Dispatches from the Creation Wars

I don't understand the arguments against the health care mandate. We are required to participate in a number of programs in order to participate in society, why not health insurance?

Posted by: Owen | March 27, 2010 9:43 AM

Owen, I agree with you. The mandate is no different than any other tax the government levies. You either buy health insurance or you pay an extra $695 in federal taxes. The mandate makes sense in light of forcing insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions. You need to widen the risk pool. I think the addition of a public option (even a triggered one) would have definitely made the mandate fairer, by at least helping to keep insurance companies in line.

Posted by: penn | March 27, 2010 9:50 AM

Ironically, the health insurance mandate was actually proposed by Republicans in 1993, as a counter-offer to 'HillaryCare'. So the current Republican party is now calling their own suggested plan unconstitutional.
http://www.wbur.org/npr/123670612

Posted by: Ashaman | March 27, 2010 10:18 AM

Um, My Tax Dollars are still being used to fund the Faith Based Intitiatives, which I abhorrently despise. Will the Thomas More Center file a brief on behalf of me and other Americans like me, cause I don't want to fund Absitinence only classes that teach women to be ignorant of their bodies and only wash their *Shame Cave with the lights out, so they can't see where babies come from. I also do not wish to fund Erectile Dysfunction drugs to Christians. They might be using that to make more like those freaks, the Duggers. And I don't want my tax dollars going to treat STDs in Christians, because if they are in fact saving it for marriage and then staying monogamous, then only fake Christians would be catching the clap, or AIDs, or crabs or whatever it is this week? And I want to stop funding Congressional Chaplains with my tax dollars. They are not very diverse. I want Congress to be working, and not sitting around diddling young male aides while saying they are praying.

Posted by: Seeing Eye Chick | March 27, 2010 10:35 AM

This may be a stretched analogy, but isn't it like mandating car insurance?

That's a bad analogy. One can choose not to have a car (or to drive it only on private property).

What is the alternative choice to mandated health insurance? Suicide?

Posted by: jpf | March 27, 2010 11:14 AM

We are required to buy into and pay for Social Security whether we intend to use it or not. We are required to pay taxes for public schools (buy education) whether we have children or not, or even if we send them to private schools. Unless you live entirely off the grid, you are forced to pay (buy) for lots of stuff you may not want: public parks, airtraffic control, highway construction, etc., not to mention GM bailouts! It would have been easier to defend if health care was nationalized, like income tax. I pay for lots of mandated stuff I don't use, or maybe don't want, but it is the price of living well in my country.

Posted by: Ann Klein | March 27, 2010 11:30 AM

*buy insurance

Posted by: Abby Normal | March 27, 2010 11:34 AM

The whole idea that abortion opponents can prevent the government from spending tax money on something they object to on moral grounds chaps my ass. Like you say everyone has things they don't like that the government does. I think spending money on tax deductible corporate lobbying, subsidizing ethanol and the war on drugs are vile and disgusting. But, unlike the pro-birth crowd, I can't get a hearing. Who figured out that they get special consideration? Or where do I sign up?

I think that demanding health insurance is questionable. Much more questionable because there is no public option. In effect the government is forcing us into the hands of the insurance companies. To use, and to be at the tender mercies of, for-profit enterprise. If there was a public option and/or a selection of not-for-profit insurance companies it would be less an issue. Which is what I suspect is going to emerge in time.

Of course this oddity of demanding insurance was made necessary because the GOP has made taxes unmentionable. So the normal route for funding, lay on a tax and return a service, wasn't open.

Posted by: Art | March 27, 2010 11:41 AM

Ryan wrote:

Conservatives want to talk about individual responsibility. Well, this is exactly that. Individuals have a responsibility to provide for their own basic care to prevent passing on the costs for their emergency care to other consumers.

Unlike driving a car, your health doesn't put others at risk, which is why mandating that individuals buy health care is wrong. But forcing individuals to buy health care is also wrong because it isn't up to the government to tell a person when he or she should have health care, that decision is up to the individual himself. When we start letting the government make choices in which our actions have no impact on the lives of others, then why not just let the government organize our lives for us?

Posted by: eldiablo | March 27, 2010 12:11 PM

Conservatives should tread very carefully here, lest they get what they think they want. Everyone agrees that the only clause in the bill that even potentially raises an issue is the "mandate". The abortion claims are rank nonsense, since even if the law did violate the Hyde Amendment (it does not), Congress is free to overturn a previous law. I see the "mandate" as a tax, which one can avoid by buying insurance, the way one avoids other taxes by buying a house, a mutual fund, energy-efficient appliances, a hybrid car, etc., all of which are made by private companies, so there is no constitutional issue.

But let's assume that this foolish Supreme Court found the "mandate" unconstitutional. They could only invalidate that clause, leaving the rest of the bill intact. Just try bringing back recission or excluding pre-existing conditions after those have been banned for a few years. Not gonna happen. So, the result would be that the insurance companies would have to cover sick people with no requirement that healthy people buy insurance. In a year, they'd be bust, leaving no choice but for the government to step in with a public option or single payer. That would be fine with me, but is that what conservatives want?

Posted by: JusticeLeague | March 27, 2010 12:22 PM

That's a bad analogy. One can choose not to have a car (or to drive it only on private property).

The fact that you can't choose whether or not to live doesn't affect the fact that simply by living, you expose society to the risk that you'll become a burdenon the state by getting sick without insurance. It's kind of like whining that
you can't opt out of police protection because you didn't choose to be born in this society. Waa!

Unlike driving a car, your health doesn't put others at risk, which is why mandating that individuals buy health care is wrong. But forcing individuals to buy health care is also wrong because it isn't up to the government to tell a person when he or she should have health care, that decision is up to the individual himself.

I doubt that the typical individual who opts not to buy health insurance is actually indicating to society something along the lines of, "If I get into a car accident, you should let me die. Don't worry about spending the money. I've made my choice." No, it's the typical, "I'll take my chances because I'm a rugged individualist badass" until the shit hits the fan. Then it's, "Save me! Save me!"

It would be interesting if we could get people to sign up for a "don't give me any free health care" list and let them opt out, but I don't think it's a realistic exercise. It makes little more sense than a "don't spend taxpayer money sending the paramedics to my car accident site" and cutting the taxes you pay for a certain percentage of the 911 dispatcher.

I suppose we could save a decent amount of money not even bothering to send the fire department to some car accident sites, though. Just have the car dragged off to the shoulder and towed away with your bleeding corpse in it at a later date. There just needs to be a way to tell who is who beforehand. Or letting you opt out of police protection. Or letting the army allow Mexico to annex just your property.

Posted by: Troublesome Frog | March 27, 2010 12:42 PM

Troublesome @ 21:

It would be interesting if we could get people to sign up for a "don't give me any free health care" list and let them opt out, but I don't think it's a realistic exercise.

Such people would, of course, still be expected to pay for other's "free" health care, right? Actually, we already have this system. Everyone who buys their own health care is on the "don't give me free health care" list.

It makes little more sense than a "don't spend taxpayer money sending the paramedics to my car accident site" and cutting the taxes you pay for a certain percentage of the 911 dispatcher.

Many areas have something like this. You either pay an annual fee to have access to 911, or pay a much higher per-call fee.

Or letting you opt out of police protection.

In low-income neighborhoods, the police are often viewed as the enemy of the people. Common attitudes suggest that when the police are around, you're more likely to get hit by a stray bullet than anything else. Barring that, you're more likely to have your civil liberties/civil rights abused than to be helped. So, such a program would probably be immensely popular. You know how rich communities have neighborhood "Crime Watch" programs? The equivalent in poor communities is called "Cop Watch." Honestly, these days the police don't really do anything other than fill out paperwork for the insurance companies. Anyone with certain forms of theft insurance would probably be required to maintain the police by their insurance companies, but beyond that I think that most of the rest of society would be glad to get rid of them.

Or letting the army allow Mexico to annex just your property.

I can't begin to describe how much the fear of this keeps me up at night.

The correct analogy here is that businesses can pay for the army and navy or risk that they won't be able to turn a profit by exploiting the third-world, stealing oil from the mid-East, and shipping it all on sea lanes kept open by naval strength. The military is a form of corporate welfare, not a home-defense force.

Posted by: Miko | March 27, 2010 12:55 PM

I know many people are saying that the "you can't force people to buy health insurance" argument will lose in Federal courts. In district courts that still feel bound by precedent and statute, this is no doubt true.

However, given the radical "conservatives" on the Supreme Court and their willingness to disregard precedent, will of Congress and an obsession with limiting the Federal government's right to regulate (they have produced chaos in clean water enforcement), I am not confident that any decision can be considered a sure thing.

I hope I am wrong. I hope that Obama gets to appoint some justices that are not making it up as they go along.

It is ironic that this was the accusation leveled by the "conservatives" at the prior courts that desegregated schools, upheld voting rights, legal protections and due process, etc. Unfortunately, the current court seems to go in with a decision and finds some justification as an after thought (Bush v. Gore).

Posted by: NJ Osprey | March 27, 2010 1:09 PM

I think the best argument against the universal mandate, from both a matter of principle and policy, is how it's being funded. If we had a VAT on goods and services which supplied the funds it takes away the very same arguments that fail to rebut arguments supportive of Social Security and Medicare.

Of course taxing income like we do those two entitlements but not HCR is an equally strong argument on constitutional matters, but I think it fails as a policy matter given I find taxing income creates stronger contractual pressures to economic growth than VAT / consumption taxes, which has been empirically validated in Europe.

While I'm a strong Obama supporter I've frequently noted I disagree with him on some large policy matters. This eagerness to fund his programs, which I support, off the income of a few in society is the biggest one, and not because I'm trying to lessen the tax burden on plutocrats. Instead I believe non-plutocrats have been losing their government since they increasingly do not fund the government. They're creating ever-greater incentives for the plutocrats to invest in campaigns since they're the target expected to pay for the Left's programs. The poor and working class think they're getting a break when their effective taxes are reduced, which W. Bush did even more than those on the Left, but I'd argue they lose a commiserate portion of their government.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 27, 2010 1:59 PM

If these assholes can make it so that I have to hear their line of bullshit, to a} buy condoms, b} get BC pills C} access Plan B, d} Access RU486, or e} Get a surgical abortion---how is it that they can claim that they are not meddling in my life, and abridging my rights to privacy for the sake of their interpretation of the public good?

If we were to write our Gun laws, the way these assholes dictate Female Reproductive Self Determination, there would be bloodshed in the streets. And no one has been able to explain to me, how using deadly force as an act of self defense couldn't be, or isn't in fact a retro-active abortion, even if said killing were necessary legally speaking, as opposed to a medically necessary abortion.

Why any self respecting atheist would buy into this bullshit is beyond me as well. There is no justification for shaming women, or for limiting their access to safe, affordable abortions or any other reproductive healthcare, for the entirety of their lives, how they want it, when they want it. Secretly pushing a religious doctrine due to a hidden agenda of mysogyny bespeaks of an incomplete and immature personal philosophy and a lack of respect for women and their personal sovereignty, and the right to control their own bodies, including but not limited to, if they have sex, with whom, if they decide to get pregnant, if they decide to carry the pregnancy to term or not, for whatever reason, who they decide to have attend the birth, and where they decide to perform the birthing.

Posted by: Seeing Eye Chick | March 27, 2010 3:24 PM

In low-income neighborhoods, the police are often viewed as the enemy of the people. Common attitudes suggest that when the police are around, you're more likely to get hit by a stray bullet than anything else. Barring that, you're more likely to have your civil liberties/civil rights abused than to be helped. So, such a program would probably be immensely popular.

...And I suppose the local gang leader is going to offer people the same opt-out? Just because it doesn't have a constitution and you don't get a vote doesn't mean it isn't a de facto government. At least you won't have to pay taxes- just 'protection money'.

Posted by: DaveL | March 27, 2010 3:58 PM

Michael Heath: I'm not necessarily opposed to a VAT, but remember that the US already has consumption taxes at the state and local level and in many places they are fairly hefty. Many states also have a much flatter income tax than the feds. Has this resulted in more influence for non-plutocrats in state houses than in DC? Not so far as I can tell.

Posted by: JusticeLeague | March 27, 2010 4:47 PM

If I had to wager, I'd place my bet on the Supreme Court upholding the mandate, but all the arguments claiming it is nothing different are incorrect.

First, it is a mandate to buy a particular product in the market, rather than to participate in a government program, so the Social Security analogy is not germane.

Second, it is a federal mandate, rather than a state mandate, which changes the constitutional analysis. States have a generalized police power to regulate for the health and safety of their citizens that, constitutionally, the U.S. government does not have.

Third, it is not like the requirement that you buy auto insurance because that is contingent on the choice to own a car. Arguments that some people don't really have a choice because of where they live ignore that where you live is also a choice. I live about a mile from my office, my kids' schools are all within a mile and a half, as is the grocery store. It would be very inconvenient for us to not have a car, but with a combination of bicycles, walking, and adjustment of our habits, we could do it--and people did before cars were common--and simply rent a car when we want to go out of town (this is what we did when we lived in San Francisco). I thought about buying a house far enough out in the country that a car would have been necessary, but I chose not to do so. The Amish, who mostly do live in the country, do without cars, so it's not at all impossible to make that choice.

This claim boils down to, "those choices would be difficult, so we'll treat them as impossible." But that is very sloppy thinking when we're trying to be analytical.

But here's the question I have for all those who don't want to seriously consider that this mandate might be unconstitutional.

Are there any limits on the federal goverment's power to regulate our economic choices?

I absolutely understand why people argue that this is a good public policy, so my argument is not directed to that. But how dangerous is it to say, "let's not let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of a good public policy"? What happens when the other side makes the same argument?

So, really, is there any regulation of our economic activity that is beyond the power of the federal government, if they can require me to participate in a particular private market, not as a consequence of some other market choice I make, but as a consequence of simply being alive?

And if there is not, are we comfortable with giving government that much power?

Posted by: James Hanley | March 27, 2010 5:11 PM

James @ 35:

. . . it is a mandate to buy a particular product in the market, rather than to participate in a government program, so the Social Security analogy is not germane.

I'm struggling to understand why Social Security isn't a product. It appears to me that Social Security is mandated disability insurance coupled to a mandated pension plan. How is that not a product and not analogous to a universal mandate for health insurance?

I agree the method of taxation argues against a perfect analogy given some aren't paying in at all yet still getting coverage while a few pay to subsidize many others. That's why I think a VAT is superior and makes a universal mandate to purchase insurance perfectly analogous to Social Security. Is that why you don't find the two analogous, because we aren't all paying in?

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 27, 2010 5:22 PM

jd@30: your last sentence speaks volumes. It's been driven home to me as well, although via a very different path than yours.

It's so easy to deny that our "normal" lives hang by a thread. As we say in the special needs subculture, everyone is temporarily abled.

Posted by: Moon Jaguar | March 27, 2010 5:51 PM

Owen | March 27, 2010 9:43 AM:

I don't understand the arguments against the health care mandate. We are required to participate in a number of programs in order to participate in society, why not health insurance?

Posted by: llewelly | March 27, 2010 7:04 PM

I'm not aware of any federal mandates to buy private products, but there are federal mandates to sell private products. In particular, there is the Civil Rights Act, which forbids race discrimination in commerce. More germane to the current discussion, it's currently federal law that emergency rooms have to treat you if you need it regardless of ability to pay. The individual insurance mandate is just the other side of that coin, i.e., that you can't impose costly risks on the system by forgoing coverage.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 27, 2010 8:06 PM

Sorry, just had to add a counter to those arguing that 'my health doesn't affect yours therefore I don't need insurance if I don't want it' brigade.
Two words for you: Mary Mallon. - Dingo

Posted by: DingoJack | March 27, 2010 8:24 PM

Social Security is not a product sold in the private market . But what about long-term investments as part of a retirement program? Lots of people stash money away in their 30s, 40s, and 50s so that they can comfortably retire in their 60s. Is not Social Security a similar product?

Sure, it's similar. But there is a qualitative difference between a tax-funded service and a requirement to patronize certain private businesses.

Could the federal government require us to buy Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig meals? If not, why not?

Posted by: James Hanley | March 27, 2010 8:33 PM

"Could the federal government require us to buy Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig meals? If not, why not?"

If there were non-trivial consequences for interstate commerce, yes. I don't see where they are in your example, though.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 27, 2010 8:52 PM

Tyler,

Reducing obesity would be good for our health, no?

Posted by: James Hanley | March 27, 2010 9:12 PM

How does a mandate like this not "promote the general Welfare"? That was the whole reason for the Constitution, it even says so.

If it was legal to do for people over 65 (i.e. Medicare), it can't be illegal to do for everyone else.

Posted by: daedalus2u | March 27, 2010 9:54 PM

"Reducing obesity would be good for our health, no?"

Probably.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 27, 2010 10:09 PM

James Hanley,

Your valiant and cogent arguments are falling on deaf ears. The great majority of posters here see government fiat as the answer to all ills.

To most of them the constitution is irrelevant; a quaint sepia toned parchment written by slave holding, long dead, privileged white men, that stands in the way of true "progress".

Luckily the Supreme Court is there to "interpret" it correctly (along party lines of course) so that the federal government can go about the business of providing "social justice" by compelling "reasonable" laws that will ensure a more "equitable" and "just" society.

Your selfish libertarian views are offensive and barbaric to these enlightened individuals.

As daedelus2U points out, the words "promote the general welfare" appear in the constitution so that proves that any government program that can be claimed to benefit a plurality of citizens can be declared "constitutional", no matter how intrusive or tyrannical its implementation or eventual consequences.

Just relax, shut up, pay your taxes, do what your told and everything will be alright.

Posted by: Lance | March 27, 2010 11:31 PM

Erasumussimo,

Lance, there are plenty of people who hold the Constitution dear who disagree with you. I'm one of them.

Really, "dear" huh? Then how exactly do you reconcile this with your statement,

This country is now a completely different place than the country that wrote the Constitution. It is a marvel that we are capable of doddering along with that ancient document; the founders themselves expected it to be replaced within a few decades.

You hold it "dear" as a irrelevant relic of a by gone era?

I don't consider it holy writ but neither did the framers.

It has an amendment process.

Don't like what it says? Get 2/3's of both chambers of congress to agree with you and then have your changes ratified by 38 states.

But pretending that it is just a "doddering" "ancient document" that can be "interpreted" to mean what you like is fighting words to some of us.

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 12:45 AM

The poor and working class think they're getting a break when their effective taxes are reduced, which W. Bush did even more than those on the Left, but I'd argue they lose a commiserate portion of their government.

