So what do you think folks? Are we better off with the Australia's CPRS failing to be passed by the parliament, given that it was far less than necessary (as the Greens argued), or would it have been better to have had it pass?
The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians!
Coincidence?
Now that they've run out of scientific arguments, I think denialists, in their desperation, see it as open season on any climate research organisations to try to find whatever dirt they can, no matter how trivial. Personally, I think it would be more enlightening is if someone were to get into the Heartland Institute's email server...
>The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians! Coincidence?
No I don't think so. In my opinion there is a organised effort to undermine Copenhagen and the science.
Saudi have already laid their pre-Copenhagen sceptic cards on the table, using the CRU emails as an excuse. The language they have used though, clearly shows they were sceptic even before recent events.
This is a political and economic motivated campaign.
Are we better off with the Australia's CPRS failing to be passed by the parliament, given that it was far less than necessary (as the Greens argued)
The CPRS can give any required reduction in emissions because the quantity of emissions is determined by the total number of permits sold/given away. The number of permits is decided independently of the scheme. The Greens objection was to the apparent smallness of the proposed reduction in emissions (even though it represented 24% reduction per person) so it is hard to see any motivation for the Greens' voting against the scheme itself other than vindictiveness.
Chris Horner is gonna get his clock dialled in court with this one. I sincerely hope there is a counter-suit for defamation against at least one of the slippery buggers from the CEI. Horner himself seems to get close to that line.
It isn't what I would do, but in my darker moments I dream of FOIs against each and every paid-up denialist who has a university position still. Certainly, a number of them have published material that is flagrantly erroneous, and that is itself grounds for seeking the primary data behind the erroneous claims. Then there are the series of upward adjustments to the temperature anomalies from the original satellite data starting 1979, by a certain academic. Maybe his data and "adjustments" need FOIs, just to be sure there are no more necessary upward adjustments lurking.
Hey, I can daydream.
I was asking about co2science's list of 771 peer-reviewed papers, and their spangly MWP map, over at Desmogblog. Someone pointed me towards a Deltoid post on co2science, and I see that apparently co2science use papers that actually don't say what they claim they do.
Does anyone have any more info on this? Has anyone had a go at actually checking the refs in co2science's "MWP project" map?
Was musing over at desmogblog: "That's the thing, of course, that distinguishes one side of this debate from the other: I don't think for a second that the IPCC would have just *missed* 771 studies showing the MWP to be warmer than today. People on the other side don't doubt that the IPCC would have done exactly that, for some nefarious purpose or other. It reminds me of friends of mine who believe the US govt could have planned 9/11. It just makes absolutely no logical sense (1000s of people, all remaining silent?) but that doesn't seem to stop them believing it."
"The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians! Coincidence?"
This is more than a few motivated denialists amateurs. Criminal shit like this is most likely *funded*.
NASA is being sued for failure to release climate data for a couple of years
Except for the inconvenient fact that the GHCN data and the GISTEMP code are both freely available onliine ... hmmm ...
Horner's actually suing for e-mails which he hopes will show that either the data or the code is "fudged". I thought the auditors were supposed to be able to disprove all of climate science once the code and data were made available online (both have been available for some years now).
Interesting how they're spinning their suit into "forcing NASA to release the data and code" - if Horner can't even tell the truth about his FOIA requests and subsequent threat to sue, can we trust him on anything?
This is a dark, dark time for science. This relentless attack on science and even scientists needs to be stopped. But how? Those in denial distort, spin, misrepresent at will, and then have the gall to judge all climate scientists as being corrupt etc. How can the media be so blind to this hypocrisy and double standard? Co2science can fabricate stuff, enemies (sorry, "friends" of science can fabricate stuff), A. Watts can fabricate stuff, and McIntyre can fabricate stuff at will. But let them get their grubby paws on some stolen code and patchy emails and the jury is in before an investigation has even started. This play to emotion, opinion and plethora of unsubstantiated allegations is overwhelming and unfortunately, very effective, especially wit the internet. It is a well tried technique.
As a scientists in the field of meteorology I am dumfounded how so many scientists are sitting back and doing nothing. Do they not care that their profession is being dragged though the mud. They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels.
RealClimate and desmogblog and deltoid and others are trying, but you are preaching mostly to the converted. The scientists need to consolidate their efforts and clear the air, the results of failing to do so are very clear already.
We need to engage top notch and reputable journalists to start looking into exactly what is going on here. That is, for once, real investigative journalism. I challenge fellow scientists here to get involved, albeit at a local or national level and speak out. We have also got to remember that most people do not understand a concept of an "anomaly". That is not a slight against lay people, I was not familiar with the term "trick" in a mathematical context until last week and did four years of maths and applied maths at uni.
I strongly suspect that history is going to document "climategate", but not for the reasons being purported by those in denial about AGW.
Took a look at that MWP site. Looks like a train wreck. They're looking at proxy publications, looking for a plotted temperature history, grabbing the maximum temperature from anywhere within a multi-century period they label the MWP, and comparing it to the end of the plot (however far it goes, or however much it's smoothed), or the baseline off of which the anomaly is defined, or something they can call the current temperature. Even before downloading and reading any of the papers, you can tell it's a disaster.
If Loehle was the poor man's reconstruction, this is for people too poor to figure out how to even build a reconstruction.
Had a look at that MWP site too. Crucial is what they call the Current Warm Period (CWP).
They use a lot of 'definitions' for CWP. I found for instance 1981-2000, 1961-1990, 1937-1946, august 2008, presently, mean of 20th century, etc.
Well, they don't call it research. In their own words it's a 'project'.
Even if the medieval warm period (MWP) was warmer than the current warm period (CWP), that misses the point a bit. The natural decline in temperatures from the MWP to the LIA occurred at a rate of -0.1C/century at best. The last 30 years have a rate of temperature increase that is close to 2C/century, or 20 times faster. It's really apples and oranges when it comes to rate of change.
Pretty much, Henkl. Ill-defined time period for 'MWP'; ill-defined time period for the current. Haphazard method. The whole thing is ill-posed. The analysis has zero value.
I suppose it's a useful database of publications with proxies, though.
And I agree with Joseph. These guys are utterly fascinated by the MWP, and I have no idea why. In 1900, it was probably cooler than many points in the last 1000 years; that doesn't mean somebody couldn't think through the physics and predict that adding CO2 would enhance the greenhouse effect.
Paul UK - after hearing the BBC radio this morning/lunchtime, I'm convinced we are being 'swiftboated', although just how organised it is I don't know. The BBC had the hack as lead story on the Today programme, it went down to fifth by lunchtime, but back up to third by 5pm. Idiot media, asking the same stupid questions (what does 'trick' mean?), and deniers like Stott, Lomborg and Pieser called on as experts.
The Tories now have cover to come out as deniers as well (34% of Tory MP's apparently don't know whether climate change is man made), and the Mail/Express have gone into overdrive.
As to the IPCC - it would be a bit less political if Saudi Arabia and the like weren't allowed to censor(sorry, change) the report more to their liking.
LOL so the pseudoskeptics not happy to just throw out fraud accusations left right and center are now also trying to access other scientists of being the hackers. Ahhh
@MapleLeaf: I agree with you. Scientists need to take the gloves off now. This is a concerted effort to discredit them and they need to fight it. Not just on blogs, but in the mainstream media, in townhall meetings etc. Barry Brook did an excellent series of seminars, which would be great to roll out to a bigger audience. This is an important issue and scientists need to get in there and make this complex message comprehendable for the "common man". If they don't, people's minds will be poisoned by the deniers' simplistic platitudes and this will have political consequences. It is already having political consequences in Australia where half the Liberal party has been infected with denialism.
Ultimately, science will determine the outcome of this debate. A new study by Lindzen and Choi from MIT suggests the models are wrong about AGW, heat is not being trapped.
In this article by Art Horn: 'If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place.'
el gordo - I just read that Art Horn article, and all I have to say is - what the holy freaking fuck?!?!?!?!?!
Yo can only find that article convincing in any way, if yo know nothing (or so close to nothing there's no functinal distinction) about climate science.
Lets look at just the third paragraph, shall we:
"The only evidence that human activity is causing global warming comes from computer models."
- then why are the first predictions of anthropogenic global warming over a century old? It is a physically necessary consequence of the observed physics of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.
"These models take what the people who develop them know about how the earthâs climate system works and attempt to predict the future."
- No. They attempt to predict the response of earth;s climate to alterations in parameters that control climate. We have control over many of those parameters, they aren't physical responses, and the modelers make assumptions about those changes - labeled as assumptions - not predictions.
"Computer models are not evidence. Evidence is something real, something concrete that is not subject to change. Computer models can be changed by their creator."
- but are constrained to use physically realistic, observationally constrained calculations parameters and constants. They aren't just making it up.
"In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters. That is not evidence."
- If the models can be made to say whatever their creators want - why cant ANYONE, including the denialists, make the models say that the current observed temperatures can be obtained in the absense of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.
In this article by Art Horn: 'If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place.'
Hey, fatso, why do you think the oceans are warming? And why is that source of heat warming more slowly than it would if there were no oceans?
Fatso thinks it's a good thing that the US sucks Saudi dick:
Energy independence is an even bigger hoax than corn ethanol.
Energy independence is a fraud perpetrated on the American people by ambitious politicians and war-mongering neoconservatives. The global reality is ever-increasing energy interdependence.
Yes, I have no doubt that the Saudis approve of the position that ever-increasing energy interdependence with the US is a good thing (note: saudi arabia doesn't import oil from the US, for the fatso-tard crippled audience)
After seeing some pro-GW adds on sky last night I'm convinced the contrarians have won. The adds were amateurish rubbish which would covince no one. No facts were presented and would have the average denialist falling off their chairs with laughter.Pathetic would be high praise for these adds.
This is an important issue and scientists need to get in there and make this complex message comprehendable for the "common man".
Some supposedly intelligent people, for one reason or another, fail to understand the science. With the current level of global warming, the common view won't be decided by the science, it will be decided by the politics. Remember that the chiefs of the Army and Navy and the Army Minister in Japan wanted to keep fighting World War 2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. A lot of people don't care about facts.
Your quoted source appears to be a bot trawling through the thread for a phrase to repeat, and pasting dodgy urls in the process. It appeared on another thread also.
Funnily enough, in a Turing test it'd be about as credible as some of the Denialati here - WAL and Tom comes immediately to mind...
@MapleLeaf: "As a scientists in the field of meteorology I am dumfounded how so many scientists are sitting back and doing nothing. Do they not care that their profession is being dragged though the mud."
They care but are powerless against Swiftboating attacks. There is no budget or time for mounting a PR offensive, which isn't in their job description as scientists in any case.
"They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels."
Now this is hopelessly naive. There are many psychological reasons why the simple denial message will always be more enticing to the media than the scientists' complex message of proxies, forcings, feedbacks, etc. I've already tried the facts and scientific method on those who've bought the denialist message, and when they run out of talking points they quickly go into broken record mode, repeating the last talking point over and over. It simply doesn't work.
The science message just doesn't get through and that is why I'm hoping the CRU staff who's email has been hacked, can hit back with some legal action. Nothing works better than a hip-pocket attack. An example of the type of actionable comment was made in today's Sydney Morning Herald where John Carroll (Prof Sociology La Trobe Uni) said " Recently the CRU at Uni Eat Anglia was shown to have systematically falsified its data so as to widely exaggerate projections of global warming". No alleged, no qualifications. I wonder what that would be worth with a good legal team? And I wonder how many more similar cases can be found around the globe. Maybe CRU should just give up science and do the legal thing. After all it was court cases that got the tobacco lot in the end, not the science. In a similar vein, convince the insurance industry GW is real and watch the pips squeak as insurance is withdrawn or becomes unaffordable in many areas. The public campaigns have failed and the politicians just listen to their big money sources.
Dave Andrews said:
"And you are saying it is different to the IPCC process?"
1. The issue is about political and criminal attacks on science. Scientists don't hack into peoples servers illegally and without permission. If you support it, you are appeasing criminals.
2. There is something happening to climate. There is no credible science from the denial camp that stands up to scrutiny. That is because it is driven by politics first and not science.
3. Many deniers are skilled liars that are exploiting doubt in the populace.
O'Neill:
>Some supposedly intelligent people, for one reason or another, fail to understand the science. With the current level of global warming, the common view won't be decided by the science, it will be decided by the politics. Remember that the chiefs of the Army and Navy and the Army Minister in Japan wanted to keep fighting World War 2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. A lot of people don't care about facts.
And the result was?
Desperate people suggest and do desperate things.
Like hacking into a computer.
You may be out of touch with political reality. At the next election the people will most likely vote against the prospect of rising energy bills and the Queensland dentist will be humiliated.
One thing is for sure, on the blogosphere we will continue to discuss CC for quite some time to come.
Jim Shewan: "After seeing some pro-GW adds on sky last night I'm convinced the contrarians have won. The adds were amateurish rubbish which would covince no one."
Recent UK govts ads: ditto. Absolute mana for the denialosphere, trying to guilt parents with some faux kid's bedtime story about drowning puppies (not to mention, it sounds like the govt is talking to adults like they're toddlers.)
In that time, they could have done a little explanation on trends that anyone could have digested, then used to see when they were being bs'd about cooling. As it is, a lot of people are still not going to know who to believe when someone says 'the Earth's cooling! Global warming isn't happening!'
No: instead we get drowning puppies. If the government is treating people like complete idiots, I'm not sure we should be surprised when denial talking points get a hold.
Maybe we should start campaigning to get "climate denial crock of the week" on telly - those are *really* good.
I'd like to suggest a new game. Given that so many prominent 'skeptics' have gone beyond the reach of rational discourse I'd like to speculate on their fall back excuses when events prove them decisively wrong.
And so to the Top x reasons that The AGW Dog Ate my Homework
My bet (before the email hack) was some pious nonsense along the lines of 'Well we had no choice, the scientists had politicised the process so egregiously that we had no alternative.'
> The timeline for these mini-blogstorms is always similar. An unverified accusation of malfeasance is made based on nothing, and it is instantly âtelegraphedâ across the denial-o-sphere while being embellished along the way to apply to anything âhockey-stickâ shaped and any and all scientists, even those not even tangentially related. The usual suspects become hysterical with glee that finally the âhoaxâ has been revealed and congratulations are handed out all round. After a while it is clear that no scientific edifice has collapsed and the search goes on for the ârealâ problem which is no doubt just waiting to be found. Every so often the story pops up again because some columnist or blogger doesnât want to, or care to, do their homework. Net effect on lay people? Confusion. Net effect on science? Zip.
Swifthack seems to have much further reach than anything up to now, but I think we can expect just the same level of amnesia, with a touch of "the inquiry was part of the conspiracy."
That said, what's been so alarming is the media's willingness to parrot the whole thing. Greenfyre links to a video that makes a great point: do a web of science search for "trick" and it turns up in the *titles* of many articles, from many disciplines. If a 'trick' is underhand manipulation, it be somewhat counterproductive to advertise you were doing it in your article title... The film also points out that the "we can't account for the lack of warming" was actually a position taken by Trenberth in a published paper - which he actually cited and linked to in the email. Hardly hidden, then - it's been in the literature for anyone to check. Funny conspiracy. Just two small examples of how the media could / should have been doing just a little basic checking.
Dan our time lines are a little different. Our 'skeptic' friends are having the time of their life and I would never be so ungentlemanly to deprive them of the pleasure derived from self righteousness and would never be so naive to think that they might ever apologise for error while they think they have the scent of blood in their nostrils.
I was speculating about what is going to happen down the track when reality delivers the smack to the back of the head that reality has the habit of delivering... when (for our skeptics) AGW is not just a trend line but a manifest reality with all its noxious consequences, call it the Nuremburg moment. I was just following orders isn't really going to cut it so hence my top x reasons for why I was impervious to reason.
Some supposedly intelligent people, for one reason or another, fail to understand the science. With the current level of global warming, the common view won't be decided by the science, it will be decided by the politics. Remember that the chiefs of the Army and Navy and the Army Minister in Japan wanted to keep fighting World War 2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. A lot of people don't care about facts.
And the result was? Desperate people suggest and do desperate things. Like hacking into a computer.
The result was the emperor decided to step in to break the deadlock. I'm not sure what would have happened if the Japanese "big six" had voted 4-2 or more to keep the war going but luckily it was 3-3 and the emperor's vote was enough to decide against continuing the war. Maybe this means that the majority of the population usually have enough sense to make the right decision and we just have to be aware that a lot of people are often wrong and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Marco: oh I see. Funnily enough I was speculating about that this morning elsewhere. Conclusion: there will *always* be several retreat routes via "the warming isn't caused by humans." One I'm working on currently so I can copyright it and sell it to Exxon:
> Increase in co2 is mostly due to de-vegetation, not direct co2 introduction from human use. De-vegetation has been happening for hundreds of years, reducing that carbon sink, and so leading to less co2 capture. This is ongoing. In fact, burning more fossil fuels will *help* because it's a fertiliser. That's what we need: plant more trees, burn more coal - the two together can solve climate change. So those millions of Bangladeshis claiming climate-related asylum can just stay where they are, thank you very much.
It's a perfect denier theory: it contains an element of the truth, allows the proponent to to stick to just one simple, comprehensible factor, rather than getting confused by several, and can be demonstrated through the use of lots and lots of graphs.
The result was the emperor decided to step in to break the deadlock. I'm not sure what would have happened if the Japanese "big six" had voted 4-2 or more to keep the war going but luckily it was 3-3 and the emperor's vote was enough to decide against continuing the war
We had nine fat men ready for assembly and use, so I think you can imagine what would've happened.
"CRU is not the universe of climate research, but it is the star. These emails demonstrate one thing beyond all else: that climate science and global warming advocacy have become so entwined, so meshed into a mutant creature, that separating alarmism from investigation, ideology from science, agenda from empirical study, is well nigh impossible. Climategate is evidence that the science has gone to bed with advocacy, and both have had a very good time: - that the neutrality, openness, and absolute disinterest that is the hallmark of all honest scientific endeavour has been abandoned to an atmosphere and a dynamic not superior to the partisan caterwauls of a sub-average Question Period."
> "Science doesnât work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, *because* scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Havenât any of these guys ever heard of âpeer reviewâ? Thereâs this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know itâs a myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some approximation of objectivity."
2) Scientists have never been absolutely disinterested - exactly the opposite, just as the quote above says. Bill Bryson does a brilliant job of pulling out the often bile-filled humans, going to insane lengths for scientific primacy in his "history of nearly everything."
3) So cease with the "absolute disinterest" meme. Scientists are scientific because if they weren't they'd get annihilated by other scientists. They may also do it because they're good people, but I think the first reason probably *made* them good people.
Wagdog :"They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels." Now this is hopelessly naive. There are many psychological reasons why the simple denial message will always be more enticing to the media than the scientists' complex message of proxies, forcings, feedbacks, etc"
Thanks Wagdog, I fear that you are right. Just what the hell can we do then!? I am writing an editorial for a newspaper on AGW. How do I convince lay people that this is not a hoax without having their eyes glaze over when talking about radiative forcing et.?
If anyone has an idea, or some text to share, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.
I checked out the Greenfyers link and was shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out Mike Kaulbars teaches political action and is an activist.
"Climate Change was one of the big reasons I left research to get involved in public education and activism. We already know more than we need, itâs long past time to act. I also teach political action."
Betula: so, because Greenfyres says he's an activist, that means CRU can't be doing science? I'm confused. Also, the quote wasn't greenfyre's, it's [from here.](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=886)
Your posted quote is a nice syllogism: climate science is politically compromised because its no longer the utterly dispassionate pursuit of knowledge; the CRU emails are not utterly dispassionate; therefore the CRU is politically compromised. My point was: the first statement is wrong. Science *has never been* that Vulcan ideal. So the fact the CRU emails don't reflect that is a surprise to no-one.
There may be other ways of using the CRU emails to say the science is compromised, but the 'dispassionate' thing *really* isn't one of them.
@Betula,
Great quote, unfortunately also greatly based on poor reasoning skills or ignorance. The e-mails show surprisingly *little* political activism. There is hardly any mentioning of frustration over politicians not understanding the implications of climate change. Most of the frustration is aimed at the *science* being attacked.
I think there must come a point when litigation is required. I don't think there's a law against lying or being delusional about science but most of the Denydiots have committed slander and/or libel many, many times.
Perhaps the investigation into the CRU hack will bring to a wider public the reason for the content of those "dodgy" emails, namely that they are a largely a reaction against the vexatious and harrowing behaviour of Climate Fraudit (58 FOI requests in 6 days!).
I see that James Delingpole haunt of the Daily Telegraph ran a piece by Gerald Warner that uses an infantile attempt at indicating that Mann is a fraud. Actionable surely?:
Why don't you tell me some of the "other ways of using the CRU emails to say the science is compromised".....that is, if you think the science is compromised.
Junior's been a naughty boy again. Just because he's third author in the dodgy Klotzbach et al paper now qualifies him to talk about climate sensitivity? Nice to see him make a doodoo over the science again.
The result was the emperor decided to step in to break the deadlock. I'm not sure what would have happened if the Japanese "big six" had voted 4-2 or more to keep the war going but luckily it was 3-3 and the emperor's vote was enough to decide against continuing the war
We had nine fat men ready for assembly and use, so I think you can imagine what would've happened.
An interesting event that happened after the nuclear bombs were dropped was that the Japanese tortured a captured airman who said there were 100 bombs ready because that's what the Japanese wanted to hear from him. They would have decided to kill him otherwise.
Betula: the only thing I've seen that I can imagine turning out to be anything at all relates to the FOI requests - so not actually related to the science directly. If anyone was stupid enough to actually delete emails they thought might fall under an FOI request, they'll be in trouble, I imagine. That doesn't really make sense to me, though. How could Phil Jones not know there'd be backup copies of emails somewhere, copies on other people's servers, etc? I don't know. But, yes, that's the only point where I think trouble may lie.
Has anyone got a link to what FOI requests were actually put in? I know there was an enormous number of them - did they actually include a request for emails? I'm presuming they did.
From what I can gather, the studies selectively cited by co2science generally indicate the MWP was anomalously warm compared to most of the last 1000 years in a particularl region but makes no comparison to the recent century or recent decades. A few studies indicate comparable warmth but they are confined to specific regions. The maps above provide the right perspective. Deniers tend to be binary thinkers who see what they want to see. An existence of a MWP must imply that global average temperature was as warmer or warmer than today.
dhogaza #49 - whats your source for 9 fat men ready to be assembled and used? Its a few years since I read a book or two on the topic but I don't recall the USA having much plutonium or uranium left for immediate use.
Since this is an open thread, I want to make the general point that a admire those (sod and others) who make an attempt to engage the nutty folks over at contrarian blogs. It's charity work that requires immense patience. How does one have effective dialogue with those with their heads buried in the sand. Lots of effort with little reward. Keep up the good work!
How do I convince lay people that this is not a hoax without having their eyes glaze over when talking about radiative forcing et.?
By using the same language and thinking style of the lay people -- what deniers already do so well.
Begin by highlighting where climategate has gotten a lot of traction -- on conspiracist websites where New World Order, Illuminati, Global Government, and 9/11 conspiracies are discussed with abandon and widely believed (Alex Jones, Prison Planet, etc). Quote a few comments from those websites to establish how paranoid they are.
Establish the pattern of denialism in the conspiracist theories and how the paranoia feeds on itself and breeds mistrust of outsiders. Then weave a narrative of science being this outsider. You have lots of examples to choose from: 9/11 truthers vs Popular Mechanics engineers, JFK conspiracy vs. audio and ballistic experts, etc.
Then describe how in the POV of the paranoid, actions of outsiders (and even their own family members) to help them often are mistrusted and interpreted as in the worst possible way. To the paranoid, other family members are seen as secretly colluding behind their back, when really they are trying to arrange for treatment without triggering a panic.
Your narrative should emphasise that climate scientists have the unenviable job of simultaneously aiming to help those who misunderstand the science, while also protecting third parties (i.e. ICPP, peer review, colleagues) from the damage caused by those who are acting out of paranoia. Hence the reason the scientists attempting to keep raw data out of the hands of those who have a long track record of not knowing how to deal with it (place lots of Deltoid linking here).
Emphasise this story arc: Scientist is "the outsider" trying to help. The paranoid misuse his data, and are in denial that there is a problem. Scientists discuss in private how to stop paranoid people from misinforming others with their misused data. Paranoid interpret this behind the back communication in the worst way possible. Make sure to cite the letters by climate scientists complaining of harassment by this self-sustaining paranoid delusional denial movement.
The lay people think in terms of personalities and their intentions. Make it very clear who is who, who is doing what, and their justification for doing so in terms they can relate to most easily.
On another note, regarding what you said at #56...."Also, the quote wasn't greenfyre's, it's from here."
You link me to a site where the author states the following about himself:
"He spent ten years getting a bunch of degrees in the ecophysiology of marine mammals (how's that for unbridled optimism), and another ten trying make a living on those qualifications without becoming a whore for special-interest groups. This proved somewhat tougher that it looked; throughout the nineties he was paid by the animal welfare movement to defend marine mammals; by the US fishing industry to sell them out; and by the Canadian government to ignore them. He eventually decided that since he was fictionalising science anyway, he might as well add some characters and plot and try selling to a wider market than the Journal of Theoretical Biology."
Dan.....the guy got out of the science field because of special interest groups that made him feel that he was forced to fictionalize science!
In addition, from the same article you quoted at #51 is this....
"Yes, there are mafias. There are those spared the kicking because they have connections. There are established cliques who decide what appears in Science, who gets to give a spoken presentation and who gets kicked down to the poster sessions with the kiddies."
Yes.... "established cliques who decide what appears in science"
Another open thread topic...I just noticed UAH satellite data is showing November 2009 to be the warmest November on record, by far. Let's hack into John Christy and Roy Spencer's email account so we can see that they fabricated this result ahead of Copenhagen. I'm sure there is some email from the last 10 years lacking context that I can misrepresent...some case where they are manipulating raw data...
UAH is the favorite data product of contrarians strictly because it's managed by contrarians and shows the smallest warming trend. It's also the most error-prone corrected data product but that's not important to them.
People are fairly ignorant about climate change, that's generally accepted, so if they remain in that state of mind when the election rolls around then it will be curtains for Rudd.
Can you imagine how confusing it must have been for the layman to see the Greens and conservatives blocking the CPRS?
When the conservatives recapture the treasury benches it's almost a certainty that 'global warming' will be off the political agenda and rarely discussed in the msm, but the battle will still rage on the blogosphere.
I like MarkB's comment that 'deniers tend to be binary thinkers who see what they want to see.' I'll pay that.
Betula: even if there were cliques, and those cliques attempted to manipulate their findings, the point is there are other cliques elsewhere who'd get ahead by showing that to be the case. Which is all good and fine. What's *not* fine is using stolen emails to try and build a case that cliquedom is bad.
Out of interest, do you think CRU are under pressure from special interest groups? Do you go along with Monckton's claim that the IPCC is "just another vested interest lobby group?" I'm presuming his implication is that the "vested interests" in question are governments.
I worry about the logical conclusion of what you appear to be saying - and apologies if I'm misrepresenting your view: if science really just comes down to special interests all pushing their own agendas, producing fictionalised results - then how in God's name do we actually *do science*, then? Are you saying it's impossible? If we think it's impossible, then what's left? Presumably whoever has the most money just buys the answer they want, and the PR firms to get the message to the people...?
Are you sure it was a hack? It's only 60 odd MB of data that is quite specific. Hackers would surely trawl for much more. You can't dismiss that this might be an inside job, prompted by ...what?
