon Basin (or southern Africa, or Australia, or your own beloved Mediterranean) will – or let’s just say very possibly might – be like in 2100.