Because they've been fighting hard pretty much since they really saw their first real births in the 1860s, best I can remember AmH. Of course, at the time it wasn't social programs. The fights were based on "Can we Strike?" and "Boo on the Gold Standard, Add Silver/Make it totally paper".

Posted by: Rutee | March 28, 2010 3:52 AM

"atheists deny their own life element..."

Again, what does "life element" mean?

Posted by: daniel rotter | March 28, 2010 5:49 AM

I did some searching at the Volokh Conspiracy and found the following arguments. Given the two link limit I found all the arguments using the following searches words:
a) universal mandate
b) health insurance mandate
c) health insurance mandate balkin

Volokh contributors:
a) Randy Barnett has made voluminous contributions that the mandate is unconstitutional
b) Ilya Somin - unconstitutional
c) Jonathan Adler is unconvinced and argues against David Rivkin and Lee Casey's argument it's unconstitutional. However I couldn't easily find Mr. Adler arguing for the mandate being constitutional.
d) Eugene Volokh sat on a Heritage panel 12/09 along with Randy Barnett where it appears his role was to provide skepticism to Barnett's argument. I couldn't find a link to his personal position, merely that he was personally skeptical of Barnett's argument. I also could find no link to the Heritage Panel results.

I'm fully cognizant that the Volokh Conspiracy contributors lean libertarian-conservative and therefore they're not fully representative of what constitutional scholars think, which is partly why I feature Balkin and Amar quotes below. However I've found the Volokh contributors to be the most unbiased observers while coupling themselves to first principles and our founding ideals. So they are my first go-to site.

This David B. Rivkin, Jr. & Lee A. Casey vs. Jack Balkin debate at the U. of Pennsylvania seems to set the framework most referenced by Volokh Conspiracy contributors commenting on this topic. Randy Barnett especially recommends reading this paper though he believes Balkin's leverage of Raich is wrong.

It shouldn't be surprising that Randy Barnett is opposed. While some of his opponents on this matter apply Raich where the Supremes ruled that Congress requires only a 'rational basis' that the mandate is 'necessary and proper' under their 'interstate commerce' clause powers, it should be noted that Mr. Barnett of course not only argued for Ms. Raich and lost in that case, but his personal position matched that of Ms. Raich.

I could not find the Heritage Panel results, instead all they seem to be publishing is their objection via Randy Barnett's paper. No surprise there, they're perhaps the most dishonest of all think tanks I've encountered, even worse than Dick Cheney's fave, the AEI.

Balkin money quotes on its constitutionality in the U. of Penn debate:

. . . a constitutional exercise of Congress’s power to tax and spend for the general welfare. Congress acts within its constitutional powers when it raises revenue through taxation and redistributes it to serve the general welfare, and Congress has wide discretion to decide which taxes and expenditures serve the general welfare. See Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 640 (1937).

. . . no doubt . . . is within Congress’s powers under the General Welfare Clause.

The individual mandate, however, is not a punishment. It is an incentive to purchase health insurance; the obligation to pay the tax dissolves when the formerly uninsured person purchases insurance, which helps lower the total cost of the program. If taxes that act as incentives to engage in socially desirable behavior and reduce the costs of government programs are unconstitutional, much of our tax system would be constitutionally suspect.

The individual mandate, in short, is but one in a long line of government programs that simultaneously raise revenue and serve a regulatory purpose by deterring conduct that Congress thinks is socially undesirable or creates negative externalities. [Text cut-out replaced by ". . . " was due to these debaters referencing the House Bill, I assume their objections/support remain generally unchanged given the Senate Bill passed instead. I could be wrong if the language used to tax is fundamentally different.]

Randy Barnett's reaction to Jack Balkin's "it's constitutional" argument:

I think my friend Jack’s reading of Raich is wrong. Just as most constitutional law professors who before 1995 engaged in the wishful thinking that the Commerce Clause had no limit, most law professors today read Raich as saying Congress may reach any activity so long as it is part of a broader regulatory scheme. I believe the Court said no such thing, and neither did Justice Scalia in his concurrence. And make no mistake. Raich is the best case defenders have to justify this unprecedented mandate of a private person to enter into a contract with a private company simply because the person is alive.

As for the tax issues, these become really technical really fast. I do not believe that the Senate bill imposes a tax –and the President has conveniently denied it is a tax. Calling a “fine” a tax does not make it so. But, if it is a tax, it is not a tax on any activity or on income. It is a direct or capitation tax on “the person” and must, therefore, be uniform throughout the states according to the census — which this proposed tax is not.

I don't understand Barnett's argument the tax must be uniform, there are a ton of exceptions to other taxes, does Barnett argue against their unconstitutionality as well?

A Volokh post by Barnett claims this is his one-paragraph summation in a NPR radio show. The show and an accompanying article with these quotes can be found at NPR at an article titled, Opponents Threaten Court Battle On Health Mandate:

"Never in the history of the United States has the federal government ever required someone to engage in an economic activity with a private party. It's never been done, and anything that's never been done before has no precedent for it," he said. "It would have to be a new decision by the Supreme Court to uphold this new extension of power. And if they uphold this, then there's pretty much nothing that Congress can't do and that's the end of the enumerated power scheme."

Here's another highly respected scholar, Prof. Akhil Amar, rebutting Prof. Barnett on that same show:

Yale legal scholar Akhil Amar said the fact that a requirement to buy health insurance would be enforced through fines shows Congress is exercising an even more fundamental constitutional power: its power to impose taxes.

Amar says courts should not be concerned that such a mandate has not been used before.

"There's a first time for everything. Before there was a federal bank, there was no federal bank; before there was a Social Security Administration, there was no Social Security Administration," Amar said. "Have we ever had a law just like this before? No. That's why it's being proposed. That's true of many laws."

Given the respect I have for nearly all these scholars and their having such diverse opinions, I expect a challenge to this law in the federal courts. I don't believe the states have the power to do so, but certainly individuals have the right to challenge this and appear to have a case. As for me, I'll reserve judgment until this argument gets more air-time.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 7:32 AM

Jonathan Adler has some interesting takes here. Money quotes out of order from the link:

So, while Senator Baucus correctly quoted my belief that an individual mandate is likely constitutional under existing precedent, he omitted my belief that existing precedent is unduly expansive. So while I would expect a lower court judge to uphold the mandate as against a constitutional challenge, I do not think the Supreme Court is required to do so. Indeed, I believe the Court could distinguish Raich, and hold the mandate out of bounds. (For an argument why courts should, and might, do so, see here.) [emphasis added]

Adler's principled objection to the mandate:

In my view, the biggest problem with the argument for the constitutionality of an individual mandate is that it is an argument without limit. Basically, the argument is that if Congress can regulate economic activity X, then it can also mandate that each and every American engage in economic activity X. If this is true for health care, there is no reason why it is not also true for Christmas trees, savings bonds, or GM cars. In short, Congress could mandate universal participation in any economic activity and mandate the purchase of any product or service it chooses, so long as it does so as part of a broader regulatory scheme.

I find this argument to be defective. Health insurance has clear negative externalities, that could easily be a limitation set upon Congress well-before having to consider their power to mandate any economic activity.

Adler has a particularly interesting take on Congress-people's individual responsibility regarding the constitutionality of proposed legislation:

I should also note that I do not believe that members of Congress should base their decisions on whether to support proposed legislation based upon their prediction of how federal courts are likely to rule. Every member of Congress takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. I am old fashioned enough to believe this oath obligates each and every member of Congress to consider the constitutionality of proposed legislation for themselves, and refuse to vote in favor of legislation they conclude is out-of-bounds, even if they think the legislation would be a good idea. So Senator Baucus should spend less time quoting the assessment of folks like me about what current precedent means for proposed legislation, and more time explaining why he finds this and other legislative proposals to be consistent with the text, structure, and history of the Constitution he took an oath to uphold.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 8:23 AM

Michael,

That is some interesting research you've done there. It is certainly an order of magnitude more effort to understand the constitutional issues than what the typical tea partier will take on. I especially like the Adler quote at the end. It is inevitable that constitutional restrictions on the government will weaken the more that Congress-people seek to justify a new law after they propose it or decide to support it.

On a separate note, I think I can answer this question:

I don't understand Barnett's argument the tax must be uniform, there are a ton of exceptions to other taxes, does Barnett argue against their unconstitutionality as well?

I think Barnett is referring to the requirement that 'direct' taxes be apportioned among the states by population. Direct taxes are taxes on a person, property, or income derived from property. I think part of the distinction is that a person doesn't have to do anything to be subject to a direct tax. Indirect taxes result from actions, such as earning an income from labor, inheriting money or property from someone that died, etc. If the penalty for not carrying insurance is a tax, then it does seem to qualify as a direct tax since someone would be subject to it simply for existing. The 16th Amendment wasn't necessary to impose an income tax on income from labor, but it was necessary for the federal government to impose such taxes on incomes from property (interest, rent, dividends) without apportioning it.

A direct tax would then need to be apportioned. I interpret that to mean that the amount of that tax collected from each state would need to be in proportion to its population. So, if there was a higher percentage of people in New York paying the tax than in California, the amount of tax would need to be lowered for those in New York to keep the amount per capita collected from New York the same as for California. I am not confident that I am understanding this correctly, but that's the way it reads to me from a few quick searches. (Such as the wiki on direct tax)

Posted by: JasonTD | March 28, 2010 9:16 AM

James Hanley @ 68:

-I have no qualms about going along with expansion of government power if we do it right. And Congressional stretching of the envelope in conjunction with shaky Supreme Court arguments just aren't the right way to do it. Change the damn Constitution! And if you can't, then just accept that there's not enough public support to make fundamental changes in our system.

I've lost this position over the last decade on one type of needed change. Lawmakers who truly care about the national interest, where my standard would require they not become lawmakers unless they're intelligent, well-read, and principled, face an impossible task. They're elected to set and monitor policies in the interests of the country. Given the state of the Republican party and its total lack of seriousness, amending the Constitution in order to provide the necessary numerated powers to create legislation all reasonable people support would be an impossible task.

A perfect example is the one Randy Barnett uses. It's pretty clear that an original meaning reading of the 'interstate commerce' clause doesn't provide sufficient powers for the Clean Air Act. We are currently facing the worst catastrophe humans have faced since the Toba Catastrophe 69K - 77K years ago when homo sapien breeding pairs were reduced to 1K - 10K pairs. Yet in spite of more than 97% of all American practicing climate scientists in agreement on anthropogenic global warming; approximately 83% of the Republican party's national leaders don't believe climate change is man-made.

This in spite of the fact we empirically validated that to be the case at least eight years ago with a relatively large amount of precision. This will make it incredibly difficult if not impossible to put an appropriate amount of legislation in place to drive down CO2 to below 350 ppm in an adequate period of time. Some states are even fighting the EPA regulating CO2 emissions. In fact when you remove all anthropogenic forcings we should be in a slow global cooling state not a warming state running at unprecedented and ever increasing rates (except for singular events causing massive climate change). This is an empirically validated fact, not mere opinion.

The collective mistake the framers made was that their set of checks and balances assumes there will be no major party factional control. This was one of their few major mistakes in terms of the set of assumptions within which they framed their debate and development of the Constitution. I've got a long list of changes I'd like to see made to the Constitution while realizing it would be impossible to open up a convention on the Constitution or pass an amendment given the state of the Republican party which has proven itself so dysfunctional it's now incapable of governance.

This loss of fealty by me for practical purposes doesn't extend to all matters, primarily only to matters regarding the interstate commerce and 'necessary and proper' clauses. For example, there is nothing stopping President Obama's obligation to defend the Constitution by criminally investigating the Bush Administration for war crimes nor does any argument resonate regarding his position on the state secrets privilege. Nor do I think this provides an out for the federal courts to deny someone their rights when government unconstitutionally encroaches on them in an egreious manner, e.g., 1st Amendment matters. I'm merely looking at Congress' and federal courts' duties and giving them a passive pass on certain manners originalists like Barnett object to, often passively as well given Barnett is an advocate of the Clean Air Act.

I have to grudgingly step down from my moral high horse in these two areas regarding the Constitution. I do not like having to do so since its negatively reflective of our collective ability to govern.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 10:56 AM

I'd like to express my gratitude to Michael Heath, James Hanley, and JasonTD for their diligent research, careful reasoning, and precise writing. It's all very illuminating. Thanks.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 28, 2010 11:59 AM

Eurassimo,

My own two cents on the distinction between Roe v. Wade and the health care mandate--both of which can be seen as expansionary constitutional readings, for which amendment would be the ideal (if not achievable) approach.

Roe w. Wade limited government authority. I'm a pretty Radical civil libertarian, so I think that a showing of citizens' rights as against government regulation never, or rarely, bears the burden of proof. So I don't think Roe was that much of a constitutional stretch, other than that it was a continuation the incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states.

The health care mandate, on the other hand, is an expansion of government authority, so to approve it truly is an expansionary reading of the Constitution.

In short, I'm pretty much in agreement with Michael Heath's preceding comment.

Posted by: James Hanley | March 28, 2010 2:17 PM

James Hanley,

Lance, I think the folks here do hold the Constitution dear, but they have a very different interpretation of it than you and I do. When it comes to First and Fifth amendment issues, and limitations on the Executives Article II powers, they are staunch defenders of the Constitution. When it come to Article 1 powers, I think their strong concern for social issues overrides their constitutional judgment, but I can't join you in saying they don't care about the Constitution.

Well, I never said that progressives don't "care" about the constitution. As you say above, they just selectively choose things they like ("When it comes to First and Fifth amendment issues, and limitations on the Executives Article II powers, they are staunch defenders of the Constitution") while ignoring things they don't like ("When it come to Article 1 powers, I think their strong concern for social issues overrides their constitutional judgment").

Not to mention the outright sophistry they employ to emasculate the 2nd amendment.

As Erasmussimo's comments demonstrate they claim to hold the constitution dear while simultaneously saying things like,

This country is now a completely different place than the country that wrote the Constitution. It is a marvel that we are capable of doddering along with that ancient document; the founders themselves expected it to be replaced within a few decades. I would much like to see a new Constitutional Convention where we replace our presidential system with a parliamentary one, reduce the power of money in politics, settle the abortion question, and eliminate the Senate entirely -- among other things.

Yes, he holds the constitution so “dear” that he thinks it should be thrown out for a whole new parliamentary system.

Micheal Heath is so frustrated that his fellow citizens don’t agree with his views on massive government actions to regulate carbon based fuels that he says,

The collective mistake the framers made was that their set of checks and balances assumes there will be no major party factional control. This was one of their few major mistakes in terms of the set of assumptions within which they framed their debate and development of the Constitution. I've got a long list of changes I'd like to see made to the Constitution …

He and Erasmussimo clearly don’t view the constitution as the well functioning foundation of our republic.

Finally even you lose your patience with this double talk,

But--and for me this is a big but--I have no qualms about going along with expansion of government power if we do it right. And Congressional stretching of the envelope in conjunction with shaky Supreme Court arguments just aren't the right way to do it. Change the damn Constitution! And if you can't, then just accept that there's not enough public support to make fundamental changes in our system.

Amen brother! The constitutional process is not broken or an ancient relic. These people are frustrated that the process inhibits them from imposing their will on the society. Well guess what? That’s’ just what it was designed to do!

If the changes they seek are so goddamn self evident and important then they should have no problem getting congress to vote by a 2/3 majority and having it ratified by 38 states!

I think the system is being gamed by people that don’t want to play by the rules, by the means you list above “congressional stretching of the envelope in conjunction with shaky Supreme Court arguments”.

This is very dangerous.

As you rightly point out it is not just folks on the left that are doing this. Republicans have been playing the same game for years.

In that respect, strong liberals are identical to strong conservatives--they are willing to force fundamental change whether or not their is much support for such change. This is a kind of moralism that says, "Rules, procedures, and the concerns of others be damned--I am right! And anyone who opposes me is not simply wrong, but immoral and evil." I can't stand that kind of approach, from any side (including my own--and, yes, I recognize there's a vast contingent of libertarians who act just like that; I despise them, too.)

Just read Micheal Heath’s climate change screed for an example of "Rules, procedures, and the concerns of others be damned--I am right! And anyone who opposes me is not simply wrong, but immoral and evil."

But what do I know? I’m just a climate change “denialist” that shouldn’t have the right to participate in a representative democracy.

Any way you’re still my hero. I think we agree on this issue. You’re just much better at getting along with people than I am.

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 4:14 PM

Tyler DiPietro, #78:

I'll say that for myself, I certain believe in the necessity of constitutional government. That means, to me, accepting the US Constitution as it is even as we may advocate changing it or even replacing it.

As for the Constitution itself, I will give the Framers credit for an early attempt at setting up a democratic republic when there weren't very many examples to learn from. But 200+ years of experience among the original 13 states and the 37 states admitted subsequently, along with the democratic republics set up in Europe and the rest of the world in the mean time, I think that we, today, have a lot more information to know what may work better and what doesn't.

Posted by: Chiroptera | March 28, 2010 4:48 PM

Chiroptera,

I second your opinion. Constitutional guidelines are certainly necessary for governments of any sort to function, but our constitution is 200 year old technology. I certainly think the founders, particularly Madison, were brilliant political theorists. But as the old saying goes, when we stand on the shoulders of giants, we can see farther than they did.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 28, 2010 6:08 PM

Lance @ 77 ducks into a punch I already threw.

He states:

If the changes they seek are so goddamn self evident and important then they should have no problem getting congress to vote by a 2/3 majority and having it ratified by 38 states!

"goddamn self-evident" and "important" - My example was anthropogenic global warming. It is "goddamn self-evident" since it's already occurring with past predictions since the 1950s being both validated and dates of future tipping points being:
a) pulled-in
b) confidence levels increasing (now above 95% on many)
c) margins of error shrunk

No other threat or challenge can even remotely challenge its "importance". Yet in spite of anthropogenic global warming being an empirical fact and the ramifications being this is the biggest threat homo sapiens have faced since the Toba Catastrophe; 83% of GOP leaders can not come to grips on reality. Not mere opinion but empirical fact, so much so they don't even support the EPA regulating CO2 levels. I might also point out that past practices being fought to remain the status quo by the GOP have already empirically proven to have failed miserably since we went over the long-term safe threshold of CO2 levels in the air; we're now at 390 ppm vs. the safe threshold of 350 ppm with only decades to spare.

So with AGW and the history of the unconstitutional yet popular Clean Air Act we have two perfect examples of how one party is unable to even confront reality, let alone work in the interests of the country.