BTW you didn't say anything about the fact that the IPCC process is essentially driven by politics and economics. If you believe it is just about the science then you are rather naive.
Sure maybe Steve McIntyre avoids the "F" word, but he has used the "C" word (Cherrypicking") extensively, which is tantamount to the same accusation. Last time I checked, 900+ CA threads contained references to cherrypicking or related references (e.g. cherry pie), well ahead of WUWT, which has only managed 700 or so so far. Clearly, Anthony Watts needs to step it up.
BTW, for a Canadian perspective on the SwiftHack/Climategate and how it ties into the fossil-fuel funded contrarian Friends of Science, I present my latest:
In the beginning: Friends of Science, Talisman Energy and the de Freitas brothers ...
For the first time, we can confirm both financial and logistical support from an Albertan oil company, Talisman Energy, along with circumstantial evidence of the early involvement of a second, Imperial Oil (ExxonMobilâs Canadian subsidiary). Weâll also look at the key roles played by the de Freitas brothers, geologist Tim and climate skeptic Chris. And the story leads right to the heart of a key controversy reignited by the stolen CRU emails, namely the ongoing perversion of the scientific peer review system by âskepticâ scientists.
If it were an inside job they would have stepped forward by now. Either they were cc'd on each or every email, or they had to hack into the system to get at others' emails. There have also been attempts to hack into computers of climate scientists in Canada, the hacks even tried to pose as IT people. This all goes to show how truly desperate those in denial are.
Canada has become a bastion for those in denial, the folks at ClimateAudit brag how they are proficient with all things to do with computer hardware and software. No wonder rumor has it that folks at CA who may be responsible for this hack.
Someone mentioned litigation, let us hope that there will be many, very legitimate, law suites against those in the denial machine in coming years, it seem to be the only language that they do understand. Until now scientists have not had the will nor the means to undertake such litigation, but I suspect that is going to change in a hurry.
The politics in IPCC works both ways, just as someone involved how the Saudis manipulated the process.
Dan Olner:
>No: instead we get drowning puppies. If the government is treating people like complete idiots...
Erm, they are generally complete idiots. Whether trying to understand climate change or something else.
I came across an AGW denier last year that actually believed that a car could run off sea water in the future, because Jeremy Clarkson had said so on Top Gear.
If someone really has no clue about science or engineering, they are very easy to con.
McIntyre's used a variety of words in his rhetorical arsenal. In the following post, after praising Ronald Reagan, he characterized James Hansen as a "jihadist". Nice fellow.
El gordo, please apply some logic. If it was a whistle blower why did they not step forward? Also, they would have to have been cc'd on ALL those emails, unlikely. So the only other way for them to get the data was to hack into main frames.
Were those also "whistle blowers" posing at IT people in Canada? Or whistle blowers who hacked into the RC server to try and uploaded the files?
You asked..."if science really just comes down to special interests all pushing their own agendas, producing fictionalised results - then how in God's name do we actually do science, then? Are you saying it's impossible?"
First, I wasn't the one saying science is fictionalized, it was Peter Watts quoted in the link you sent me.
To answer your question, I would say no, but perhaps you should ask Peter Watts that question.
You can't lump climate change science with all science or all scientists. And the fact of the matter is, not all the people making climate change decisions are scientists.
I have multiple problems with the climate change issue which go way beyond the emails.... too many to rehash now. Besides, on this site it wouldn't make a difference anyway.
Wegman's "social network" claims are pretty funny, considering that he was hand-selected by Rep. Barton to prepare a report critical of an early multi-proxy reconstruction (as opposed to doing an objective analysis) - a report peer-reviewed only by individuals Wegman selected. Not suprised he's signed denier statements on climate change.
Seeing how Tom Wigley was Phil Jones predecessor as director of UEA-CRU and the lead researcher in compiling and processing the HADCRU data, I doubt it.
>Let me make one thing clear, this was not the work of the Denialati.
Seeing how the hacker tried to break into Real Climate's site and dump his purloined stash there, and then left a comment at ClimateFraudit with a link to the failed dump at RC, how can you be so certain?
>*You can't lump climate change science with all science or all scientists. And the fact of the matter is, not all the people making climate change decisions are scientists.*
With the accession of Tony Abbott to the throne, the denialists are going to have an increasingly hard time selling their line that belief in the science of climate change somehow constitutes a type of religion. In fact, the smarter ones will drop it altogether.
Janet Akerman: interesting link to the public/private issue. In the UK, as many areas of previously public activity became privatised, they fell under 'commercial confidentiality' agreements. These still hold for FOI requests - if the CRU had been a private organisation, those requests would have been much more problematic. I'm unclear if they could have succeeded; it's probably still a grey area being worked out in the courts. But I know the commercial confidentiality defence has worked in the past.
It's curious: many AGW attackers are libertarian. I wonder what libertarian science looks like? Someone is paying for it to be done, and there's, at best, a minimal state. So how do libertarians get access to data in their ideal world? Presumably you have to - at the very least - pay for it. At worst, it's privately owned, and the owner doesn't want to give it you.
People are fairly ignorant about climate change, that's generally accepted, so if they remain in that state of mind when the election rolls around then it will be curtains for Rudd.
Can you imagine how confusing it must have been for the layman to see the Greens and conservatives blocking the CPRS?
When the conservatives recapture the treasury benches it's almost a certainty that 'global warming' will be off the political agenda and rarely discussed in the msm,
As I said, you don't discuss anything. You just put up bullshit assertions.
If the IPCC process is essentially driven by politics and economics, how come it still exists and still produces reports which large economic and political interests try to discredit?
Oh, I see. Science is actually a political and economic process. Good thing nobody has told the scientists working on new materials or medicines or extrasolar planets.
Yes. McIntyre should never be underestimated. He never makes explicit accusations; he just puts up an article on his blog full of vague accusations, any one of which he can deny if it came to it, and lets his disciples make all the accusations. He's not an obvious lying idiot like Watts, Marohasy, etc: he censors his blog to exclude the extreme nutters.
Isn't it strange that McIntyre, a non-scientist, is more plausible than the "skeptical" "scientists" such as Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Ball, and Spencer?
Let me make one thing clear, this was not the work of the Denialati.
The only possible way that you could know that is if you are stupid. (Using the word know loosely.)
BTW, if it is a whistleblower, why haven't they bothered to release anything worthwhile? Or do you think they realized they had nothing and then thought, "Oh what the hell"? I mean, if you're going to steal a bunch of stuff for the sake of exposing some kind of wrongdoing, you may as well go for the exposure part even if there's no wrongdoing. Right?
So what do you think folks? Are we better off with the Australia's CPRS failing to be passed by the parliament, given that it was far less than necessary (as the Greens argued), or would it have been better to have had it pass?
They said it was locking in failure, and they were right, so yes. No reductions until 2033 and then only if CC&S works?
Doing nothing was superior, in that at least it would have been an honest admission that we weren't that bothered and the argument for doing something was still to be won.
Good points MapleLeaf at #15. Seems some of my 'favorite' Scientists are finally getting the 'peer review' that they deserve. Some deserve more than 'peer review' though !
What was I saying here a little while ago about Science not deferring to or needing 'Authority'.
Well done my 'warmist frineds' ! :-)
"In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters"
and then goes on to argue that the models show a tropical hotspot and this falsifies the models.
But this doesn't make sense. If corrupt scientists can make the models say anything, then why have they put something into models that falsifies their "agenda"?
The only thing I can think of to resolve this contradiction is the all too real possibility that Art Horn is full of s***
>> Re the CO2 site. I seem to have inadvertently
>> stirred up a hornets nest on this one, apologies
>> for previous flip posts but my âspin meterâ
>> on this particular topic is acutely
>> sensitivity.
>>
>> The post on the CO2 site is âhigh classâ spin,
>> where factual info is presented without obvious
>> errors and the motives of scientists arenât
>> attacked (this is in contrast to low class
>> spin).
>> â¦
>> When i said i could refute the CO2 site, i was
>> specifically referring to their faulty reasoning,
>> not the data or anything else.
You are correct on that score and Abbott will tell the coalition members to drop any talk of religion.
At this early stage the opposition is already disciplined and united, as evidenced by the comments of the by-election victors.
In this morning's SMH, Stephanie Peatling said 'Mr Fletcher and Ms O'Dwyer had both spent weeks trying to convince voters they were supportive of strong action on climate change.'
If true, then they are being disingenuous. Growing more trees or talking up the nuclear option is a stalling tactic which should, nevertheless, produce the desired political outcome.
My apologies to CON for making such wild and unsupported assertions.
Given that Abbott thinks that there should be a debate on nuclear power, he should be invited to kick it off by specifying which coal plants he thinks should close to make space in the market for nuclear plants.
After all, without a carbon tax or an ETS the only way nuclear power can come about is through regulatory imposition.
He (and Barnaby Joyce) should then be challenged to specify whether he intends to subsidise the cost of these plants or allow the operators to impose the extra costs directly on users.
TimesOnline has reported that investigators of the CRU email theft (dubbed SwiftHack or Climategate) have concluded that the release of the stolen material was timed to cause maximum damage to the upcoming Copenhagen conference. The system had been hacked weeks before.
This development, along with new reports of sabotage at the University of Victoria, should finally lay to rest the baseless rumour that the CRU hacked file was assembled at CRU and released by an inside whistleblower, a canard that it turns out was started by - wait for it - none other than Steve McIntyre himself!
Plus: Andrew Bolt fingers Tom Wigley as the whistleblower.
It's a stalling tactic, they have no plans to reduce CO2. They are quite happy to debate the nuclear option, but political reality will see Abbott run on a platform to upgrade our coal fired power stations.
>TimesOnline has reported that investigators of the CRU email theft (dubbed SwiftHack or Climategate) have concluded that the release of the stolen material was timed to cause maximum damage to the upcoming Copenhagen conference. The system had been hacked weeks before.
The whole thing has the signature of a politically motivated attack. I think it is probably linked to the national 'security' (or rather political and economic security) of a nation or nations.
It's an intelligence operation, propaganda, espionage, whatever you like to call it.
If ti isnt there, it would falsify nearly everything we know about weather models as well, and much of what we know of basic physics. The TropTrop hotspot is a prediction from the moist adiabat.
The measured temperature data are very noisy, ahve calibration problems and when one looks at the error, they are not inconsistent with predicted warming - because the data is so bad that the error bars are huge.
Alternate measurement - such as wind as a proxy for energy, the error bars are somewhat narrower, and the proxy-derived temps re fully consistent with the TropTrop predictions.
It fascinates me how these guys trumpet every piece of work where our knowledge is still somewhat unsure, or the data isn't strong, as long as it confirms their suppositions...
113 el gordo: "I heard Tumble on the radio this morning kicking the Coalition."
With good reason. To quote Turnbull, "Any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, bullshit. Moreover, he knows it."
"See, he is Labor Lite and it's a bloody good thing they got rid of him"
MapleLeaf - given the seriousness of the issue I think it's essential that scientists make the effort to correct the mainstream media. Even corrections without resort to detailed explanations are better than silence. Superior communication skills help but surely scientists can write that something is wrong.
A "Big new tax" that's poorly explained, weakened by concessions Labor probably wants but wants to blame the Liberals for, plus judicious pushing of people's buttons playing on the short term costs and simply failing to mention the long term ones can give us seriously bad long temm policy.
I'd like to think that any government in power takes the scientific advice it gets seriously but examples otherwise abound; NSW Minister Tony Burke making it very clear (at the Press Club) that coal remains the future energy source of choice, Federal funding of obviously sure to be uneconomical Carbon Capture and Storage over other R&D options to ensure coal is the future energy source of choice, failure to seriously consider nuclear, especially new gen types that burn existing nuclear waste and don't need uranium mines, etc. Not cause for optimism.
I have no qualms about the next generation nuclear reactors. The problems are:
1. Generation 4 reactors are still at the theoretical stage and are unlikely to reach commercial production before 2030 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor). We need to start making massive inroads on reducing emissions before this;
2. They require massive public financing. As an ex-financier in a merchant bank, no-one will touch them in the private sector. They encounter huge public resistance, construction budgets and timelines tend to blow out excessively and you wouldn't be able to defray the risk by getting other merchant banks involved. There are lots of other issues - legal, insurance, security (no bank will want a nuclear reactor as collateral), government guarantees etc.; and
3. Economics. You would need to get adequate demand for the reactor's power to make it viable. In Australia, we have so much cheap coal and such a small population base, that you are never going to make it viable in a pure supply/demand sense. It will always be cheaper here to derive our energy from coal or natural gas. Even with a carbon price at $100/tonne, all you are going to do is create incentives for CCS, emission reductions from the upgrade of existing coal fired and natural gas assets and through new technology, as well as alternatives such as wind, solar, geothermal, tidal etc.
It's sad to say, but our current political model doesn't cater for long term policy planning (well, beyond current electoral timeframes). As you say, not cause for optimism.
You're glossing-over the risk, low-level waste emission into the environment and the lack of facilities for dealing with the high-level waste.
I, for one, am outraged by the nuclear industry's expectation that it should be allowed to regularly vent radioactive Krypton into the atmosphere and release radioactive deuterium into the water based on the assumption that dispertion gives high dilution and therefore a low probability that anybody would ingest particles of either radioactive material before they decay.
They're rolling dice with *my* health. Fuckers.
As for the risk - if they can get an insurance company to set a premium and then for the nuclear industry to fund the premium entirely without government subsidy, I won't just eat my own hat, I will visit a hattery and eat every hat they make from now until the end of time. The nuclear industry is economically complete bullshit.
Proposed Gen4 reactors with a coolant consisting of liquid sodium AND NO CONTAINMENT BUILDING (they're too safe to need one)????
Makes Chernobyl's graphite core seem like a great idea. Nutters.
Have the Aussies not heard of Syngas?! Maybe they have-- this could really help reduce the carbon (and pollution) footprint of coal-fired power plants .
The creator "crock of the week" has several weeks' worth of denier crocks to work with now.
Pity those in denial are literally foaming at the mouth with glee (see above YouTube video) are going to be sad to know that "ClimateGate" is not going to be remembered for the response they hoped it would. They have over played their hand here and it is going to backfire in the long run.
Errr, so when is McIntyre going to audit the hopeless Co2"science" MWP fiasco, and exposing it for the true farce that it is for everyone to see. Hope he lets shouts his findings from the very highest pulpit.
Yes, I happen to have a few minute sot spare, hence the rash of posts.
From a mid-term position it looks impossible for the conservatives to get up. It depends very much on climate policy.
Abbott will have to come out punching, 'global warming is a crock and this is why'. Any other strategy will see them lose, leaving Mr Labor Lite to regain the helm with 'I told you so'.
Our cousins across the gap passed their ETS and the Bolter picked up 2 million page impressions last month, with a particularly sharp spike after the CRU email hack hit the blogosphere.
People are fairly ignorant about climate change, that's generally accepted, so if they remain in that state of mind when the election rolls around then it will be curtains for Rudd.
Well, maybe not, Blimpster.
Most people (as opposed to your average blogging denialist bonehead) realise they don't know enough to make a judgement so they are willing to defer to the scientists who've done the research. That's why the flat-earthers are so keen to attack the real scientists and propose various fringe-dwellers as alternatives.
But is it working?
Why don't we look at how the by-elections in Australia went on Saturday?
Now, you'd normally expected the usual mid-term backlash against the government, right?
Especially with Mr Abbott's fancy new policy of a tax-free remedy for the greenhouse gas emissions Cardinal Fang told him weren't really having any effect on the climate. (Can't wait to see the details of that one.)
The ALP didn't even field candidates in either seat, so you'd expect maybe the Liberals would pick up at least *some* of the ALP vote, even if there was no backlash, right? I mean, some ALP voters would *surely* choose the Liberals over the Greens. Well, it did seem plausible before Saturday.
So what happened?
In Bradfield, the heart of Sydney's well-heeled North Shore, the Liberal Party's primary vote *fell* by 3.4%.
In Higgins, prime conservative country in Melbourne, the mid-term backlash and the absence of the ALP, not to mention the clear alternative of a party determined to keep its head in the sand re climate change, gave the Liberals - wait for it - a paltry increase of *0.8%* in their primary vote!
It's like Ali got caught up in the traffic and missed the fight but Foreman still only just lasted the distance.
Abbott will have to come out punching, 'global warming is a crock and this is why'. Any other strategy will see them lose, leaving Mr Labor Lite to regain the helm with 'I told you so'.
There is only a small error in el gordo's second sentence. I'll fix it here:
Any strategy will see them lose, leaving Mr Labor Lite to regain the helm with 'I told you so'.
Another hard hitting scientific rebuttal by denialists. Must everything be about the science for you guys? Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up politics.
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up politics.
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
Actually, to be fair, I've heard the occasional non-governmental solution proposed, but by and large the shouts are for more government, more regulation, etc... etc...
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
I don't remember having ever posted regarding solutions. I think that's the difference between denialists and rational people - denialists like you are so frightened of possible political consequences that you deny science, while rational people like me focus on whether or not the science is true.
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
Just once I'd like to see an economic libertarian explain how this problem, which is THE classic case of market failure, can have any other solution but one administered by a government.
Come on, NGS, how can the market fix this problem?
And what non-government solution have you heard about - or are you just making stuff up?
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
Love it -- "problem." You think the solution is drastic now? Libertarianism is the idiot who steps on a rusty nail then avoids medical attention until it's time to amputate the leg.
Are you incapable of doing your own research? Although you've phrased your question in a typically trollish way, here's some answers for you:
1) [Tokyo Tom](http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/03/a-libertar…) has been advocating an austrian/libertarian approach to environmental problems for years, and provides a whole list of links to others of a similar mindset.
That's your conservative intellectual and conservative businessman answers, right there.
Here are some additional Australia-specific solutions (I am not necessarily endorsing all of them, just giving them as plausible examples):
1) Stop subsidising aluminium smelting with below-cost electricity.
2) Stop offering special tax breaks to big miners to invest in coal and oil extraction.
3) Implement a consistent [Geoist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoist) tax program on land and natural resource use, and roll back or abolish most business operation and transfer taxes accordingly in a revenue neutral manner.
3.5) Once a rational resource royalty scheme is in place, stop restricting uranium mining.
4) Stop regulating water prices beyond a basic living level per head. Let the market set water at its scarcity price and transfer water from country to city if that's where the profits are. The farm sector will rapidly die, but that's going to happen sooner or later anyway.
5) Make drought assistance favour the good land managers not the reverse, by making availability conditional on participating in land care and other greenhouse-adaptive land management practises.
6) Establish private property rights over fisheries and reefs, including the ability to sue upstream polluters for damaging the asset by fertiliser runoff and CO2 emissions.
7) Fund a crash research program to genetically engineer cow's stomach bacteria (which emit methane) to be more like kangaroo stomach bacteria (which don't).
8) Reconsider the proposal to establish a long term secure radioactive waste repository in a secure-crust portion of remote Australia. Do it properly as the Swedes do this time, not a few guys with a backhoe as the original proposal called for.
I've left off nuclear power in Australia because [Barry Brook](http://www.bravenewclimate.com) makes a much better case than I could here in a few lines, and also because although I am not in principle opposed to it, I believe that our geographic circumstances (lots of sun, wind, waves and hot rocks) mean that we would do better with renewables and exporting our uranium to those without renewables than using it ourselves.
Now, run along to Catallaxy and start advocating for all these policies, please.
Libertarianism is the idiot who steps on a rusty nail then avoids medical attention until it's time to amputate the leg.
...and all the while complaining that regulation to stop people from leaving rusty nails sticking up in public places is communism.
On the other hand, climate change denial idiots say:
(a) there is no evidence of rusty nails sticking up
(b) OK, the evidence is there, but fudged by socialist academics wanting research grants. You can't trust the rusty nail data. There were more rusty nails in the medieval rusty nail period!
(c) OK, the evidence does show there are rusty nails sticking up, but they've always been sticking up and always will, and how arrogant are we to claim we mere humans can change this?
(d) OK, there is evidence that humans are causing rusty nails to stick up more than ever, but iron is an important mineral in the human diet - it's not poison, it's essential for life! Trading on rusty nails makes us healthy!
(e) Oh all right, rusty nails are sticking up, humans put them there and they are injuring people, but it's too expensive to do anything about it because it would wreck the economy and push us back to the stone age. Not to mention the new Socialist World Order and the Great Big New Tax. Better to treat the wounds and infections as they occur.
Jimmy@117, I just think the scale of the climate problem is going to overwhelm resistance to nuclear. I know my own long time resistance has crumbled in the face of climate change. I don't have deep seated or idealogical fears of the technology; too many countries have been using nuclear for a long time with a good safety record. That's not to say there aren't risks and downsides but unless some seriously low cost solutions to storage and global distribution come along it's going to be a key technology. New gen, particularly IFR that can run on existing nuclear waste looks necessary on the global scale even if Australia can get by without it. No question renewables should be being implemented as fast and as far as possible but our energy sector is downright hostile to giving up coal.
I'm not convinced Abbot's pro-nuclear noises are more than something to please the mining industry and I doubt he would support any nuclear option that could make uranium mines superfluous but a future opposition, that really takes climate change seriously, could find nuclear less vote-losing the longer Australia continues to put off weaning itself from coal.
*I am sorry to say that most of what politicians are doing on the climate front is greenwashingâtheir proposals sound good, but they are deceiving you and themselves at the same time [...]*
*As in other struggles for justice against powerful forces, it may be necessary to take to the streets to draw attention to injustice. Civil resistance may be our best hope. It is crucial for all of us, especially young people, to get involved. This will be the most urgent fight of our lives.*
James Hansen says we should Sack Goldman Sachs' Cap and Trade.
And Krugman says we shouldn't and attacks Hansens' arguments cogently. Hansen has done valuable scientific work but I am going to prefer Krugman to Hansen on this matter at least.
I believe that Krugman has got this wrong. Take this for example:
>*emitting requires that you buy more permits (or forgo the sale of permits, if you have an excess), so the incentives are the same as if you faced a tax*
So Krugman reckons the incentives are the same if we say that Hansen's model has permits and offsets, which it doesn't.
Hansenâs tax also overcomes the biggest problem ETS, a problem Krugman fails to mention. Complexity. Complexity makes transparency hard.
The Wizards of Money. How many people know how banks make money? What fraction understand what an offset is? And who audits them? Who audited securitized-debt-obligations and called them AAA?
Hansenâs model involves a tax on carbon a point high up the carbon chain- the most simple option, then equal dividend to compensate people for higher costs. You can pocket your dividend or offset higher fuel costs.
Krugman also cites USA cap and trade on SO2 a success achieving 50% cuts in the 27 years to 2010. But compare that with the [Germany route]( http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/pacific3.html#_ednref6) of direct regulation, cutting 90% by 1998.
Krugman reckons and ETS is more politically possible than a tax, but the politically possible ETS is one that [wonât work]( http://www.aei.org/outlook/26286). An ETS without the giveaways is no more likely than a simple tax.
An ETS without the giveaways is no more likely than a simple tax.
I'm surprised so few people agree with this point, which seems pretty obvious to me.
Imagine what a carbon tax would have looked like after the kind of negotiations the CPRS was subjected to. (And how happy would Tony Abbott be if the ALP really did try to impose a Great Big New Tax instead of the CPRS that Abbott dishonestly calls a Great Big New Tax?)
How much an ETS reduces emissions is determined by how many permits are made available, either given away or sold, or allowed to be bought from other countries.
Krugman's comments about Hansen's criticism of of the sulfur dioxide cap really sum it up beautifully:
Hansen admits that the sulfur dioxide cap has reduced pollution, but argues that it didnât do enough; well, it did as much as it was designed to do. If Hansen thinks it should have done more, he should be campaigning for a lower cap, not trashing the whole program.
This point can't be emphasised enough. *Only under a cap and trade or direct regulation (ie cap and NO trade) does the government get to decide exactly how much is emitted.*
How much a tax reduces emissions depends on how people respond to price changes, a big unknown. I mean a *really big unknown*.
If anyone thinks estimating climate sensitiviy to CO2e is an uncertain process, how about economists estimating the long-term price elasticity of demand for carbon-emissions?
Consider this: The price of petrol in Australia has risen by nearly 50% compared with the CPI since before the first oil shock, which had a big part in buggering up the world economy in the 70s, but 4WDs are more popular than ever.
I mean, a tax will work, but the amount of pain involved might turn out to be a heck of a lot more than expected.
And what if a tax is imposed an all that happens is emitters pass the costs on and people cut back other stuff instead?
10 years later emissions are up instead of down and the world is just a bit more screwed than it already was.
>This point can't be emphasised enough. Only under a cap and trade or direct regulation (ie cap and NO trade) does the government get to decide exactly how much is emitted.
Another spanner remains the complexity. Complexity means rorting, and rorting means higher cost, lower abatement and shrinking public support.
>And what if a tax is imposed an all that happens is emitters pass the costs on and people cut back other stuff instead?
When a tax is imposed my 100% wind power will be as cheap or cheaper then dirty coal, so people will have massive incentive to shift their behaviur. They will be rewarded (to some extent- or at least less penalised) for making decision consistent with global interest.
The rate of return on solar hot water makes it even more cost saving, as with insulation and public transport, buying local produce etc.
Price will re orientate the market. People will adjust.
Price will re orientate the market. People will adjust.
Undoubtedly, my point is that the price adjustment needed to cause that change in behaviour is unknown and could be quite a bit higher than we might think - hence my example of the popularity (greater than ever) of 4WD gas-guzzlers despite much higher auto fuel prices.
This is not just a problem for a carbon tax - people like Garnaut poroposing cap'n'trade acknowledge it in their suggestion for extra help (ie using some permit auction money) for alternative energy producers to overcome barriers to entry to the energy market.
I might also mention that there is nothing inherent in the idea of a carbon tax that would preclude offsets. In that regard it is no less vulnerable to evasion than a cap'n'trade.
The carbon tax is only simple because we really haven't tried to implement it yet, just like the cap'n'trade used to be simple.
As I said, imagine what a carbon tax would have looked like after the concessions needed to get the Lib/Nat coalition to vote it through the Senate.
Whatever system is used there will be complexities and loopholes. The trick (if I can used that word!) is to prevent that from scuttling the whole system.
Just one other point, I'm not sure that your implicit assumption, that cost differences caused by a carbon tax would be reflected in retail price differences, is entirely justified.
In other words, the rate of switching between technologies will be limited by the extent to which clean energy providers are prepared to undercut high-carbon energy providers, as opposed to raking in the cash for short term gain.
I mean, if you could supply clean energy at $10 per unit and make a dollar profit when the coal people are charging $20, why not charge $19 per unit and make $10 profit? Sure, that will slow the rate of swtiching to clean energy, but heck, you'd be making 900% more profit. What are you going to tell the shareholders?
I tihnk the argument that the either a tax or a cap'n'trade will generate switching behaviour makes more sense from the point of view of the firm - investors will gravitate to the technology that gives them most profit and they're not going to hand that profit over to you and me because they're nice guys.
In short - the switching will happen because it will be relatively cheaper to produce low carbon energy but not necessarily because it will be significantly cheaper for consumers to buy it.
If we're discussing the politics of it Janet, wedging the other side is a key policy tool. Once people have an interest in protecting their asset -- in this case emissions certificates, unanimity on what to do about the system amongst business groups will be impossible. Anyone holding them will take a dim view on free-riders and want the cap to fall to just above where they are likely to be at any given point.
we did record a -0.7 in June 2006, and the Perth airport site records a negative temp in winter every 4 or 5 years... But not this year. Coldest day at the airport (which is colder than the Metor station in Mount Lawley) this year was August 29 with 0.9C.