In light of our country's reaction to AGW, the most revealing question isn't its reality which is already understood, but instead how a political group already known for denying history will attempt to continue to deny history as its happening in their time. We've recently encountered their having to face the fact their movement can not govern, with their reaction being to become even more divorced from reality.

So no, within the context the country has only two parties and one party represents some combination of ignorant, delusional, or fierce denialists, the amendment process of our Constitution will and has not worked for decades now.

In fact when we look at this group over the past ten years their biggest agenda item regarding the Constitution was to use the amendment process to deny gays their equal rights, liberty rights, and property rights.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 6:36 PM

Modesoperandi,

It depends, I suppose, on what you consider the relation is between the opening ("…well regulated militia…") and ending clauses ("…people…") is.

Well I see it the same way the Supreme Court did in their most recent ruling on the matter, D.C. v. Heller. The militia clause is subordinate. To argue otherwise is to claim that the second amendment was intended to ensure the gun rights of the government, a somewhat dubious proposition.

Oh and militia doesn't mean what you think it means.

I don't know if you're aware, but "facts" and "Republican" (the bastion of denialism of everything from sex to economics to, let's be honest, reality in general*) now form a Venn diagram with two circles that only vaguely overlap.

If you say so, but I am not now, nor have I ever been a republican. I guess it doesn't really matter to the discussion your having in your head though.

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 7:41 PM

Since the topic of amending the Constitution has come up, this is the most interesting book on the topic I've encountered, Sanford Levinson's Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). While the author is a liberal, he spends little time promoting his own agenda and instead writes in a style that invites the reader to create his own set of priorities along with weighing the various arguments favored or not favored by the author.

Prof. Levinson also convinced me I'm wrong regarding my previous defense of the electoral college vs. his argument favoring the popular vote for the Office of the Presidency. And he's greatly enhanced my thinking on the importance of equal representation which individual voters in no way share, e.g., California having two Senators vs. say North and South Dakota having four senators.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 8:30 PM

Michael,

Re: James Hansen's book. The scientists at my college with whom I am good friends, all of whom agree that AGW is occurring, all think Hansen is a bit of a kook. Certainly we're warming, but he seems to make extreme predictions that few scientists take seriously at the margin.

Posted by: James Hanley | March 28, 2010 8:31 PM

Lance, you take me to task for suggesting that a new Constitutional Convention is in order. May I remind you that that founders fully expected another constitutional convention to replace their results after some period of time? After all, their work was the *second* attempt at putting together a constitution -- the first one having produced the Articles of Confederation, which were a dismal failure. Being cognizant of their limitations, they expected the flaws in their current design to be exposed in due time, requiring a new constitutional convention. I should think that 220 years is long enough to go without honoring their expectation.

I again remind you of the abortion issue, which has plagued this country for nearly 40 years now. I would call any polity that fails to resolve an important policy issue for 40 years "incompetent". Because we have failed to resolve this issue, we waste much of the limited political attention span of the public on this perpetual controversy. It's a total screwup, and one that would easily have been resolved with an amendment to the constitution defining the dividing line between fetus and human being. But our amendment process is incompetent to address this problem. And you consider our current constitutional regime flawless? It's still a pinnacle of perfection after all this time?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 28, 2010 8:46 PM

James Hansen,

Re: James Hansen's book. The scientists at my college with whom I am good friends, all of whom agree that AGW is occurring, all think Hansen is a bit of a kook. Certainly we're warming, but he seems to make extreme predictions that few scientists take seriously at the margin.

Saying that AGW is "occurring" is a rather innocuous non-statement. Very few scientist claim it is "not occurring". The big question is whether it is of a magnitude to be concerned to the point of imposing draconian limitations of fossil fuels, which just happen to comprise 85% of our nations energy supply.

Oh, but yes Hansen is a kook.

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 8:53 PM

Erasummimo,

And you consider our current constitutional regime flawless? It's still a pinnacle of perfection after all this time?

Uh, show me where I said anything like that. You must have quite the supply of straw on hand.

I was responding to your, and Michael Heath's, criticisms of the current system. The only positive remarks I made were that it wasn't "broken" or an "ancient relic". Does that statement equate with your claims that I held it up as "flawless" and "the pinnacle of perfection"?

As to your claim that the founders expected another constitutional convention in due time I can only quote Ben Franklin who upon signing the constitution said,

"There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. ... I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. ... It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies..."

Many signed on the provision that a bill of rights was forthcoming, which of course it was.

I don't think many of them saw it as a temporary document in lieu of a forthcoming superior document.

Also the amendment process is unlimited so what is your beef exactly? You think there should be an easier way to change the very foundation of our republic?

Article V of the constitution gives two avenues for amendment,

1. The way that has been used for all but the 21st amendment, proposal by a 2/3 vote in both chambers of congress followed by ratification by 3/4 of the sate legislatures.

2. By a national convention assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the several states, and then to become part of the Constitution, amendments must then be ratified either by approval of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or ratifying conventions held in three-fourths of the states.

By what legal mechanism, other than the amendment process, do you suppose the whole thing could be supplanted short of armed insurrection? Your claim that the framers expected another "constitutional convention" seems redundant.

Did you mean other than the amendment process outlined in article V?

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 9:43 PM

I inadvertently linked to a ScienceDaily article rather than my book review and critique of Dr. Hansen's Storms of my Grandchildren. Here's the correct link: http://www.amazon.com/review/RADAGU6DARKE7/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 10:10 PM

James - I'm with you on that all the way. This country is not currently capable of creating or significantly modifying the current Constitution, not even remotely so.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 28, 2010 10:17 PM

James Hanley,

I guess I was puzzled by Erasmussimo's phrasing. The founders didn't see the constitution as an end to the process but as a document outlining the process by which our country would be governed.

As both you and I said article V gives two ways to change the constitution. There are no limitations on those changes so saying the constitution is anachronistic is a non sequitur.

Perhaps he meant that the process is too onerous or cumbersome. I believe that is by design.

You said,

But how confident are you that what we get would be an improvement?

That is why, I believe, the founders required super majorities to make any change.

Posted by: Lance | March 28, 2010 10:36 PM

Lance @ 100,

Lance wrote @ 86:

Here is the only relevant observed fact. The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years.

I requested a citation @ 94 for your claim regarding the rise if global temp. I see here you failed to deliver @ 100; no surprise given the rise I've monitored from the Goddard Institute for that period is significantly higher.

I also noticed you failed to defend your claim that global temp. rise is the "only relevant observed fact" when considering climate change, a claim so ignorant and absurd I'm surprised you'd even defend yourself as scientifically literate. No climate scientist stakes his support of AGW merely on the global temp. anomaly but instead couples it to a far broader set of observations like I noted @ 94. That's especially important to note given that the majority of human-generated greenhouse gasses are currently in carbon sinks rather than the atmosphere, sinks which have both saturation points and have proven susceptible to significantly increased evaporation rates with only slighter higher global warming, e.g., tundra, oceans.

Lance @ 100 stated, referring to my pointing out that American climate scientists are in near-universal agreement regarding AGW:

Significant contributing factor? Big deal! Significant as in contributing 1% to the warming 10%, 30%? The survey doesn't give a number nor do the responding climatologists. That's all you've got? Notice it also says "human activities" which includes land use among other non-greenhouse gas causes. Notice what it doesn't say, that we face a cataclysm if we don't stop emitting CO2.

Re your "human activities": If you were scientifically literate on the science you'd realize that 'anthropogenic' means 'human-caused changes to nature". No climate scientist or group of climate scientists rely on making a case merely due to greenhouse gasses. You are therefore fighting some ghostly strawman in your head. In fact the climate scientist community includes scientists which observe that land use changes have an effect on greenhouse gasses especially by changing carbon sinks to carbon emitters, and causing emissions from sinks to increase their evaporation rates, e.g., ocean, wetlands, and the tundra.

In terms of "significance", the peer-reviewed and accepted science notes that all natural forcings summate to a net negative forcing, i.e., we should be experiencing slight global cooling slowly marching to an ice age. That will never happen since one mere CFC factory can mitigate such a trend, i.e., our climate is very sensitive, if you knew that you wouldn't be speaking out your ass about temp. change when in fact climate scientists also consider climate sensitivity and the net energy imbalance, measured in watters per sq. meter. When you incorporate anthropogenic forcings with natural forcings, both positive and negative, we have reversed the net negative natural forcings to a net positive, enough that the peer-reviewed community of scientists are predicting catastrophic events by the end of this century in terms of ocean acidification (already started), sea rise (already started), poleward climate migration at a rate far faster than flora and fauna can migrate (already started). Here is a graph that shows these forcings and their relevant impact: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/

The positive forcing of the sun in the above graph is the net change for the entire period, we've since changed to a solar dimming (negative) cycle.

Lance @ 100:

Notice what it doesn't say, that we face a cataclysm if we don't stop emitting CO2.

I never claimed or even insinuated that survey did any such thing; merely that American climate scientists accept the the theory of AGW. However the last IPCC report clearly does predict catastrophe, in spite of its sea rise predictions no longer being peer-accepted because our confidence in the Greenland and Antarctica ice melts were left out along with some other findings that cause most climate scientists to predict the catastrophic results of the peer-accepted IPCC report to be significantly understated.

And yes, I'm perfectly cognizant of the anti-/non-scientific denialists who've misrepresented some of the trivial mistakes in the non-science portions of the IPCC report, falsely conflating them with them with the peer-reviewed sections. I can provide a rebuttal of those attacks by non-scientists by actual climate scientists. No critique has been forthcoming that in any way discredits the theory or reduces the confidence in its primary warnings.

I look forward to your providing me with your citation that you failed to respond to in your last postThe average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years.

Lance @ 100:

When you tell me that I am anti-science, you sir, can go fuck yourself. I teach and practice science every day.

I assume poorly given claims like, "Here is the only relevant observed fact." where you then claim only global temp. matters in regards to climate change science, and fail to back that up (you can't, I could swamp you in climate change scientific papers awash in observations extending well beyond mere temp. anomaly observations that are used to observe and predict increased future temps and faster warming trends). You also make a claim that, "The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years.", which you fail to provide a citation for even upon request.

I found your 10 year claim a hoot. Anyone whose remotely tuned into climate change science knows it takes at least 14 years to strip out all the weather anomalies. In fact I laughed at your 10 year claim given that 2000 was one of the coldest of years recently and therefore the warming change to now is greater than 0.3 degrees C since then where 2010 is shaping up to be the one of the hottest years on record and that 0.3 figures is one of the steepest increases in temp. for any 10 year period since 1880: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif

Lance @ 100:

What you advocate is not science but self-righteous political advocacy cloaked in pseudo-science.

Given the fact that I've been merely referring to what climate scientists have empirically discovered and peer-accept (or I've noted otherwise), where your argument runs both contra to the peer-accepted science and in spite of your not being a climate scientist, and you fail to provide any citations for your claims; I'd argue the stench of projectionism out of you that is wafting all the way into my living room is authentic.

Lance @ 100:

I don't want to drag this thread any further off topic, but you have presented no reason that we should circumvent our constitutionally proscribed system of governance to fight your phantom menace.

I never made such a policy proposition. In fact I'm a fierce zealot of the Constitution which any regular reader here can attest. I merely noted, like James Hanley also did, that we have laws on our books and have prior to our lifetimes that are clearly not Constitutional based on a strict reading and couldn't get an amendment even when they're politically popular, where he noted Social Security and I noted the Clean Air Act as examples specifically related to either/and the 'interstate commerce' and 'necessary and proper' clauses.

In fact you might notice I spent a couple of hours this morning researching and posting in this thread what various constitutional scholars argued regarding the Constitutionality of the universal mandate including those considered conservative.

Lance @ 86 presents what I'd argue is the most dangerous attitude revealed in this thread:

I have made it clear to my senators and representatives in congress that I do not favor any punitive actions or taxes on fossil fuels in the name of AGW, period.

So here we have a guy who is not a climate scientist. He's proven in this thread he's almost perfectly uninformed regarding what climate sciences study and are concerned about. Yet he advocates his elected officials ignore the peer-accepted, highly confident warnings of climate scientists and instead follow his advice. There is no group of climate scientists arguing an alternative theory in science that rebuts the predicted ramifications contained within the IPCC, yet we should ignore all those scientists and instead follow Lance's advice. In spite of the fact that what climate scientists warn us about would cause massive damage to our food sources, shorelines, economy, and national security. Do you realize how ignorant and arrogant that comes off; that your opinion should reign over scientific fact and highly confident predictions based on those facts and historical precedent?

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 29, 2010 12:28 AM

Lance stated @ 86:

The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years. [emphasis added]

While Lance is clearly wrong about the last ten years, I think it's also important to point out how dishonest and statistically ignorant it is to point out two points on a graph when looking at trends, i.e. 'ten years'. See here for relevant graph: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif

1998 was an exceptionally hot year. So non-science denialists have been claiming there is no warming since then. They pick an extreme point to make an argument, assuming their audience is ignorant enough to not look at the graphs showing trends in manner that is statistically meaningful, in this case 'meaningful' would require we look at running averages and go back to a starting point more than 14 years from now given weather cycles and anamolies.

This sort of cherry-picking is what the Rupert Murdoch U.K. paper has exploited to argue for no warming since '98 or for the past ten years when in fact the climate has been continuously warming over the past three decades and since 1880.

Since I've encountered Lance in other forums making the same tired, falsified arguments prior to this, it wouldn't surprise me if he is so used to picking the '98 number to "prove" no warming has occurred since then when no climate scientist would pick a year and point to another year but instead would point to trends. The fact he picked 2000, 10 years ago, is hilarious because as stated earlier, that was a particularly cold year relative to previous and in our case subsequent years, making the rise since then look particularly steep, though somewhat meaningless since it's defective to not use a running average to smooth out the weather - something Lance has obviously failed to learn in his studies otherwise he wouldn't have raised the issue.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 29, 2010 1:12 AM

Erasmussimo,

...its use of 'ought' suggests that the author was contemplating an even grander mechanism.

If not the amendment process outlined in article V, what would this "grander" mechanism be?

And you consider our current constitutional regime flawless? It's still a pinnacle of perfection after all this time?

I'd appreciate an answer rather than a snide comment.

Well I found your question rather snide, but I'll give you an honest answer.

No, I don't think the constitution is flawless or the pinnacle of perfection. I do think it has functioned quite well for the last two hundred years. Perhaps you've noticed that our little republic has done pretty well for itself and its citizens.

I don't find your argument, that the continued contentiousness of the abortion issue is proof that our constitutional republic has failed, to be very persuasive. Do you suppose that there is a law or government policy that could be implemented under any form of governance that would satisfy the diversity of passions on all sides of this issue?

I’ll reserve my response on the climate change issue for another post.

Posted by: Lance | March 29, 2010 5:10 AM

Lance @ 108:

I have grown quite weary of the kind of "gotcha" cut and paste games you wish to play.

It's tough making arguments against peer-accepted scientific evidence held confidently and near-universally by the relevant scientific community. You expect us to give your claims respect while appearing almost perfectly ignorant of the science. You also make statements of fact contra to the science while providing no peer-reviewed citations supportive of your claims yet appear somewhat up to speed with non-scientific denialist claims. I would predict such advocates would have a tough time at a science-literate forum.

Lance @ 108:

When I said there had been no warming in the last decade I of course meant no statistically significant warming, as I'm sure you are well aware.

Citation please. You also appear to be attempting to move the goal posts. In addition, the GISS data shows the change from 2000 to now is significantly greater than the error bars provided in that graph, where the change was an increase of 0.3 C and all the error bars presented since the 1940s, including the one in the 1990s are less than about 0.175 C arguing the increase in temp. over the past years is statistically significant, though again, arguably meaningless given it's less than a 14 year analysis and could therefore be corrupted by weather cycles and anamolies. However and again, it should be noted in spite of your ignorant 10 year time-frame, it is statistically significant and meaningful that we've experienced the last three decades each being warmer than their predecessor. That's a glaring point that didn't originally concern you and provides overwhelming evidence you know nothing about even this elementary aspect of climate science given your cherry-picking 10 years.

Lance @ 108:

Well in fact there has been no statistically significant warming in the last fifteen years. Ask Phil Jones of the East Anglia CRU if you need an authority to reinforce that fact.

Citation please, peer-reviewed of course. I could care less how one scientist gets quote-mined. I deal in the peer-reviewed and peer-accepted understanding. I'm also well aware of the fact that Dr. Jones BBC interview was quote-mined and misrepresented by a denialist U.K. newspaper. The fact you ignore the science and instead depend on a misrepresented quote-mine popularized in the denialist community is also very revealing about where your fealty lies, science vs. denialism.

And again, scientists are looking at warming rates from 1880 using running averages, not point to point comparisons. The fact is that the 2000s were the hottest on record of this inter-glacial age, the 1990s were the second hottest, and the 1980s was the third hottest. You keep trying to quote-mine what one scientist says rather than using the observational record science uses.

Lance @ 108:

I notice you ignored the other statement about the less than one degree Celsius rise in global average temperature over the last one hundred years.

Uh no, @ 104 I stated:

That's a referral to the last ten years, which has increased 0.3 C, not a referral to the last 100 years, which is about 0.8 C.

I've also made the point several times why science tells us that rate is significant, i.e., because we're generating far more greenhouse gas material than what is stored in the atmosphere where it's instead stored in carbon sinks with saturation points. I also noted that scientists don't look merely at global temp. trends, but at climate sensitivity and energy imbalances and how we approach an imbalance that would cause a tipping point of stored energy to release some of the currently sunk carbon into the air at even faster rates. In my first rebuttal to you I also noted that science is also concerned about temp. rate trends in the Arctic, which is warming at a far faster rate and therefore presents a 'tipping point' of amplifying feedbacks such as a loss of albedo causing increasingly warming rates and a greatly increased rate of release of methane stored in the tundra and now as I pointed in a previous citation, shallow ocean sediments.

I also provided you with a global temp. graph showing trends after you failed to present a citation after I requested it. That graph showed that your claim regarding the last ten years was wrong and also included a standard error bar showing the change was significant.

Lance @ 108:

You aren't interested in discussing the science.

More projection. You are the one that makes statements contra to the science without providing any citations supporting your assertions while I've relied exclusively on what science understands. It appears your denial comes from delusion.

Lance @ 108:

If anyone should dare question your view of the scientific data you are ready to insult and smear them into submission.

You are clearly not qualified to question the "data". No scientist can consistently argue their point with 'data' without having their argument go through the peer-reviewed process. If you want to make an argument you should support it with peer-reviewed articles that support your hypothesis. Instead you are making claims pulled out of denialist literature or even worse since the ones making a living at this at least admit that science is concerned beyond mere global temp. as you falsely stated.

And it's not "my view" I'm presenting, I merely presenting what science accepts. More projection out of you trying to make this a man-to-man debate; it's not. It's about the science. Your arrogance now exceeds what I previously calculated given you believe, in spite of having demonstrated no knowledge of the collective understandings of climate scientists, are prepared to rebut that science without using any peer-reviewed articles.

Lance @ 104:

See the many insults in just your responses to me in this thread alone.

Lance @ 100:

When you tell me that I am anti-science, you sir, can go fuck yourself.

Lance @ 104:

You of course know this. (As does your fellow alarmist Tyler DiPeitro.) [emphasis added]

Lance @ 104:

Your beloved Hansen's own GISS temp shows a net change in Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index anomaly of just under 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880. So I understated the actual time by thirty years. There has only been a 0.8 Celisius change in global mean temps, even in Hansen's dubious record, over the last 130 years. [emphasis added]

As I stated @ 104:

That's a referral to the last ten years, which has increased 0.3 C, not a referral to the last 100 years, which is about 0.8 C. Lance claimed no increase in 10 years, which even if he was right, he's not, shows us how illiterate he is regarding how climate scientists frame their trends. It should also be noted that Lance framed an observation in 10 years, not me, nor would I. As I stated in the previous post it takes at least 14 years to strip out weather cycles and weather anomalies. However let's go with it, the slope on the trend over the past ten years is as steep as its been since 1880 (see previous post's link for GISS report/graph).

Please provide a citation that the 0.8 C rise in global temp. is trivial, you've now made that assertion twice. Since you claim to be all about the science (though failing to even once provide a citation), please provide peer-reviewed findings that this rise should be of no concern.

I think it's also important to bring up this other claim you made where I'll provide more of that sciency stuff to falsify your claims again. Lance @ 86:

Here is the only relevant observed fact. The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years. [emphasis added]

Here is a page from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Please note the image with the following caption:

Old v. new ice in Arctic, February 2009: These maps show the median age of February sea ice from 1981-2009 (left) and February 2009 (right). As of February 2009, ice older than two years accounted for less than 10 percent of the ice cover. Data provided by J. Maslanik, C. Fowler, University of Colorado, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research./blockquote>

The NSIDC concludes this page stating:

Even more disquieting, comparison of actual Arctic sea ice decline to IPCC AR4 projections show that observed ice loss is faster than any of the IPCC AR4 models have predicted (Stroeve et al. 2007).

Here's a peer-reviewed paper on the loss between 2004 - 2008. I note this to falsify your point that the "only relevant fact" when it comes to AGW is global temp trends, but instead there are a wide array of scientific disciplines well beyond mere temp. observations and all with a voluminous set of findings.

I look forward to your providing a peer-reviewed citation buttressing your argument that we should be unconcerned about AGW strictly because global warming trends have risen "only" 0.8 C since 1910. So unconcerned that it should compel citizens who are not scientists in the relevant field and do not know the science to request their elected officials ignore the descriptions of the threat communicated by the climate science community and instead follow their advice to "not favor any punitive actions or taxes on fossil fuels in the name of AGW, period". (Lance @ 86)

My advice to my Congress-people is simple, at a minimum create policy prescriptions consistent with what the relevant peer-accepted scientific community describes. I'm not nearly as arrogant as you to believe I know better than they do.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 29, 2010 8:10 AM

Lance, you write:

You aren't interested in discussing the science.

OK, show us that you are interested in discussing the science. Tell us where IPCC AR4 WG1 has made a significant error. Any significant error. Go ahead. Just cite chapter and page and point out what they got wrong.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 29, 2010 11:09 AM

"Well in fact there has been no statistically significant warming in the last fifteen years. Ask Phil Jones of the East Anglia CRU if you need an authority to reinforce that fact."

Bullshit, Lance. He said it wasn't significant with 95% confidence. That's a pretty basic statistical concept: take the regression line plus noise and find the variance of noise. Then take the Gaussian distribution of possible trends and find which percentage would be expected if the trend was significantly different from 0. If your trend lies outside of a given confidence interval, your trend is statistically significant.

You know damn well that temperature is a noisy time series, and trends over short time intervals are guaranteed not to be statistically significant with 95% confidence. And yet you want to use this trivial truth as evidence against global warming. It's heads I win, tails you lose rhetoric. Another mark of a denialist.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 29, 2010 3:24 PM

Erasmussimo,

OK, show us that you are interested in discussing the science. Tell us where IPCC AR4 WG1 has made a significant error. Any significant error. Go ahead. Just cite chapter and page and point out what they got wrong.

Sure.

(IPCC AR4 Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2.2, p. 350-351)

Since the subject of statistical significance as has come up, this section of the WG1 report states, incorrectly, that the increase in antarctic sea ice extent is not statistically significant.

That is wrong and several IPCC reviewers caught the error but even though the IPCC said it would note the error they actually fudged the data to attempt to hide the increase.

For full details read this.

Oh and I notice you carefully avoided asking for errors in the WGII report. That would be a much easier task and since impacts are where any change in climate is important these errors constitute a much larger problem for the IPCC.

Posted by: Lance | March 29, 2010 4:01 PM

"It's hard to feel a global trend my friend."

That's kinda the point. It's why we use statistics. Or do you now want to argue that your personal is better or more reliable than science?

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 29, 2010 4:21 PM

"[P]ersonal intuition", that is.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 29, 2010 4:24 PM

I have already conceded the point about the last ten years...The issue of statistical significance is another matter. I'll even cede that point if you like.

Well, since you've ceded the major premises on which "the point you were attempting to make" is based, therefore your "point" no longer stands. The argument is over. Good bye.

Posted by: Raging Bee | March 29, 2010 4:36 PM

Isn't the TMLC in favor of SCHOOL VOUCHERS? Even if not, I've heard so many conservatives say they'd be more than happy (no pun intended) to take other people's money and funnel it to their parochial schools. That's an even more direct involvement of the government in paying for things with tax money that other people object to.

Posted by: Troy Hall | March 29, 2010 4:48 PM

Lance, you cite IPCC AR4 WG1 Section 4.4.2.2 as an example of a mistake. Let's look at the key sentence from that section:

There is a significant decreasing trend in arctic sea ice extent of –33 ± 7.4 × 103 km2 yr–1 (equivalent to –2.7 ± 0.6% per decade), whereas the antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ± 9.2 × 103 km2 yr–1 (0.47 ± 0.8% per decade), which is not statistically significant.

So the error that you claim is significant to the overall AGW hypothesis is that they measured a positive trend but declared it not statistically significant. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill! Do you seriously claim that, if they had declared the trend to be statistically significant, any climatologists would have reversed themselves and come out against the AGW hypothesis?

You don't mention that the Copenhagen Diagnosis that serves to update IPCC AR4 does not quibble about Antarctic sea ice:

Satellite observations show a small increase of Antarctic sea-ice extent and changes to seasonality, although there is considerable regional variability. This is most likely due to changes in Southern Ocean winds associated with stratospheric ozone-depletion.

So the significance to AGW of the small increase in Antarctic sea ice (about one-sixth as large as the decrease in Arctic sea ice) is further reduced by attributing it to the ozone hole rather than cooling.

If that is the strongest criticism you can make of IPCC AR4 WG1, then how can you possibly reject the AGW hypothesis? There's nearly a thousand pages of detailed scientific explanation in that report, and you can't come up with any significant criticisms.

I notice you carefully avoided asking for errors in the WGII report.

That's because we're discussing the science of AGW, and the science is covered by WG1. I ask you to explain the scientific basis on which you reject AGW. So far, the only thing you've come up with is piddling in significance.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 29, 2010 4:57 PM

Apologies for screwing up the HTML bold tag. Only the word "science" should have been bolded.

Lance, if you want to talk about carbon sensitivity, why don't you start by declaring what you think is wrong with IPCC AR4 WG1's discussion of carbon sensitivity?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 29, 2010 5:00 PM

You asked for an error in the WG1 report and I gave you one.
I didn't claim that it collapsed the entire AGW hypothesis.
Try being a bit more gracious.

I asked for a significant error. The error you offered has little significance, because it doesn't in any fashion threaten the AGW hypothesis. I'll be more gracious when you identify a significant error in AR4 WG1.

The hand waving ozone hole explanation is an ad hoc band-aid to cover an embarrassing inconsistency in AGW theory.

Hand-waving? So you think that this paper:

Gauss, M., et al., 2006: Radiative forcing since preindustrial times due to ozone changes in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 575–599.

is just a bunch of hand-waving? Please explain why you think it's wrong?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 29, 2010 5:33 PM

Lance @ 112 stated:

I see you continue to play cut and paste games even after I told you I wasn't going to participate. But OK, I'll play for a little while.

Lance - you don't determine when someone else decides to comment or not. You can only control your own posting. Furthermore I do not understand what you even mean by "cut and paste games", the only thing I'm 'copying and pasting' is your statements, previous statements by me, or others in order to insure I do not misrepresent what others state and to insure a train of thought can be followed. It's not a game, it's considered good form for those of us who adhere to intellectual honesty.

Lance @ 112 stated:

I made two claims.

1. That there has been no warming for the last ten years.

You pounced into action. Yes, I should have been more careful with my wording. You won that round. Bravo.

I clarified that to the more scientifically accurate statement that there has been no statistically significant warming during that period. Need I give you a lesson in statistical analysis or will we both agree that my statement is correct? [emphasis added, see below about what is "statistically significant" for a 10 year period, i.e, a trend line running through the period that extends back beyond 14 years]

Here was Lance's original claim @ 86:

Here is the only relevant observed fact. The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years. This does not a catastrophe make. [emphasis added]

Actually you haven't even remotely validated your claim. I asked for citation, you've failed to provide any. So I do not even know:
what data source your referring to,
what the exact start and end points are,
whether your talking about two data points, (where you would need an elementary lesson in stats if that's your claim),
or whether you are talking about a running average trend line through that period like actual climate scientists focus on and if so,
which trend line you are referring to given that there are several sets of global temp. trend sets all using multiple varieties of trend lines, e.g.,
5 year running averages,
decadal averages,
and 13- and 25-year running averages being the most popular and where all would require more than 14 years of data trending through your 10 year period.

So no Lance, "game not over", please provide a citation from a peer-reviewed article claiming that, in your words @ 112, "no statistically significant warming during that period [last 10 years]. I'm still waiting.

Lance @ 112 stated:

Need I give you a lesson in statistical analysis or will we both agree that my statement is correct?

I think my point above makes it obvious who needs a lesson in both statistical analysis, climate science, and scientific methodology.

Lance @ 112 stated:

You minced and whined that if one played games with the data using the past three decades etc.

Actually I was chortling regarding your incredible ignorance coupled to incredible arrogance. As a rule and in general, especially when discussing temperature trends climate scientists don't cherry pick data points as you've been doing, they instead look at long term trends. I merely pointed out the most popular observation actual climate scientists, i.e., not you, communicate current global temperature trends.

Lance the fact that whooshed over your head should cause you concern about your defective thinking skills. Your stuck in a thinking mode common to denialists, whether it be creationists or AGW denialists. You're cherry picking data points or quote-mining to make an argument in spite of the fact what you're picking out isn't meaningful from neither a statistical perspective nor from what is attempting to be understood, which in this case is global temperature trends - in spite of the fact we have ample evidence so we don't need to rely on cherry-picking data or quotemines.

Lance @ 112 stated:

Since you can't refute, my now annotated, citation that there has been only a 0.8 degree Celsius rise in mean global temps over the last 130 years you are quibbling with the word "only".

I never attempted to refute what the temperature trend is. In fact I pointed out to you what the global temp. trends have been according to GISS.

I've addressed your "only" a handful of times each time noting it's the crux of your argument and requesting a citation it's trivial rather than what climate scientist assert - it's dangerously high. You've repeatedly failed to provide even an iota of evidence it's not trivial while we've presented the IPCC report which shows it's a trend guaranteeing catastrophe if we don't stop increasing positive forcings.

So please provide a citation that this amount is trivial. We've provided evidence it is not only not trivial, but unprecedented and where the paleoclimate data shows will result in massive sea level rise and significant if not massive extinction events, whose starts have already been observed.

In addition it should be noted that since the 1970's, the rise in global temp. rates has increased by over 0.6 C and the rate of that rise continues to increase. Citation: link limit exceeded, see second link @ 103.

So Lance, for the third time and on your most important point, please provide a citation that the global temp. trends are trivial and not worthy of policy prescriptions to stave off future catastrophe. We've provided peer-reviewed evidence bought by the climate science community they are, backed up by paleoclimate findings that even less rapid warming rates wreaked ecological havoc in previous ages.

Lance @ 112 stated:

Yes that's right six one hundredths of a degree per decade! Do you suppose there is any organism on the planet that could even detect that rate of change let alone be negatively affected by it?

The level of your arrogance is exceeded only by your ignorance. Global temp. rates aren't uniform across the entire globe, some areas, like the Arctic are warming much faster and therefore there are observed changes in microclimates across the globe. In addition monitoring merely temp. doesn't factor in what will drive future temp. changes, which will be effected by albedo effects and faster emissions from current carbon sinks, some of which already begun to be carbon emitters as I noted in my link to ocean sediments. In addition fauna migration rates in the N. Hemisphere are moving 4 miles per decade during the second half of the 20th century while isotherms (ave. temp. prevails) are moving 35 miles per decade over the past three decades, this change guarantees faster extinction rates.(1) Global temp. averages also doesn't consider that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions stored in the oceans which has led to increased acidification and an increase in extinction events.

Here's an example of ecological harm caused by current warming rates that show spectacular changes due to a few degrees of warming in this area: http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/16/bark-beetles-human-caused-climate-change-killing-the-great-forests-of-the-american-west/

Lance @ 112 stated:

Still not very scary huh?

Well, only if you remain mundanely or willfully ignorant, which you seem absolutely intent on doing.

Lance @ 112 stated:

What is the temperature where you are sitting now? Do you suppose that increasing the temperature in that space by less than one degree over the next century would make any damn difference?

Actually we've had an incredibly warm winter where I'm sitting now with record low snowfalls. In fact its 50 F degrees right now, where our ave. temp. is 35.7 F month-to-date, this month we're 7.3 over the average for the entire month (Gaylord, MI). We're expecting highs of 77 F degrees later this week.

Gaylord's average temp from 1971 - 2000 is 41.9 F, our ave. temp in the 1980's was 43.2, in the 90's it was 43.7 F, and the 2000s was 44.1, three straight decades of warming just like global temperatures trends. 21 of the past 24 years have realized ave. temperatures hotter than the '71 - '00 average.

Lance @ 128 stated:

Micheal Heath makes a big deal about arctic ice extent in this very thread the fact that antarctic ice has increased is valid counter evidence don't you agree?

It's Michael, not Micheal.

Lance, you can't avoid what is happening in the Arctic by pointing to the Antarctica. Each must be considered separately. I did notice you continually avoid discussing the Arctic changes in spite of the fact climate scientists primarily point to it as their primary source of concern beyond the amount of greenhouse gass emissions we've introduced into the ocean. There is no doubt the Arctic is experiencing massive and incredibly fast changes as I noted in links showing that there is hardly any 2+ year old ice in the Arctic when prior to AGW the Arctic was dominated by old ice during the rest of this interglacial age. Those changes will effect future global temps. which you also continue to ignore.

When it comes to Antarctica, here are some highlights by a factchecker site supportive of science, i.e. they use scientific findings to falsify denialist claims:

The most common misconception regarding Antarctic sea ice is that sea ice is increasing because it's cooling around Antarctica. Goddard commits this error on several occasions. The reality is the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica has shown strong warming over the same period that sea ice has been increasing. Globally from 1955 to 1995, oceans have been warming at 0.1°C per decade. In contrast, the Southern Ocean (specifically the region where Antarctic sea ice forms) has been warming at 0.17°C per decade. Not only is the Southern Ocean warming, it's warming faster than the global trend.

If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). A side-effect is a strengthening of the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas leads to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).

Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007).

Antarctic sea ice is complex and counter-intuitive. Despite warming waters, complicated factors unique to the Antarctic region have combined to increase sea ice production. The simplistic interpretation that it's caused by cooling is false. It's unfortunate that Steven Goddard has publicly speculated on why Antarctic sea ice is increasing without fully investigating what observations and research have found. The result is that many readers at Watts Up With That have been misled on the true and fascinating nature of Antarctic sea ice.

Lance @ 112 stated:

The hand waving ozone hole explanation is an ad hoc band-aid to cover an embarrassing inconsistency in AGW theory.

Science isn't a PR game as you treat it. They deal in evidence and find explanations. I've never encountered one scientific paper that refers to what is happening at Antarctica as evidence falsifying AGW. If you have such a citation, please share it with us.

1) Citation: Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen, 1st edition, page 146.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 29, 2010 8:15 PM

Michael Heath "...you don't determine when someone else decides to comment or not. You can only control your own posting."
Oooo. Deep. It's like a quote from the Matrix.

"When it comes to Antarctica, here are some highlights by a factchecker site..."
I think you mislinked. You probably meant this.

Posted by: Modusoperandi | March 29, 2010 9:22 PM

Erasmussimo,

Gauss, M., et al., proves nothing about ozone affecting Antarctic temperatures. It is a modeling study about the possible effects of ozone. It doesn’t present any actual observational data. It uses a suite of models to make predictions fixing all other variables except ozone.

These models presuppose that less ozone will result in cooler temperatures. It would be quite miraculous if the results of these model runs didn’t show cooling under an “ozone hole”.

Saying that ozone is a greenhouse gas and there is a seasonal depletion of ozone over the Antarctic and then using models that presuppose such cooling is an ad hoc explanation. This is what is meant by the term “hand waving”.

Also it should be noted that global (Antarctic and Arctic combined) mean sea ice area has remained very stable over the last thirty years. This contradicts the prevailing alarmist talking points.

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 2:44 AM

Michael Heath

Well you got me. I inverted "ea" for "ea" in your name several times, something I've done with that name since childhood. I'm sure that's never happened to you before. Especially easy since your last name has an "ea" in it. Spelling has never been my long suit.

That invalidates everything I've said.

Seriously, if you were arguing in good faith, instead of making constant insults, I might play whack a mole with your alarmist talking points. Hey, I might even change my mind about a few things. I do that occasionally you know.

But the truth is you are a zealot that views me as your enemy. Your view of the science is severely hobbled by your belief that we face an impending catastrophe and anyone that questions your view of the evidence is not just wrong but evil.

I'm starting to believe Lance might be a Poe. Nobody is this stupid.