I also read the article on Plimert's visit to Copenhagen.
To put this into some perspective, the table here shows that for November, Perth's longterm average maximum is 26.2 deg. This one has been 26.5 degrees, so warmer than the average by 0.3 degrees. The lowest average was in 1971,at 21.5 -- i.e during the mid-century aerosol-induced dimming. The lowest minimum average was even earlier, in 1954 at 11.9 degrees (again during the global plateau.
Average minimum for November 2009 was 13.8 -- admittedly lower than the longterm average but scarcely freezing.
The idea that Plimer can describe successively warming decades as "a swallow" is laughable. That he describes the true forcing element in his political campaign, that being to to stop the world engaging in the âglobal collective madnessâ of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by clamping down on economic development while speaking to the global filth merchants, is at least candid.
I love this bit especially:
He said the climate had always changed and it was erroneous to blame emissions from people. Other factors, like the sun, the earthâs orbit and extraterrestrial factors, could be responsible.
Ugh. Take a moment to review the history, Janet. Cap and trade was a huge success for reducing SOx emissions. When's the last time you heard anybody (in the US, at least) complain about acid rain?
Environmentalists had all sorts of qualms about cap and trade before that was implemented, but it worked. Of course, it'll be more difficult with CO2, but that'll be true no matter what approach you take.
I think the Bush admin wanted to try it for mercury as well, but the courts rejected some aspect of the plan.
We had a similar discussion back in February (with me making the case for Tax and Rebate and Gaz making the very unconvincing case for Cap and Trade).
Also on this subject see Williams & Zabel: video and website.
Krugman's position and level of argumentation on this subject (see, for example, here: "there's a faint echo [...]") demonstrates the sorry state of mainstream economics and punditry: even Krugman, who is truly much better than the average mainstream economist and pundit is still just peddling the conventional wisdom.
Ken @141 - Your impression that "many countries have been using nuclear for a long time with a good safety record" is the product of the very strenuous efforts made by the nuclear industry to misinform you.
Born of military research, the nuclear industry is absolutely wedded to secrecy and deception.
Major accidents occur almost every year, somewhere in the world. But small-scale accidental release of dangerous material into the environment is a daily occurrence - we have waste storage sites which constantly leak into aquifers, the open-air mess created by the mining and processing of Uranium, and the regular accidents at reactor sites all over the world.
Here's a typical example that happened in July last year in France:
"About 30 cubic metres of stored decontamination solution containing 12 grams of uranium per litre escaped. "
Lovely.
My calculator tells me that adds up to 360kg of an extremely toxic heavy metal straight into the local water supply.
Of course the nuke-PR-lies machine fired up and gave us:
"The majority of samples showed uranium levels were below the WHO guideline for drinking water, the company said, with the highest sample reaching 31.2 micrograms per litre. "Water samples from the aquifer show no abnormality," Areva concluded.
Well, Areva *would* say that - they owned the missing uranium...
From Wikipedia:
"In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."[1] Despite copious quantities of waste, the DOE has stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.[1] The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards."[1] The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres."
That's why the nuke industry only exists by virtue of the government underwriting all that risk - the free market would never touch nuclear with a bargepole and we as taxpayers should show the same commonsense that the banks and insurance companies do with respect to the economically unsound nuclear industry.
Well the EU has one, though there's no reason we can't learn from their mistakes.
There's sulfur dioxide trading in the US and China's in the process of doing that too I think.
It can be done but I don't want to gloss over the technical issues.
More generally, trading in rights to limited resources is not new, eg right to occupy land, use water, catch fish etc.
There are well developed markets for a whole bunch of things, like freight futures.
Sure you have issues with offsets and freebies and international trade is permits, etc.
Still I'm still not convinced there's any reason to expect a carbon tax to end up being any more simple than a cap'n'trade, at least not to the extent that it would be worth chucking aout the progress that's been made and starting from scratch. I suspect that would be seen by the flat-Earthers as a major victory , and for good reason.
Example - international coordination.
Do you have the same tax rate in US dollars across countries, or do you set a different dollar rate for each country? How do you then cope with the problem of production shifting to low-tax countries? What happenes when the yuan rises, making the tax lower in yuan terms? Or do you set it in local currencies, meaning when the yuan rises the Chinese are paying more than Americans and when it falls they pay less?
What about countires with no carbon tax? Do you slap a carbon tax on imports? How do you decide what that rate should be? What if its a fridge with a motor made in a carbon tax country and a chassis in a no tax countries? And where to the point come from? And the oil the plastic was made from?
Not easy questions.
Got an example of a tax that's worked, by the way Akers?
Gaz 165: "What about countires with no carbon tax? Do you slap a carbon tax on imports? How do you decide what that rate should be?"
Congress is very tempted to enact this exact thing in cap-and-trade. I'm not sure how they'd price the penalty. So this is a potential issue, regardless of whether you use a tax or cap/trade.
You must remember that we had this discussion before. Back then, I pointed out that due to the inelasticity of the demand for energy the C&T scheme would introduce high volatility to the energy market - volatility that would serve no one except Wall Street firms that would no doubt sell "insurance" against the volatility, that would be similar to the "insurance products" they sold during the housing bubble. Neither you nor Krugman address those issues.
As for the acid rain experience, see the informed opinion of Williams and Zabel on this matter: Carbon Fees.
Who the heck cares if Wall St sells some interesting derivatives related to carbon prices, to help companies hedge?
Let them do it. It doesn't matter.
What matters is that there's a cap. If you set the cap in the right place, and don't allow too many exemptions, you'll get the emissions reduction you want. The market sets the carbon price for you; you don't have to guess what it needs to be. Further, the flexibility from trading will allow emissions cuts to be made in the most cost-efficient way. Not all emissions cuts are equally easy to enact; cap/trade recognises this.
In #165 I meant "And where *did* the *paint* come from?
Sortition - I agree that price volatility could be a problem. No issue there, I think I've said that before, though there are solutions to that.
(By the way, are you aware of any estimates of the likely permit price volatility, and also whether it would be correlated positvely or negatively with the underlying energy commodities - I'd be very interested. I don't know whether this has gone beyond speculative theorising. Maybe you could give me a pointer if you know of any empirical work.)
On the other hand I'm not inclined to discount C&T just on the basis that some evil yuppies will make money trading permits.
Firms in many industries (eg the oil industry, agriculture) use derivatives to hedge their exposures to volatile prices. That's part and parcel of how markets work. The markets have to be regulated, otherwise thay can go haywire, but there's no point throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I think the assumption that things will *inevitably* end up like the sub-prime loans market is a bit of a stretch, frankly.
Also, Willams and Zabel are arguing against the C&T bill before Congress. Would they be so in favour of a carbon tax if, for eg, existing major polluters had their tax rebated for an extended period? You have to be realistic about how a carbon tax would end up, not how it's conceived at the start.
> Who the heck cares if Wall St sells some interesting derivatives related to carbon prices, to help companies hedge?
The derivatives would be as interesting as the "products" Wall Street sold to the investors in the housing market, and would be as helpful at "hedging" as those "products" were. That is, they would be wonderfully lucrative for Wall Street as long as things work out and would be worse than useless when things don't.
> The market sets the carbon price for you; you don't have to guess what it needs to be.
Your faith in the market seems a bit quaint these days. In reality, there is no telling how much the allowances would be worth (because of the inelasticity of demand for energy and the high cost of clean energy), so there is really no way for the energy companies to hedge against the possibility that they pay too much. They would therefore have to make relatively low bids, and as long as things work out (for them) they will make huge profits by charging the public much more than they paid for the allowances. Once they make a mistake, however, they would go bankrupt, and default on their payments. As usual, heads they win, tails we lose.
In the mean time, energy prices would soar unpredictably, and likely fluctuate wildly, making it much more difficult for consumers and investors to optimize their actions.
All this still doesn't touch on the most important point of all - the unfairness of what is essentially selling the right to pollute to the highest bidder. Under C&T (or under tax without refund), the rich would be able to essentially pollute without restriction while the average person would have to tighten his carbon belt immensely. Apart from being grossly unfair, it is also political suicidal and a guarantee for the failure of the policy. For this not to happen, you need the rebate, which is only realistically possible with tax.
> Further, the flexibility from trading will allow emissions cuts to be made in the most cost-efficient way. Not all emissions cuts are equally easy to enact; cap/trade recognises this.
Actually, according to the standard economic models such as those Krugman uses, tax affords just as much flexibility as C&T. The equivalence of those two policies is essentially Krugman's point in his blog post regarding Hansen. Really, there is simply no advantage to cap and trade over tax (except for the supposed political feasibility of the C&T) and there are very significant disadvantages.
I am not aware of any attempts to estimate the volatility of permit prices. I would not put much stock in such estimates anyway, since there is really no data for producing such estimates. I note, for example, that all the estimates that I have seen in the literature for gasoline price elasticity have proven to be absurdly high in light of the stability of per capita gas consumption, despite the price increase, over the last decade.
> On the other hand I'm not inclined to discount C&T just on the basis that some evil yuppies will make money trading permits.
Those evil yuppies will make their profits at the expense of the public, a public that would probably have to suffer some painful changes in life habits even under the best of scenarios. This by itself would be good enough reason not to follow this path. That was not my point, however. The point was that there is no advantage to C&T over tax to anyone, except for those evil yuppies. I ask you again - what exactly is the presumed advantage? As I wrote to carrot eater, Krugman doesn't even argue that there is some advantage other than the supposed "political feasibility" of C&T. This would not be very convincing even if it were true, and it is quite likely false - Hansen's tax and rebate would probably enjoy a lot of popular support that C&T would not.
> I think the assumption that things will inevitably end up like the sub-prime loans market is a bit of a stretch, frankly.
Of course it is not inevitable - it is merely quite likely. But since this is just one disadvantage of C&T, and since there are no advantages, why is it even being seriously considered?
> You have to be realistic about how a carbon tax would end up, not how it's conceived at the start.
Obviously, nothing is perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to select a better policy over an inferior one. The most serious problem with C&T is not the wrinkles, such as grandfathering or offsets, but the scheme itself. Even some ideal C&T scheme, without grandfathering and without offsets, would likely have devastating impact on society. As a secondary point, I would argue that C&T due to its inherent complexity is more easily corruptible than carbon tax.
Sortition,
I'll get back to you on the price volatility issue after I've dug around for any research on it. By and large, though, I think it's fair to say that a market for permits would function pretty much like the market for any other resource in limited supply.
There's no reason to expect it to be any more volatile or dysfunctional than the markets for oil or shares or Baltic freight.
In fact it may be that the permit prices are more stable than other commodities, because the quantity available would be more predictable.
I'm not sure whether or not anyone has any strong evidence either way. If I find any I'll let you know.
One point I'd like to take up with you though is this:
All this still doesn't touch on the most important point of all - the unfairness of what is essentially selling the right to pollute to the highest bidder. Under C&T (or under tax without refund), the rich would be able to essentially pollute without restriction while the average person would have to tighten his carbon belt immensely.
Two things.
First, C&T as proposed under the Aussie CPRS is based on full refund of permit auction proceeds, ie revenue neutrality. This is no more or less fair than a carbon tax with full refund.
Second, rich people will be more able to afford carbon-emitting technology under either system. Whether price of petrol is $50 a litre because oil companies have to buy expensive permits or because they have to pay $49.80 per litre carbon tax won't matter. You're still going to feel pissed off when some dickhead in a Hummer swishes through a puddle and splashes muddy water over you and your bicycle.
Finally just to repeat, I have to disagree with this:
there is simply no advantage to cap and trade over tax (except for the supposed political feasibility of the C&T)
As Carrot Eater said, with a C&T you get certainty over the cuts to emissions.
If you use a cap, you arrive at the desired quantity of emissions by choosing the quantity directly and issuing only the equivalent amount of permits. With a tax you *estimate* the price that will deliver you that level of emissions and hope that your estimate is right. A cap takes away the risk that you will be wrong.
Sortition, it's simply not logical to hold the view that
In reality, there is no telling how much the allowances would be worth..
or that
..energy prices would soar unpredictably..
and at the same time believe that you can estimate the tax rate that would lead to a desired reduction in emissions.
I mean you can either estimate the relationship between price and quantity or you can't.
And it's important to bear in mind that you would have to estimate a tax rate that would not only reduce emissions to some target level at some point point in the future but also do it in a way that doesn't allow unacceptable amounts of emissions in the meantime.
I am not surprised that people in the public sector bureaucracy would rather not have this task foist upon them.
Vince@165, given the scale of the consequences of failing to deal with emissions I think Nuclear, despite it's drawbacks, has to be on the table.
It looks to be the case that France produces less environmental damage with nuclear than if they used coal. And it could be the case that that is still less than if they were 100% renewable. It's almost certain that nuclear could be done better than it currently is.
What I do know is the footprint from fossil fuels is already far greater than we can tolerate and it's use is increasing. Renewables, for all the progress made, aren't producing actual reductions in global emissions. I'd like to think that will change but I'm not sure it will. I'd also like to think they'll produce no hard-to-manage toxic waste in the process but I have serious doubts that will be the reality .
I continue to strongly advocate serious efforts to develop and deploy renewables and continue to improve them but they have their footprint too; a world littered with billions of unmanaged toxic batteries scares me.
In any case I think you are better addressing your arguments to others; massively increasing the world's reliance on nuclear isn't my preferred outcome, it's just better than failing to deal with GHG emissons. My concern is that all potential low emissions technologies get consideration.
Gaz and Carrot both make the point that it doesnt matter if Wall St makes a packet out of carbon trading. And I think you both belive that a cap is real and believable.
First point, it matters if Wall St rort the sytems like they did with dollars. If we get a bad system, with bad rorts, the cap is blown, cash is blown, and the public loose trust in anyone's ability to make a system work.
Second point, what is the cap? Who measures it? Who audits it? Who has an interest in the figure being correct? If some government's are a little lax here and there, then some of that nations industries might gain competitive advantage over fair player who operate with strict German-like adherence to the rules.
Gaz, as far as effective taxes go, I believe excise on smokes, beer, and petrol have a measurable effect. But not certain how strong the relationship is.
[This appeared yesterday](http://tiny.cc/stoCw) on [Counterpoint's](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/default.htm) comments page. The author is David Arthur, and the message was posted at 10:30am 8 December. I'm not sure that the url will work permanently, as the site seems to have a weird way of sorting and linking comments, so I will apologise in advance to all here who have to suffer under my holus-bolus posting.
"Professor Kellow kindly discussed email leaks from University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit on Counterpoint in the absence of any knowledge of those leaked emails. This is apparent by comparison of Professor Kellow's comments with the 2 December 2009 editorial in Nature.
"In his reply to me, Professor Kellow attacked Nature as the publisher of "the discredited Hockey Stick". In my reply to Professor Kellow, I explained how and why the "hockey stick" graph which Nature published is in fact an accurate understanding of twentieth century temperature variation. I explained that lack of temperature rise in the decades after WW2 despite rising carbon dioxide levels was due to reflectance of solar radiation from petrol-sourced lead, and sulphate, aerosols. After lead was removed from petrol, and sulphur emissions controlled due to concern with acid rain, the skies cleared sufficiently for delayed warming to proceed.
"Professor Kellow brings his politicised view of the world to his view of science; to the extent that the hockey stick graph may not be correct, a scientist would describe where and how it is not correct. Politicians, however, prefer to spread their "discredit" far and wide, and it is from that perspective that Professor Kellow speaks.
"Put simply, Professor Kellow is too ignorant to comment with any competence on issues of scientific accuracy. The choice of language by which he nevertheless makes such comment assures the reader as to his intellectual and moral honesty.
"Thus assured, I thank him for his views."
Kellow replies:
Dear David Arthur,
Thank you for your message.
Interesting that you think the opinions of the editorial staff at Nature constitute ground for my retracting my opinions. Nature is, of course, a party to this issue, having published the discredited Hockey Stick, failing to require correction or disclosure of data and code on this (and other) research.
There are many things wrong with the Editorial â mostly its repeated use of the word âdenierâ, a cheap rhetorical trick, first used by Jeff Harvey, one of its former editors, as a deliberate attempt to smear decent sceptical scientists who dare to raise critical points. It is a shameful attempt to insinuate sceptical inquiry as akin to holocaust deniers â quite explicitly so (see my book on this).
It is worth noting that the leading sceptical voice in questioning the paleoclimate reconstructions, Steve McIntyre, does not deny that there is anthropogenic warming, and neither do I. He (and I) both insist that science should be conducted in openness and be able to be replicated â and so should Nature.
I wonât bother in detail with the various errors in editorial: to suggest a conspiracy is a straw man, and a misrepresentation of the sociology of science; the most damaging material is the computer code and the programmersâ comments on it, which shows that they quite clearly knew what they were doing (read their private comments on data sets, robustness of their findings, etc).
I have published a short piece in Nature and I am well aware of the editorial bias, since they edited out a politically inconvenient passage form my fact, despite the fact that it was well within word limits.
The editorial looks a bit shrill now that the BOM in the UK has thought the integrity of the temperature record is under a cloud and will spend the next three years attempting to validate it.
For other perspectives on it you might care to have a look at the comments by Roger Pielke jr and commenters at:
"There are many things wrong with the Editorial", huh? It is much more accurate to say that "there are many things wrong" with Kellow's statements in his letter and in his [Counterpoint spray](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm).
I note especially that Kellow singles out Jeff Harvey for a mention, and in the context of the deniers' persistent confabulation of climate denial with Holocaust denial, just because both are forms of denial. Following on from Kellow's logic, my denial of imminent personal middle-age is a shameful attempt to compare it to Holocaust denial... Sheesh!
The guy is crackers, but try as I might to entice him here to dissect the science and politics of climatology with actual scientists (Kellow's an Arts graduate and a business/power policy wonk), he was still smart enough to avoid the offer. Perhaps posting this will lure him from the woodwork.
Since to some extent are covering old ground here, I'll refer you to comments from our previous discussion, with additions here:
Point #1:
> There's no reason to expect it [the allowances market] to be any more volatile or dysfunctional than the markets for oil or shares or Baltic freight.
First, the comparison to shares or most other commodities is irrelevant since the demand for most things is much more flexible than the demand for energy. Second, oil has seen a lot of volatility over the last decade (from a minimum of about $20/barrel to a maximum of about $150/barrel - a factor of over 7x). Third, we are talking of restricting the supply of the entire energy market, not just one segment of it like gasoline, so there is every reason to expect a more severe outcome. Fourth, even the 7x change in oil price, that translated to over 3x cost increase of gasoline for the average household did not produce any noticeable reduction in gasoline consumption. It is very likely therefore that reduction in demand for fossil energy would require unprecedented price increases.
Point #2:
> As Carrot Eater said, with a C&T you get certainty over the cuts to emissions.
See second part of comment #106 in the previous thread:
>> That certainty applies to a cap and trade, even if it is made inefficient by allowances for special intersts. It doesn't apply to a carbon tax unless you accept the potential for large and unpredictable changes in the tax rate and all the economic disruption that would cause.
> This is wrong on both sides. First, there is no complete certainty in C&T (or any scheme) unless you go to the length of implementing the draconian measure of allowing utility companies to change prices at very short notice and disconnect customers who are behind on their payments at very short notice. Second, on the tax side, you can achieve approximate goals reliably - which is all that matters since 10% difference, say, between emission goals and achieved emissions matters very little.
Point #3:
> C&T as proposed under the Aussie CPRS is based on full refund of permit auction proceeds, ie revenue neutrality. This is no more or less fair than a carbon tax with full refund.
Revenue neutrality is not the same as rebate (i.e., distributing the revenues among the population equally). Most revenue-neutral schemes are based on "balancing" income by either reducing (other) taxes or by spending (on research, etc.). These schemes will result in a much more regressive tax system, with the poor and middle income paying a larger share of their income in taxes or fees than the rich. Even more importantly, this will result in a situation dramatic energy consumption inequalities where the rich can continue to pollute at will, since for them the cost of fees will be affordable, while the poor would have to get along consuming very little energy.
Also, when selling allowances, there is really no way to create a rebate system (even if one were considered) since a significant share of the increased cost of energy will very likely become profit for the energy companies or for allowances traders of various sorts.
Point #4:
>Sortition, it's simply not logical to hold the view that
>>In reality, there is no telling how much the allowances would be worth..
> or that
>>..energy prices would soar unpredictably..
> and at the same time believe that you can estimate the tax rate that would lead to a desired reduction in emissions.
> I mean you can either estimate the relationship between price and quantity or you can't.
I agree, and you can't. No one can estimate the tax increase necessary for achieving a specific emission reduction target. However, a constant, gradual increase in tax, year after year, will eventually result in prices high enough to achieve any specified target. We actually discussed my proposal for such a scheme in some detail in the previous thread, comments #90, #106, #113, #114, #115 and #117.
I'm pretty much overlapping with Gaz here, but I'll get a couple quick points in:
If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events. Derivatives have been and continue to be a useful part of a functioning economy. What is bad is totally unregulated or underregulated derivatives, but the details of that are for a different forum.
I agree with Gaz that it's bizarre for somebody to say 'energy demand is too inelastic; you'll have to raise the carbon price really really high to make any difference' and then turn around and say a carbon tax would work. So you want to increase the tax rate, bit by bit, until you see some action? By your own logic, it could be 2100 before you get anywhere. There's nothing 'quaint' about thinking the market can set a price. You set a cap, and the market will decide what the allowances will cost. Whatever price they trade at, you'll be below the cap. That's the goal, isn't it? To be below the cap?
The inelasticity was also rather oversold. Behavior doesn't change overnight, but it eventually did - people buying smaller cars, using mass transit more, etc. Unfortunately, the global recession came soon thereafter, which brought its own effects.
I don't see how a carbon tax can be as flexible as a trading system. Krugman said it would be? I'd like to see the reasoning. Again, it may cost company A $10 to reduce emissions by 1 ton, while it costs company B $50 to reduce emissions by 1 ton. These differences must be kept in mind, as well as the incentives that can come into play.
> If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events.
To some extent, as I indicated above, this whole issue is a side note so I would not want to stress this too much - even if the financial aspects were handled flawlessly, and every other aspect of the scheme was handled flawlessly as well, C&T would still be a bad idea due to the inherent uncertainties associated with the response of energy demand to price increases.
There is, however, some centrality to the financial aspects of C&T, which is that the potential for making money over those transactions is probably the only reason that C&T is being considered. Thus, Wall Street is already calling the shots on this matter, making the hope that somehow effective regulation of the C&T activity would part of the legislation not only "unsophisticated" but positively naive.
> So you want to increase the tax rate, bit by bit, until you see some action? By your own logic, it could be 2100 before you get anywhere.
You are underestimating the power of exponentiation. Please read the discussion of the scheme I suggested in the thread I linked to. Because the scheme involves exponential increase (20% per year), energy prices would be very high (if emissions targets are not met) within a few years. For example, in ten years, prices could be 1.2^10 ~ 6 times higher than now, and within 20 years they could be over 38 times higher. Of course, significant reductions in emissions would be achieved long before then.
> The inelasticity was also rather oversold. Behavior doesn't change overnight, but it eventually did - people buying smaller cars, using mass transit more, etc.
Actually, no. Again, please look at the chart I linked to (here) - the dramatically increased expense on gasoline over the last decade produced essentially no reductions in gasoline consumption.
> I don't see how a carbon tax can be as flexible as a trading system. Krugman said it would be? I'd like to see the reasoning.
To quote Krugman: "What the basic economic analysis says is that an emissions tax of the form Hansen wants and a system of tradable emission permits, aka cap and trade, are essentially equivalent in their effects." The reasoning, in short, is that the caps are supposed to be translated to extra costs (through the cost of buying the allowances). Those extra costs supposedly function exactly like the extra costs imposed by a tax.
I'm still mulling over the relative advantages of an ETS over a direct carbon tax, but one of my greatest concerns was more eloquently [put forward by Stephen Long](http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2762794.htm) last week - that of the rubberiness of carbon derivatives in a trading scheme.
In particular, I am most concerned about the biological 'offsets' that are being touted as a win-win in the whole enterprise. Most people do not understand that even if the accounting is stringent, and that the carbon that is said to be fix actually is fixed (a big 'if'), this carbon is, in large part, only temporarily removed from the equation.
Unless photosynthetically-captured carbon is reduced to char, or sequestered in an anoxic environment, it is relatively quickly oxidised back to the atmosphere on the death of the plant material. So, whether it is carbon 'fixed' in soil, or in crops, or in forestry plantations for subsequent timber use, it is really only a matter of several years to several decades before the carbon finds its way back into the atmosphere. Remember, the fossil carbon that might be taken up is itself 'offset' by the 'biological' carbon that humans have released over the last several hundred to several thousand years - that carbon too needs to be fixed.
The only way to get a serious terrestrial carbon sequestration with biological fixation in the short-term would be to have massive revegetation of previously devegetated areas: and humans are showing no inclination to relinquish the land that we've devegetated. Aside from our agricultural and urban/suburban sprawlings, our current gnawing through the remains of old-growth forests around the world starkly illustrates this.
The other problem with emissions trading schemes at the moment seems to be that the caps themselves are not only too high, but they appear to be rubbery too - in the wrong direction. I do like the idea that each human on the planet receives an annual carbon ration, based on hard science. If the cap is solid, then total carbon emitted should be limited. If.
And I'm still not convinced that trade in carbon permits would in fact be equitable. As Australia's primary producers are currently discovering, middle-men and those further down-stream can stretch over a barrel those without market influence or leverage. I can quite easily envision a scenario where the poor sell their credits for less than their worth, so that the rich continue to profit from their economic privilege and the disparity between countries continues. And where economic disparity occurs, other (non-climatological) environmental damages also occur.
I have yet to be persuaded that a direct tax on carbon is not the simplest way of costing its impact, and of avoiding the shifting of responsibility for paying for its use. In fact, if one replaces the term 'tax' with 'cost', I cannot see how it is not a fair strategy - for each and every one of us to pay a carbon cost, based on the cost that increased atmospheric carbon exacts on the planet.
And in the end, why cannot a C&T and a tax/cost be implemented together? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?
I note that the Cochrane Collaboration have withdrawn support for the efficacy of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), based upon the meta-analysis of a number of studies, and upon the fact that Roche and many of its participating research teams "no longer had the original data".
Hmmm... So a collaboration of academic scientific teams found, within a few years, that non-government interests have apparently misrepresented their science. It seems that there is something to be said after all for the manner in which public science works, and against the manner in which private 'science' works.
Having worked in pharmacology in a previous incarnation, and having much experience with the pharmaceutical companies that grow fatter on their takings than any government-funded institution ever does, I am not surprised. In fact, I think that I have a tenner bet with a friend on this very subject, made when bird flu first popped its head up a few years ago. I told him not to bother with trying to buy any, for pretty much this reason.
Back to the point, however:
Fiona Godlee, MD, Editor-in-Chief of BMJ, and Mike Clarke, MD, Director of the UK Cochrane Centre, say the updated review is important because it calls into question "not only the effectiveness of oseltamivir but the whole system by which drugs are evaluated, regulated and promoted."
In her editorial, Dr. Godlee writes that the claims of the efficacy of oseltamivir, based on an analysis of 10 drug company trials, have formed a key part of decisions to stockpile the drug and made it widely available.
It was only after questions from the BMJ and Channel 4 News that Roche agreed to make full study reports available on a password-protected site, she writes.
It can't be right that the public should have to rely on this sort of detective work by academics and journalists to patch together the evidence for such a widely prescribed drug.