Ya know I’ve met bullies like you over the years but once I hit puberty and shot up to 6’3” 210 lbs this kind of insult became rarer and rarer. If you want to dispute my arguments please do. I am a scientist and I have learned more from correcting my mistakes than by being correct, but if you expect a reply to your posts you better knock of the personal attacks or at least make them amusing enough that even I laugh at them.

When I told you to go fuck yourself it was in direct response to an insult to my scientific integrity, something you continue to do. Otherwise I haven’t called you a name or been uncivil.

You ask me to find peer reviewed evidence that a less than one degree change in global temperatures over 130 years isn’t catastrophic. What’s next a request for a double blind study that proves holding kittens doesn’t cause cancer?

The way science works is the people making the outrageous claims, like your debunked “bark beetle” claim, have to provide the evidence and I’m sorry that Joe Romm Climate Progress link is nonsense, but It does show where you run for your alarmist propaganda.

Here is an article from the University of Colorado at Boulder that states “Scientists also find no evidence that this outbreak is unprecedented over time spans of several centuries…” So much for your “bark beetle” scare.

You claim that I have somehow misrepresented Hansen’s GISS data by using the entire data set to derive a trend (0.06 Degrees Celsius/decade). First you complain that I don’t use a long enough data set and now using the entire data set is proof of my gross incompetence and stupidity?

Sorry Goldie Locks, I guess only you can choose the “just right” amount of data to get that “just right” answer.

You love to mention the last 40 years but you don’t like to talk about the period of a very similar rate of warming from 1900 to 1940. Whoops no rising CO2 to blame for that stretch of almost identical rate of warming huh? Then there is the downward trend from 1940 to 1980.

Oh I know, aerosols to the rescue!

The medieval warm period had warmer temperatures than today and it was on balance a benefit to human civilization. I’m sure you’ll now pepper me with papers, and insults, that contend that the medieval period never existed or was only a regional phenomenon.

We can play that game, if you play nice. Otherwise I will again invite you to enjoy a nice game of hide and go f%#k yourself.

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 4:35 AM

I inverted "ea" for "ea"

I give up. I of course meant "ea" for "ae".

This is why I teach math and not English!

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 4:52 AM

SLC, #140: Apparently, he has a bug up his ass on this subject for some reason.

Maybe it has something to do with not wanting to admit that one's actions have consequences.

Posted by: Chiroptera | March 30, 2010 8:15 AM

Re Lance @ 142

I find Mr. Lance rather fascinating. On other blogs, he has purported to accept the Theory of Evolution. However, as evidenced by his comment cited, he certainly takes a page out of the evolution deniers handbook, namely, quote mining (it is indicative that Mr. Lance didn't bother to give a link to Dr. Chus' purported statement). Just for ducks, heres' Steven Chu giving an interview. If Mr. Lance thinks that Dr. Chu is in any way, shape, form, or regard, an AGW denialist, he is living in a dream world.

By the way, there's a very good reason why we don't understand what may have happened in 1900 or 1940. Back then, nobody ever heard of phenomena like El Nino and the notion of global climate change in either direction was not even on the radar screen.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/09/stephen-chu-la-times-interview-global-warming/

Posted by: SLC | March 30, 2010 9:42 AM

SLC,

It was hardly a "quote mine". I never said Chu was a "denialist". That was a joke. You know humor. I just noted that he mentioned the temperature "plateau" of the last decade, as I did.

I was just wondering if Heath was going to go nuts on him as well.

He is a died in the wool AGW believer. That's why Obama picked him to be energy secretary. But he doesn't have any more climate science qualifications than I do, which is of course zero.

I notice you didn't answer my question. Are you afraid to treat me like an actual human being.

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 9:53 AM

Lance, you write:

Gauss, M., et al., proves nothing about ozone affecting Antarctic temperatures. It is a modeling study about the possible effects of ozone. It doesn’t present any actual observational data. It uses a suite of models to make predictions fixing all other variables except ozone.

These models presuppose that less ozone will result in cooler temperatures. It would be quite miraculous if the results of these model runs didn’t show cooling under an “ozone hole”.

Are you serious?!!?! These models are not, as you suggest, wild fantasies -- they are based on this subject called "physics" that consists of a bunch of ideas and laws regarding how physical systems behave. And ozone is not a magical substance: its behavior has been studied in great detail in the lab and in the atmosphere and we know a great deal about how it interacts with radiation. We also know its concentrations at different latitudes, longitudes, and altitudes. All this knowledge is called "data". When you combine this "data" with this "physics" (as Gauss et all did), you get something called "results" that, if done properly, can be published in a scientific paper. For you, a mere grad student, to dismiss a peer-reviewed paper as mere "hand-waving" is truly arrogant.

I am astounded that a person purportedly pursuing a career in physics would so egregiously subordinate his scientific integrity to his political prejudices. You had better hope that they don't ask you a question about AGW in your orals -- you could kiss your PhD goodbye if you reveal your true thinking on AGW. Indeed, I suspect that a person with so little scientific integrity has a poor prospect of getting a doctorate. It's been done, but you'll be talking out of both sides of your mouth, and that's quite a trick.

Also it should be noted that global (Antarctic and Arctic combined) mean sea ice area has remained very stable over the last thirty years. This contradicts the prevailing alarmist talking points.

Go back and look at your linked graph again. Note that there is definitely a decline in the anomaly of about a million square km. It doesn't leap out at you because the scale is so small, but it's undeniable. Since it's on the same scale as the total sea ice area of about 20 million square km, that means we have already lost about 5% of the total sea ice area.

You love to mention the last 40 years but you don’t like to talk about the period of a very similar rate of warming from 1900 to 1940. Whoops no rising CO2 to blame for that stretch of almost identical rate of warming huh? Then there is the downward trend from 1940 to 1980.

Lance, you are incorrect in claiming that CO2 concentrations were not rising in the first part of the 20th century. It is widely acknowledged that human emissions of CO2 began rising with the Industrial Revolution and steadily rose concomitantly with increasing burning of fossil fuels. Moreover, you seem to expect that climatic response to increasing CO2 concentrations must be absolutely linear. Climate is determined by a great many variables; the fact that other variables can temporarily mask the effect of CO2 does not imply that no such signal exists. The standard way around this problem, as you should know, is to get the longest dataset you can, and when you do that (Figure 6.10 in IPCC AR4 WG1), you get undeniable long-term increases in temperature.

By the way, you keep citing the total increase in temperature in the 20th century, but you are ignoring the far more important first time derivative of that value, which is increasing with time. That's why we're worried.

The medieval warm period had warmer temperatures than today and it was on balance a benefit to human civilization.

Your claim is not supported by the data. Here's what IPCC AR4 WG1 says:

"Figure 6.10 shows that the warmest period prior to the 20th century very likely occurred between 950 and 1100, but temperatures were probably between 0.1°C and 0.2°C below the 1961 to 1990 mean and significantly below the level shown by instrumental data after 1980."

Sure ozone is a "green house" gas, but that doesn't suddenly explain away a complex phenomenon like increasing antarctic sea ice just because a paper cites six models that say "since ozone is a green house gas temps can be expected to increase all other variable held constant".

You misunderstand the science here. The reasoning is that the ozone hole has increased latitudinal air circulation in the Southern Ocean, isolating Antarctica from global climate. By reducing the heat transport from temperate latitudes, the Antarctic has grown colder.

You also understand the meaning of Mr. Chu's statements. The fact that we don't fully understand a topic does not mean that we are unable to make useful predictions about its future behavior. We certainly don't fully understand meteorology (far from it!), yet we derive a great deal of benefit from weather predictions. Yes, they can be off the mark sometimes -- but they're on the mark so much more often that they provide a useful guide to our decision-making. Indeed, is there ANY scientific topic that we can claim to fully understand? Even the motions of satellites and planets -- surely one of the best-understood fields of physics -- are subject to perturbations that we have not yet fully resolved. Would you halt space exploration until we fully understand all these points? Would you forbid the use of internal combustion engines until we fully understand the complex chemistry of their operation? Would you leave your computer turned off until we fully understand the properties of semiconductors at the microscopic scales at which they operate?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 30, 2010 11:40 AM

Damn, I screwed up the HTML formatting again. The second paragraph in my post #147 is a quote from Lance and should be italicized. Sorry.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 30, 2010 11:45 AM

Lance, you write in #150:

Gauss... doesn’t claim to explain macro-effects like changes in sea ice extent. You pressed into that duty.>

Oh, no, I didn't. I was responding to this statement that you made in #112:

The hand waving ozone hole explanation is an ad hoc band-aid to cover an embarrassing inconsistency in AGW theory.

My point, that you apparently missed, is that what you call a "hand-waving ozone hole explanation" is in fact based on peer-reviewed research.

The hand waving comes in when people try to cobble studies like Gauss et al. together with ad hoc explanations of complex processes to explain inconvenient fact like increasing Antarctic sea ice extent.

Those "ad hoc explanations" are what scientists call "hypotheses". And this particular hypothesis has a great deal of observational evidence to support it. So I'll ask you to come out into the open and declare whether or not you accept the hypothesis that decreases in ozone in the Southern Hemisphere have caused higher temperatures the Antarctic. Yes or no? If you don't accept it, why not?

The derivative for the last thirty years is very similar to the derivative of the 1900 to 1940 period. And the amount of CO2 at that time was much smaller. The trend then went negative for 30 years while CO2 increased monotonically. Not exactly evidence of high sensitivity to CO2.

You are repeating two mistakes that I have already explained for you:

1. Taking portions of the data rather than the entire dataset. Figure 6.10 in IPCC AR4 WG1 shows the entire dataset we have, and it clearly shows the acceleration in temperatures. Please provide a justification for breaking the data for the 20th century into three subsets, and justify WHY you chose those particular subsets. I claim you're cherry-picking the data.

2. Assuming that the response to increasing CO2 concentration must be monotonic. This would be correct if CO2 were the only factor that affects global temperatures. However, there are many more factors at work. Those factors can produce a number of variations on the trend. That's why we take the largest possible dataset to determine the effect of CO2.

Sheesh. I grow more and more dubious with every post that you have a bachelor's level grip on basic scientific reasoning. I would smile at the colossal mistakes you make in a lower-division physics student, but an upper-division student who made such mistakes in one of my courses (were I again teaching) would not pass.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 30, 2010 3:03 PM

Lance - your bug rebuttal is not peer-reviewed. I linked to the Romm site because he quoted another peer-reviewed article that was embedded at that page that provided the underlying context for the peer-reviewed beetle infestation article. Here is the article I was referring to embedded in the linked page. The findings of the 19 scientists on that team was:

Greenhouse gas emissions have significantly altered global climate, and will continue to do so in the future. Increases in the frequency, duration, and/or severity of drought and heat stress associated with climate change could fundamentally alter the composition, structure, and biogeography of forests in many regions. Of particular concern are potential increases in tree mortality associated with climate-induced physiological stress and interactions with other climate-mediated processes such as insect outbreaks and wildfire. Despite this risk, existing projections of tree mortality are based on models that lack functionally realistic mortality mechanisms, and there has been no attempt to track observations of climate-driven tree mortality globally. Here we present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress. Although episodic mortality occurs in the absence of climate change, studies compiled here suggest that at least some of the world's forested ecosystems already may be responding to climate change and raise concern that forests may become increasingly vulnerable to higher background tree mortality rates and die-off in response to future warming and drought, even in environments that are not normally considered water-limited. This further suggests risks to ecosystem services, including the loss of sequestered forest carbon and associated atmospheric feedbacks. Our review also identifies key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system. Overall, our review reveals the potential for amplified tree mortality due to drought and heat in forests worldwide.

Please provide a scientific citation for your Accuweather graph. Accuweather is a media company, they are not a scientific enterprise with publishing climate scientists on staff. So I'm highly suspicious the graph is both accurate or meaningful. You keep talking about your science creds and you fail on the one of the few attempts to provide a cite.

I'm even more convinced you are not a scientist given your last two cites, or if you are, an extremely bad one.

Also, climate scientists do not conflate Arctic and Antarctica sea ice observations and do depend on ice area, more evidence of both your ignorance and my explaining this to your previously. In fact they focus mostly on Arctic thickness and age, not extent. I've repeatedly cited the leading science organization on ice and snow and not once have I seen them conflate the two. You've also continually failed to address the majority of 2+ year old sea recently lost in the Artic, which is where climate scientists focus much of their concern, in spite of your apparently false claims you support science.

Also, I'm still waiting for a cite regarding your assertion that the global temp. trends are trivial, contra to the position of climate scientists. That is the crux of the matter in terms of your claim.

I'm also looking for a cite that the amount of carbon sequestered from human activity in carbon sinks that has not yet caused warming is not of concern, especially since that is of the greatest concern of climate scientists when coupled to amplifying feedbacks yet you continually avoid discussing it in spite of my repeatedly bringing it up. Climate scientists know, unlike you and in spite of my repeatedly pointed it out, that human-generated activities are not totally reflected in past temp. observations but will subsequently play a major role in future temp. observations, with paleoclimate data supportive of this prediction when non-human forces were driving a saturation of carbon sinks.

Your psychological projection regarding your fealty to science coupled to your complete refusal in providing citations that falsify the key evidence of scientists in a field other than yours is really quite stunning. That is what science does. You disagree with the science, yet you provide no evidence that discredits it, merely presenting your own obviously uniformed logic.

I'm guessing you are a young man whose made a mistake many young men have, you've let your ego get ahead of your position and you have no way to walk that back without your ego taking a hit. If you are a scientist, you would actually study what climate scientists understand and assert prior to defaming their theories as you've repeatedly done here, instead you contiue to dig a deeper and deeper hole showing you don't even know how to even reference evidence supportive of your argument, let alone come even close to discrediting scientists outside your field and clearly beyond your talents.

Your sore at my insulting you while you insult an entire body of scientists and the incredible amount of effort they've put into understanding the climate. You insult them in spite of your almost complete ignorance regarding the basic physics*, their findings, and their theories.

*You have yet to explain a contra finding in both climate sensitivity and energy imbalance in order to support your assertion that global and Arctic temp. trends coupled to the marginal increase in positive forcings is trivial. You merely argue that the temp. trend looks small to your eye as it should to anyone. You call yourself a scientist yet you fall for the primitive delusion of believing your senses rather than the output of the scientific process which is nearly universally accepted.

If really are a scientist, I can better understand why the rate of acceptance is 97% rather than closer to 100%.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 30, 2010 6:21 PM

Micael Heath

For the sake of argument lets suppose I am "stupid" "naive" "a bad scientist" suffer from a "complete ignorance regarding the basic physics" and lack "basic scientific reasoning" or I'm really a "liar" and "not a scientist" or "an extremely bad one".

That I exhibit "projection" "disagree with the science" suffer "primitive delusions" demonstrate less than "a bachelor's level grip on basic scientific reasoning" and show "obviously uniformed logic".

That I am the sort of person that will "egregiously subordinate his scientific integrity to his political prejudices" (that bit of projection is perhaps my favorite).

I could go on. Those are just the ad hominem assaults in your and Erasmussimo's last few posts.

For the sake of argument let's say those things were true. If so, you and Erasmussimo would still be displaying a level of malice beyond anything acceptable in the course of rational discourse(or basic human decency for that matter).

When I have been in the presence of people that possess just a few of the negative qualities you and Erasmussimo have ascribed to me (I doubt there are many mentally functioning humans that could display them all)I have been overwhelmed with pity and tried to either quietly walk away leaving the poor sap with at least a shred of dignity or tossed him/her a bone and pointed them toward the light.

You claim I have backed myself into a corner. I think your, and Erasmussimo's, level of desperate vitriol reveals something quite different.

It is typically the people in the corner that resort to these sad, but still despicable,tactics.

What would you have lost if you had been a bit more patient and civil? What might you have gained?

Cheers

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 8:49 PM

Lance,

I'm still waiting for a cite supporting your assertion that the global temp. trends are trivial, contra to the position of climate scientists. That is the crux of the matter in terms of your initial claim.

I'm also still looking for a cite that the amount of carbon sequestered from human activity in carbon sinks that has not yet caused warming is not of concern and won't cause warming trends to increase even more over their currently increasing rates, especially since that is one of the greatest concerns of climate scientists when coupled to amplifying feedbacks. This was originally requested based on your admonitions to your elected officials to ignore what the peer-accepted community of climate scientists predict and instead listen to citizen Lance.

If you were truly a scientist you would be moving beyond your own personal rationalizations you've continued to rely on in this comment thread and instead support your assertions with compelling peer-reviewed evidence; actually make that convincing evidence since you framed the amount of the change as trivial in absolute terms. To date I've seen zero attempts by you to accomplish either request.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 30, 2010 9:10 PM

Lance @ 86:

Here is the only relevant observed fact. The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years.

Here is an article I just read after posting my previous comment that illuminates how the evidence absolutely falsifies your claim that the 'only relevant fact' regarding AGW is global temp. trends.

This is not new evidence, it merely validates many previous research efforts. It also shows how the marginal increase of greenhouse gas emissions doesn't merely get emittted and stored in the atmosphere to raise temperatures, but some of it also is stored in the ocean where increased acidification is increasing extinction rates. As the air and ocean continue to warm that stored CO2 won't merely acidify the ocean, but instead get evaporated at a faster rate and increase the rate of warming.

If you had been reading this site daily you wouldn't have made your initial claim I emphasized above. I've been constantly challenging you to support this assertion knowing that was impossible given findings like these that reveal it's not only about past global temp. trends. I present this to validate my advice in my previous comment regarding study material.

Dr. Hansen does a great job explaining acidification effects in his book on AGW, especially describing the risk of sea life with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons.

Posted by: Michael Heath | March 30, 2010 10:45 PM

Erasmussimo.

Upon further review I see that the faux apology wasn't from Michael Heath (notice my assiduous attention to the proper sequence of a's and e's) but from you.

My recent olive branch extends even to you.

But it is a limited time offer and any further insults, back handed or otherwise, will be met with perpetual silence.

The ball is in your court gentlemen.

Posted by: Lance | March 30, 2010 11:22 PM

Lance,

I don't understand your argument, or really the argument of AGW deniers in general. The reality is that our planet has a finite amount of resources. AGW, whether it is correct or not is irrelevant, points out one of the flaws in our current global economy. We act as if our resources are endless and self-renewing. That simply isn't the case. Now the scientific evidence argues strongly for AGW, but that is besides the point since many of the ecological responses to AGW are also thoughtful and competent responses to long-run resource depletion. Why ignore the reality that we will run out of resources when we could gradually, intelligently, and carefully implement renewable resources, implement recycling in a systematic and intelligent way rather than an expensive desperate response to the inevitable shortages that will arrive?

Fair disclosure, I agree with the evidence that our activities are impacting the climate. But again, above and beyond that, the response to this threat is a coherent, intelligent implementation of renewable resources and pollution reduction strategies that will be both environmentally and economically beneficial if implemented reasonable and with planning and foresight. These policies will need to be implemented regardless, so why not do it intelligently rather than stick our heads in the sand and ignore the reality of resource depletion?

Posted by: dogmeatib | March 31, 2010 12:16 AM

Tyler DiPietro,

For all I care you can call me a baby-fucking pederast and a coprophile, I'll argue any substantive points you make. I just reserve the right to be nasty back.

And some people enjoy being lashed naked to a bed while being fed their own feces.

To each his own I guess, but I prefer a respectful rational discussion.

If you are incapable of engaging in one so be it, I just won't be participating.

Posted by: Lance | March 31, 2010 7:32 AM

Lance, I'd like to ask you what I consider to be a killer question for denialists:

The National Academy of Sciences was created by an act of Congress with the assignment to provide the government with reliable scientific advice regarding issues of public policy import. The NAS takes this responsibility very seriously, and has always been very conservative in its reports. Its membership is restricted to the creme de la creme of American scientists. It has a tradition of reporting only those statements that garner supermajority support among its relevant members. As a result, in nearly 150 years of reporting to Congress, the NAS has never made an incorrect statement in its official reports.

The NAS has officially reported that global temperatures are increasing, that this is largely due to human releases of CO2, and that in the future these temperature increases will likely impose very large economic costs on the US.

Question: do you think that you are smarter than the NAS?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 31, 2010 11:21 AM

Erasmussimo,

Your argument is a naked appeal to authority.

As a result, in nearly 150 years of reporting to Congress, the NAS has never made an incorrect statement in its official reports.

Your faith in the infallibility of the NAS is touchingly naive.

Posted by: Lance | April 1, 2010 2:46 AM

Dingo,

Thanks for the links.

Yes, the coral bleaching claim is a pervasive one. It is similar to the bark beetle claim in many ways.

It's almost 4:00 am here. I'll post up a few links to information on this complex issue in the morning.

Oh, by the way, I always appreciate your comments and the way you deliver them. You are cordial and even when you slap someone with an insult you usually make it humorous.

I enjoy a good clever jab once in a while. If it is not mean spirited and it adds something to the exchange.

Posted by: Lance | April 1, 2010 3:54 AM

Lance @ 168 stated:

You [Michael Heath] continue to argue in bad faith

Since when is presenting peer-reviewed and often peer-accepted and requesting the same in return from you in ‘bad faith’? That’s more evidence of projecting on your part. Yes, I concede, out of our entire dialogue I’ve made my first mistake to write, i.e., ‘projectionism’ [sic], rather than ‘you are projecting’. But to be vividly clear; you have and continue to project your own behavior on to others who have provided no evidence deserving of such.

You are the one whose argued in bad faith by making two assertions that you fail to back up with evidence, assertions that are mere elementary failures in argumentation. Namely you assert @ 86:

Here is the only relevant observed fact. The average global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last century and not at all in over ten years. This does not a catastrophe make.

“Here is the only relevant observed fact” is an argument from ignorance, subsequently overwhelmingly falsified by empirical facts published in peer-reviewed articles and peer-accepted. These facts come from a wide array of scientific disciplines and their findings have been independently validated many times. I provided a peer-reviewed example of one @ 159 clearly showing that an effect of AGW was ocean acidification which is leading to increased extinction events. I picked this one observation and prediction because it has been both observed and validated by several independent groups of researchers with no other scientists challenging these findings. Except ol’ Lance believes only global temp. trends matter, not the emissions of greenhouse gasses that go into a carbon sink like the ocean and begin to risk marine life and as it continues to warm, become a gigantic greenhouse gas emitter.

Your argument that global temp. increases is trivial is an argument from personal incredulity, where you both refuse to consider the peer-accepted evidence already presented to you via the IPCC report and other cited sources which falsifies your argument. This is either dishonesty to acknowledge receipt of this information, a fierce form of fierce denial, or you aren’t capable of understanding it. None speak well of you, especially since you fail to present any evidence it isn’t trivial given that science has shown it is not only not trivial, but running at unprecedented rates where more modest rates led to changes that would be catastrophic to our current well-being.

Lance @ 168 stated:

The way science works is that when a claim is made the people making the claim are required to provide convincing evidence to support it. This is especially true when the party making the claim is calling for world wide policies that will affect almost every facet of modern life.

More projecting I see. This is exactly what has already been done, presented to you several times, and the response we continually request of you where you fail miserably. Instead you merely assert that your opinion is sufficient in lieu of empirical facts, even requesting the same of your elected officials! As I stated and cited, the peer-accepted scientific community of climate scientists are in support of the IPCC report which has already been presented to you. There is evidence which has been published since the 2007 which challenges that IPCC report’s predictions on sea level rise as being under-estimated, not because science was wrong when the IPCC report was published, but instead because they didn’t have sufficient confidence in their models to predict other causes of sea level rise with adequate precision. The IPCC predictions on sea level rise is catastrophic enough to warrant consideration in terms of public policy, the fact scientists understand those levels are underestimated while you continue to ignore them speak very ill of you.

So we have evidence that has 97% of American practicing climate scientists concurring with the theory of AGW, we have the global community of climate scientists producing peer-accepted findings and predictions like both the IPCC report and the subsequent report out of Copenhagen, and then we have Lance’s non-scientific ‘argument from ignorance’ and ‘argument from personal incredulity’ with his presenting zero evidence that somehow the fast warming increase recorded is “trivial”, in spite of the fact that past warming event occurred even more slowly yet still resulted in significant sea level rise and extinction events that would be devastating to humanity. Lance vs. science where Lance demands evidence, evidence is presented, and then Lance acts as if no evidence is presented or that scientists in the field are in vast general agreement and hold their observations and predictions with high confidence, all the while claiming he doesn’t need to produce evidence to remain loyal to scientific methodology, that Lance’s mere opinions are consistent with scientific methodology. Do you realize how absurd your arguments sound?

Lance @ 168 stated:

The less than one degree rise in global temps over the last 130 years is not causing any dire consequences

We’ve already presented peer-reviewed and in some cases peer-accepted evidence that such changes in the past have created “dire consequences”, that we are already seeing damage currently and have since the latter half of the 20th century, and that such damage will increase over time. Your claim that you are supportive of scientific methodology while remaining fiercely ignorant of what science has discovered and reports is really a monumental display of denial, idiocy, or dishonesty.

Lance @ 168 stated:

It is your responsibility to provide convincing evidence that this minor and benign change in temperature is first of all cause for alarm, second identifiable as human caused and third a reason to impose massive government restrictions, taxes and controls on fossil fuels.

Well, again you continue to misrepresent the science given that we’ve repeatedly pointed out that global temp. haven’t merely risen a little over 0.8 C since 1880, I noted @ 103 (with citation) and @ 131 that what alarms climate scientists is that global temp. trends have risen by over 0.6 C since the 1970s and the rate of that rise continues to increase. In addition what has also repeatedly been pointed out is that looking merely at global temp. trends makes one impotent to understand what is causing this rise in temp’s, other side effects – like ocean acidification, and the fact most anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are going into carbon sinks where increasing temps will cause those sinks to emit a far higher rate of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, virtually guaranteeing that warming will not only continue, but at increasing rates. You’ve also ignored that the predictions this would happen have already started happening. All of this has been presented to you in prior comment posts and yet you continue to act is if this peer-accepted evidence does not exist.

So the convincing evidence has been presented, evidence that is peer-supportered and directly contra to your mere opinion. You appear to be either so dishonest you act as if it hasn’t, or in such a fierce state of denial you are incapable of either realizing it’s been presented or unable to comprehend the contents of that which we’ve presented.

And again regarding your policy statement; why should elected officials believe Lance rather than the community of climate scientists and the National Academy of Sciences? As I asked in a previous comment, “ If I were an elected official who received one of your letters and asked for you to provide evidence for the two assertions of yours I've listed in this comment post that were your original central arguments in this thread; how would you respond? "Trust me, climate scientists are wrong and I'm right?"

Lance @ 168 stated:

The best you have done so far to support that outrageously outlandish claim is to reference waning Arctic sea ice levels (which as I type this post are approaching the mean value of the last 40 years) and a link to a Climate Progress article about bark beetles.

Dishonesty or denial? My claim isn’t “outrageously outlandish” given it is what the peer-accepted science community argues via the IPCC report and other reports like the report out of Copehagen. In fact I’ve presented zero personal claims, unlike you I know I’m not qualified to create my conclusions regarding climate science. All my claims are citations from climate scientists and my best representation of their claims and findings. In addition I’ve presented the IPCC report, and linked to the Goddard Institute, and the National Center of Snow and Ice Data as well as several peer-reviewed findings that falsify your position, not merely discredit your personal opinion, but falsify it, e.g., ocean acidification and scientific concern regarding Arctic ice melt. The IPCC report addresses and falsifies your points quoted from your comment @ 86 and yet you continue to act is if there is no claims being made by science that refutes your point, that these are merely my claims. This is another gross example of your projecting given that is what you are doing, making claims without presenting any supportive evidence while I rely on the evidence – King Evidence.

And as I already stated in a previous comment, I referred to the Climate Progress article because it had two embedded links to peer-reviewed articles on the subject of current ecological damage from climate change while also providing some quotes from those articles. Since you first challenged the presenter of this evidence, I since used one of my two-link maximum allocation to redundantly link to the peer-reviewed article that supported the fact that climate change is causing damage to conifers by way of beetles surviving winters at vastly higher rates. I could find nothing in your rebuttal cite that even challenged the findings of this article, I’m guessing you read neither my citations or even your own.

Lance @ 168:

Then you fill the rest of the post with condescension and vitriol.

Well why is that? You have strong opinions on a science-related matter and demand we support our assertions, fair enough and something we did prior to even being asked. But then you fail to do the same even after repeated requests, merely repeating arguments we’ve already falsified with actual empirical evidence. You repeatedly ignore the peer-reviewed evidence that is presented to you and assert nothing has been presented except “outrageous [personal] claims”, even after we present that evidence again, evidence which you failed to discredit or falsify with a presentation of your own of peer-reviewed evidence. Instead you merely repeat your since falsified arguments (a sign of fierce denial). You behave in a manner that is completely contra to science yet accuse those who are depending solely on what science has discovered and agrees upon of that behavior – the projecting part.

Posted by: Michael Heath | April 1, 2010 10:08 AM

The global climate is a complex system so one will never be able to "prove" climate change to the degree of certainty one can prove that Earth orbits the Sun or that DNA is the genetic material. But then those who disbelieve global warming turn around and posit all kinds of dire consequences from the measures that might be put in place to counteract climate change. Yet, the economy is a complex system also. What evidence is there that a reasonable carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system would destroy the economy? None that I can see.

Suppose that we added $1/gallon to the gasoline tax. That would take US gasoline prices up to where they are in Canada and still well below Europe. Is the Canadian economy in ruins? Hardly, in fact it's doing better than the US right now. It would also generate $150 billion in revenue/year. You could use part of that to improve mass transit, rebate part to low income people in areas that lack public transportation and use the rest to make a dent in the deficit.

The fact is that reasonable steps to reduce energy use can at least mitigate the effects of global warming, assuming the science is correct. And if the science is wrong, they would still reduce dependence on foreign oil and conserve valuable resources in case the peak oil people are right. What's wrong with that?

Posted by: JusticeLeague | April 1, 2010 12:38 PM

Lance, you write:

I find your assertion that an "amateur" must deffer to the opinion of a scientist in the field in all cases to be disconcerting especially coming from a trained physicist.

That intellectual humility disconcerts you further reveals the nature of your thinking. I am an expert on a few things; on those things that I am not an expert, I place weight on the opinions of authorities to the extent that their expertise exceeds my own. I do not consider myself an expert on climate change and so I place a great deal of weight on the judgements of those who are experts. However, this does not mean that I "must defer" to their judgements; if I perceived some egregious difference between their judgements and my own impressions, I would seek to resolve that difference, expecting it to arise from my own failure to understand. There is, of course, the extremely low probability that I happen to be right and all the experts are wrong. I consider this probability to be vanishingly small. You apparently consider it to be quite high.

The majority of them are based on global climate models. These models not only substantially disagree with each other...

IPCC AR4 WG1, Chapter 8 presents 23 different GCMs. It presents a number of graphs showing how well they agree on a number of dimensions. What is most valuable here is that the average of their results matches historical values quite closely. For example, please examine FAQ 8.1, Figure 1, which shows that the average deviation of the average from historical values is about 0.1ºC. Moreover, the dispersion of their individual results looks to me to be about 0.2ºC. Those differences do not constitute a "substantial" disagreement when our concern is whether temperates will be rising by several degrees C.

...but also have consistently over-predicted temperatures when compared to the actual temperature records.

That's incorrect. Again, consult FAQ8.1, Figure 1 for temperature predictions. They have most definitely NOT consistently over-predicted temperatures. You are not telling the truth.

You complain that the IPCC charter presupposes AGW. What you fail to appreciate is that this supposition is not in and of itself logically significant, because the charter explicitly assigns IPCC the task of assessing the scientific information relevant to AGW. That word "relevant" means information that is both positive and negative. If the IPCC had been instituted with a built-in bias, the wording would have been "supporting the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change". But that's not what the charter says. You misrepresent the clear meaning of the charter.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | April 1, 2010 1:16 PM

Justice League,

Are you seriously arguing that massive energy taxes would have no negative economic impact?

And make no mistake it would take draconian and massively punitive taxation to reduce fossil fuel use by the amount necessary to obtain a reduction of CO2 to the levels people like James Hansen, and Michael Heath, are calling for.

This doesn't even address the fact that China and India have no intention of doing anything put ramping up their CO2 output over the next 20 to 50 years.

You had better hope that the scientists with whom I agree are correct, because I guarantee you that humanity is going to keep right on burning fossil fuels at least until fusion or some other breakthrough becomes more economically feasible.

That is a simple fact. We're not leaving it in the ground.

Posted by: Lance | April 1, 2010 11:39 PM

It would be a trivial matter to disprove the statement that "all the experts" agree on this issue.

Indeed it would. However, I have never stated that all the experts agree on this issue; what matters is the most of the experts (more than 90%) agree on this issue.

The current IPCC model suite average is outside of its 95% confidence interval. Not a very impressive performance when the best you can say about the IPCC models is that you can't 100% mathematically prove that they have been completely falsified.

This statement appears nonsensical to me; the problem lies in the undefined phrase "model suite". I assume that you mean by this "the collection of all the models used in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report". Which means, then, that you are declaring that the mean of the distribution lies more than two standard deviations away from itself. Expressing your statement in mathematical form, you are declaring that

x ≠ x

Surely I don't have to argue with you that this statement is false?

Yet you want the entire world to abandon fossil fuels use, which provides over 85% of the US energy supply, over the next 20 to 50 years based on this dubious evidence.

I have never discussed policy options; I am arguing science, not policy. You seem to mix the two together; I gather that your reasoning is something like this:

"1. The only solution to AGW is to abandon use of fossil fuels within 50 years.
2. Abandoning fossil fuels within 50 years would be very damaging to the economy.
3. Therefore AGW is scientifically incorrect."

I do not consider this line of reasoning to be correct. I believe that policy should be dictated by reality, not the other way around, as you apparently would have it.

You had better hope that the scientists with whom I agree are correct...

Again, for me, scientific conclusions are not based on my personal hopes. I agree, the world would be a happier place if CO2 emissions were trouble-free, but I don't wear rose-colored glasses.

I'm also curious as to the identities of these "scientists" with whom you agree. Yes, there's Mr. Lindzen. There are a handful of others. But the number of active, reputable, publishing climatologists whose positions are similar to your own is very, very small. So please, tell me who they are.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | April 2, 2010 12:07 AM

Erasmussimo.

I have never stated that all the experts agree on this issue...

Well this is the only issue we have been discussing and you said,

There is, of course, the extremely low probability that I happen to be right and all the experts are wrong. I consider this probability to be vanishingly small. You apparently consider it to be quite high.

This obviously means that I think I am correct and "all the experts are wrong". Thus all experts agree that we face catastrophic climate change which is the only kind I have argued against.

Which means, then, that you are declaring that the mean of the distribution lies more than two standard deviations away from itself.

That is not what I said. What I said was that when the actual temperature record is compared with the mean of the models used by the IPPC in AR4 it lies out side the 95% confidence interval of the model mean.

Now I have heard the 30 year excuse but when the gap is widening and people are calling for policy decisions to be made on these models, common sense calls for discretion rather than haste.

Also there are hundreds, if not thousands of scientists that agree with me on this issue. You mentioned the "handful" of high profile scientists but the list doesn't end there.

Here are four and the abstract of their paper,

A falsification of the thermal specialization paradigm: compensation for elevated temperatures in Antarctic fishes
Frank Seebacher1*, William Davison2, Cara J Lowe2 and Craig E Franklin3

Abstract

Specialization to a particular environment is one of the main factors used to explain species distributions. Antarctic fishes are often cited as a classic example to illustrate the specialization process and are regarded as the archetypal stenotherms. Here we show that the Antarctic fish Pagothenia borchgrevinki has retained the capacity to compensate for chronic temperature change. By displaying astounding plasticity in cardiovascular response and metabolic control, the fishes maintained locomotory performance at elevated temperatures. Our falsification of the specialization paradigm indicates that the effect of climate change on species distribution and extinction may be overestimated by current models of global warming.

Posted by: Lance | April 2, 2010 1:00 AM

"Are you seriously arguing that massive energy taxes would have no negative economic impact?"

No, Lance, I'm suggesting that you subject your economic claims to the same standard you demand of climate claims; i.e., prove they would.

Even libertarians and supply siders admit that governments have to raise some revenues. Every $ from energy taxes is a $ that doesn't have to be raised from income and payroll taxes. And we'd be taxing something that at least might be bad (fossil fuel burning) as opposed to something that is almost certainly good (working and investing). As for the effect on individual budgets, suppose I pay $2,000 more in energy taxes, but $2,000 less in income and FICA taxes. I can continue being an energy hog and come out even or I can buy a hybrid, car pool, insulate my house, etc. and have money left over to spend on other things. My choice.

Then of course there is Raging Bee's point about sending money to unstable or unfriendly foreign regimes. Surely you can't think that is a good thing?