"It can't be right that the public should have to rely on this sort of detective work by academics and journalists to patch together the evidence for such a widely prescribed drug. Individual patient data from all trials of drugs should be readily available for scientific scrutiny," Dr. Godlee concludes.
>*If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events. Derivatives have been and continue to be a useful part of a functioning economy. What is bad is totally unregulated or underregulated derivatives, but the details of that are for a different forum.*
Carrot Eater, an important aspect of the issues you outline here is this; how well regulated have derivative become since the crash? What laws have been past and changes instigated? And how do we now know they are now appropriately regualated.
I'm not aware they've sorted much out at all, a few consmetic changes, but little confidence of substantial improvement in reguation. The big instituions still appear to be shifting debts around in a game of peek-ah-boo accounting.
This issue is relevent to regulation of carbon dirivatives. As relevent as the concentration of power in our political system, which creates a compounding problem when dealing with complexity and reliance on transparency.
Most people do not understand that even if the accounting is stringent, and that the carbon that is said to be fix actually is fixed (a big 'if'), this carbon is, in large part, only temporarily removed from the equation.
Unless photosynthetically-captured carbon is reduced to char, or sequestered in an anoxic environment, it is relatively quickly oxidised back to the atmosphere on the death of the plant material.
That's a fair point. What should happen is that these "offsets" should attract a value estimated in the way that one rents storage space. The credit then becomes worth an amount equalling the volume of carbon dioxide sequestered multiplied by the periodicity of its sequestration. Someone whose forest sequesters 1 Mt of CO2 for ten years gets half as much as if he sequesters it for 20 years and so forth.
I have yet to be persuaded that a direct tax on carbon is not the simplest way of costing its impact, and of avoiding the shifting of responsibility for paying for its use.
goes on to compare carbon tax to cost
Here's where one must disentangle several interrelated questions.
1. The politics (local and inter-jurisdictional)
It's very difficult to reconcile differing tax regimes. These would also be hostage to any falling out between participating jurisdictions. A quick look at the EU reminds us of these complexities. Under a tax-based regime, there would be a temptation every year for the politicos to have an auction on what carbon taxes should be, who should be exempted or get assistance. People could plead that the economy was in recession, and that our portion wasn't very much or the last lot sold us out in a fit of gaia-driven foolishness. If on the other hand, people have a right to pollute up to a point, that they have purchases, they are going to be leery of the goalposts being moved or free riders being let on board.
2. The target
We don't know how much a tax will reduce CO2. We can assume it will have some effect, but how much is hard to say. When crude oil went from $70 per barrell to $140 consumption of crude oil didn't drop by half. Sydney petrol prices went rapidly up to about $1.60 per litre from about $1.15 during 2008, but again, there's no evidence that vehicle miles fell by anything like that. That's why you have to have a quota.
And in the end, why cannot a C&T and a tax/cost be implemented together? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?
No they don't. I can easily imagine a carbon tax on fuel while we integrate it into the broader trading system. Personally, I'd like a system where individuals and family groups were given a science-based quota, which they could top up by purchasing credits at auction on something like ebay. Every product or service you purchased would have its own carbon "cost" which you'd "pay" with a smart card. If you ran out, you'd not be able to buy any more. If you had more than you needed, you could sell them.
The socially disadvantaged would have access to community provision of food and basic services for free at a local community centre and others not so disadvantaged could go there at a means-based cost. The carbon-credits here would be purchased by the state from the common pool.
The funds raised would be used to provide energy- and water-efficient and low cost community housing, good public transport options and of course to fund the rollout of near-zero emissions technologies, coherent revegetation programs and so forth, which would over time lower the cost of the credits since the providers would sell these back into the market, or they would show up in reduced carbon energy costs.
The burden in such a system would fall onto the major consumers, who would either have to pay an escalating cost to keep their lifestyles (in effect subsidising public goods) or cut back. So it would be equitable. One suspects McDonalds and KFC would become a lot less viable, leading to improved health amongst the disadvantaged.
Ken @ 174.
I understand your argument. Tim Flannery is with you, as aere many others whose opinions are worthy of respect.
My own inexpert analysis tells me that a technology that can spread caesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 from one end of Europe to the other and render 500km2 completely uninhabitable is a techniology to be suspicious of.
The fact that the banking and insurance industries will not touch this technology should tell us all we need to know about it - free market forces tend to be a pretty rational indicator.
Just found some lovely graphs from a Greenland ice core, going back 400,000 years. It is plain to see and I think you will agree, over all that time there were many hockey sticks.
What scientific consensus? The Ruddster once admitted that he didn't know much about the scientific detail surrounding climate change, but he 'trusted the men in white coats'.
There are an awful lot of white coated men on this gravy train and it's getting past a joke. Climate change is a natural hazard and we will adapt.
>*Climate change is a natural hazard and we will adapt.*
Chris: *What is the natural cause of of our current global warming?*
El gordo writes:
>*A spotty sun and no large volcanic eruptions, plus a warm PDO up until ten years ago when it changed to its opposite.*
El gordo, name and date the large volcanic eruptions in the past 30 years.
El gordo says that the PDO (a cycle, with cannot explain warming that is anomalous in at least 400 years), has just switched. And we know that the sun is at a solar minima.
"which is that the potential for making money over those transactions is probably the only reason that C&T is being considered."
I'm sorry, but's truly bizarre, and just incorrect. Cap/Trade is considered because it's been shown to work, it actually has a cap, and it's flexible - it should give you the emissions reduction at the lower cost.
I maintain that all this talk about derivatives is a red herring. Derivatives are not inherently bad. To a large extent, they are necessary.
"You are underestimating the power of exponentiation. "
I still don't see the point of doing any of that, when you could just put a cap in, and let the chips fall where they may. Remember that we aren't looking for a single step-function down in emissions; in cap/trade the cap will be gradually changed over time.
"Again, please look at the chart I linked to"
The things I'm talking about won't show up in a chart like that. I'm talking about a few months of changes in car-buying habits and increased mass-transit ridership, before the economy gave out and the price of oil collapsed.
Over the long run, keep in mind that trends in energy usage/GDP are downwards.
"To quote Krugman:"
That single quote is not even close to a discussion of how flexible the two methods are. Give me more. The way I see it, cap/trade gives flexibility, and thus delivers emissions cuts at lower cost.
@BenardJ
"And in the end, why cannot a C&T and a tax/cost be implemented together? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?"
On the same emissions, I'd say they need to be exclusive. But different emissions, different policies. For example, use cap/trade for the emissions during the process of refining oil to gasoline, but use a carbon tax on the actual use of that gasoline by the person driving the car.
Janet Akerman, still on derivatives:
You do realise that there are all manner of derivatives, the use of which is perfectly stable and uncontroversial, and effectively regulated, and has been so for decades? You need to be much more nuanced in your statements on derivatives - identify which ones you're talking about, and so on. Even of the new ones you've been hearing about - CDSs are perfectly legitimate instruments. I don't think new regulations have been put on them just yet, but it's a work in progress. The conventional wisdom is that they should be regulated by forcing them to be sold through an exchange, which would address the counterparty risk involved.
It just seems very far-fetched to say 'cap/trade will lead to new derivatives, and I don't know what those derivatives will look like, but I somehow bet you they will bring us systemic risk; I'm not sure how, but it will, so therefore we shouldn't do cap/trade'. That's a strange line of argument.
I know the sun has been quiet of late, but these things take time. Because nothing has happened yet, doesn't mean it won't happen soon.
The trouble is that even Alaska's raw data, untampered, shows it has been a degree cooler than the CRU mob have said. So as the science unravels we should get a clearer picture of what is happening.
Janet and Chris...I'm prepared to recant and stop saying 'it's the sun stupid' if David Archibald's theory falters. I expect the same from both of you if the unadjusted raw data from northern Australia or Alaska shows no warming over the past 30 years.
Recant now and avoid humiliation later. Otherwise, we will have to assume that you are warm mongers for life.
>*Janet and Chris...I'm prepared to recant and stop saying 'it's the sun stupid' if David Archibald's theory falters. I expect the same from both of you if the unadjusted raw data from northern Australia or Alaska shows no warming over the past 30 years.*
Natural warming has been happening, but there is some controversy about the decline since 2000. UHI's may have had a minor artificial effect on this warming trend, while CO2 doesn't even rank in my book.
Well, I guess there is "controversy" for those who put credence in the kooky nonsense from the Lavoisier group....
It's interesting that El Gordo puts store in David Archibald's Lavoisier-hosted work - work which used 5 carefully-cherry-picked met stations to misrepresent global temperature trends and 1 carefully-chosen met station to show a (weak)correlation between temperature and sunspots.
El Gordo - how do you explain your lack of scepticism?
I get censured by the right for being a global cooling nutter, they think all alarm flags are kooky nonsense. The Sceptics are too polite and just ignore me.
There is some comfort being here among my old comrades, yarning about politics and the weather.
Don't talk to me about cherry-picking, ask mighty Kev what he knows about the cherry-picking of the Yamal tree data. He would probably say 'I wasn't aware there were any cherry trees in Yamal'.
The "cherry picking at Yamal" meme is an artificial product of hysterical blogging on non-climatologist Steve McIntyre's website.
No such cherry-picking occurred, as Steve McIntyre was forced to admit, although Steve McIntyre did some undeniable cherry-picking of his own in the creation of his own nonsensical tree-ring graphs.
>*It just seems very far-fetched to say 'cap/trade will lead to new derivatives, and I don't know what those derivatives will look like, but I somehow bet you they will bring us systemic risk; I'm not sure how, but it will, so therefore we shouldn't do cap/trade'. That's a strange line of argument.*
Carrot in the context of complexity in financial instruments, lack of appropriate regulation and the underlying lack of transparency, I canât see what is strange in this argument.
I thinks it strange to assume that carbon derivatives will somehow be appropriately regulated and transparent, the current plutocratic/democratic environment.
Complexity
>*You need to be much more nuanced in your statements on derivatives - identify which ones you're talking about, and so on.*
How can I diagnose the detailed flaws in the untransparent derivative market? The complexity and lack of transparency is the problem Iâm rallying against! The banks didnât even understand them.
Institutions are coy of lending to each other because they donât know the other's derivatives exposure. And last time I check the global outstanding derivatives markets was over $600 trillion, thatâs 15 times higher than the world GDP.
If there was transparency, then regulation might have been able to be implanted following the GFC. But weâre still waiting for regulation, and if we do eventually get regulation in this climate of highly concentrated power (and plutocratic political influence), we will probably get a fig leaf wrapped in a wave of PR claims.
Here is some context of my stated concern with an ETS and derivatives:
>Hansenâs tax also overcomes the biggest problem [with] an ETS, a problem Krugman fails to mention. Complexity. Complexity makes transparency hard.
>The Wizards of Money. How many people know how banks make money? What fraction understand what an offset is? And who audits them?
> If we are to value simplicity as our best hope for robustness, and genuine abatement, our options for simplicity are greatest with a tax.
Iâve mentioned that I support the Tax and Dividend scheme. Were the tax is applied at the first point of sale or port of entry. And the revenue is distributed equally per capita.
>[Hope] believes a market-based trading system such as the ETS is very unlikely to generate consistent high prices, and this instability could undermine the whole point of the scheme. The heart of the issue is a problem we are all sadly familiar with: financial markets are highly variable, with prices liable to surge and collapse. Hope says that the first two phases of the ETS have illustrated the problem [â¦].
What is the limit, the bottom most, the least good ETS you would support? What are its critical parameters for you?
>*The "cherry picking at Yamal" meme is an artificial product of hysterical blogging on non-climatologist Steve McIntyre's website. No such cherry-picking occurred, as Steve McIntyre was forced to admit, although Steve McIntyre did some undeniable cherry-picking of his own in the creation of his own nonsensical tree-ring graphs.*
Ah! Vince, but that doesn't matter! There was a noise. Its the noise that counts not the evidence. Just like its the noise about the CRU emails that matter. No need to wait for the evidence.
And if there is enought noise that is proof of something!
Proof of what? Either a cospiracy that never quite gets exposed; or a bunch of people who want to believe (or want others to believe) that there is a conspiracy, which never quite gets exposed.
Janet #206: "Just like its the noise about the CRU emails that matter. No need to wait for the evidence. And if there is enought noise that is proof of something!"
OTOH if there's no noise that proves "things are being hushed up" and so ... it's a CONSPIRACY! Burn her!!
I know the sun has been quiet of late, but these things take time. Because nothing has happened yet, doesn't mean it won't happen soon.
So the cause of global warming hasn't happened yet even though global warming has already happened. El credulo just gets funnier and funnier.
Natural warming has been happening, but there is some controversy about the decline since 2000.
There are fewer sunspots now than there were in 1970. Why is the global five-year-average temperature 0.6 deg C warmer now than it was around 1970?
Let me get this straight, sunspots go from a maximum to a minimum, global temperature increases by 0.6 deg C and you think that means that some supposed "increase" in solar activity caused a significant part of that warming?
No wonder you're el credulo.
there is some controversy about the decline since 2000
Thanks for the weather report. Yet again you need to be reminded that the determination of climate, let alone changes in climate, takes a lot more than 9 years of data.
I've got it - El Gordo is an intellectual nihilist: he doesn't actually believe in anything but likes the idea of tearing down knowledge.
Normally, that's not a problem.
But what you are involved with at the moment is kind of the opposite of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre. The fire is burning and you are standing on your seat yelling at the top of your voice "Ignore that fire alarm!", confusing people and risking lives. Reprehensible.
Over the past few months I have been persuaded to lower my alarm flag.
The right are correct, nothing untoward is going to happen. Global cooling, as in a Dalton Minimum, now looks out of reach. But I will still be cherry-picking freak weather out of season, especially in the midlatitudes.
Nihilist ideas are old hat, except amongst the Green faithful.
In other words, people who believe the evidence about the damage to the exosphere, and how to reduce that damage, are the people who don't believe in anything.
And those people who don't believe in anything are those who we "sceptics" like to label "religious zealots", mainly because they believe evidence rather than our preferred religion and ideology.
Actually, whoever introduced the idea here of El Gordo as a nihilist was onto something. The methodology underpinning the use of the term "skeptic" by the filth merchant propagandists like El Gordo is incipiently nihilistic.
If even the most daffy and implausible accounts are to be granted the same status as well attested science, in the interest of affirming that absolute certainty in science is impossible, then drawing conclusions about anything at all is impossible.
Back here in the real world, where people do draw conclusions from observable data, giving priority to the data that are most impressive in their scope and apparent pertinence, we have people employed to care for those who, regrettably, follow this particular filth merchant mantra to its logical conclusion.
Inhofe and his crowd of course are selective in their "skepticism", as Janet notes. They are convinced that using the biopshre as a cheap tip for industrial effluent is a damn fine thing.
I saw this a long time ago and immediately the urgent question was - what evidence do we have that Chung is not part of a cover-up of the fact that 30% of the patients that die in hospitals later get up and walk out of the morgue? None. Absolutely none.
Robert CHUNG
Robert Chung is a health policy and health services researcher who has worked in the public sector, the private sector, and the academy. Substantively, his work has focused on the quality of healthcare delivery; he developed and directed the largest-ever public-private system to examine the quality of hospital care. Methodologically, he pioneered the use of generalized additive and recursive partitioning models in health services research. He is also expert in techniques for handling flawed data, and in multivariate data visualization.
A theoretical mathematical demographer by training, he received a PhD in Demography and an MA in Economics from UC Berkeley, and has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in demography, health policy, and statistics and data analytic methods.
More importantly, my heart goes out to those trolls who once infested the Bolter. Right on Xmas and without a second thought as to how they will sustain themselves.
The new standing orders have eliminated these characters and gives the host a cleaner platform to become Senator Bolt.
We can at least reach a consensus on one thing - the MWP was real in Greenland.
Is this reluctance to comment because they all have Tamiflu stocks of their own, secreted in preparation for the enactment of the One World Government's Conspiracy to Kill Them AllTM? Or is their silence due to their embarrassment that it was a shining example of Capitalist ScienceTM that was caught fudging the data?
Mt Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and is believed to have been the largest disturbance of the stratosphere since the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, but ten times larger than Mt St Helens in 1980.
In 1992 and 1993 temperatures around the world dropped .5 C as a direct result. A slight pause then back to natural warming.
There were five very large volcanic eruptions in the seventeenth century, fairly evenly spaced, but presumably the effects only lasted a couple of years.
So the LIA needed a more dominant forcing than just a volcano to drive temperatures down 2 degrees over a few hundred years.
Plimer's performance on Lateline is a travesty of scientific etiquette, protocol and fact.
He offered no scientific papers or studies as evidence for any of his statements, he conspicuously and frequently waved a copy of his book at the camera in an obvious attempt to promote it, and he used his cutesy ploys to divert the focus of questions from himself on to Jones and on to Monbiot.
Curiously, he refers to H&E as "the book", as if it is separate and independent from himself. Delving into my university psychology, I might produce several theories about why this is so, but even without a considered session of shrinking it is apparent that Plimer is off the dial. He has lost it, there are kangaroos in his top paddock, he's a few snags short of a barbie, he gone Emeritus...
From a scientific point of view, I would strong urge people to contact the ABC and ask them to interview a group of scientists to deconstruct the allegations and misrepresentations that Plimer has made tonight. It's all stuff that we've dissected ad infinitum here and on other places on the Interweb, but it's about time that there was a serious mainstream addressing of the points that are always lost in the obfuscation and diversion when Plimer puppeteers an interview.
Make the bugger address each error, lie and misrepresentation that he has made on television, in front of an audience of his scientifically credible peers. Make him address the Monbiot questions if they are not otherwise addressed, but do not let him continue to slither away from confronting his garbage.
I firmly believe now that Plimer is not a Poe, that he is no longer competent in assessing scientific evidence, and that he is completely ideologically- and agenda-driven. It's time that he had the bright light of professional scrutiny turned on his climate nonsense, whether he deigns to participate or not.
Monbiot was not too bad, although I still believe that he has let himself and science in general down with his cursory analysis of the history behind the CRU data theft, and the subsequent distortions thereof.
Plimer has let himself down, and as a former student of his he has let me and my colleagues down too. Back in the 80s he was largely credible and slightly smug: now he has no credibility and is an insufferable prat. He makes me ashamed to have come from an institution where he has taught, and he represents to me a compelling reason to fear for the education of any student who might come within a bull's roar of his influence.
How one such as he can maintain a position in Australian science without scrutiny, challenge or otherwise being called upon to justify his malfeasance is beyond me. Make no mistake: Plimer is not simply a maverick exploring the bounds of understanding - he is willfully, maliciously and selfishly bastardising the public perception of scientific process and understanding in order to achieve his own non-scientific, ideologica ends.
CRU is the biggest scientific fraud in history? Hardly - Plimer's frauds dwarf anything that might possibly be found from the UEA hack.
Plimer's antics, and the front and centre attention that the Denialosphere grants them, are the real story here.
...but it's about time that there was a serious mainstream addressing of the points that are always lost in the obfuscation and diversion when Plimer puppeteers an interview.
Whilst that is indeed true, I think more needs to be done by his university employers. Have they no shame?
Plimer's frauds dwarf anything that might possibly be found from the UEA hack
And while Jones magnanimously steps aside whilst an independent enquiry reports, Plimer sails on spreading his disinformation, to put it more euphemistically. The world is warped. Have his employers no shame?
Indeed, were I to get a question in on one of his Q&A stunts I would ask that very question. "Have your employers no shame? Do they endorse the distortions that you preach?"
Make him address the Monbiot questions if they are not otherwise addressed, but do not let him continue to slither away from confronting his garbage.
Plimer knows he's lying. He changes the subject whenever he can. That ABC Lateline interview is an absolute classic. One item in it was his claim that the USGS ignored undersea volcanoes (which they didn't) in calculating CO2 emissions from volcanoes and his claim that these undersea volcanoes produce more than 130 times as much CO2 as land volcanoes which they would need to do to produce more CO2 than human activity. One of the things that never seems to occur to Plimer is that this extraordinary volcanic activity only seems to have started in the last 200 years which is an amazing co-incidence.
This is one of the ways Plimer works. He makes statements that may or may not be correct, e.g. the volcanoes one is incorrect and the one about Greenland warmth in the MWP is correct, and these statements superficially support his argument. But if you know more information, e.g. Greenland is not the whole world and the whole world average was not particularly warm in the MWP then you know his statements don't really support his argument or there's something bizarre about his argument. Plimer could easily realize this so his superficial statements are dishonest even when they are part of the truth (but not the whole truth).
Anyway, I noticed Monbiot, unlike Jones, doesn't let Plimer get away with lying without telling him his lying. Whenever Plimer lies to Jones, Jones just says "no" and states what the appropriate authority says contrary to Plimer's lie. Monbiot doesn't have any problem telling Plimer when he's lying.
I think more needs to be done by his university employers.
Yes you'd think the University would make or have some general disclaimer that's Plimer's views are personal and in no way necessarily reflect the views of the University in whole or in part.
Did anyone see BBC4's The Environment Debate tonight? I only turned on from the back end of the science discussion. It was all pretty poor to be honest. For some reason, Bob Watson was put up against Richard Lindzen and Bjorn Lomborg, resulting in a pretty skewed and artificially 'balanced' debate. The presenter (who I've seen before, and she wasn't particularly fussed about accuracy then either) managed to exacerbate the issue when she brought up Svensmark and, following Watson's dismissal, said "yes, but how can you expect the public to know what to believe when even the scientists disagree?"
She also gave Watson a much toughter grilling than the other two. Lindzen was allowed to get away with whatever the hell he liked, and Lomborg seemed to wow her with his rhetoric and pretty face. For some reason, though, she seemed obsessed with pinning Watson down to plucking random figures out the air (at one stage she was asking him repeatedly to specify exactly how much of a difference individual action could make to reduce carbon emissions, and wouldn't shut up about it until Watson, exasperated, said "10%" seemingly at random).
The whole thing was ridiculously dumbed down. Watson didn't seem to come across great to be honest, he wasn't very comfortable under the ignorance of the presenter, the rhetoric of Lomborg and the usual crap from Lindzen. Yet another example of why science shouldn't be decided by public debate. On the other hand, it's on BBC4, so it's not like anyone watched it...
Chris: *What is the natural cause of of our current global warming?*
El gordo writes:
>*A spotty sun and no large volcanic eruptions, plus a warm PDO up until ten years ago when it changed to its opposite.*
Don't be a Plimer, answer my question, Given the significant volcanic eruptions in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of great warming, how can you support your above claim?
The period of natural warming from 1976 to 2000 came about because of the warm PDO. Pinatubo and Mt St Helens had only a slight effect on the upward trend. AGW is a crock.
Don't try to get smart with me Akerman, it doesn't suit you.
The period of natural warming from 1976 to 2000 came about because of the warm PDO.
So now it's mainly the fault of the PDO? So the scientists are wrong when they say the cycle time is 15â30 years because then the temperature should have gone back to what it was in 1976 by 2006 at the latest. El gullibo informs us that the PDO half-cycle time can be 24 years and thus the cycle time can be 48 years, not just 15-30 years.
Those scientists are so wrong. How did they ever get by without el gullibo.
By the way, our "cooling phase" since 2001 or whatever hasn't actually started yet, in fact it's still warming.
The ENSO adjusted global sea surface temperature anomalies graph is particularly interesting. While I'm not ruling out the PDO influence, it may not be as dominant as ENSO.
Note the Mt Pinatubo eruption, as suspected it appears to have produced no impact on the upward trend.
You are a lot like Plimer the way you run away from straigh forward questions.
>Note the Mt Pinatubo eruption [...] it appears to have produced no impact on the upward trend.
How do you reconcile this statement (and your acknowledgement of several other major volcanic eruptions in the 1980s and 1990s), with your [earlier claim](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2146…) that "*no large volcanic eruptions*" was one of the three natural drivers of recent global warming?
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. [...] we're aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. [...] The limit of the influence of CO2 is dictated, not by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but by the amount of solar radiation reflected back from the Earth. Once all the infrared rays have been "captured" by the greenhouse gases there is no additional increase in carbon dioxide.
So what do you think folks? Are we better off with the Australia's CPRS failing to be passed by the parliament, given that it was far less than necessary (as the Greens argued), or would it have been better to have had it pass?
Over at Graham's Green Blog the Greens are being blamed. Which is a little weird.
On a more important matter, NASA is being sued for failure to release climate data for a couple of years.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hi…
The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians!
Coincidence?
Now that they've run out of scientific arguments, I think denialists, in their desperation, see it as open season on any climate research organisations to try to find whatever dirt they can, no matter how trivial. Personally, I think it would be more enlightening is if someone were to get into the Heartland Institute's email server...
>The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians! Coincidence?
No I don't think so. In my opinion there is a organised effort to undermine Copenhagen and the science.
Saudi have already laid their pre-Copenhagen sceptic cards on the table, using the CRU emails as an excuse. The language they have used though, clearly shows they were sceptic even before recent events.
This is a political and economic motivated campaign.
The CPRS can give any required reduction in emissions because the quantity of emissions is determined by the total number of permits sold/given away. The number of permits is decided independently of the scheme. The Greens objection was to the apparent smallness of the proposed reduction in emissions (even though it represented 24% reduction per person) so it is hard to see any motivation for the Greens' voting against the scheme itself other than vindictiveness.
Chris Horner from the Completely Evil Institute would do that wouldn't he?
Chris Horner is gonna get his clock dialled in court with this one. I sincerely hope there is a counter-suit for defamation against at least one of the slippery buggers from the CEI. Horner himself seems to get close to that line.
It isn't what I would do, but in my darker moments I dream of FOIs against each and every paid-up denialist who has a university position still. Certainly, a number of them have published material that is flagrantly erroneous, and that is itself grounds for seeking the primary data behind the erroneous claims. Then there are the series of upward adjustments to the temperature anomalies from the original satellite data starting 1979, by a certain academic. Maybe his data and "adjustments" need FOIs, just to be sure there are no more necessary upward adjustments lurking.
Hey, I can daydream.
It may be methyl isocyanate, but it smells of tobacco:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/bhopal-stil…
From the Washington Times piece
But...but.. skeptics don't make assumptions about what they haven't seen, do they??
Anyone care to critique my analysis on CO2 vs. SSTs?
Over at WUWT, Co2Science is being used - again - to claim the MWP was, you know - really warm.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/jo-nova-finds-the-medieval-warm-p…
I was asking about co2science's list of 771 peer-reviewed papers, and their spangly MWP map, over at Desmogblog. Someone pointed me towards a Deltoid post on co2science, and I see that apparently co2science use papers that actually don't say what they claim they do.
Does anyone have any more info on this? Has anyone had a go at actually checking the refs in co2science's "MWP project" map?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Was musing over at desmogblog: "That's the thing, of course, that distinguishes one side of this debate from the other: I don't think for a second that the IPCC would have just *missed* 771 studies showing the MWP to be warmer than today. People on the other side don't doubt that the IPCC would have done exactly that, for some nefarious purpose or other. It reminds me of friends of mine who believe the US govt could have planned 9/11. It just makes absolutely no logical sense (1000s of people, all remaining silent?) but that doesn't seem to stop them believing it."
"The Canadian climate scientists have been subject to recent breakins and attempted computer hacks, including people posing as technicians! Coincidence?"
This is more than a few motivated denialists amateurs. Criminal shit like this is most likely *funded*.
Except for the inconvenient fact that the GHCN data and the GISTEMP code are both freely available onliine ... hmmm ...