There is another issue that you are ignoring, which is peak oil. Like climate change and economics, there is uncertainty as to exactly how much oil is left on Earth. What is not uncertain is that a planet of defined size cannot have an infinite supply of anything, fossil fuels included. The new oil being found is offshore, deep undergound (or both) or in tar sands and shales. None of those are extractable for $10/barrel, like the stuff in Saudi Arabia. Surely you can't be opposed to making the wisest possible use of a limited, expensive resource?

You mention India and China. Undoubtedly, their fossil fuel use will continue to increase. That will only increase the price. Get used to expensive scarce energy.

Finally, you despair of meeting the most aggressive targets for reducing carbon emissions. I tend to agree we probably won't meet them. But suppose you are 100 lbs overweight. Should you do nothing, because losing 100 lbs seems impossible? Or should you lose 50 lbs?

Posted by: JusticeLeague | April 2, 2010 7:33 AM

Erasmussimo,

You have completely misrepresented my position on the subject of climate change. Climate change is of course "occurring". The climate of the earth has been changing since the earth cooled to condense an atmosphere and precipitate the oceans four billion years ago.

It is also likely that the CO2 that has been released by humans burning fossil fuels has had some effect on temperature.

My position, and that of a great many scientists, including the ones who authored the paper to which I linked, is that nothing "catastrophic" is occurring nor is there any reasonable probability that anything "catastrophic" will occur over then next century.

Since you failed to understand this sentence, I shall parse it for you.

Well that's extremely gracious of you, but I understood that sentence, and the entire paper thank you.

It would seem that you have misunderstood my argument. Since I know you wouldn't purposely misrepresent someone else's point of view let me rephrase it for you.

Anthropogenic climate change is not of a magnitude worth restructuring the entire world's energy economy or requiring massive changes in the lifestyles of its citizens.

There, I hope that clarifies it for you.

The paper to which I linked presents evidence that ecosystems are not so fragile that a small change in temperature, of the type likely to occur from anthropogenic climate change, will be catastrophically disruptive.

Also you have again misunderstood my statement on the accuracy of climate models. I was not talking about "back casting" as you keep insisting. This is observing that the models fit the data that was used to build them. Not exactly a monumental achievement.

I was talking about the "predictive" skill of these models when compared to actual temperature records. When the last twenty years of data is compared to what the IPCC models forecast in 1990 the mean forecast of the models falls well outside of the 95% confidence interval.

Even the models from 2007 are skirting the edge of the 95% confidence interval when compared to real temperatures.

You then return to hand-waving excuses with,

But the controlling factor here is the thermal mass of the oceans relative to the energy budget of the earth. Do the calculation -- you'll see why 30 years is a good number to use here.

This despite the fact that there has been no appreciable warming of the oceans to explain the "missing" heat.

Also, like Michael Heath, I see that you rely on alarmist political blogs for your information. DeSmogBlog is hardly an impartial source of information.

The great majority of experts agree that we face climate change over the next century which, while probably not catastrophic in extent, will surely impose very large economic costs upon civilization.

Well after misrepresenting my argument you at least agree that we face no "catastrophic" consequences.

You unfortunately surround this admission with two unsupported claims.

Claims like "the great majority of experts" are nothing more than unsupported appeals to authority. There is nothing there to address.

You then say,

climate change over the next century...will surely impose very large economic costs upon civilization.

Well this statement is vague and unsupported. "Very large economic costs" is a matter of great debate amongst economists (and don't call me Shirley).

You and Michael Heath seem intent on overstating the evidence for dangerous anthropogenic climate change while continuing to make personal insults.

I don't see much point in continuing if you don't start acting more reasonably.

Posted by: Lance | April 2, 2010 3:14 PM

Anthropogenic climate change is not of a magnitude worth restructuring the entire world's energy economy or requiring massive changes in the lifestyles of its citizens.

The emphasis here is telling: Lance is admitting that AGW is real, but he's just not willing to admit it's bad enough to warrant any change in anyone's behavior. That's the kicker for people like Lance, and the reason they hijack threads on totally unrelated subjects to flog their denialism: avoiding any sacrifice, any change in lifestyle or priorities, is the first and only priority.

Lance, of course, does not live on land that's in the process of being overwhelmed by rising oceans; nor, I suspect, does he live in a place where he has any reason to feel affected by any ecological change; so that probably colors his understanding of how bad the problem is.

The paper to which I linked presents evidence that ecosystems are not so fragile that a small change in temperature, of the type likely to occur from anthropogenic climate change, will be catastrophically disruptive.

We're not concerned with catastrophic disruption to the ecosystem as a whole; we're concerned with catastrophic disruption to one particular species' ability to continue to survive and feed itself within that ecosystem. The Black Plague, Chernobyl, pandemic flu, and that meteor that may have wiped out the dinosaurs weren't "catastrophically disruptive" to the overall ecosystem either.

Claims like "the great majority of experts" are nothing more than unsupported appeals to authority.

And your similar claims are different...how?

Lance, I hope, for your sake, that the Saudi oil barons and their Wahabbi allies have paid you well for your undignified and transparently dishonest parroting of their official line.

Posted by: Raging bee | April 2, 2010 3:42 PM

I'll repeat the following paragraph of Lance's just to show the gross inadequacy of libertar[d]ian thought processes:

If you think taxation and cap and trade are going to suddenly provide the innovation necessary to replace fossil fuels you are placing a great deal of faith in the idea that restricting people's choices will result in positive outcomes.

First, the minor point: taxation and other financial incentives won't "provide innovation;" they'll provide incentives to use the innovations we already have.

Now the major point: libertards seem chronically unable to understand that "restricting people's choices" results in positive outcomes every fucking day. When we restrict people's ability to beat up everyone who disagrees with them, we get freedom of speech. When we restrict people's ability to rob, rape and kill others, we get peaceful civil society. When we restrict people's ability to dump their garbage and sewage in their neighbors' yards and rivers, we get cleaner land and water. When we restrict people's ability to create and market dubious and dangerous financial products, we get a more reliable financial system that enables everyone to become more prosperous and stay prosperous. There's plenty more examples where that came from, but I don't think I need to keep on listing them...

Posted by: Raging Bee | April 2, 2010 4:25 PM

I know this will be a waste of my time, as trying to have a reasonable discussion with RagingBee has usually proven in the past, but hope springs eternal so here goes.

Lance is admitting that AGW is real, but he's just not willing to admit it's bad enough to warrant any change in anyone's behavior.

Spitting in the ocean raises the temperature of the ocean. This is a true statement. Now go out and find evidence that this temperature increase is measurable against the natural variability of ocean temperatures.

Lance, of course, does not live on land that's in the process of being overwhelmed by rising oceans;

Well since the IPCC, which you and others here treat as holy writ, states that there is an,

observational finding of no acceleration in sea-level rise during the 20th century.

there is no one in that category right now.

As to the future possibility of such a fate, the IPCC TAR predicts a sea level increase of between 11 cm and 77 cm. When you consider that sea level has been increasing since the last glacial period at rates not outside of that range this leaves little justification for alarm, whether you reside in a coastal area or not.

nor, I suspect, does he live in a place where he has any reason to feel affected by any ecological change; so that probably colors his understanding of how bad the problem is.

I challenged Michael Heath to show that any serious negative ecological consequence could be attributed to the less than one degree rise in temperatures over the last 130 years. The best he could do was a discredited claim that bark beetle infestations had become worse.

Perhaps you can do better, although I doubt it.

We're not concerned with catastrophic disruption to the ecosystem as a whole...

Well some of you certainly are. It's hard to argue with six people at the same time.

...we're concerned with catastrophic disruption to one particular species' ability to continue to survive and feed itself within that ecosystem. The Black Plague, Chernobyl, pandemic flu, and that meteor that may have wiped out the dinosaurs weren't "catastrophically disruptive" to the overall ecosystem either.

Well Chernobyl wasn't "catastrophically disruptive" to our species and the "meteor" (I think you mean asteroid) that may have led to the demise of the dinosaurs certainly was disruptive to the ecosystem as a whole, so I'm not sure what your'e saying here.

Maybe it's that humans are more susceptible to climate change than the ecosystem as a whole? This is a curious statement to make about a species that not only thrives in every region of the earth's surface, in temperature extremes that range form -89 degrees Celsius to +58 Degrees Celsius, but has actually adapted to spending months in the vacuum of space.

Lance, I hope, for your sake, that the Saudi oil barons and their Wahabbi allies have paid you well for your undignified and transparently dishonest parroting of their official line.

I appreciate your concern. As I write this post I am reclining in my villa being massaged by Arab maidens supplied to me by the Royal Saudi family. I have been assured that I will be one the first interplanetary ferry to New Earth, which is being built using petro-dollars that are being generated by the sale of oil to dupes that are destroying their own planet by driving SUV's.

I'll wave down at you from the window of my private cabin as we leave orbit from what will be the devastated, hellish remains of our once verdant home world.

I'd appreciate it if you kept it our little secret.

Posted by: Lance | April 2, 2010 5:36 PM

Your most recent post begins by blatantly putting word in my mouth.

In that same post I asked you several times to declare your own range of numbers. You have diligently avoided answering this question. Now you seize upon this excuse to skulk off. You avoided answering my direct questions, you seldom provided any support for your false claims, and you twisted the results of a scientific study. All the while implicitly positioning yourself as superior in expertise to the members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Once again we see the universal truth: rationalism just doesn't work with deniers.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | April 2, 2010 5:48 PM

Lance wrote,

I find your assertion that an "amateur" must deffer to the opinion of a scientist in the field in all cases to be disconcerting especially coming from a trained physicist.

You misread my post @172 badly, if you think that is what I meant. Or perhaps you were putting words in my mouth, as you just accused someone else of doing.

My point is that it is extremely unlikely for amateurs to have some knowledge or insight into the problem that the experts haven't already considered and dealt with. Imagine a biologist, engineer, lawyer, and an economist all arguing over the Copenhagen interpretation. They might all be highly intelligent people, but no matter who 'wins' the discussion, nothing of consequence is going to be added to our understanding quantum mechanics.

You said that the basic facts of climate change are accessible to everyone with a basic understanding of science, perhaps unlike the finer points of quantum theory. Those basic facts will lead any such person to the conclusion that emission of GHG's is, at least, presenting a risk of significant problems for human society. The basic physics of the greenhouse effect are not in dispute. Nor is the fact that human activity is responsible for the dramatic rise in the concentrations of many GHG's since industrialization.

Where the expertise is required is in the evaluation of evidence for what impact it is having now, how much more temperatures are likely to get given different emission scenarios, and what the impacts of those results are likely to be. I've read nothing from you in this thread that makes me think that you have even the same understanding of these problems than the experts, let alone a better understanding.

Ever since I started reading blogs and commenting on them, I have thought about what the point of it all is. I have come to a couple of conclusions. The way I look at it is that I am challenging other commenters to show that they understand the issue as well as they think they do. All too often, people arrive at a position based on an emotional or ideological reaction and then start thinking of how to back it up.

Even more important, though, is that I want to test my own understanding in the same way. As Richard Feynman once said, you are the easiest person for you to fool. Take care not to fool yourself, and it becomes easy not to fool other people. In order to do that, you have to imagine all of the ways in which your argument might be wrong. If you have come to your argument from an emotional response, as I discussed earlier, then it is going to be very difficult to imagine how you could be wrong. That is why I post. In addition to trying to challenge people that I think are falling into that trap, I want to be sure that I haven't done so myself. If my arguments have holes, then other people are more likely to find them than I am if I am just rationalizing a preferred position.

You should think about that, Lance. Because your argumentation here has not lived up to that kind of scientific spirit, where we always keep in mind that we could be wrong in our conclusions. In dozens of posts, you haven't really bent on anything despite having clearly made some mistakes.

Posted by: JasonTD | April 2, 2010 7:23 PM

Jason TD,

I'll start with your final statement,

In dozens of posts, you haven't really bent on anything despite having clearly made some mistakes.

That is clearly false. I responded to a breathless AGW screed made by Michael Heath with only two claims.

1. That the earth's average temperature has risen by less than one degree Celsius over the last 100 years.

and

2. That temperatures hadn't risen in the last ten years.

After responses that refuted that claim I withdrew it. This statement wasn't precise enough and I modified it to "There has been no statistically significant warming over the last ten years."

People complained that this was an artifact of statistical analysis.

So I ceded that point as well, as it really isn't central to my reasoning anyway.

So please at least correct your statement that I haven't "bent" to counter evidence. I appear to be the only person in the discussion that has.

You certainly haven't shown any proclivity to acknowledge even the most mundane and obvious objection to your strident and illogical appeal to authority.

Like the rest of my detractors you have just made snide insults about my reasoning ability and scientific objectivity.

Also, invoking Richard Feynman to defend a lame consensus argument is appalling. Here are his words on the subject.

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”

Posted by: Lance | April 2, 2010 8:04 PM

Spitting in the ocean raises the temperature of the ocean...

You really think it's appropriate to compare spitting in an ocean to the cumulative effect of decades of human activity on the Earth's climate? What they lack in facts and honesty, the denialists more then make up for with ridiculous analogies.

...observational finding of no acceleration in sea-level rise during the 20th century.

Typical quote-mining behavior: the mere fact that there's no accelleration in sea-level rise does not mean the sea level isn't rising, nor does it mean the rise is not "significant."

Maybe it's that humans are more susceptible to climate change than the ecosystem as a whole? This is a curious statement to make about a species that not only thrives in every region of the earth's surface...

Yet another example of uncaring simpleminded libertard thinking: people can go anywhere on Earth without immediately dying, therefore the damage we do to the environment doesn't matter -- at least not until the libertards themselves are inconvenienced.

After responses that refuted that claim I withdrew it. This statement wasn't precise enough and I modified it to "There has been no statistically significant warming over the last ten years."

There you have it: Lance makes a false statement; the falsehood is exposed; so Lance then pretends it doesn't matter.

Posted by: Raging Bee | April 2, 2010 9:50 PM

The first argument has a slim chance. It's at least not patently ridiculous. And I actually agree that the insurance mandate is both a bad idea and an unjust one. I still think it's quite unlikely to succeed in court. Ironically, in order to make this case, they're going to have to ask "unelected judges" to "invent a new right" because nowhere is a right not to pay for insurance enumerated in the constitution. How "activist" of them.

Seriously? What a ridiculous statement. They are going to have to ask the judges to invent a new right "not to pay for insurance?" Uh, no. They are simply going to have to ask the judges to rule that the US government has no authority to force people to purchase health insurance. And it doesn't! The tenth amendment says so.

From Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution:

[The tenth] amendment is a mere affirmation of what, upon any just reasoning, is a necessary rule of interpreting the constitution. Being an instrument of limited and enumerated powers, it follows irresistibly, that what is not conferred, is withheld, and belongs to the state authorities, if invested by their constitutions of government respectively in them; and if not so invested, it is retained BY THE PEOPLE, as a part of their residuary sovereignty.3 When this amendment was before congress, a proposition was moved, to insert the word "expressly" before "delegated," so as to read "the powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the constitution," &c. On that occasion it was remarked, that it is impossible to confine a government to the exercise of express powers. There must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the constitution descended to the most minute details.4 It is a general principle that all corporate bodies possess all powers incident to a corporate capacity, without being absolutely expressed. The motion was accordingly negatived.1 Indeed, one of the great defects of the confederation was, (as we have already seen,) that it contained a clause, prohibiting the exercise of any power, jurisdiction, or right, not expressly delegated.2 The consequence was, that congress were crippled at every step of their progress; and were often compelled by the very necessities of the times to usurp powers, which they did not constitutionally possess; and thus, in effect to break down all the great barriers against tyranny and oppression.

The federal government does NOT have the authority to force people to buy health insurance, only the states do. There are not rights to make up here, only a recognition of the fact that federal government was created with limited powers, and those powers did not include forcing people to buy insurance.

Posted by: mroberts | April 2, 2010 11:56 PM

Lance @ 193:

I challenged Michael Heath to show that any serious negative ecological consequence could be attributed to the less than one degree rise in temperatures over the last 130 years. The best he could do was a discredited claim that bark beetle infestations had become worse.

This easily destroys any invisible thread of credibility Lance has. The very link he presented is not peer-reviewed, however it does have a link which leads to many peer-reviewed articles on the subject of climate change, these articles publish findings of beetle infestations because of climate change and predict far worse damage due to future climate change. So Lance is citing work that falsifies his own claim quoted above. I suspect Lance is not reading the science, but instead looking to quote-mine scientists in a way that misrepresents their work as I reveal below.

Here is the paper I originally cited . The online version is dated 10/21/2009 and its abstract reads:

Greenhouse gas emissions have significantly altered global climate, and will continue to do so in the future. Increases in the frequency, duration, and/or severity of drought and heat stress associated with climate change could fundamentally alter the composition, structure, and biogeography of forests in many regions. Of particular concern are potential increases in tree mortality associated with climate-induced physiological stress and interactions with other climate-mediated processes such as insect outbreaks and wildfire. Despite this risk, existing projections of tree mortality are based on models that lack functionally realistic mortality mechanisms, and there has been no attempt to track observations of climate-driven tree mortality globally. Here we present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress. Although episodic mortality occurs in the absence of climate change, studies compiled here suggest that at least some of the world's forested ecosystems already may be responding to climate change and raise concern that forests may become increasingly vulnerable to higher background tree mortality rates and die-off in response to future warming and drought, even in environments that are not normally considered water-limited. This further suggests risks to ecosystem services, including the loss of sequestered forest carbon and associated atmospheric feedbacks. Our review also identifies key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system. Overall, our review reveals the potential for amplified tree mortality due to drought and heat in forests worldwide.

Lance @ 137 links to an undated article which is not peer-reviewed. Its sources are all years old compared to my 2009-10 article. He never actually quotes what supposedly discredits the peer-reviewed article I cited prior to and above here. What’s comically ironic is that his link does refer to a more scientific type article that while older than the article I cite, both citations are peer-reviewed work and is supportive of the fact that global warming is happening, it is a cause for bark beetle infestation, and an increase in damage in the future will occur. Here’s the link to the article embedded in Lance’s link @ 137; this link has peer-reviewed work in support of my more recent article, the citations are the end of the article linked here where I quote the abstracts to those citations and some of the article itself below.

Here's the complete abstract from one of those papers embedded in Lance's link:

The current latitudinal and elevational range of mountain pine beetle is not limited by available hosts. Instead, its potential to expand north and east has been restricted by climatic conditions unfavorable for brood development. We combined a model of the impact of climatic conditions on the establishment and persistence of mountain pine beetle populations with a spatially explicit, climate-driven simulation tool. Historic weather records were used to produce maps of the distribution of past climatically suitable habitats for mountain pine beetles in British Columbia. Overlays of annual mountain pine beetle occurrence on these maps were used to determine if the beetle has expanded its range in recent years due to changing climate. An examination of the distribution of climatically suitable habitats in 10-year increments derived from climate normals (1921-1950 to 1971-2000) clearly shows an increase in the range of benign habitats. Furthermore, an increase (at an increasing rate) in the number of infestations since 1970 in formerly climatically unsuitable habitats indicates that mountain pine beetle populations have expanded into these new areas. Given the rapid colonization by mountain pine beetles of former climatically unsuitable areas during the last several decades, continued warming in western North America associated with climate change will allow the beetle to further expand its range northward, eastward and toward higher elevations. [emphasis mine]

Here’s a second abstract from Lance’s scientific source:

Forest insects and pathogens are the most pervasive and important agents of disturbance in North American forests, affecting an area almost 50 times larger than fire and with an economic impact nearly five times as great. The same attributes that result in an insect herbivore being termed a “pest” predispose it to disruption by climate change, particularly global warming. Although many pest species have co-evolved relationships with forest hosts that may or may not be harmful over the long term, the effects on these relationships may have disastrous consequences. We consider both the data and models necessary to evaluate the impacts of climate change, as well as the assessments that have been made to date. The results indicate that all aspects of insect outbreak behavior will intensify as the climate warms. This reinforces the need for more detailed monitoring and evaluations as climatic events unfold. Luckily, we are well placed to make rapid progress, using software tools, databases, and the models that are already available.

Here are some comments from the science-supported article embedded in Lance’s link @ 137 (the article containing the citations whose abstracts I quote above):

Evidence from observational, laboratory, and modeling studies indicates that climate is a major controlling factor of bark beetle outbreaks (Bentz et al. 1991, Logan et al. 2003, Carroll et al. 2004, Breshears et al. 2005)

And

A warming climate during the last 100 years, particularly in the last few decades, also appears to have played a role in driving recent insect outbreaks. Higher temperatures and a longer frost- free period subject the trees to additional water stress, and may accelerate the growth and development of the beetle larvae. The warming trend of the past few decades (Westerling et al. 2006) may have contributed to the current outbreak of mountain pine beetle in Colorado, as well as recent outbreaks that have occurred outside of Colorado in historically marginal environments for bark beetles, such as at the northern extent of their range in Canada (Carroll et al. 2004) or in high elevations of the northern Rockies (Logan and Powell 2001, Hicke et al. 2006). Furthermore, changing climate conditions are thought to have been responsible for a very severe mortality event in the piñon trees of southern Colorado and adjacent states. Between 2002 and 2004, extensive piñon mortality occurred during a severe drought and an accompanying outbreak of Ips bark beetle (Breshears et al. 2005). Although a more intense drought actually occurred in the 1950s, piñon mortality was far more severe and widespread in 2002 - 2004, apparently because the unusually warm conditions that accompanied the recent drought put additional stress on the trees and allowed more extensive outbreaks of the piñon Ips beetle. [There’s even more in this article falsifying Lance’s claims]

Also, my argument was made as a response to comments Lance made @ 112. He used scientific data to create his own personal average by treating each year as deserving of equal weight while ignoring the fact that the climate scientists who publish these findings instead use running averages which are far more representative to the more recent observations that matter than Lance's distributed average which treats 1880 with equal weight as 2008.

After distorting the information provided he created a totally uninformed argument @ 112 from personal incredulity which I quote:

Yes that's right six one hundredths of a degree per decade! Do you suppose there is any organism on the planet that could even detect that rate of change let alone be negatively affected by it?

My bark beetle example was a peer-reviewed empirical example of conifer damage due to global warming illuminating how wrong Lance's statement was above. The peer-reviewed articles embedded in Lance’s cite, while older than my article, are consistent with the fact that bark beetle infestations can and have been caused by global warming and the relevant researchers predict an increase in damage due to global warming. This again is the exact opposite argument Lance made and claims to discredit @ 193 though instead it merely reveals he's a liar misrepresenting the science just like we see out of nearly any creationist or denialist.

Lance also dishonestly misrepresents the science here to given that the more important trend is the temperature trends over the past four decades have increased 0.17 C per decade, almost three times greater than Lance's .006 C per decade claim given he spreads the increase back 130 years.

Lance lies about what scientists have discovered. Lance lied about my results and lied about the result of his attempt to rebut the science. Lance is a liar, I see almost no science in his comment posts and he certainly doesn’t possess the character required to be a good scientist.

Posted by: Michael Heath | April 3, 2010 2:43 AM

DJ:

on a completely different topic, what style of citation are you using? - curiously,

The one that worked in getting a google search result to retrieve the right paper at a top position on the 1st page of a google search. As you know we have a two-link limit in order to bypass moderation. I wanted to insure that anyone that wanted to retrieve those papers could do so easily merely by copying and pasting my citations into a google search.

Posted by: Michael Heath | April 3, 2010 3:12 AM

Michael Heath,

The very link he presented is not peer-reviewed, however it does have a link which leads to many peer-reviewed articles on the subject of climate change, these articles publish findings of beetle infestations because of climate change and predict far worse damage due to future climate change. So Lance is citing work that falsifies his own claim quoted above. I suspect Lance is not reading the science, but instead looking to quote-mine scientists in a way that misrepresents their work as I reveal below.

I notice you didn't quote any of the papers that said that insect ranges change over time and most of the areas now infested had been infested in the past during previous warming events. Or the papers that said that bark beetle infestation was not occurring at any unnatural rate or in places it hadn't occurred before.

If I weren't such a nice guy I would say you were "lying by omission".

You also ignored the papers that said that many non-temperature related factors were involved in the change of range of these insects.

Here is what I quoted from the article,

Scientists also find no evidence that this outbreak is unprecedented over time spans of several centuries, or that human fire-suppression has made western U.S. forests unusually prone to fire.
Here is a summary from the only research paper linked to in the article.

Here is the actual summary from the synthesis report linked to in the article.

Recent Forest Insect Outbreaks and Fire Risk
in Colorado Forests:
A Brief Synthesis of Relevant Research

W.H. Romme1, J. Clement1, J. Hicke2, D. Kulakowski3,
L.H. MacDonald1, T.L. Schoennagel3, and T.T. Veblen3

Summary: There is no evidence to support the
idea that current levels of bark beetle or
defoliator activity are unnaturally high. Similar
outbreaks have occurred in the past (Figure 2).
There is no evidence to support the idea that
current levels of bark beetle or defoliator activity
in Colorado’s lodgepole pine and spruce-fir
forests are unnaturally high. The outbreaks now
taking place in Colorado are similar in intensity
and ecological effects to previously documented
outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains. For example,
mountain pine beetle outbreaks killed millions of
lodgepole pine trees over thousands of square
miles in the Cascade and Rocky Mountains
during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s (Lynch
2006; chapter 4); and a spruce beetle outbreak
in the 1940s killed spruce trees over much of the
White River Plateau in western Colorado.
Historic photos and tree-ring evidence also
document extensive insect outbreaks prior to the
20th century (Baker and Veblen 1990, Veblen et
al. 1991, Veblen et al. 1994, Swetnam and Lynch
1998, Eisenhart and Veblen 2000, Veblen and
Donnegan 2006). Thus, insect outbreaks are a
natural occurrence in almost all of the different
kinds of forests in Colorado. Outbreaks do not
occur very frequently; the time interval between
successive outbreaks in any given area is
usually measured in decades. Nevertheless,
outbreaks can be expected periodically in almost
any place in the state where forests are found.

So I quote an article that references a recent synthesis report compiled by four leading researchers in the field that reviews the research from over 100 relevant research studies on the topic and the summary of that paper says just what I claimed it said, to which you reply,

Lance is a liar, I see almost no science in his comment posts and he certainly doesn’t possess the character required to be a good scientist.

Well Heath, thanks for proving my point that you can't argue in good faith. I think you have demonstrated the lowest ethical behavior of anyone in this discussion.

I hope we meet in person some day. My full name is Lance Harting. I teach at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis. Feel free to come visit.

I find that people say things in anonymous blog posts that they would never say in person.

Of course you just might be the exception to the rule. Either way you have demonstrated a level of dishonesty and repeated ill-intent that precludes further communication.

Good day to you sir.

Posted by: Lance | April 3, 2010 2:07 PM

Erasmussimo,

...my purpose is to demonstrate that denialism is fundamentally irrational.

Oh, so you came into the discussion having already concluded that I was a "denialist" and your goal was to prove that I was "fundamentally irrational".

My purpose was to have a rational discussion of a scientific topic. No wonder things went so badly.

Next time be more honest about your intentions and your intractable preconceived ideas.

We could have saved a lot of time.

Posted by: Lance | April 3, 2010 2:16 PM

Lance "Care to elucidate?"
No. We both know what is meant.
Besides, I'm a man of few words. The strong, silent type. With features chiseled from granite, sharp cheekbones, pout lips that permanently stand on the cusp of a smile, a haughty, inquisitive brow and distracted, rebellious hair. And I've got piercing blue eyes that bore right in to you, deep down to your very soul, which results in my glasses falling off a lot.

Posted by: Modusoperandi | April 3, 2010 2:49 PM

If citizens of every state are forced to pay for the health care of these freeloaders,

Um, Llewelly? We already are. Talk to any ER nurse about frequent flyers.

Posted by: Shay | April 3, 2010 3:10 PM

Lance,

On a number of occasions you have obviously misunderstood the point being made...

This last statement is flat obnoxious. With some reasonable degree of effort I gained a working understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics, do you suppose that your little blog posts were beyond my comprehension?

In my case, at least, you did misunderstand my point, twice. I reread what I wrote more than once and thought I was being reasonably clear, but it should be obvious by now that I was not making an appeal to authority as you claimed. I have also been quite civil and rational, and yet you didn't respond to my last post. That's your choice, but if you want to persuade anyone, you need to respond to direct challenges to your arguments or facts. If you pick and choose only the fights you think you can 'win', then people will see that pretty easily.

It is not incumbent upon me to prove a negative. It is up to the persons making the claim of catastrophe to prove that we must take drastic, anti-constitutional measures to avoid said catastrophe.

Two things here. First, the position of most skeptics is not a 'negative' that does not have a burden of proof. If your position is different from what I am about to describe, then I will stand corrected. I read your position as being that there are not going to be any problems from global warming that make it worth taking action now to reduce GHG emissions. That is a prediction subject to testing, i.e. a hypothesis in itself. The basic physics of the greenhouse effect is non-controversial (as I pointed out before). I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect you to back up a claim that warming won't be a significant problem, just like I expect anyone to back up a claim that it will be a problem.

Secondly, I suppose some potential measures to regulate carbon emissions might be unconstitutional, but given the Massachusetts v. EPA ruling, it seems that the Supreme Court thinks that the EPA, at least, has that authority. Not that the Supreme Court can't make mistakes, but it does get the final say. It would be even harder to argue against one particular measure: a straight carbon tax. I'm not aware of any restrictions on Congress's taxing authority beyond the distinction between direct and indirect taxes I brought up in #69 and the ban on poll taxes. I actually think that a revenue neutral carbon tax (where all revenues from the tax are used to offset cuts in other taxes) would be far better than cap and trade.

Posted by: JasonTD | April 6, 2010 12:16 AM

Lance - sorry to butt in on your poo-throwing contest but:
a) Which would you rather perform open heart surgery on you? A surgeon or tax-accountant?
b) 'You appear to me to be responding emotionally rather than logically' isn't an insult, it's an observation. If someone said that to me I would probably bristle, then realise they're right.
Carry on chaps!

Dingo
[pulls protective plastic overalls on and quickly ducks out of poo-shot]. ;)

Posted by: DingoJack | April 6, 2010 11:04 PM

Lance - Try to defeat them by having the stronger factual argument rather than getting riled, that's getting emotional (and pulling your train of thought off the rails).
Of course you (and I) can have opinions about issues, but when weighing-up the arguments, experts have far more weight.
At the moment almost all the evidence suggests that global warming is occurring at an unprecedented rate. This change will, in most of the experts' opinions, have a large effect on the Earth's plant and animals. Of course one can never be certain in science, but in this case the old adage "better safe than sorry" comes to mind. - Dingo

---
PS How did you keep getting to this ancient thread? I have now bookmarked it in favourites just to keep it accessible.

Posted by: DingoJack | April 7, 2010 12:47 AM

Lance,

Since I've explained myself multiple times, and then you just quoted me accurately and still don't see my point, I'm going to have be as clear as possible.

First - An 'appeal to authority' is when it is argued that a claim is TRUE because the source of the claim is an authority. Such arguments are, of course, logical fallacies. I did NOTsay that we should simply accept the AGW hypothesis as true because the 'experts' say so. I can see how you might think that it was implied in what I said, but it was not my intention to do so. Also, my two follow ups absolutely should have clarified my real points, which are:

- that when dealing with complex issues that involve specialized knowledge, we give the opinions and conclusions of experts more weight than those of non-experts. This is not because the experts are always right, but because the experts are far more likely to be right than someone who is not an expert in that area. We go to lawyers when we need legal advice and tax accountants when we want advice on how to minimize our tax burdens.

- It does not belittle "the idea that someone other than "people that work in the profession" could be trusted to make rational judgments about the science," as you put it, to say these things. It really depends on what kinds of judgments you expect people to be making. For instance, it would be wrong to expect even an otherwise well-educated person to be able to decide for themselves whether the climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is only around one degree Celsius or closer to three as I've seen quoted most often as the IPCC value. You or I might be able to follow a given paper on the topic, but I would expect maybe a few percent of the general population to manage even that.

If, on the other hand, what you expect of people is to make a judgment of whether scientists are being clear enough in what they know, what they don't know, and what the uncertainties are, then sure they can make rational judgments. People can make rational judgments about whether they see bias in the conclusions of the experts. They can make rational judgments about how well the media, pundits, and politicians use and disseminate the knowledge the experts come up with. And people can certainly make rational judgments about what policies to implement in response to what the experts have to say.

- There was another point in everything I said that I will expand on below.

If I said to you “It appears to me that your certainty in your position is due to an ideological and/or emotional response rather than from some great knowledge and understanding of the issue” would you consider it an insult?

No, I wouldn't consider it an insult. If someone said that to me, I would look over what I said that might have made them think that. If I didn't see anything that might lead them to that conclusion, then I would call them out on it and make them explain. I might even consider that they might be right. As I said before, the reason I bother commenting and making arguments on blogs is essentially to test my own thinking. I welcome it when people point out flaws in my reasoning, so I certainly don't take it as a personal insult.

Maybe it's a fine line, but as DingoJack pointed out, it was an observation on my part when I said that. I certainly could be wrong, but I didn't say it just because we disagree. I saw certain things in your posts that made me believe that, such as: your use of the word 'alarmist', the way you seem to pick and choose what to respond to, and the way you argue in general.

Also Richard Feynman is somewhat of a personal hero to me and your attempt to distort his words to attack me personally was especially galling.

That is why I didn’t respond to your last post.

You have no special claim to Feynman as a hero. It doesn't take a degree in physics (which we both have, if you remember) to admire him and to have learned something from what he said during his life. Nor did I distort his words in any way. I didn't quote him directly because I didn't have his famous Caltech commencement address that I paraphrased it from in front of me. I was pointing out what I viewed as a flaw in your reasoning. It was not meant as a personal attack.

I will not, however, respond to appeals to authority or personal insult.

I have made some statements that were most definitely not appeals to authority or personal insults that you have also not responded to. This is what I mean when I say you seem to pick and choose fights you think you can win.

If you would like to present evidence that climate change presents an existential threat to the United States, and indeed the world, and that extraordinary measure must be undertaken I will patiently listen and evaluate any and all evidence based on its merits.

And this is where we come to that third point I've been trying to get across. There is nothing I could possibly come up with to try and convince you that climate change is a problem that should be dealt with that isn't already available. I have gained the knowledge I have of the subject by reading articles in many different media (magazines, websites, the blogs of working scientists, etc.). I could try and summarize what I know and make an argument, but you're just as capable as I am of reading and understanding all of that same material. If you want me to defend my belief that we should act, then I'm game. (Be prepared to defend your beliefs on the issue as well.) However, if you 'won' the discussion on the issue here, it wouldn't disprove AGW in the slightest. This what I was saying was 'ridiculous': the idea that me or anyone else on this blog is the right person to argue with about details of a specialized scientific field. The best I could ever do is explain why I have been convinced by the experts in the field.

Posted by: JasonTD | April 7, 2010 7:21 AM

The first part of your recent post attempts to parse your previous statements on why we should trust authority opinions over our own non-authority judgments on a topic as somehow not an appeal to authority.

I was very clear before, so I'll make it even more clear. An 'appeal to authority' is a fallacy in informal logic that follows this form:

Claim A is TRUE because the source of Claim A is an authority in that area.

I've never made a statement that fits that form (because I've never said AGW is TRUE, therefore, I've never made an appeal to authority. You keep accusing me of it because you are using a different definition of what appeal to authority means. You use the phrase for any argument that gives more weight to expert opinions than those of non-experts. I've never seen anyone else use 'appeal to authority' in that way. If you never rely on experts, trust experts, or otherwise give more weight to expert opinions, then I don't see how you'd have time to study physics. You'd be spending all of your time checking the studies published by medical researchers, evaluating the reports on crash worthiness of vehicles before buying one, etc. You've obviously decided not to trust the experts on this particular issue. That is your choice, but don't argue as if it never reasonable to put trust in experts, because no one can function in the modern world without doing so most of the time.

Well it seems that you have been "convinced by specialists in the field" but you think it is "ridiculous" that I should require you to provide scientific "details" to defend your conclusions.

Just as it is your choice to believe or not believe the conclusions of most climate scientists and professional scientific organizations on the climate change issue, it is mine to decide if I want to believe them for myself. However, nowhere did I argue that you should simply believe them, too. If I had, then it would perfectly reasonable for you to require me to back that up with detailed evidence for why you should believe them or detailed evidence in support of their conclusions.

So please reread what you quoted right before you wrote that. I did not say what you are arguing against. I was simply pointing out that there are plenty of people posting in other forums that know quite a bit more than I do to argue with. As I've said before, if you want to test your knowledge of the issue, as an amateur, there are better blogs to do it at, where more of the people that read those blogs have as much or more knowledge of the topic as you do. But even then, science isn't settled in blog comment threads.

I have more to say, but I've run out of time for now.

Posted by: JasonTD | April 8, 2010 10:32 AM