Horner's actually suing for e-mails which he hopes will show that either the data or the code is "fudged". I thought the auditors were supposed to be able to disprove all of climate science once the code and data were made available online (both have been available for some years now).
Interesting how they're spinning their suit into "forcing NASA to release the data and code" - if Horner can't even tell the truth about his FOIA requests and subsequent threat to sue, can we trust him on anything?
Hi all,
This is a dark, dark time for science. This relentless attack on science and even scientists needs to be stopped. But how? Those in denial distort, spin, misrepresent at will, and then have the gall to judge all climate scientists as being corrupt etc. How can the media be so blind to this hypocrisy and double standard? Co2science can fabricate stuff, enemies (sorry, "friends" of science can fabricate stuff), A. Watts can fabricate stuff, and McIntyre can fabricate stuff at will. But let them get their grubby paws on some stolen code and patchy emails and the jury is in before an investigation has even started. This play to emotion, opinion and plethora of unsubstantiated allegations is overwhelming and unfortunately, very effective, especially wit the internet. It is a well tried technique.
As a scientists in the field of meteorology I am dumfounded how so many scientists are sitting back and doing nothing. Do they not care that their profession is being dragged though the mud. They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels.
RealClimate and desmogblog and deltoid and others are trying, but you are preaching mostly to the converted. The scientists need to consolidate their efforts and clear the air, the results of failing to do so are very clear already.
We need to engage top notch and reputable journalists to start looking into exactly what is going on here. That is, for once, real investigative journalism. I challenge fellow scientists here to get involved, albeit at a local or national level and speak out. We have also got to remember that most people do not understand a concept of an "anomaly". That is not a slight against lay people, I was not familiar with the term "trick" in a mathematical context until last week and did four years of maths and applied maths at uni.
I strongly suspect that history is going to document "climategate", but not for the reasons being purported by those in denial about AGW.
The Bolter has convinced himself that it was a whistle blower who leaked the emails at CRU and not an outside hacker.
He has placed Australian born Tom Wigley in the spotlight.
@Dan Olner | December 4, 2009 11:13 AM:
Took a look at that MWP site. Looks like a train wreck. They're looking at proxy publications, looking for a plotted temperature history, grabbing the maximum temperature from anywhere within a multi-century period they label the MWP, and comparing it to the end of the plot (however far it goes, or however much it's smoothed), or the baseline off of which the anomaly is defined, or something they can call the current temperature. Even before downloading and reading any of the papers, you can tell it's a disaster.
If Loehle was the poor man's reconstruction, this is for people too poor to figure out how to even build a reconstruction.
Had a look at that MWP site too. Crucial is what they call the Current Warm Period (CWP).
They use a lot of 'definitions' for CWP. I found for instance 1981-2000, 1961-1990, 1937-1946, august 2008, presently, mean of 20th century, etc.
Well, they don't call it research. In their own words it's a 'project'.
Paul UK,
"This is a political and economic motivated campaign."
And you are saying it is different to the IPCC process?
Even if the medieval warm period (MWP) was warmer than the current warm period (CWP), that misses the point a bit. The natural decline in temperatures from the MWP to the LIA occurred at a rate of -0.1C/century at best. The last 30 years have a rate of temperature increase that is close to 2C/century, or 20 times faster. It's really apples and oranges when it comes to rate of change.
Pretty much, Henkl. Ill-defined time period for 'MWP'; ill-defined time period for the current. Haphazard method. The whole thing is ill-posed. The analysis has zero value.
I suppose it's a useful database of publications with proxies, though.
And I agree with Joseph. These guys are utterly fascinated by the MWP, and I have no idea why. In 1900, it was probably cooler than many points in the last 1000 years; that doesn't mean somebody couldn't think through the physics and predict that adding CO2 would enhance the greenhouse effect.
Paul UK - after hearing the BBC radio this morning/lunchtime, I'm convinced we are being 'swiftboated', although just how organised it is I don't know. The BBC had the hack as lead story on the Today programme, it went down to fifth by lunchtime, but back up to third by 5pm. Idiot media, asking the same stupid questions (what does 'trick' mean?), and deniers like Stott, Lomborg and Pieser called on as experts.
The Tories now have cover to come out as deniers as well (34% of Tory MP's apparently don't know whether climate change is man made), and the Mail/Express have gone into overdrive.
At least Professor Andrew Watson http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8396035.stm has come out fighting, as has Ed Miliband - but where is everyone else?
As to the IPCC - it would be a bit less political if Saudi Arabia and the like weren't allowed to censor(sorry, change) the report more to their liking.
Re 16:
LOL so the pseudoskeptics not happy to just throw out fraud accusations left right and center are now also trying to access other scientists of being the hackers. Ahhh
Maybe it's time to up date Climate sceptic bingo: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo.php
I propose adding: " trick to hide the decline", "fraudulent computer code", "suppressed dissenting viewpoints"and "lost the data"
hmmm
There was no external hack, just Wigley hiding in the CRU basement blowing a whistle.
@MapleLeaf: I agree with you. Scientists need to take the gloves off now. This is a concerted effort to discredit them and they need to fight it. Not just on blogs, but in the mainstream media, in townhall meetings etc. Barry Brook did an excellent series of seminars, which would be great to roll out to a bigger audience. This is an important issue and scientists need to get in there and make this complex message comprehendable for the "common man". If they don't, people's minds will be poisoned by the deniers' simplistic platitudes and this will have political consequences. It is already having political consequences in Australia where half the Liberal party has been infected with denialism.
Ultimately, science will determine the outcome of this debate. A new study by Lindzen and Choi from MIT suggests the models are wrong about AGW, heat is not being trapped.
In this article by Art Horn: 'If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place.'
http://energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2665
el gordo - I just read that Art Horn article, and all I have to say is - what the holy freaking fuck?!?!?!?!?!
Yo can only find that article convincing in any way, if yo know nothing (or so close to nothing there's no functinal distinction) about climate science.
Lets look at just the third paragraph, shall we:
"The only evidence that human activity is causing global warming comes from computer models."
- then why are the first predictions of anthropogenic global warming over a century old? It is a physically necessary consequence of the observed physics of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.
"These models take what the people who develop them know about how the earthâs climate system works and attempt to predict the future."
- No. They attempt to predict the response of earth;s climate to alterations in parameters that control climate. We have control over many of those parameters, they aren't physical responses, and the modelers make assumptions about those changes - labeled as assumptions - not predictions.
"Computer models are not evidence. Evidence is something real, something concrete that is not subject to change. Computer models can be changed by their creator."
- but are constrained to use physically realistic, observationally constrained calculations parameters and constants. They aren't just making it up.
"In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters. That is not evidence."
- If the models can be made to say whatever their creators want - why cant ANYONE, including the denialists, make the models say that the current observed temperatures can be obtained in the absense of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.
Hey, fatso, why do you think the oceans are warming? And why is that source of heat warming more slowly than it would if there were no oceans?
Think ... think ... think ... duh!
Fatso thinks it's a good thing that the US sucks Saudi dick:
Yes, I have no doubt that the Saudis approve of the position that ever-increasing energy interdependence with the US is a good thing (note: saudi arabia doesn't import oil from the US, for the fatso-tard crippled audience)
After seeing some pro-GW adds on sky last night I'm convinced the contrarians have won. The adds were amateurish rubbish which would covince no one. No facts were presented and would have the average denialist falling off their chairs with laughter.Pathetic would be high praise for these adds.
This is an important issue and scientists need to get in there and make this complex message comprehendable for the "common man".
>*After seeing some pro-GW adds on sky last night I'm convinced the contrarians have won.*
After reading Jim Shewan posts I'm convinced he thinks there is only the PR battle.
One criticism of Lindzen I spotted is that there are several ERBE data sets and it just so happens he picked the 'right' one. Shades of Yamal.
Some supposedly intelligent people, for one reason or another, fail to understand the science. With the current level of global warming, the common view won't be decided by the science, it will be decided by the politics. Remember that the chiefs of the Army and Navy and the Army Minister in Japan wanted to keep fighting World War 2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. A lot of people don't care about facts.
[Chris O'Neill](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2125…).
Your quoted source appears to be a bot trawling through the thread for a phrase to repeat, and pasting dodgy urls in the process. It appeared on another thread also.
Funnily enough, in a Turing test it'd be about as credible as some of the Denialati here - WAL and Tom comes immediately to mind...
@MapleLeaf: "As a scientists in the field of meteorology I am dumfounded how so many scientists are sitting back and doing nothing. Do they not care that their profession is being dragged though the mud."
They care but are powerless against Swiftboating attacks. There is no budget or time for mounting a PR offensive, which isn't in their job description as scientists in any case.
"They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels."
Now this is hopelessly naive. There are many psychological reasons why the simple denial message will always be more enticing to the media than the scientists' complex message of proxies, forcings, feedbacks, etc. I've already tried the facts and scientific method on those who've bought the denialist message, and when they run out of talking points they quickly go into broken record mode, repeating the last talking point over and over. It simply doesn't work.
The science message just doesn't get through and that is why I'm hoping the CRU staff who's email has been hacked, can hit back with some legal action. Nothing works better than a hip-pocket attack. An example of the type of actionable comment was made in today's Sydney Morning Herald where John Carroll (Prof Sociology La Trobe Uni) said " Recently the CRU at Uni Eat Anglia was shown to have systematically falsified its data so as to widely exaggerate projections of global warming". No alleged, no qualifications. I wonder what that would be worth with a good legal team? And I wonder how many more similar cases can be found around the globe. Maybe CRU should just give up science and do the legal thing. After all it was court cases that got the tobacco lot in the end, not the science. In a similar vein, convince the insurance industry GW is real and watch the pips squeak as insurance is withdrawn or becomes unaffordable in many areas. The public campaigns have failed and the politicians just listen to their big money sources.
Dave Andrews said:
"And you are saying it is different to the IPCC process?"
1. The issue is about political and criminal attacks on science. Scientists don't hack into peoples servers illegally and without permission. If you support it, you are appeasing criminals.
2. There is something happening to climate. There is no credible science from the denial camp that stands up to scrutiny. That is because it is driven by politics first and not science.
3. Many deniers are skilled liars that are exploiting doubt in the populace.
O'Neill:
>Some supposedly intelligent people, for one reason or another, fail to understand the science. With the current level of global warming, the common view won't be decided by the science, it will be decided by the politics. Remember that the chiefs of the Army and Navy and the Army Minister in Japan wanted to keep fighting World War 2 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. A lot of people don't care about facts.
And the result was?
Desperate people suggest and do desperate things.
Like hacking into a computer.
bruced
You may be out of touch with political reality. At the next election the people will most likely vote against the prospect of rising energy bills and the Queensland dentist will be humiliated.
One thing is for sure, on the blogosphere we will continue to discuss CC for quite some time to come.
Jim Shewan: "After seeing some pro-GW adds on sky last night I'm convinced the contrarians have won. The adds were amateurish rubbish which would covince no one."
Recent UK govts ads: ditto. Absolute mana for the denialosphere, trying to guilt parents with some faux kid's bedtime story about drowning puppies (not to mention, it sounds like the govt is talking to adults like they're toddlers.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMp8UiCNYas
In that time, they could have done a little explanation on trends that anyone could have digested, then used to see when they were being bs'd about cooling. As it is, a lot of people are still not going to know who to believe when someone says 'the Earth's cooling! Global warming isn't happening!'
No: instead we get drowning puppies. If the government is treating people like complete idiots, I'm not sure we should be surprised when denial talking points get a hold.
Maybe we should start campaigning to get "climate denial crock of the week" on telly - those are *really* good.
I'd like to suggest a new game. Given that so many prominent 'skeptics' have gone beyond the reach of rational discourse I'd like to speculate on their fall back excuses when events prove them decisively wrong.
And so to the Top x reasons that The AGW Dog Ate my Homework
My bet (before the email hack) was some pious nonsense along the lines of 'Well we had no choice, the scientists had politicised the process so egregiously that we had no alternative.'
Marco: I think realclimate have this nailed - just change hockey-stick to climategate:
> The timeline for these mini-blogstorms is always similar. An unverified accusation of malfeasance is made based on nothing, and it is instantly âtelegraphedâ across the denial-o-sphere while being embellished along the way to apply to anything âhockey-stickâ shaped and any and all scientists, even those not even tangentially related. The usual suspects become hysterical with glee that finally the âhoaxâ has been revealed and congratulations are handed out all round. After a while it is clear that no scientific edifice has collapsed and the search goes on for the ârealâ problem which is no doubt just waiting to be found. Every so often the story pops up again because some columnist or blogger doesnât want to, or care to, do their homework. Net effect on lay people? Confusion. Net effect on science? Zip.
Swifthack seems to have much further reach than anything up to now, but I think we can expect just the same level of amnesia, with a touch of "the inquiry was part of the conspiracy."
That said, what's been so alarming is the media's willingness to parrot the whole thing. Greenfyre links to a video that makes a great point: do a web of science search for "trick" and it turns up in the *titles* of many articles, from many disciplines. If a 'trick' is underhand manipulation, it be somewhat counterproductive to advertise you were doing it in your article title... The film also points out that the "we can't account for the lack of warming" was actually a position taken by Trenberth in a published paper - which he actually cited and linked to in the email. Hardly hidden, then - it's been in the literature for anyone to check. Funny conspiracy. Just two small examples of how the media could / should have been doing just a little basic checking.
Dan our time lines are a little different. Our 'skeptic' friends are having the time of their life and I would never be so ungentlemanly to deprive them of the pleasure derived from self righteousness and would never be so naive to think that they might ever apologise for error while they think they have the scent of blood in their nostrils.
I was speculating about what is going to happen down the track when reality delivers the smack to the back of the head that reality has the habit of delivering... when (for our skeptics) AGW is not just a trend line but a manifest reality with all its noxious consequences, call it the Nuremburg moment. I was just following orders isn't really going to cut it so hence my top x reasons for why I was impervious to reason.
Paul UK:
The result was the emperor decided to step in to break the deadlock. I'm not sure what would have happened if the Japanese "big six" had voted 4-2 or more to keep the war going but luckily it was 3-3 and the emperor's vote was enough to decide against continuing the war. Maybe this means that the majority of the population usually have enough sense to make the right decision and we just have to be aware that a lot of people are often wrong and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
el gordo:
Sure. If you say so.
You don't discuss anything. You just put up bullshit assertions.
Marco: oh I see. Funnily enough I was speculating about that this morning elsewhere. Conclusion: there will *always* be several retreat routes via "the warming isn't caused by humans." One I'm working on currently so I can copyright it and sell it to Exxon:
> Increase in co2 is mostly due to de-vegetation, not direct co2 introduction from human use. De-vegetation has been happening for hundreds of years, reducing that carbon sink, and so leading to less co2 capture. This is ongoing. In fact, burning more fossil fuels will *help* because it's a fertiliser. That's what we need: plant more trees, burn more coal - the two together can solve climate change. So those millions of Bangladeshis claiming climate-related asylum can just stay where they are, thank you very much.
It's a perfect denier theory: it contains an element of the truth, allows the proponent to to stick to just one simple, comprehensible factor, rather than getting confused by several, and can be demonstrated through the use of lots and lots of graphs.
We had nine fat men ready for assembly and use, so I think you can imagine what would've happened.
"CRU is not the universe of climate research, but it is the star. These emails demonstrate one thing beyond all else: that climate science and global warming advocacy have become so entwined, so meshed into a mutant creature, that separating alarmism from investigation, ideology from science, agenda from empirical study, is well nigh impossible. Climategate is evidence that the science has gone to bed with advocacy, and both have had a very good time: - that the neutrality, openness, and absolute disinterest that is the hallmark of all honest scientific endeavour has been abandoned to an atmosphere and a dynamic not superior to the partisan caterwauls of a sub-average Question Period."
http://www.breitbart.tv/commentator-handling-of-climate-change-data-wou…
Betula: 1) via [Greenfyres](http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/crude-hack-why-cant-johnny-de…) -
> "Science doesnât work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, *because* scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Havenât any of these guys ever heard of âpeer reviewâ? Thereâs this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know itâs a myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some approximation of objectivity."
2) Scientists have never been absolutely disinterested - exactly the opposite, just as the quote above says. Bill Bryson does a brilliant job of pulling out the often bile-filled humans, going to insane lengths for scientific primacy in his "history of nearly everything."
3) So cease with the "absolute disinterest" meme. Scientists are scientific because if they weren't they'd get annihilated by other scientists. They may also do it because they're good people, but I think the first reason probably *made* them good people.
That's it Betula, you're getting the hang of it.
Very elegant Dan, I'm going to pinch it.
Damn cross post
elegant was refering to no 48
Wagdog :"They should be bugging the media nonstop, showing them the facts, explaining the science, the scientific process. If one does that this nonsense by the denial machine very quickly unravels." Now this is hopelessly naive. There are many psychological reasons why the simple denial message will always be more enticing to the media than the scientists' complex message of proxies, forcings, feedbacks, etc"
Thanks Wagdog, I fear that you are right. Just what the hell can we do then!? I am writing an editorial for a newspaper on AGW. How do I convince lay people that this is not a hoax without having their eyes glaze over when talking about radiative forcing et.?
If anyone has an idea, or some text to share, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.
Dan,
I checked out the Greenfyers link and was shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out Mike Kaulbars teaches political action and is an activist.
"Climate Change was one of the big reasons I left research to get involved in public education and activism. We already know more than we need, itâs long past time to act. I also teach political action."
I'm sure there's no bias in his classrooms.
Now, go back and read the the quote at #50
Betula: so, because Greenfyres says he's an activist, that means CRU can't be doing science? I'm confused. Also, the quote wasn't greenfyre's, it's [from here.](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=886)
Your posted quote is a nice syllogism: climate science is politically compromised because its no longer the utterly dispassionate pursuit of knowledge; the CRU emails are not utterly dispassionate; therefore the CRU is politically compromised. My point was: the first statement is wrong. Science *has never been* that Vulcan ideal. So the fact the CRU emails don't reflect that is a surprise to no-one.
There may be other ways of using the CRU emails to say the science is compromised, but the 'dispassionate' thing *really* isn't one of them.
@Betula,
Great quote, unfortunately also greatly based on poor reasoning skills or ignorance. The e-mails show surprisingly *little* political activism. There is hardly any mentioning of frustration over politicians not understanding the implications of climate change. Most of the frustration is aimed at the *science* being attacked.
15 MapleLeaf,
I think there must come a point when litigation is required. I don't think there's a law against lying or being delusional about science but most of the Denydiots have committed slander and/or libel many, many times.
Perhaps the investigation into the CRU hack will bring to a wider public the reason for the content of those "dodgy" emails, namely that they are a largely a reaction against the vexatious and harrowing behaviour of Climate Fraudit (58 FOI requests in 6 days!).
I see that James Delingpole haunt of the Daily Telegraph ran a piece by Gerald Warner that uses an infantile attempt at indicating that Mann is a fraud. Actionable surely?:
[Climategate: Michael 'Piltdown' Mann throws Phil Jones out of the sleigh as panic grows](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018788/climategate-mi…)
and it is because of the likes of these two that the recent spate of comments in a BBC Have your Say:
[Will the climate change e-mail claims affect Copenhagen?](http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7310&edition=1&ttl=…)
demonstrates that a majority of the commentators would not know the truth if they fell over it.
TrueSkeptic,
But, but ... Steve McIntyre has never used the F-word (even while implying as much).
Dan.
Why don't you tell me some of the "other ways of using the CRU emails to say the science is compromised".....that is, if you think the science is compromised.
Junior's been a naughty boy again. Just because he's third author in the dodgy Klotzbach et al paper now qualifies him to talk about climate sensitivity? Nice to see him make a doodoo over the science again.
An interesting event that happened after the nuclear bombs were dropped was that the Japanese tortured a captured airman who said there were 100 bombs ready because that's what the Japanese wanted to hear from him. They would have decided to kill him otherwise.
Betula: the only thing I've seen that I can imagine turning out to be anything at all relates to the FOI requests - so not actually related to the science directly. If anyone was stupid enough to actually delete emails they thought might fall under an FOI request, they'll be in trouble, I imagine. That doesn't really make sense to me, though. How could Phil Jones not know there'd be backup copies of emails somewhere, copies on other people's servers, etc? I don't know. But, yes, that's the only point where I think trouble may lie.
Has anyone got a link to what FOI requests were actually put in? I know there was an enormous number of them - did they actually include a request for emails? I'm presuming they did.
Dan Olner,
The following study pretty much puts co2science.org propaganda into perspective.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html
From what I can gather, the studies selectively cited by co2science generally indicate the MWP was anomalously warm compared to most of the last 1000 years in a particularl region but makes no comparison to the recent century or recent decades. A few studies indicate comparable warmth but they are confined to specific regions. The maps above provide the right perspective. Deniers tend to be binary thinkers who see what they want to see. An existence of a MWP must imply that global average temperature was as warmer or warmer than today.
dhogaza #49 - whats your source for 9 fat men ready to be assembled and used? Its a few years since I read a book or two on the topic but I don't recall the USA having much plutonium or uranium left for immediate use.
Since this is an open thread, I want to make the general point that a admire those (sod and others) who make an attempt to engage the nutty folks over at contrarian blogs. It's charity work that requires immense patience. How does one have effective dialogue with those with their heads buried in the sand. Lots of effort with little reward. Keep up the good work!
How do I convince lay people that this is not a hoax without having their eyes glaze over when talking about radiative forcing et.?
By using the same language and thinking style of the lay people -- what deniers already do so well.
Begin by highlighting where climategate has gotten a lot of traction -- on conspiracist websites where New World Order, Illuminati, Global Government, and 9/11 conspiracies are discussed with abandon and widely believed (Alex Jones, Prison Planet, etc). Quote a few comments from those websites to establish how paranoid they are.
Establish the pattern of denialism in the conspiracist theories and how the paranoia feeds on itself and breeds mistrust of outsiders. Then weave a narrative of science being this outsider. You have lots of examples to choose from: 9/11 truthers vs Popular Mechanics engineers, JFK conspiracy vs. audio and ballistic experts, etc.
Then describe how in the POV of the paranoid, actions of outsiders (and even their own family members) to help them often are mistrusted and interpreted as in the worst possible way. To the paranoid, other family members are seen as secretly colluding behind their back, when really they are trying to arrange for treatment without triggering a panic.
Your narrative should emphasise that climate scientists have the unenviable job of simultaneously aiming to help those who misunderstand the science, while also protecting third parties (i.e. ICPP, peer review, colleagues) from the damage caused by those who are acting out of paranoia. Hence the reason the scientists attempting to keep raw data out of the hands of those who have a long track record of not knowing how to deal with it (place lots of Deltoid linking here).
Emphasise this story arc: Scientist is "the outsider" trying to help. The paranoid misuse his data, and are in denial that there is a problem. Scientists discuss in private how to stop paranoid people from misinforming others with their misused data. Paranoid interpret this behind the back communication in the worst way possible. Make sure to cite the letters by climate scientists complaining of harassment by this self-sustaining paranoid delusional denial movement.
The lay people think in terms of personalities and their intentions. Make it very clear who is who, who is doing what, and their justification for doing so in terms they can relate to most easily.
Dan,
Fair enough.
On another note, regarding what you said at #56...."Also, the quote wasn't greenfyre's, it's from here."
You link me to a site where the author states the following about himself:
"He spent ten years getting a bunch of degrees in the ecophysiology of marine mammals (how's that for unbridled optimism), and another ten trying make a living on those qualifications without becoming a whore for special-interest groups. This proved somewhat tougher that it looked; throughout the nineties he was paid by the animal welfare movement to defend marine mammals; by the US fishing industry to sell them out; and by the Canadian government to ignore them. He eventually decided that since he was fictionalising science anyway, he might as well add some characters and plot and try selling to a wider market than the Journal of Theoretical Biology."
Dan.....the guy got out of the science field because of special interest groups that made him feel that he was forced to fictionalize science!
In addition, from the same article you quoted at #51 is this....
"Yes, there are mafias. There are those spared the kicking because they have connections. There are established cliques who decide what appears in Science, who gets to give a spoken presentation and who gets kicked down to the poster sessions with the kiddies."
Yes.... "established cliques who decide what appears in science"
I wonder what cliques those could be?
Another open thread topic...I just noticed UAH satellite data is showing November 2009 to be the warmest November on record, by far. Let's hack into John Christy and Roy Spencer's email account so we can see that they fabricated this result ahead of Copenhagen. I'm sure there is some email from the last 10 years lacking context that I can misrepresent...some case where they are manipulating raw data...
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
UAH is the favorite data product of contrarians strictly because it's managed by contrarians and shows the smallest warming trend. It's also the most error-prone corrected data product but that's not important to them.
CON
People are fairly ignorant about climate change, that's generally accepted, so if they remain in that state of mind when the election rolls around then it will be curtains for Rudd.
Can you imagine how confusing it must have been for the layman to see the Greens and conservatives blocking the CPRS?
When the conservatives recapture the treasury benches it's almost a certainty that 'global warming' will be off the political agenda and rarely discussed in the msm, but the battle will still rage on the blogosphere.
I like MarkB's comment that 'deniers tend to be binary thinkers who see what they want to see.' I'll pay that.
Betula: even if there were cliques, and those cliques attempted to manipulate their findings, the point is there are other cliques elsewhere who'd get ahead by showing that to be the case. Which is all good and fine. What's *not* fine is using stolen emails to try and build a case that cliquedom is bad.
Out of interest, do you think CRU are under pressure from special interest groups? Do you go along with Monckton's claim that the IPCC is "just another vested interest lobby group?" I'm presuming his implication is that the "vested interests" in question are governments.
I worry about the logical conclusion of what you appear to be saying - and apologies if I'm misrepresenting your view: if science really just comes down to special interests all pushing their own agendas, producing fictionalised results - then how in God's name do we actually *do science*, then? Are you saying it's impossible? If we think it's impossible, then what's left? Presumably whoever has the most money just buys the answer they want, and the PR firms to get the message to the people...?
Wagdog, thanks! I might not explore the conspiracy angle too much-- there are just too many examples. Anyhow, I'll certainly consider your feedback.
Paul UK,
Are you sure it was a hack? It's only 60 odd MB of data that is quite specific. Hackers would surely trawl for much more. You can't dismiss that this might be an inside job, prompted by ...what?
Paul UK,
BTW you didn't say anything about the fact that the IPCC process is essentially driven by politics and economics. If you believe it is just about the science then you are rather naive.
#60 Luminous Beauty
Sure maybe Steve McIntyre avoids the "F" word, but he has used the "C" word (Cherrypicking") extensively, which is tantamount to the same accusation. Last time I checked, 900+ CA threads contained references to cherrypicking or related references (e.g. cherry pie), well ahead of WUWT, which has only managed 700 or so so far. Clearly, Anthony Watts needs to step it up.
BTW, for a Canadian perspective on the SwiftHack/Climategate and how it ties into the fossil-fuel funded contrarian Friends of Science, I present my latest:
http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/02/in-the-beginning-friends-of-science-t…
Dave Andrews,
If it were an inside job they would have stepped forward by now. Either they were cc'd on each or every email, or they had to hack into the system to get at others' emails. There have also been attempts to hack into computers of climate scientists in Canada, the hacks even tried to pose as IT people. This all goes to show how truly desperate those in denial are.
Canada has become a bastion for those in denial, the folks at ClimateAudit brag how they are proficient with all things to do with computer hardware and software. No wonder rumor has it that folks at CA who may be responsible for this hack.
Someone mentioned litigation, let us hope that there will be many, very legitimate, law suites against those in the denial machine in coming years, it seem to be the only language that they do understand. Until now scientists have not had the will nor the means to undertake such litigation, but I suspect that is going to change in a hurry.
The politics in IPCC works both ways, just as someone involved how the Saudis manipulated the process.
Dan Olner:
>No: instead we get drowning puppies. If the government is treating people like complete idiots...
Erm, they are generally complete idiots. Whether trying to understand climate change or something else.
I came across an AGW denier last year that actually believed that a car could run off sea water in the future, because Jeremy Clarkson had said so on Top Gear.
If someone really has no clue about science or engineering, they are very easy to con.
Notice in my last comment I did 'a CRU'.
I guess climate change deniers around the world now will be taking that "they are very easy to con" bit out of context.
Deep Climate,
Maybe Ed Wegman could do a social network analysis of FOS.
Oops! I forgot. He's in the [network](http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/open_letter_to_un.html)!
When the CRU hack first surfaced I suspected Vlad Putin and his old friends were involved, but as Dave pointed out it was only 60 odd MB.
So it's probably an inside job, a whistle blower, with Tom Wigley and IT friend the chief suspects in opening a can of worms.
Re: #76
McIntyre's used a variety of words in his rhetorical arsenal. In the following post, after praising Ronald Reagan, he characterized James Hansen as a "jihadist". Nice fellow.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6912
El gordo, please apply some logic. If it was a whistle blower why did they not step forward? Also, they would have to have been cc'd on ALL those emails, unlikely. So the only other way for them to get the data was to hack into main frames.
Were those also "whistle blowers" posing at IT people in Canada? Or whistle blowers who hacked into the RC server to try and uploaded the files?
Dan.
You asked..."if science really just comes down to special interests all pushing their own agendas, producing fictionalised results - then how in God's name do we actually do science, then? Are you saying it's impossible?"
First, I wasn't the one saying science is fictionalized, it was Peter Watts quoted in the link you sent me.
To answer your question, I would say no, but perhaps you should ask Peter Watts that question.
You can't lump climate change science with all science or all scientists. And the fact of the matter is, not all the people making climate change decisions are scientists.
I have multiple problems with the climate change issue which go way beyond the emails.... too many to rehash now. Besides, on this site it wouldn't make a difference anyway.
The ball's in Vlad's court, but what's their motive? Is MI5 involved or was it just a cheap shot by the Ruskies?
Let me make one thing clear, this was not the work of the Denialati.
Re: #80
Wegman's "social network" claims are pretty funny, considering that he was hand-selected by Rep. Barton to prepare a report critical of an early multi-proxy reconstruction (as opposed to doing an objective analysis) - a report peer-reviewed only by individuals Wegman selected. Not suprised he's signed denier statements on climate change.
El del culo grande,
Seeing how Tom Wigley was Phil Jones predecessor as director of UEA-CRU and the lead researcher in compiling and processing the HADCRU data, I doubt it.
>Let me make one thing clear, this was not the work of the Denialati.
Seeing how the hacker tried to break into Real Climate's site and dump his purloined stash there, and then left a comment at ClimateFraudit with a link to the failed dump at RC, how can you be so certain?
>Let me make one thing clear, this was not the work of the Denialati.
Bull poop.
Ever since Copenhagen has got nearer, the interweb has been far more active on all fronts, even before the CRU hack.
You're full of bull.
>*You can't lump climate change science with all science or all scientists. And the fact of the matter is, not all the people making climate change decisions are scientists.*
The difference is the [power and resources](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/on_those_stolen_cru_emails.php#…) of the people [attacking climate sciences](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php#comment-2…).
With the accession of Tony Abbott to the throne, the denialists are going to have an increasingly hard time selling their line that belief in the science of climate change somehow constitutes a type of religion. In fact, the smarter ones will drop it altogether.
Janet Akerman: interesting link to the public/private issue. In the UK, as many areas of previously public activity became privatised, they fell under 'commercial confidentiality' agreements. These still hold for FOI requests - if the CRU had been a private organisation, those requests would have been much more problematic. I'm unclear if they could have succeeded; it's probably still a grey area being worked out in the courts. But I know the commercial confidentiality defence has worked in the past.
It's curious: many AGW attackers are libertarian. I wonder what libertarian science looks like? Someone is paying for it to be done, and there's, at best, a minimal state. So how do libertarians get access to data in their ideal world? Presumably you have to - at the very least - pay for it. At worst, it's privately owned, and the owner doesn't want to give it you.
el gordo:
As I said, you don't discuss anything. You just put up bullshit assertions.
If the IPCC process is essentially driven by politics and economics, how come it still exists and still produces reports which large economic and political interests try to discredit?
Oh, I see. Science is actually a political and economic process. Good thing nobody has told the scientists working on new materials or medicines or extrasolar planets.
Dan asks:
>*It's curious: many AGW attackers are libertarian. I wonder what libertarian science looks like? *
It might look a bit like extreme right libertarian democracy, should I say [plutocracy](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/on_those_stolen_cru_emails.php#…).
60 luminous,
Yes. McIntyre should never be underestimated. He never makes explicit accusations; he just puts up an article on his blog full of vague accusations, any one of which he can deny if it came to it, and lets his disciples make all the accusations. He's not an obvious lying idiot like Watts, Marohasy, etc: he censors his blog to exclude the extreme nutters.
Isn't it strange that McIntyre, a non-scientist, is more plausible than the "skeptical" "scientists" such as Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Ball, and Spencer?
The only possible way that you could know that is if you are stupid. (Using the word know loosely.)
BTW, if it is a whistleblower, why haven't they bothered to release anything worthwhile? Or do you think they realized they had nothing and then thought, "Oh what the hell"? I mean, if you're going to steal a bunch of stuff for the sake of exposing some kind of wrongdoing, you may as well go for the exposure part even if there's no wrongdoing. Right?
Craig@1 said:
So what do you think folks? Are we better off with the Australia's CPRS failing to be passed by the parliament, given that it was far less than necessary (as the Greens argued), or would it have been better to have had it pass?
They said it was locking in failure, and they were right, so yes. No reductions until 2033 and then only if CC&S works?
Doing nothing was superior, in that at least it would have been an honest admission that we weren't that bothered and the argument for doing something was still to be won.
Good points MapleLeaf at #15. Seems some of my 'favorite' Scientists are finally getting the 'peer review' that they deserve. Some deserve more than 'peer review' though !
What was I saying here a little while ago about Science not deferring to or needing 'Authority'.
Well done my 'warmist frineds' ! :-)
Re 27.
Art Horn argues..
"In fact the creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters"
and then goes on to argue that the models show a tropical hotspot and this falsifies the models.
But this doesn't make sense. If corrupt scientists can make the models say anything, then why have they put something into models that falsifies their "agenda"?
The only thing I can think of to resolve this contradiction is the all too real possibility that Art Horn is full of s***
On CO2science, I quoted this elsewhere:
>> Re the CO2 site. I seem to have inadvertently
>> stirred up a hornets nest on this one, apologies
>> for previous flip posts but my âspin meterâ
>> on this particular topic is acutely
>> sensitivity.
>>
>> The post on the CO2 site is âhigh classâ spin,
>> where factual info is presented without obvious
>> errors and the motives of scientists arenât
>> attacked (this is in contrast to low class
>> spin).
>> â¦
>> When i said i could refute the CO2 site, i was
>> specifically referring to their faulty reasoning,
>> not the data or anything else.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=803#comment-45521
The exchange began earlier in the thread:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=803#comment-45473
ââ
Also check Sourcewatch, of course.
silkworm #91
You are correct on that score and Abbott will tell the coalition members to drop any talk of religion.
At this early stage the opposition is already disciplined and united, as evidenced by the comments of the by-election victors.
In this morning's SMH, Stephanie Peatling said 'Mr Fletcher and Ms O'Dwyer had both spent weeks trying to convince voters they were supportive of strong action on climate change.'
If true, then they are being disingenuous. Growing more trees or talking up the nuclear option is a stalling tactic which should, nevertheless, produce the desired political outcome.
My apologies to CON for making such wild and unsupported assertions.
Given that Abbott thinks that there should be a debate on nuclear power, he should be invited to kick it off by specifying which coal plants he thinks should close to make space in the market for nuclear plants.
After all, without a carbon tax or an ETS the only way nuclear power can come about is through regulatory imposition.
He (and Barnaby Joyce) should then be challenged to specify whether he intends to subsidise the cost of these plants or allow the operators to impose the extra costs directly on users.
Sorry, slight tangent: was just poking around at climateaudit - this chap appears to be a moderator:
http://jonjayray.110mb.com/graug07.html
He doesn't seem very moderate! Who else moderates climateaudit, anyone know? I got the above via the climateaudit@gmail.com email.
el gordo:
Just another bullshit assertion.
http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/06/the-times-climate-e-mail-hackers-aime…
TimesOnline has reported that investigators of the CRU email theft (dubbed SwiftHack or Climategate) have concluded that the release of the stolen material was timed to cause maximum damage to the upcoming Copenhagen conference. The system had been hacked weeks before.
This development, along with new reports of sabotage at the University of Victoria, should finally lay to rest the baseless rumour that the CRU hacked file was assembled at CRU and released by an inside whistleblower, a canard that it turns out was started by - wait for it - none other than Steve McIntyre himself!
Plus: Andrew Bolt fingers Tom Wigley as the whistleblower.
http://deepclimate.org
Fran Barlow
It's a stalling tactic, they have no plans to reduce CO2. They are quite happy to debate the nuclear option, but political reality will see Abbott run on a platform to upgrade our coal fired power stations.
Oh, this video response to SwiftHack is nice.
>TimesOnline has reported that investigators of the CRU email theft (dubbed SwiftHack or Climategate) have concluded that the release of the stolen material was timed to cause maximum damage to the upcoming Copenhagen conference. The system had been hacked weeks before.
The whole thing has the signature of a politically motivated attack. I think it is probably linked to the national 'security' (or rather political and economic security) of a nation or nations.
It's an intelligence operation, propaganda, espionage, whatever you like to call it.
100 cthulhu,
In any case, the "tropical hotspot" is a signature of warming from any source, not just the "greenhouse" effect of increasing CO2.
110: sure, although if the hotspot isn't there it would falsify all number of theory and models, as far as I gather.
If ti isnt there, it would falsify nearly everything we know about weather models as well, and much of what we know of basic physics. The TropTrop hotspot is a prediction from the moist adiabat.
The measured temperature data are very noisy, ahve calibration problems and when one looks at the error, they are not inconsistent with predicted warming - because the data is so bad that the error bars are huge.
Alternate measurement - such as wind as a proxy for energy, the error bars are somewhat narrower, and the proxy-derived temps re fully consistent with the TropTrop predictions.
It fascinates me how these guys trumpet every piece of work where our knowledge is still somewhat unsure, or the data isn't strong, as long as it confirms their suppositions...
I heard Tumble on the radio this morning kicking the Coalition. See, he is Labor Lite and it's a bloody good thing they got rid of him
cthulhu:
Clausius-clapeyron equation, etc.
113 el gordo: "I heard Tumble on the radio this morning kicking the Coalition."
With good reason. To quote Turnbull, "Any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, bullshit. Moreover, he knows it."
"See, he is Labor Lite and it's a bloody good thing they got rid of him"
Elect in haste, repent at leisure perhaps?
MapleLeaf - given the seriousness of the issue I think it's essential that scientists make the effort to correct the mainstream media. Even corrections without resort to detailed explanations are better than silence. Superior communication skills help but surely scientists can write that something is wrong.
A "Big new tax" that's poorly explained, weakened by concessions Labor probably wants but wants to blame the Liberals for, plus judicious pushing of people's buttons playing on the short term costs and simply failing to mention the long term ones can give us seriously bad long temm policy.
I'd like to think that any government in power takes the scientific advice it gets seriously but examples otherwise abound; NSW Minister Tony Burke making it very clear (at the Press Club) that coal remains the future energy source of choice, Federal funding of obviously sure to be uneconomical Carbon Capture and Storage over other R&D options to ensure coal is the future energy source of choice, failure to seriously consider nuclear, especially new gen types that burn existing nuclear waste and don't need uranium mines, etc. Not cause for optimism.
Re #116.
I have no qualms about the next generation nuclear reactors. The problems are:
1. Generation 4 reactors are still at the theoretical stage and are unlikely to reach commercial production before 2030 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor). We need to start making massive inroads on reducing emissions before this;
2. They require massive public financing. As an ex-financier in a merchant bank, no-one will touch them in the private sector. They encounter huge public resistance, construction budgets and timelines tend to blow out excessively and you wouldn't be able to defray the risk by getting other merchant banks involved. There are lots of other issues - legal, insurance, security (no bank will want a nuclear reactor as collateral), government guarantees etc.; and
3. Economics. You would need to get adequate demand for the reactor's power to make it viable. In Australia, we have so much cheap coal and such a small population base, that you are never going to make it viable in a pure supply/demand sense. It will always be cheaper here to derive our energy from coal or natural gas. Even with a carbon price at $100/tonne, all you are going to do is create incentives for CCS, emission reductions from the upgrade of existing coal fired and natural gas assets and through new technology, as well as alternatives such as wind, solar, geothermal, tidal etc.
It's sad to say, but our current political model doesn't cater for long term policy planning (well, beyond current electoral timeframes). As you say, not cause for optimism.
China has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 40% in 10 years if the West pay for it. Sounds like an offer too good to refuse.
You're glossing-over the risk, low-level waste emission into the environment and the lack of facilities for dealing with the high-level waste.
I, for one, am outraged by the nuclear industry's expectation that it should be allowed to regularly vent radioactive Krypton into the atmosphere and release radioactive deuterium into the water based on the assumption that dispertion gives high dilution and therefore a low probability that anybody would ingest particles of either radioactive material before they decay.
They're rolling dice with *my* health. Fuckers.
As for the risk - if they can get an insurance company to set a premium and then for the nuclear industry to fund the premium entirely without government subsidy, I won't just eat my own hat, I will visit a hattery and eat every hat they make from now until the end of time. The nuclear industry is economically complete bullshit.
Proposed Gen4 reactors with a coolant consisting of liquid sodium AND NO CONTAINMENT BUILDING (they're too safe to need one)????
Makes Chernobyl's graphite core seem like a great idea. Nutters.
Have the Aussies not heard of Syngas?! Maybe they have-- this could really help reduce the carbon (and pollution) footprint of coal-fired power plants .
Well, at least some people are trying to counter the giant rupture in the denial sphere's sewer pipeline:
This is highly highly recommended watching, forward widely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg
The creator "crock of the week" has several weeks' worth of denier crocks to work with now.
Pity those in denial are literally foaming at the mouth with glee (see above YouTube video) are going to be sad to know that "ClimateGate" is not going to be remembered for the response they hoped it would. They have over played their hand here and it is going to backfire in the long run.
Errr, so when is McIntyre going to audit the hopeless Co2"science" MWP fiasco, and exposing it for the true farce that it is for everyone to see. Hope he lets shouts his findings from the very highest pulpit.
Yes, I happen to have a few minute sot spare, hence the rash of posts.
el gordo:
Absolutely. He can now help keep the Liberal Party out of government.
Vince Whirlwind:
Deuterium is not radioactive.
CON
From a mid-term position it looks impossible for the conservatives to get up. It depends very much on climate policy.
Abbott will have to come out punching, 'global warming is a crock and this is why'. Any other strategy will see them lose, leaving Mr Labor Lite to regain the helm with 'I told you so'.
Our cousins across the gap passed their ETS and the Bolter picked up 2 million page impressions last month, with a particularly sharp spike after the CRU email hack hit the blogosphere.
El Gordo:
Well, maybe not, Blimpster.
Most people (as opposed to your average blogging denialist bonehead) realise they don't know enough to make a judgement so they are willing to defer to the scientists who've done the research. That's why the flat-earthers are so keen to attack the real scientists and propose various fringe-dwellers as alternatives.
But is it working?
Why don't we look at how the by-elections in Australia went on Saturday?
Hmm, [let's see](http://vtr.aec.gov.au/).
Now, you'd normally expected the usual mid-term backlash against the government, right?
Especially with Mr Abbott's fancy new policy of a tax-free remedy for the greenhouse gas emissions Cardinal Fang told him weren't really having any effect on the climate. (Can't wait to see the details of that one.)
The ALP didn't even field candidates in either seat, so you'd expect maybe the Liberals would pick up at least *some* of the ALP vote, even if there was no backlash, right? I mean, some ALP voters would *surely* choose the Liberals over the Greens. Well, it did seem plausible before Saturday.
So what happened?
In Bradfield, the heart of Sydney's well-heeled North Shore, the Liberal Party's primary vote *fell* by 3.4%.
In Higgins, prime conservative country in Melbourne, the mid-term backlash and the absence of the ALP, not to mention the clear alternative of a party determined to keep its head in the sand re climate change, gave the Liberals - wait for it - a paltry increase of *0.8%* in their primary vote!
It's like Ali got caught up in the traffic and missed the fight but Foreman still only just lasted the distance.
I've written an analysis of the whole "hide the decline" hoopla, and I explain that this is a known "trick" in epidemiology.
el gordo:
There is only a small error in el gordo's second sentence. I'll fix it here:
Any strategy will see them lose, leaving Mr Labor Lite to regain the helm with 'I told you so'.
OUCH!
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/06/copenhagen-carbon-load-1200-limos…
OUCH!
Another hard hitting scientific rebuttal by denialists. Must everything be about the science for you guys? Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up politics.
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
Actually, to be fair, I've heard the occasional non-governmental solution proposed, but by and large the shouts are for more government, more regulation, etc... etc...
I don't remember having ever posted regarding solutions. I think that's the difference between denialists and rational people - denialists like you are so frightened of possible political consequences that you deny science, while rational people like me focus on whether or not the science is true.
Nanny, I'd like you to address our [previous discussion](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/on_those_stolen_cru_emails.php#…) that you disappeared from.
You are spouting the same lines we were discussing before, but now I think you should back them up.
Just once I'd like to see an economic libertarian explain how this problem, which is THE classic case of market failure, can have any other solution but one administered by a government.
Come on, NGS, how can the market fix this problem?
And what non-government solution have you heard about - or are you just making stuff up?
Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming.
Love it -- "problem." You think the solution is drastic now? Libertarianism is the idiot who steps on a rusty nail then avoids medical attention until it's time to amputate the leg.
nanny @ 131,
Are you incapable of doing your own research? Although you've phrased your question in a typically trollish way, here's some answers for you:
1) [Tokyo Tom](http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/03/a-libertar…) has been advocating an austrian/libertarian approach to environmental problems for years, and provides a whole list of links to others of a similar mindset.
2) [James Murdoch](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/03/AR20091…), ubercapitalist, recently wrote this article, "Clean Energy Conservatives Can Embrace". Given that News Ltd is a major pusher of denial in the MSM, this is setting a large cat among the pigeons.
That's your conservative intellectual and conservative businessman answers, right there.
Here are some additional Australia-specific solutions (I am not necessarily endorsing all of them, just giving them as plausible examples):
1) Stop subsidising aluminium smelting with below-cost electricity.
2) Stop offering special tax breaks to big miners to invest in coal and oil extraction.
3) Implement a consistent [Geoist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoist) tax program on land and natural resource use, and roll back or abolish most business operation and transfer taxes accordingly in a revenue neutral manner.
3.5) Once a rational resource royalty scheme is in place, stop restricting uranium mining.
4) Stop regulating water prices beyond a basic living level per head. Let the market set water at its scarcity price and transfer water from country to city if that's where the profits are. The farm sector will rapidly die, but that's going to happen sooner or later anyway.
5) Make drought assistance favour the good land managers not the reverse, by making availability conditional on participating in land care and other greenhouse-adaptive land management practises.
6) Establish private property rights over fisheries and reefs, including the ability to sue upstream polluters for damaging the asset by fertiliser runoff and CO2 emissions.
7) Fund a crash research program to genetically engineer cow's stomach bacteria (which emit methane) to be more like kangaroo stomach bacteria (which don't).
8) Reconsider the proposal to establish a long term secure radioactive waste repository in a secure-crust portion of remote Australia. Do it properly as the Swedes do this time, not a few guys with a backhoe as the original proposal called for.
I've left off nuclear power in Australia because [Barry Brook](http://www.bravenewclimate.com) makes a much better case than I could here in a few lines, and also because although I am not in principle opposed to it, I believe that our geographic circumstances (lots of sun, wind, waves and hot rocks) mean that we would do better with renewables and exporting our uranium to those without renewables than using it ourselves.
Now, run along to Catallaxy and start advocating for all these policies, please.
...and all the while complaining that regulation to stop people from leaving rusty nails sticking up in public places is communism.
On the other hand, climate change denial idiots say:
(a) there is no evidence of rusty nails sticking up
(b) OK, the evidence is there, but fudged by socialist academics wanting research grants. You can't trust the rusty nail data. There were more rusty nails in the medieval rusty nail period!
(c) OK, the evidence does show there are rusty nails sticking up, but they've always been sticking up and always will, and how arrogant are we to claim we mere humans can change this?
(d) OK, there is evidence that humans are causing rusty nails to stick up more than ever, but iron is an important mineral in the human diet - it's not poison, it's essential for life! Trading on rusty nails makes us healthy!
(e) Oh all right, rusty nails are sticking up, humans put them there and they are injuring people, but it's too expensive to do anything about it because it would wreck the economy and push us back to the stone age. Not to mention the new Socialist World Order and the Great Big New Tax. Better to treat the wounds and infections as they occur.
(f) its too late hundreds of millions are dying of septisimia.
(g) Its still the government's fault, our Libertiariansim isn't real Libertarianism. We needed even less intervention to have avoided this problem.
(h) Comming my Lord, I am pleased to be at your beck and call, as your humble serf.
James Hansen says we should [Sack Goldman Sachs' Cap and Trade](http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091207_SackGoldmanSachs.p…).
Did Watts ever finish his audit of the weather station data, including only the good stations, so he could "hide the incline?"
Jimmy@117, I just think the scale of the climate problem is going to overwhelm resistance to nuclear. I know my own long time resistance has crumbled in the face of climate change. I don't have deep seated or idealogical fears of the technology; too many countries have been using nuclear for a long time with a good safety record. That's not to say there aren't risks and downsides but unless some seriously low cost solutions to storage and global distribution come along it's going to be a key technology. New gen, particularly IFR that can run on existing nuclear waste looks necessary on the global scale even if Australia can get by without it. No question renewables should be being implemented as fast and as far as possible but our energy sector is downright hostile to giving up coal.
I'm not convinced Abbot's pro-nuclear noises are more than something to please the mining industry and I doubt he would support any nuclear option that could make uranium mines superfluous but a future opposition, that really takes climate change seriously, could find nuclear less vote-losing the longer Australia continues to put off weaning itself from coal.
[James Hansen](http://www.newsweek.com/id/225529)
*I am sorry to say that most of what politicians are doing on the climate front is greenwashingâtheir proposals sound good, but they are deceiving you and themselves at the same time [...]*
*As in other struggles for justice against powerful forces, it may be necessary to take to the streets to draw attention to injustice. Civil resistance may be our best hope. It is crucial for all of us, especially young people, to get involved. This will be the most urgent fight of our lives.*
Janet, good points. Hansen is right, again.
Gaz re #137, brilliant. Thanks for that!
And Krugman says we shouldn't and attacks Hansens' arguments cogently. Hansen has done valuable scientific work but I am going to prefer Krugman to Hansen on this matter at least.
Gaz, I'm with Maple, it was inspired.
I believe that Krugman has got this wrong. Take this for example:
>*emitting requires that you buy more permits (or forgo the sale of permits, if you have an excess), so the incentives are the same as if you faced a tax*
So Krugman reckons the incentives are the same if we say that Hansen's model has permits and offsets, which it doesn't.
Hansenâs tax also overcomes the biggest problem ETS, a problem Krugman fails to mention. Complexity. Complexity makes transparency hard.
The Wizards of Money. How many people know how banks make money? What fraction understand what an offset is? And who audits them? Who audited securitized-debt-obligations and called them AAA?
Hansenâs model involves a tax on carbon a point high up the carbon chain- the most simple option, then equal dividend to compensate people for higher costs. You can pocket your dividend or offset higher fuel costs.
Krugman also cites USA cap and trade on SO2 a success achieving 50% cuts in the 27 years to 2010. But compare that with the [Germany route]( http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/pacific3.html#_ednref6) of direct regulation, cutting 90% by 1998.
Krugman reckons and ETS is more politically possible than a tax, but the politically possible ETS is one that [wonât work]( http://www.aei.org/outlook/26286). An ETS without the giveaways is no more likely than a simple tax.
I'm surprised so few people agree with this point, which seems pretty obvious to me.
Imagine what a carbon tax would have looked like after the kind of negotiations the CPRS was subjected to. (And how happy would Tony Abbott be if the ALP really did try to impose a Great Big New Tax instead of the CPRS that Abbott dishonestly calls a Great Big New Tax?)
How much an ETS reduces emissions is determined by how many permits are made available, either given away or sold, or allowed to be bought from other countries.
Krugman's comments about Hansen's criticism of of the sulfur dioxide cap really sum it up beautifully:
This point can't be emphasised enough. *Only under a cap and trade or direct regulation (ie cap and NO trade) does the government get to decide exactly how much is emitted.*
How much a tax reduces emissions depends on how people respond to price changes, a big unknown. I mean a *really big unknown*.
If anyone thinks estimating climate sensitiviy to CO2e is an uncertain process, how about economists estimating the long-term price elasticity of demand for carbon-emissions?
Consider this: The price of petrol in Australia has risen by nearly 50% compared with the CPI since before the first oil shock, which had a big part in buggering up the world economy in the 70s, but 4WDs are more popular than ever.
I mean, a tax will work, but the amount of pain involved might turn out to be a heck of a lot more than expected.
And what if a tax is imposed an all that happens is emitters pass the costs on and people cut back other stuff instead?
10 years later emissions are up instead of down and the world is just a bit more screwed than it already was.
>This point can't be emphasised enough. Only under a cap and trade or direct regulation (ie cap and NO trade) does the government get to decide exactly how much is emitted.
Unfortunately offsets [wreck this hopeful equation](http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/06/kyotos-gre…). E.g. the notorious HFC-23 production plants that started up to cash in on the offsets available for cleaning up their pollution.
Another spanner remains the complexity. Complexity means rorting, and rorting means higher cost, lower abatement and shrinking public support.
>And what if a tax is imposed an all that happens is emitters pass the costs on and people cut back other stuff instead?
When a tax is imposed my 100% wind power will be as cheap or cheaper then dirty coal, so people will have massive incentive to shift their behaviur. They will be rewarded (to some extent- or at least less penalised) for making decision consistent with global interest.
The rate of return on solar hot water makes it even more cost saving, as with insulation and public transport, buying local produce etc.
Price will re orientate the market. People will adjust.
Undoubtedly, my point is that the price adjustment needed to cause that change in behaviour is unknown and could be quite a bit higher than we might think - hence my example of the popularity (greater than ever) of 4WD gas-guzzlers despite much higher auto fuel prices.
This is not just a problem for a carbon tax - people like Garnaut poroposing cap'n'trade acknowledge it in their suggestion for extra help (ie using some permit auction money) for alternative energy producers to overcome barriers to entry to the energy market.
I might also mention that there is nothing inherent in the idea of a carbon tax that would preclude offsets. In that regard it is no less vulnerable to evasion than a cap'n'trade.
The carbon tax is only simple because we really haven't tried to implement it yet, just like the cap'n'trade used to be simple.
As I said, imagine what a carbon tax would have looked like after the concessions needed to get the Lib/Nat coalition to vote it through the Senate.
Whatever system is used there will be complexities and loopholes. The trick (if I can used that word!) is to prevent that from scuttling the whole system.
Just one other point, I'm not sure that your implicit assumption, that cost differences caused by a carbon tax would be reflected in retail price differences, is entirely justified.
In other words, the rate of switching between technologies will be limited by the extent to which clean energy providers are prepared to undercut high-carbon energy providers, as opposed to raking in the cash for short term gain.
I mean, if you could supply clean energy at $10 per unit and make a dollar profit when the coal people are charging $20, why not charge $19 per unit and make $10 profit? Sure, that will slow the rate of swtiching to clean energy, but heck, you'd be making 900% more profit. What are you going to tell the shareholders?
I tihnk the argument that the either a tax or a cap'n'trade will generate switching behaviour makes more sense from the point of view of the firm - investors will gravitate to the technology that gives them most profit and they're not going to hand that profit over to you and me because they're nice guys.
In short - the switching will happen because it will be relatively cheaper to produce low carbon energy but not necessarily because it will be significantly cheaper for consumers to buy it.
If we're discussing the politics of it Janet, wedging the other side is a key policy tool. Once people have an interest in protecting their asset -- in this case emissions certificates, unanimity on what to do about the system amongst business groups will be impossible. Anyone holding them will take a dim view on free-riders and want the cap to fall to just above where they are likely to be at any given point.
"Just once I'd like to see someone in your ranks bring up non-government (i.e.: non-political) solutions to the "problem" with Global Warming."
Sure, right after you give an example of internalizing an externality without government intervention.
Gaz, the above post is rich with valuable points. All should be reflected on.
I'll draw out just one point though that still makes me uneasy: Indeed a tax can be made complex. However it need not involve carbon trading.
If we are to value simplicity as our best hope for robustness, and genuine abatement, our options for simplicity are greatest with a tax.
What examples of other trading schemes exist?
The Australian has fired another salvo in its War on Science
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/climate-claims-fail-scienc…
And Plimer tells more lies
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6566793/it-s-freezing-in-…
I don't think Perth has recorded a temp below 0 this year. Or pherpas for many years... Or maybe ever.
Oh look
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_009034_All.shtml
Lowest ever recorded temp is 1.2C
Good job I wasn't drinking my tea at the time pough!
Thanks for the tip Nathan.
BTW you can preserve your URL from "mark up" changes by enclsing your URL in angled brackets <>.
I got it slightly wrong Janet
we did record a -0.7 in June 2006, and the Perth airport site records a negative temp in winter every 4 or 5 years... But not this year. Coldest day at the airport (which is colder than the Metor station in Mount Lawley) this year was August 29 with 0.9C.
Plimer is a liar.
Janet Akerman asked:
The text at this link covers SO2 and Nox
I also read the article on Plimert's visit to Copenhagen.
To put this into some perspective, the table here shows that for November, Perth's longterm average maximum is 26.2 deg. This one has been 26.5 degrees, so warmer than the average by 0.3 degrees. The lowest average was in 1971,at 21.5 -- i.e during the mid-century aerosol-induced dimming. The lowest minimum average was even earlier, in 1954 at 11.9 degrees (again during the global plateau.
Average minimum for November 2009 was 13.8 -- admittedly lower than the longterm average but scarcely freezing.
The idea that Plimer can describe successively warming decades as "a swallow" is laughable. That he describes the true forcing element in his political campaign, that being to to stop the world engaging in the âglobal collective madnessâ of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by clamping down on economic development while speaking to the global filth merchants, is at least candid.
I love this bit especially:
Shorter? Aliens kidnapped our climate.
Ugh. Take a moment to review the history, Janet. Cap and trade was a huge success for reducing SOx emissions. When's the last time you heard anybody (in the US, at least) complain about acid rain?
Environmentalists had all sorts of qualms about cap and trade before that was implemented, but it worked. Of course, it'll be more difficult with CO2, but that'll be true no matter what approach you take.
I think the Bush admin wanted to try it for mercury as well, but the courts rejected some aspect of the plan.
or looking again, Janet already mentioned the SOx program. So I guess the 'other' in 153 is excluding SOx. Apologies.
I do agree with most of Gaz's points - well made, Gaz.
Janet,
We had a similar discussion back in February (with me making the case for Tax and Rebate and Gaz making the very unconvincing case for Cap and Trade).
Also on this subject see Williams & Zabel: video and website.
Krugman's position and level of argumentation on this subject (see, for example, here: "there's a faint echo [...]") demonstrates the sorry state of mainstream economics and punditry: even Krugman, who is truly much better than the average mainstream economist and pundit is still just peddling the conventional wisdom.
Ken @141 - Your impression that "many countries have been using nuclear for a long time with a good safety record" is the product of the very strenuous efforts made by the nuclear industry to misinform you.
Born of military research, the nuclear industry is absolutely wedded to secrecy and deception.
Major accidents occur almost every year, somewhere in the world. But small-scale accidental release of dangerous material into the environment is a daily occurrence - we have waste storage sites which constantly leak into aquifers, the open-air mess created by the mining and processing of Uranium, and the regular accidents at reactor sites all over the world.
Here's a typical example that happened in July last year in France:
"About 30 cubic metres of stored decontamination solution containing 12 grams of uranium per litre escaped. "
Lovely.
My calculator tells me that adds up to 360kg of an extremely toxic heavy metal straight into the local water supply.
Of course the nuke-PR-lies machine fired up and gave us:
"The majority of samples showed uranium levels were below the WHO guideline for drinking water, the company said, with the highest sample reaching 31.2 micrograms per litre. "Water samples from the aquifer show no abnormality," Areva concluded.
Well, Areva *would* say that - they owned the missing uranium...
From Wikipedia:
"In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."[1] Despite copious quantities of waste, the DOE has stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.[1] The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards."[1] The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres."
That's why the nuke industry only exists by virtue of the government underwriting all that risk - the free market would never touch nuclear with a bargepole and we as taxpayers should show the same commonsense that the banks and insurance companies do with respect to the economically unsound nuclear industry.
You mean trading of rights to emit something bad?
Well the EU has one, though there's no reason we can't learn from their mistakes.
There's sulfur dioxide trading in the US and China's in the process of doing that too I think.
It can be done but I don't want to gloss over the technical issues.
More generally, trading in rights to limited resources is not new, eg right to occupy land, use water, catch fish etc.
There are well developed markets for a whole bunch of things, like freight futures.
Sure you have issues with offsets and freebies and international trade is permits, etc.
Still I'm still not convinced there's any reason to expect a carbon tax to end up being any more simple than a cap'n'trade, at least not to the extent that it would be worth chucking aout the progress that's been made and starting from scratch. I suspect that would be seen by the flat-Earthers as a major victory , and for good reason.
Example - international coordination.
Do you have the same tax rate in US dollars across countries, or do you set a different dollar rate for each country? How do you then cope with the problem of production shifting to low-tax countries? What happenes when the yuan rises, making the tax lower in yuan terms? Or do you set it in local currencies, meaning when the yuan rises the Chinese are paying more than Americans and when it falls they pay less?
What about countires with no carbon tax? Do you slap a carbon tax on imports? How do you decide what that rate should be? What if its a fridge with a motor made in a carbon tax country and a chassis in a no tax countries? And where to the point come from? And the oil the plastic was made from?
Not easy questions.
Got an example of a tax that's worked, by the way Akers?
Gaz 165: "What about countires with no carbon tax? Do you slap a carbon tax on imports? How do you decide what that rate should be?"
Congress is very tempted to enact this exact thing in cap-and-trade. I'm not sure how they'd price the penalty. So this is a potential issue, regardless of whether you use a tax or cap/trade.
Gaz,
You must remember that we had this discussion before. Back then, I pointed out that due to the inelasticity of the demand for energy the C&T scheme would introduce high volatility to the energy market - volatility that would serve no one except Wall Street firms that would no doubt sell "insurance" against the volatility, that would be similar to the "insurance products" they sold during the housing bubble. Neither you nor Krugman address those issues.
As for the acid rain experience, see the informed opinion of Williams and Zabel on this matter: Carbon Fees.
Who the heck cares if Wall St sells some interesting derivatives related to carbon prices, to help companies hedge?
Let them do it. It doesn't matter.
What matters is that there's a cap. If you set the cap in the right place, and don't allow too many exemptions, you'll get the emissions reduction you want. The market sets the carbon price for you; you don't have to guess what it needs to be. Further, the flexibility from trading will allow emissions cuts to be made in the most cost-efficient way. Not all emissions cuts are equally easy to enact; cap/trade recognises this.
A carbon tax does none of these things.
In #165 I meant "And where *did* the *paint* come from?
Sortition - I agree that price volatility could be a problem. No issue there, I think I've said that before, though there are solutions to that.
(By the way, are you aware of any estimates of the likely permit price volatility, and also whether it would be correlated positvely or negatively with the underlying energy commodities - I'd be very interested. I don't know whether this has gone beyond speculative theorising. Maybe you could give me a pointer if you know of any empirical work.)
On the other hand I'm not inclined to discount C&T just on the basis that some evil yuppies will make money trading permits.
Firms in many industries (eg the oil industry, agriculture) use derivatives to hedge their exposures to volatile prices. That's part and parcel of how markets work. The markets have to be regulated, otherwise thay can go haywire, but there's no point throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I think the assumption that things will *inevitably* end up like the sub-prime loans market is a bit of a stretch, frankly.
Also, Willams and Zabel are arguing against the C&T bill before Congress. Would they be so in favour of a carbon tax if, for eg, existing major polluters had their tax rebated for an extended period? You have to be realistic about how a carbon tax would end up, not how it's conceived at the start.
carrot eater,
> Who the heck cares if Wall St sells some interesting derivatives related to carbon prices, to help companies hedge?
The derivatives would be as interesting as the "products" Wall Street sold to the investors in the housing market, and would be as helpful at "hedging" as those "products" were. That is, they would be wonderfully lucrative for Wall Street as long as things work out and would be worse than useless when things don't.
> The market sets the carbon price for you; you don't have to guess what it needs to be.
Your faith in the market seems a bit quaint these days. In reality, there is no telling how much the allowances would be worth (because of the inelasticity of demand for energy and the high cost of clean energy), so there is really no way for the energy companies to hedge against the possibility that they pay too much. They would therefore have to make relatively low bids, and as long as things work out (for them) they will make huge profits by charging the public much more than they paid for the allowances. Once they make a mistake, however, they would go bankrupt, and default on their payments. As usual, heads they win, tails we lose.
In the mean time, energy prices would soar unpredictably, and likely fluctuate wildly, making it much more difficult for consumers and investors to optimize their actions.
All this still doesn't touch on the most important point of all - the unfairness of what is essentially selling the right to pollute to the highest bidder. Under C&T (or under tax without refund), the rich would be able to essentially pollute without restriction while the average person would have to tighten his carbon belt immensely. Apart from being grossly unfair, it is also political suicidal and a guarantee for the failure of the policy. For this not to happen, you need the rebate, which is only realistically possible with tax.
> Further, the flexibility from trading will allow emissions cuts to be made in the most cost-efficient way. Not all emissions cuts are equally easy to enact; cap/trade recognises this.
Actually, according to the standard economic models such as those Krugman uses, tax affords just as much flexibility as C&T. The equivalence of those two policies is essentially Krugman's point in his blog post regarding Hansen. Really, there is simply no advantage to cap and trade over tax (except for the supposed political feasibility of the C&T) and there are very significant disadvantages.
Gaz,
I am not aware of any attempts to estimate the volatility of permit prices. I would not put much stock in such estimates anyway, since there is really no data for producing such estimates. I note, for example, that all the estimates that I have seen in the literature for gasoline price elasticity have proven to be absurdly high in light of the stability of per capita gas consumption, despite the price increase, over the last decade.
> On the other hand I'm not inclined to discount C&T just on the basis that some evil yuppies will make money trading permits.
Those evil yuppies will make their profits at the expense of the public, a public that would probably have to suffer some painful changes in life habits even under the best of scenarios. This by itself would be good enough reason not to follow this path. That was not my point, however. The point was that there is no advantage to C&T over tax to anyone, except for those evil yuppies. I ask you again - what exactly is the presumed advantage? As I wrote to carrot eater, Krugman doesn't even argue that there is some advantage other than the supposed "political feasibility" of C&T. This would not be very convincing even if it were true, and it is quite likely false - Hansen's tax and rebate would probably enjoy a lot of popular support that C&T would not.
> I think the assumption that things will inevitably end up like the sub-prime loans market is a bit of a stretch, frankly.
Of course it is not inevitable - it is merely quite likely. But since this is just one disadvantage of C&T, and since there are no advantages, why is it even being seriously considered?
> You have to be realistic about how a carbon tax would end up, not how it's conceived at the start.
Obviously, nothing is perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to select a better policy over an inferior one. The most serious problem with C&T is not the wrinkles, such as grandfathering or offsets, but the scheme itself. Even some ideal C&T scheme, without grandfathering and without offsets, would likely have devastating impact on society. As a secondary point, I would argue that C&T due to its inherent complexity is more easily corruptible than carbon tax.
Sortition,
I'll get back to you on the price volatility issue after I've dug around for any research on it. By and large, though, I think it's fair to say that a market for permits would function pretty much like the market for any other resource in limited supply.
There's no reason to expect it to be any more volatile or dysfunctional than the markets for oil or shares or Baltic freight.
In fact it may be that the permit prices are more stable than other commodities, because the quantity available would be more predictable.
I'm not sure whether or not anyone has any strong evidence either way. If I find any I'll let you know.
One point I'd like to take up with you though is this:
Two things.
First, C&T as proposed under the Aussie CPRS is based on full refund of permit auction proceeds, ie revenue neutrality. This is no more or less fair than a carbon tax with full refund.
Second, rich people will be more able to afford carbon-emitting technology under either system. Whether price of petrol is $50 a litre because oil companies have to buy expensive permits or because they have to pay $49.80 per litre carbon tax won't matter. You're still going to feel pissed off when some dickhead in a Hummer swishes through a puddle and splashes muddy water over you and your bicycle.
Finally just to repeat, I have to disagree with this:
Vince@165, given the scale of the consequences of failing to deal with emissions I think Nuclear, despite it's drawbacks, has to be on the table.
It looks to be the case that France produces less environmental damage with nuclear than if they used coal. And it could be the case that that is still less than if they were 100% renewable. It's almost certain that nuclear could be done better than it currently is.
What I do know is the footprint from fossil fuels is already far greater than we can tolerate and it's use is increasing. Renewables, for all the progress made, aren't producing actual reductions in global emissions. I'd like to think that will change but I'm not sure it will. I'd also like to think they'll produce no hard-to-manage toxic waste in the process but I have serious doubts that will be the reality .
I continue to strongly advocate serious efforts to develop and deploy renewables and continue to improve them but they have their footprint too; a world littered with billions of unmanaged toxic batteries scares me.
In any case I think you are better addressing your arguments to others; massively increasing the world's reliance on nuclear isn't my preferred outcome, it's just better than failing to deal with GHG emissons. My concern is that all potential low emissions technologies get consideration.
Gaz and Carrot both make the point that it doesnt matter if Wall St makes a packet out of carbon trading. And I think you both belive that a cap is real and believable.
First point, it matters if Wall St rort the sytems like they did with dollars. If we get a bad system, with bad rorts, the cap is blown, cash is blown, and the public loose trust in anyone's ability to make a system work.
Second point, what is the cap? Who measures it? Who audits it? Who has an interest in the figure being correct? If some government's are a little lax here and there, then some of that nations industries might gain competitive advantage over fair player who operate with strict German-like adherence to the rules.
Gaz, as far as effective taxes go, I believe excise on smokes, beer, and petrol have a measurable effect. But not certain how strong the relationship is.
[This appeared yesterday](http://tiny.cc/stoCw) on [Counterpoint's](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/default.htm) comments page. The author is David Arthur, and the message was posted at 10:30am 8 December. I'm not sure that the url will work permanently, as the site seems to have a weird way of sorting and linking comments, so I will apologise in advance to all here who have to suffer under my holus-bolus posting.
Kellow replies:
"There are many things wrong with the Editorial", huh? It is much more accurate to say that "there are many things wrong" with Kellow's statements in his letter and in his [Counterpoint spray](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm).
I note especially that Kellow singles out Jeff Harvey for a mention, and in the context of the deniers' persistent confabulation of climate denial with Holocaust denial, just because both are forms of denial. Following on from Kellow's logic, my denial of imminent personal middle-age is a shameful attempt to compare it to Holocaust denial... Sheesh!
The guy is crackers, but try as I might to entice him here to dissect the science and politics of climatology with actual scientists (Kellow's an Arts graduate and a business/power policy wonk), he was still smart enough to avoid the offer. Perhaps posting this will lure him from the woodwork.
If only.
Gaz,
Since to some extent are covering old ground here, I'll refer you to comments from our previous discussion, with additions here:
Point #1:
> There's no reason to expect it [the allowances market] to be any more volatile or dysfunctional than the markets for oil or shares or Baltic freight.
First, the comparison to shares or most other commodities is irrelevant since the demand for most things is much more flexible than the demand for energy. Second, oil has seen a lot of volatility over the last decade (from a minimum of about $20/barrel to a maximum of about $150/barrel - a factor of over 7x). Third, we are talking of restricting the supply of the entire energy market, not just one segment of it like gasoline, so there is every reason to expect a more severe outcome. Fourth, even the 7x change in oil price, that translated to over 3x cost increase of gasoline for the average household did not produce any noticeable reduction in gasoline consumption. It is very likely therefore that reduction in demand for fossil energy would require unprecedented price increases.
Point #2:
> As Carrot Eater said, with a C&T you get certainty over the cuts to emissions.
See second part of comment #106 in the previous thread:
>> That certainty applies to a cap and trade, even if it is made inefficient by allowances for special intersts. It doesn't apply to a carbon tax unless you accept the potential for large and unpredictable changes in the tax rate and all the economic disruption that would cause.
> This is wrong on both sides. First, there is no complete certainty in C&T (or any scheme) unless you go to the length of implementing the draconian measure of allowing utility companies to change prices at very short notice and disconnect customers who are behind on their payments at very short notice. Second, on the tax side, you can achieve approximate goals reliably - which is all that matters since 10% difference, say, between emission goals and achieved emissions matters very little.
Point #3:
> C&T as proposed under the Aussie CPRS is based on full refund of permit auction proceeds, ie revenue neutrality. This is no more or less fair than a carbon tax with full refund.
Revenue neutrality is not the same as rebate (i.e., distributing the revenues among the population equally). Most revenue-neutral schemes are based on "balancing" income by either reducing (other) taxes or by spending (on research, etc.). These schemes will result in a much more regressive tax system, with the poor and middle income paying a larger share of their income in taxes or fees than the rich. Even more importantly, this will result in a situation dramatic energy consumption inequalities where the rich can continue to pollute at will, since for them the cost of fees will be affordable, while the poor would have to get along consuming very little energy.
Also, when selling allowances, there is really no way to create a rebate system (even if one were considered) since a significant share of the increased cost of energy will very likely become profit for the energy companies or for allowances traders of various sorts.
Point #4:
>Sortition, it's simply not logical to hold the view that
>>In reality, there is no telling how much the allowances would be worth..
> or that
>>..energy prices would soar unpredictably..
> and at the same time believe that you can estimate the tax rate that would lead to a desired reduction in emissions.
> I mean you can either estimate the relationship between price and quantity or you can't.
I agree, and you can't. No one can estimate the tax increase necessary for achieving a specific emission reduction target. However, a constant, gradual increase in tax, year after year, will eventually result in prices high enough to achieve any specified target. We actually discussed my proposal for such a scheme in some detail in the previous thread, comments #90, #106, #113, #114, #115 and #117.
I'm pretty much overlapping with Gaz here, but I'll get a couple quick points in:
If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events. Derivatives have been and continue to be a useful part of a functioning economy. What is bad is totally unregulated or underregulated derivatives, but the details of that are for a different forum.
I agree with Gaz that it's bizarre for somebody to say 'energy demand is too inelastic; you'll have to raise the carbon price really really high to make any difference' and then turn around and say a carbon tax would work. So you want to increase the tax rate, bit by bit, until you see some action? By your own logic, it could be 2100 before you get anywhere. There's nothing 'quaint' about thinking the market can set a price. You set a cap, and the market will decide what the allowances will cost. Whatever price they trade at, you'll be below the cap. That's the goal, isn't it? To be below the cap?
The inelasticity was also rather oversold. Behavior doesn't change overnight, but it eventually did - people buying smaller cars, using mass transit more, etc. Unfortunately, the global recession came soon thereafter, which brought its own effects.
I don't see how a carbon tax can be as flexible as a trading system. Krugman said it would be? I'd like to see the reasoning. Again, it may cost company A $10 to reduce emissions by 1 ton, while it costs company B $50 to reduce emissions by 1 ton. These differences must be kept in mind, as well as the incentives that can come into play.
carrot eater,
> If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events.
To some extent, as I indicated above, this whole issue is a side note so I would not want to stress this too much - even if the financial aspects were handled flawlessly, and every other aspect of the scheme was handled flawlessly as well, C&T would still be a bad idea due to the inherent uncertainties associated with the response of energy demand to price increases.
There is, however, some centrality to the financial aspects of C&T, which is that the potential for making money over those transactions is probably the only reason that C&T is being considered. Thus, Wall Street is already calling the shots on this matter, making the hope that somehow effective regulation of the C&T activity would part of the legislation not only "unsophisticated" but positively naive.
> So you want to increase the tax rate, bit by bit, until you see some action? By your own logic, it could be 2100 before you get anywhere.
You are underestimating the power of exponentiation. Please read the discussion of the scheme I suggested in the thread I linked to. Because the scheme involves exponential increase (20% per year), energy prices would be very high (if emissions targets are not met) within a few years. For example, in ten years, prices could be 1.2^10 ~ 6 times higher than now, and within 20 years they could be over 38 times higher. Of course, significant reductions in emissions would be achieved long before then.
> The inelasticity was also rather oversold. Behavior doesn't change overnight, but it eventually did - people buying smaller cars, using mass transit more, etc.
Actually, no. Again, please look at the chart I linked to (here) - the dramatically increased expense on gasoline over the last decade produced essentially no reductions in gasoline consumption.
> I don't see how a carbon tax can be as flexible as a trading system. Krugman said it would be? I'd like to see the reasoning.
To quote Krugman: "What the basic economic analysis says is that an emissions tax of the form Hansen wants and a system of tradable emission permits, aka cap and trade, are essentially equivalent in their effects." The reasoning, in short, is that the caps are supposed to be translated to extra costs (through the cost of buying the allowances). Those extra costs supposedly function exactly like the extra costs imposed by a tax.
I'm still mulling over the relative advantages of an ETS over a direct carbon tax, but one of my greatest concerns was more eloquently [put forward by Stephen Long](http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2762794.htm) last week - that of the rubberiness of carbon derivatives in a trading scheme.
In particular, I am most concerned about the biological 'offsets' that are being touted as a win-win in the whole enterprise. Most people do not understand that even if the accounting is stringent, and that the carbon that is said to be fix actually is fixed (a big 'if'), this carbon is, in large part, only temporarily removed from the equation.
Unless photosynthetically-captured carbon is reduced to char, or sequestered in an anoxic environment, it is relatively quickly oxidised back to the atmosphere on the death of the plant material. So, whether it is carbon 'fixed' in soil, or in crops, or in forestry plantations for subsequent timber use, it is really only a matter of several years to several decades before the carbon finds its way back into the atmosphere. Remember, the fossil carbon that might be taken up is itself 'offset' by the 'biological' carbon that humans have released over the last several hundred to several thousand years - that carbon too needs to be fixed.
The only way to get a serious terrestrial carbon sequestration with biological fixation in the short-term would be to have massive revegetation of previously devegetated areas: and humans are showing no inclination to relinquish the land that we've devegetated. Aside from our agricultural and urban/suburban sprawlings, our current gnawing through the remains of old-growth forests around the world starkly illustrates this.
The other problem with emissions trading schemes at the moment seems to be that the caps themselves are not only too high, but they appear to be rubbery too - in the wrong direction. I do like the idea that each human on the planet receives an annual carbon ration, based on hard science. If the cap is solid, then total carbon emitted should be limited. If.
And I'm still not convinced that trade in carbon permits would in fact be equitable. As Australia's primary producers are currently discovering, middle-men and those further down-stream can stretch over a barrel those without market influence or leverage. I can quite easily envision a scenario where the poor sell their credits for less than their worth, so that the rich continue to profit from their economic privilege and the disparity between countries continues. And where economic disparity occurs, other (non-climatological) environmental damages also occur.
I have yet to be persuaded that a direct tax on carbon is not the simplest way of costing its impact, and of avoiding the shifting of responsibility for paying for its use. In fact, if one replaces the term 'tax' with 'cost', I cannot see how it is not a fair strategy - for each and every one of us to pay a carbon cost, based on the cost that increased atmospheric carbon exacts on the planet.
And in the end, why cannot a C&T and a tax/cost be implemented together? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?
The Oz is [at it again](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/lobbyists-at-risk-of-un-aids…)
An Op Ed piece from the International Policy Network. I'd never heard of this mob. Dropping the name into Sourcewatch - [voila!](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network)
Shame on you Oz..
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_sun.png
I note that the Cochrane Collaboration have withdrawn support for the efficacy of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), based upon the meta-analysis of a number of studies, and upon the fact that Roche and many of its participating research teams "no longer had the original data".
Hmmm... So a collaboration of academic scientific teams found, within a few years, that non-government interests have apparently misrepresented their science. It seems that there is something to be said after all for the manner in which public science works, and against the manner in which private 'science' works.
Having worked in pharmacology in a previous incarnation, and having much experience with the pharmaceutical companies that grow fatter on their takings than any government-funded institution ever does, I am not surprised. In fact, I think that I have a tenner bet with a friend on this very subject, made when bird flu first popped its head up a few years ago. I told him not to bother with trying to buy any, for pretty much this reason.
Back to the point, however:
Ah, the irony...
[Link to the oseltamivir story](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/713604).
>*If some people have drawn the conclusion that 'derivatives = bad', I regret to say that this is totally unfounded; it is a painfully unsophisticated misreading of recent events. Derivatives have been and continue to be a useful part of a functioning economy. What is bad is totally unregulated or underregulated derivatives, but the details of that are for a different forum.*
Carrot Eater, an important aspect of the issues you outline here is this; how well regulated have derivative become since the crash? What laws have been past and changes instigated? And how do we now know they are now appropriately regualated.
I'm not aware they've sorted much out at all, a few consmetic changes, but little confidence of substantial improvement in reguation. The big instituions still appear to be shifting debts around in a game of peek-ah-boo accounting.
This issue is relevent to regulation of carbon dirivatives. As relevent as the concentration of power in our political system, which creates a compounding problem when dealing with complexity and reliance on transparency.
BeranrdJ said above:
That's a fair point. What should happen is that these "offsets" should attract a value estimated in the way that one rents storage space. The credit then becomes worth an amount equalling the volume of carbon dioxide sequestered multiplied by the periodicity of its sequestration. Someone whose forest sequesters 1 Mt of CO2 for ten years gets half as much as if he sequesters it for 20 years and so forth.
goes on to compare carbon tax to cost
Here's where one must disentangle several interrelated questions.
1. The politics (local and inter-jurisdictional)
It's very difficult to reconcile differing tax regimes. These would also be hostage to any falling out between participating jurisdictions. A quick look at the EU reminds us of these complexities. Under a tax-based regime, there would be a temptation every year for the politicos to have an auction on what carbon taxes should be, who should be exempted or get assistance. People could plead that the economy was in recession, and that our portion wasn't very much or the last lot sold us out in a fit of gaia-driven foolishness. If on the other hand, people have a right to pollute up to a point, that they have purchases, they are going to be leery of the goalposts being moved or free riders being let on board.
2. The target
We don't know how much a tax will reduce CO2. We can assume it will have some effect, but how much is hard to say. When crude oil went from $70 per barrell to $140 consumption of crude oil didn't drop by half. Sydney petrol prices went rapidly up to about $1.60 per litre from about $1.15 during 2008, but again, there's no evidence that vehicle miles fell by anything like that. That's why you have to have a quota.
No they don't. I can easily imagine a carbon tax on fuel while we integrate it into the broader trading system. Personally, I'd like a system where individuals and family groups were given a science-based quota, which they could top up by purchasing credits at auction on something like ebay. Every product or service you purchased would have its own carbon "cost" which you'd "pay" with a smart card. If you ran out, you'd not be able to buy any more. If you had more than you needed, you could sell them.
The socially disadvantaged would have access to community provision of food and basic services for free at a local community centre and others not so disadvantaged could go there at a means-based cost. The carbon-credits here would be purchased by the state from the common pool.
The funds raised would be used to provide energy- and water-efficient and low cost community housing, good public transport options and of course to fund the rollout of near-zero emissions technologies, coherent revegetation programs and so forth, which would over time lower the cost of the credits since the providers would sell these back into the market, or they would show up in reduced carbon energy costs.
The burden in such a system would fall onto the major consumers, who would either have to pay an escalating cost to keep their lifestyles (in effect subsidising public goods) or cut back. So it would be equitable. One suspects McDonalds and KFC would become a lot less viable, leading to improved health amongst the disadvantaged.
Ken @ 174.
I understand your argument. Tim Flannery is with you, as aere many others whose opinions are worthy of respect.
My own inexpert analysis tells me that a technology that can spread caesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 from one end of Europe to the other and render 500km2 completely uninhabitable is a techniology to be suspicious of.
The fact that the banking and insurance industries will not touch this technology should tell us all we need to know about it - free market forces tend to be a pretty rational indicator.
Just found some lovely graphs from a Greenland ice core, going back 400,000 years. It is plain to see and I think you will agree, over all that time there were many hockey sticks.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553
Note also, they rediscovered the MWP in Greenland.
Wow El Gordo, does that mean the scientific consensus that *only* humans cause global warming is wrong?
Vince
What scientific consensus? The Ruddster once admitted that he didn't know much about the scientific detail surrounding climate change, but he 'trusted the men in white coats'.
There are an awful lot of white coated men on this gravy train and it's getting past a joke. Climate change is a natural hazard and we will adapt.
Always-natural climate change has an always-natural cause. What is the natural cause of of our current global warming?
A spotty sun and no large volcanic eruptions, plus a warm PDO up until ten years ago when it changed to its opposite.
Our post modern climate optimum has come to an end.
Now that is a joke. Being a joke, it's never been published in real scientific journals.
El gordo writes:
>*Climate change is a natural hazard and we will adapt.*
Chris: *What is the natural cause of of our current global warming?*
El gordo writes:
>*A spotty sun and no large volcanic eruptions, plus a warm PDO up until ten years ago when it changed to its opposite.*
El gordo, name and date the large volcanic eruptions in the past 30 years.
El gordo says that the PDO (a cycle, with cannot explain warming that is anomalous in at least 400 years), has just switched. And we know that the sun is at a solar minima.
So el gordo why is it [so hot?](http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html)
>*Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have the warmest year on record.*
And Chris infomed us earlier that November was the hottest global November on record.
So hot, with a solar minima and a "switched" PDO?
el gordo, try again.
But first name and date the major volcanic eruptions.
Completely left-of-field in the context of current discussions, but of interest to right-thinking science appreciators who might have missed Pharyngula's posting about [Kent Hovind's "Doctoral dissertation"](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/kent_hovinds_doctoral_disser…).
Oh, and a [review here](http://noanswersingenesis.org.au/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis…).
Sortition | December 9, 2009 1:55 PM
"which is that the potential for making money over those transactions is probably the only reason that C&T is being considered."
I'm sorry, but's truly bizarre, and just incorrect. Cap/Trade is considered because it's been shown to work, it actually has a cap, and it's flexible - it should give you the emissions reduction at the lower cost.
I maintain that all this talk about derivatives is a red herring. Derivatives are not inherently bad. To a large extent, they are necessary.
"You are underestimating the power of exponentiation. "
I still don't see the point of doing any of that, when you could just put a cap in, and let the chips fall where they may. Remember that we aren't looking for a single step-function down in emissions; in cap/trade the cap will be gradually changed over time.
"Again, please look at the chart I linked to"
The things I'm talking about won't show up in a chart like that. I'm talking about a few months of changes in car-buying habits and increased mass-transit ridership, before the economy gave out and the price of oil collapsed.
Over the long run, keep in mind that trends in energy usage/GDP are downwards.
"To quote Krugman:"
That single quote is not even close to a discussion of how flexible the two methods are. Give me more. The way I see it, cap/trade gives flexibility, and thus delivers emissions cuts at lower cost.
@BenardJ
"And in the end, why cannot a C&T and a tax/cost be implemented together? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?"
On the same emissions, I'd say they need to be exclusive. But different emissions, different policies. For example, use cap/trade for the emissions during the process of refining oil to gasoline, but use a carbon tax on the actual use of that gasoline by the person driving the car.
Janet Akerman, still on derivatives:
You do realise that there are all manner of derivatives, the use of which is perfectly stable and uncontroversial, and effectively regulated, and has been so for decades? You need to be much more nuanced in your statements on derivatives - identify which ones you're talking about, and so on. Even of the new ones you've been hearing about - CDSs are perfectly legitimate instruments. I don't think new regulations have been put on them just yet, but it's a work in progress. The conventional wisdom is that they should be regulated by forcing them to be sold through an exchange, which would address the counterparty risk involved.
It just seems very far-fetched to say 'cap/trade will lead to new derivatives, and I don't know what those derivatives will look like, but I somehow bet you they will bring us systemic risk; I'm not sure how, but it will, so therefore we shouldn't do cap/trade'. That's a strange line of argument.
el credulous:
What spotty sun? We are still in the modern minimum. This must be part of the joke that the current warming has a natural cause.
I know the sun has been quiet of late, but these things take time. Because nothing has happened yet, doesn't mean it won't happen soon.
The trouble is that even Alaska's raw data, untampered, shows it has been a degree cooler than the CRU mob have said. So as the science unravels we should get a clearer picture of what is happening.
Janet and Chris...I'm prepared to recant and stop saying 'it's the sun stupid' if David Archibald's theory falters. I expect the same from both of you if the unadjusted raw data from northern Australia or Alaska shows no warming over the past 30 years.
Recant now and avoid humiliation later. Otherwise, we will have to assume that you are warm mongers for life.
So the cause of global warming hasn't happened yet even though global warming has already happened. El credulo just gets funnier and funnier.
>*Janet and Chris...I'm prepared to recant and stop saying 'it's the sun stupid' if David Archibald's theory falters. I expect the same from both of you if the unadjusted raw data from northern Australia or Alaska shows no warming over the past 30 years.*
Let me guess, you want unadjusted data like [eschenbach](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/willis_eschenbach_caught_lying…), and the [NZCSC](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/new_zealand_climate_science_co…) fraudsters?
Would you wish to uncalibrate the global temperature measures to make meaningless any concept of valid temperature anomaly?
Is that correct el gordo? If not please specify what data you want to remove the scientifically appropriate adjustments from.
Natural warming has been happening, but there is some controversy about the decline since 2000. UHI's may have had a minor artificial effect on this warming trend, while CO2 doesn't even rank in my book.
Well, I guess there is "controversy" for those who put credence in the kooky nonsense from the Lavoisier group....
It's interesting that El Gordo puts store in David Archibald's Lavoisier-hosted work - work which used 5 carefully-cherry-picked met stations to misrepresent global temperature trends and 1 carefully-chosen met station to show a (weak)correlation between temperature and sunspots.
El Gordo - how do you explain your lack of scepticism?
I get censured by the right for being a global cooling nutter, they think all alarm flags are kooky nonsense. The Sceptics are too polite and just ignore me.
There is some comfort being here among my old comrades, yarning about politics and the weather.
Don't talk to me about cherry-picking, ask mighty Kev what he knows about the cherry-picking of the Yamal tree data. He would probably say 'I wasn't aware there were any cherry trees in Yamal'.
The PM hasn't a clue.
The "cherry picking at Yamal" meme is an artificial product of hysterical blogging on non-climatologist Steve McIntyre's website.
No such cherry-picking occurred, as Steve McIntyre was forced to admit, although Steve McIntyre did some undeniable cherry-picking of his own in the creation of his own nonsensical tree-ring graphs.
Carrot Eater writes:
>*It just seems very far-fetched to say 'cap/trade will lead to new derivatives, and I don't know what those derivatives will look like, but I somehow bet you they will bring us systemic risk; I'm not sure how, but it will, so therefore we shouldn't do cap/trade'. That's a strange line of argument.*
Carrot in the context of complexity in financial instruments, lack of appropriate regulation and the underlying lack of transparency, I canât see what is strange in this argument.
I thinks it strange to assume that carbon derivatives will somehow be appropriately regulated and transparent, the current plutocratic/democratic environment.
Complexity
>*You need to be much more nuanced in your statements on derivatives - identify which ones you're talking about, and so on.*
How can I diagnose the detailed flaws in the untransparent derivative market? The complexity and lack of transparency is the problem Iâm rallying against! The banks didnât even understand them.
Institutions are coy of lending to each other because they donât know the other's derivatives exposure. And last time I check the global outstanding derivatives markets was over $600 trillion, thatâs 15 times higher than the world GDP.
If there was transparency, then regulation might have been able to be implanted following the GFC. But weâre still waiting for regulation, and if we do eventually get regulation in this climate of highly concentrated power (and plutocratic political influence), we will probably get a fig leaf wrapped in a wave of PR claims.
Here is some context of my stated concern with an ETS and derivatives:
>Hansenâs tax also overcomes the biggest problem [with] an ETS, a problem Krugman fails to mention. Complexity. Complexity makes transparency hard.
>The Wizards of Money. How many people know how banks make money? What fraction understand what an offset is? And who audits them?
> If we are to value simplicity as our best hope for robustness, and genuine abatement, our options for simplicity are greatest with a tax.
Iâve mentioned that I support the Tax and Dividend scheme. Were the tax is applied at the first point of sale or port of entry. And the revenue is distributed equally per capita.
What are you proposing?
When I used to support and ETS I would have said (like Gaz), and improvement on the EU model. Fair enough, but how would you [improve it]( http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2009/03/carbon-price-climate-ho…):
>[Hope] believes a market-based trading system such as the ETS is very unlikely to generate consistent high prices, and this instability could undermine the whole point of the scheme. The heart of the issue is a problem we are all sadly familiar with: financial markets are highly variable, with prices liable to surge and collapse. Hope says that the first two phases of the ETS have illustrated the problem [â¦].
What is the limit, the bottom most, the least good ETS you would support? What are its critical parameters for you?
>*The "cherry picking at Yamal" meme is an artificial product of hysterical blogging on non-climatologist Steve McIntyre's website. No such cherry-picking occurred, as Steve McIntyre was forced to admit, although Steve McIntyre did some undeniable cherry-picking of his own in the creation of his own nonsensical tree-ring graphs.*
Ah! Vince, but that doesn't matter! There was a noise. Its the noise that counts not the evidence. Just like its the noise about the CRU emails that matter. No need to wait for the evidence.
And if there is enought noise that is proof of something!
Proof of what? Either a cospiracy that never quite gets exposed; or a bunch of people who want to believe (or want others to believe) that there is a conspiracy, which never quite gets exposed.
El gordo,
I'm [still waiting](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2136…) for your explanation of the relevance of volucano's to the current 30 year warming trend.
Janet #206: "Just like its the noise about the CRU emails that matter. No need to wait for the evidence. And if there is enought noise that is proof of something!"
OTOH if there's no noise that proves "things are being hushed up" and so ... it's a CONSPIRACY! Burn her!!
["Crazed Hitler Youth!"](http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/09/us-youth-crash-climate-denier…)
---Lord Monckton, Third Viscount of Bunchedpanties
There are fewer sunspots now than there were in 1970. Why is the global five-year-average temperature 0.6 deg C warmer now than it was around 1970?
Let me get this straight, sunspots go from a maximum to a minimum, global temperature increases by 0.6 deg C and you think that means that some supposed "increase" in solar activity caused a significant part of that warming?
No wonder you're el credulo.
Thanks for the weather report. Yet again you need to be reminded that the determination of climate, let alone changes in climate, takes a lot more than 9 years of data.
An opinion worthy of a credulous ignoramus.
said the clueless ignoramus.
Why don't you get out and educate the masses? There is little value in preaching to the converted.
I've got it - El Gordo is an intellectual nihilist: he doesn't actually believe in anything but likes the idea of tearing down knowledge.
Normally, that's not a problem.
But what you are involved with at the moment is kind of the opposite of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre. The fire is burning and you are standing on your seat yelling at the top of your voice "Ignore that fire alarm!", confusing people and risking lives. Reprehensible.
Vince,
El gordo is a nihilst only when the evidence contradicts his beliefs.
He is profoundly driven by faith that we are in a dangereous cooling climate.
Over the past few months I have been persuaded to lower my alarm flag.
The right are correct, nothing untoward is going to happen. Global cooling, as in a Dalton Minimum, now looks out of reach. But I will still be cherry-picking freak weather out of season, especially in the midlatitudes.
Nihilist ideas are old hat, except amongst the Green faithful.
Short el gordo:
In other words, people who believe the evidence about the damage to the exosphere, and how to reduce that damage, are the people who don't believe in anything.
And those people who don't believe in anything are those who we "sceptics" like to label "religious zealots", mainly because they believe evidence rather than our preferred religion and ideology.
said the clueless, nihilistic ignoramus.
Actually, whoever introduced the idea here of El Gordo as a nihilist was onto something. The methodology underpinning the use of the term "skeptic" by the filth merchant propagandists like El Gordo is incipiently nihilistic.
If even the most daffy and implausible accounts are to be granted the same status as well attested science, in the interest of affirming that absolute certainty in science is impossible, then drawing conclusions about anything at all is impossible.
Back here in the real world, where people do draw conclusions from observable data, giving priority to the data that are most impressive in their scope and apparent pertinence, we have people employed to care for those who, regrettably, follow this particular filth merchant mantra to its logical conclusion.
Inhofe and his crowd of course are selective in their "skepticism", as Janet notes. They are convinced that using the biopshre as a cheap tip for industrial effluent is a damn fine thing.
I saw this a long time ago and immediately the urgent question was - what evidence do we have that Chung is not part of a cover-up of the fact that 30% of the patients that die in hospitals later get up and walk out of the morgue? None. Absolutely none.
Fran
The Greens are nihilists! Not me,
More importantly, my heart goes out to those trolls who once infested the Bolter. Right on Xmas and without a second thought as to how they will sustain themselves.
The new standing orders have eliminated these characters and gives the host a cleaner platform to become Senator Bolt.
We can at least reach a consensus on one thing - the MWP was real in Greenland.
In this recent study they also found the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Age cold that followed and the LIA on the tail of the MWP.
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l3_narsaqsound.php
Hope you're right about global warming, from where I'm standing the future looks decidedly bleak.
El gordo,
Fran has caught on that you named yourself a Nihilist via projection, and she's noted how denialists demonstrate Nihilism by their/your actions.
Is Fran a she? I mean, like Marion, it's not necessarily a woman's name.
I sense that Fran is a woman in favor of the nuclear option.
If the models can't replicate reality, then they can't reliably predict the future of climate change.
It is in this case.
It has been my singular ambition to have the last word on a Deltoid 'open thread', but now that I'm here my mind is a blank.
So, business-as-usual then?
Someone has to say it and it may as well be me:
So what's new, el Gordo?
el gordo:
That's easy. Just say something a few times that everyone agrees with such as that you are an idiot.
Carbon dioxide follows temperatures, which has long been suspected.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/carbon-rises-800-years-after-temperatu…
The Eemian came to an end 115,000 bp, that's what I'm focussed on.
[El Lipido](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2143…).
You and Jo Nova are about 8oo years behind climatology.
CO2 is also a forcing.
It must be embarrassing to be so obviously slow.
Actually, by his own admission, Bernard, our own hispanic Mr Greenstreet is about 115,000 years behind the present.
BJ
CO2 is not a forcing, it is quite clear from 150.000 years of evidence.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again - [Fatso](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2144…) is either a Poe, or he is redlining on the staggeringly-ignorant-o-meter.
As you have raised the claim though, bubble-guts, perhaps you could provide your best piece of peer-reviewed evidence that supports it. And whilst you're at it, answer [these questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/firedoglake_book_salon_on_jame…) too.
You would be hoping for some kind of proof for amplification. If you look at that graph again at 117,000 bp, that's about where we are now.
Pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as you like, it won't stop temperatures falling.
Strange how the Denialati are dragging their heels on the rather efficient way that real science uncovered a real story of data hiding and of data misrepresentation, with the [Tamiflu scandal](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2136…).
Is this reluctance to comment because they all have Tamiflu stocks of their own, secreted in preparation for the enactment of the One World Government's Conspiracy to Kill Them AllTM? Or is their silence due to their embarrassment that it was a shining example of Capitalist ScienceTM that was caught fudging the data?
Or is it simply because the Cochrane exposé shows clearly how easy it is to gather real proof of a fraud, and how simple it is to show that, by comparison, the climate change denialist stance is a big pile of stinking, steaming manure?
el gordo, aka village idiot:
Don't talk to me of old sol, I recently recanted.
el gordo,
I'm [still waiting](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2136…) for you to back your claims about relatively low volcanic activity in the 30 years prior to 2000.
Or you can recant on that as well.
JA
Mt Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and is believed to have been the largest disturbance of the stratosphere since the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, but ten times larger than Mt St Helens in 1980.
In 1992 and 1993 temperatures around the world dropped .5 C as a direct result. A slight pause then back to natural warming.
el gordo,
What are the implications of this volcanic activity for your [pet theory](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2136…)?
There were five very large volcanic eruptions in the seventeenth century, fairly evenly spaced, but presumably the effects only lasted a couple of years.
So the LIA needed a more dominant forcing than just a volcano to drive temperatures down 2 degrees over a few hundred years.
El gordo, your apparent deduction in post @243 is a non sequitur.
And I'm waiting to see your answer to [my question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2144…).
Anyone who is interested, watch Plimer v Monbiot on Lateline
Plimer repeatedly exposed and named as a fraud on national TV and calls Monbiot ill-mannered and 'not a scientist' in response.
Plimer's performance on Lateline is a travesty of scientific etiquette, protocol and fact.
He offered no scientific papers or studies as evidence for any of his statements, he conspicuously and frequently waved a copy of his book at the camera in an obvious attempt to promote it, and he used his cutesy ploys to divert the focus of questions from himself on to Jones and on to Monbiot.
Curiously, he refers to H&E as "the book", as if it is separate and independent from himself. Delving into my university psychology, I might produce several theories about why this is so, but even without a considered session of shrinking it is apparent that Plimer is off the dial. He has lost it, there are kangaroos in his top paddock, he's a few snags short of a barbie, he gone Emeritus...
From a scientific point of view, I would strong urge people to contact the ABC and ask them to interview a group of scientists to deconstruct the allegations and misrepresentations that Plimer has made tonight. It's all stuff that we've dissected ad infinitum here and on other places on the Interweb, but it's about time that there was a serious mainstream addressing of the points that are always lost in the obfuscation and diversion when Plimer puppeteers an interview.
Make the bugger address each error, lie and misrepresentation that he has made on television, in front of an audience of his scientifically credible peers. Make him address the Monbiot questions if they are not otherwise addressed, but do not let him continue to slither away from confronting his garbage.
I firmly believe now that Plimer is not a Poe, that he is no longer competent in assessing scientific evidence, and that he is completely ideologically- and agenda-driven. It's time that he had the bright light of professional scrutiny turned on his climate nonsense, whether he deigns to participate or not.
Monbiot was not too bad, although I still believe that he has let himself and science in general down with his cursory analysis of the history behind the CRU data theft, and the subsequent distortions thereof.
Plimer has let himself down, and as a former student of his he has let me and my colleagues down too. Back in the 80s he was largely credible and slightly smug: now he has no credibility and is an insufferable prat. He makes me ashamed to have come from an institution where he has taught, and he represents to me a compelling reason to fear for the education of any student who might come within a bull's roar of his influence.
How one such as he can maintain a position in Australian science without scrutiny, challenge or otherwise being called upon to justify his malfeasance is beyond me. Make no mistake: Plimer is not simply a maverick exploring the bounds of understanding - he is willfully, maliciously and selfishly bastardising the public perception of scientific process and understanding in order to achieve his own non-scientific, ideologica ends.
CRU is the biggest scientific fraud in history? Hardly - Plimer's frauds dwarf anything that might possibly be found from the UEA hack.
Plimer's antics, and the front and centre attention that the Denialosphere grants them, are the real story here.
Whilst that is indeed true, I think more needs to be done by his university employers. Have they no shame?
And while Jones magnanimously steps aside whilst an independent enquiry reports, Plimer sails on spreading his disinformation, to put it more euphemistically. The world is warped. Have his employers no shame?
Indeed, were I to get a question in on one of his Q&A stunts I would ask that very question. "Have your employers no shame? Do they endorse the distortions that you preach?"
Plimer knows he's lying. He changes the subject whenever he can. That ABC Lateline interview is an absolute classic. One item in it was his claim that the USGS ignored undersea volcanoes (which they didn't) in calculating CO2 emissions from volcanoes and his claim that these undersea volcanoes produce more than 130 times as much CO2 as land volcanoes which they would need to do to produce more CO2 than human activity. One of the things that never seems to occur to Plimer is that this extraordinary volcanic activity only seems to have started in the last 200 years which is an amazing co-incidence.
This is one of the ways Plimer works. He makes statements that may or may not be correct, e.g. the volcanoes one is incorrect and the one about Greenland warmth in the MWP is correct, and these statements superficially support his argument. But if you know more information, e.g. Greenland is not the whole world and the whole world average was not particularly warm in the MWP then you know his statements don't really support his argument or there's something bizarre about his argument. Plimer could easily realize this so his superficial statements are dishonest even when they are part of the truth (but not the whole truth).
Anyway, I noticed Monbiot, unlike Jones, doesn't let Plimer get away with lying without telling him his lying. Whenever Plimer lies to Jones, Jones just says "no" and states what the appropriate authority says contrary to Plimer's lie. Monbiot doesn't have any problem telling Plimer when he's lying.
Yes you'd think the University would make or have some general disclaimer that's Plimer's views are personal and in no way necessarily reflect the views of the University in whole or in part.
el gullibo:
Easy come, easy go. That's what being credulous is all about.
Did anyone see BBC4's The Environment Debate tonight? I only turned on from the back end of the science discussion. It was all pretty poor to be honest. For some reason, Bob Watson was put up against Richard Lindzen and Bjorn Lomborg, resulting in a pretty skewed and artificially 'balanced' debate. The presenter (who I've seen before, and she wasn't particularly fussed about accuracy then either) managed to exacerbate the issue when she brought up Svensmark and, following Watson's dismissal, said "yes, but how can you expect the public to know what to believe when even the scientists disagree?"
She also gave Watson a much toughter grilling than the other two. Lindzen was allowed to get away with whatever the hell he liked, and Lomborg seemed to wow her with his rhetoric and pretty face. For some reason, though, she seemed obsessed with pinning Watson down to plucking random figures out the air (at one stage she was asking him repeatedly to specify exactly how much of a difference individual action could make to reduce carbon emissions, and wouldn't shut up about it until Watson, exasperated, said "10%" seemingly at random).
The whole thing was ridiculously dumbed down. Watson didn't seem to come across great to be honest, he wasn't very comfortable under the ignorance of the presenter, the rhetoric of Lomborg and the usual crap from Lindzen. Yet another example of why science shouldn't be decided by public debate. On the other hand, it's on BBC4, so it's not like anyone watched it...
There were no large volcanic eruptions in the eighteenth century, while in the nineteenth century there were five more big ones.
So we can agree volcanic eruptions have only a fleeting effect on climate, although if we are in a cooling phaze then it would amplify that effect.
Here's a hundred questions for you.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
el gordo,
I'm [still waiting](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2145…).
Let me remind you of your claim:
Chris: *What is the natural cause of of our current global warming?*
El gordo writes:
>*A spotty sun and no large volcanic eruptions, plus a warm PDO up until ten years ago when it changed to its opposite.*
Don't be a Plimer, answer my question, Given the significant volcanic eruptions in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of great warming, how can you support your above claim?
The period of natural warming from 1976 to 2000 came about because of the warm PDO. Pinatubo and Mt St Helens had only a slight effect on the upward trend. AGW is a crock.
Don't try to get smart with me Akerman, it doesn't suit you.
el gordo, lets be clear you cannot support solar or lack of volcanic forcing to support your pet theory is that correct?
el gullibo:
So now it's mainly the fault of the PDO? So the scientists are wrong when they say the cycle time is 15â30 years because then the temperature should have gone back to what it was in 1976 by 2006 at the latest. El gullibo informs us that the PDO half-cycle time can be 24 years and thus the cycle time can be 48 years, not just 15-30 years.
Those scientists are so wrong. How did they ever get by without el gullibo.
By the way, our "cooling phase" since 2001 or whatever hasn't actually started yet, in fact it's still warming.
We know that the world warmed by 0.7 degrees C from 1998 to 2000, not the 0.20 degrees expected by the IPCC. This is within natural variability.
'ENSO is a radiative oscillation that has the potential to cause long term climate change.'
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/sea-level-data-exposes-e…
Looks like I will be returning to my original faith - sun worship.
Mr Greenstreet can't even get his talking points right or understand their implications:
By all means he should go back to sun worship. He sucks at actual science.
The ENSO adjusted global sea surface temperature anomalies graph is particularly interesting. While I'm not ruling out the PDO influence, it may not be as dominant as ENSO.
Note the Mt Pinatubo eruption, as suspected it appears to have produced no impact on the upward trend.
You are a lot like Plimer the way you run away from straigh forward questions.
>Note the Mt Pinatubo eruption [...] it appears to have produced no impact on the upward trend.
How do you reconcile this statement (and your acknowledgement of several other major volcanic eruptions in the 1980s and 1990s), with your [earlier claim](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_36.php#comment-2146…) that "*no large volcanic eruptions*" was one of the three natural drivers of recent global warming?
(As Chris notes, easy-come, easy-go).
You appear to have a stuck picture. Since this conversation began I have ruled out volcanoes as a major climate forcing.
I'm not yet dropping the PDO in favor of ENSO, because the radiative characteristics might just be feedbacks on the temperature change.
Please take MapleLeaf's advice and ignore me.
el gordo writes:
>You appear to have a stuck picture. Since this conversation began I have ruled out volcanoes as a major climate forcing.
That's interesting, when did rule out volcanoes? Can you point to the part of the conversation were you made this ruling out?
el gullibo:
Which ass did you get that assertion from?
Easy come, easy go, easy come.
[James Randi taken in by denialist propaganda](http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html)
:facepalm: