Instead of correcting his erroneous post Tim Worstall has put up another post coming out against corrections. This time it's about an inaccurate textbook. Can you pass the test at the book's online study centre? Question 16. True or False?
Worstall claims that book is accurate, offering this interesting argument:
But many other problems are much less clear-cut. Science doesn't know how bad the green-house effect is."
Indeed this is so. Climate sensitivity (how much warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2) is the most important unknown at present. The IPCC thinks somewhere from 2 degrees C to 4.5. James Annan says 3. James Hansen (yes, he of the letter), in a paper released only last week, says 6 degrees C. So we don't in fact know how bad it is.
Annan's estimate of 3 plus or minus a little bit is not significantly different from the IPCC's range, while Hansen's 6 is for a different definition of climate sensitivity. In any case, it is absurd to argue that any uncertainty implies we know nothing about the number.
I expect the next post by Worstall will be "Six of one, half a dozen of the other, how can we possibly know if they are equal?"
I'll fall into the category of "groupthink" as defined by The Register columnists just for commenting here, but I was wondering what Worstall was up to.
Is that to say that they expect that a doubling of CO2 will lead to a certain change in global mean temperature, and that the change doesn't depend on the level of C02 before the doubling? The relationship is linear like that?
Good Grief Tim! This is pretty thin beer!
FoE gives us four statements which they consider to be not allowable in a textbook. I give those four statements in full and argue that they are not just allowable, but justified in a textbook. For example:
"On the one hand, a warmer globe will cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal communities; on the other hand, greater warmth will make it easier and cheaper to grow crops and avoid high heating bills."
Entirely true and more importantly, our students of "American Government: Institutions and Policies" are being introduced to the concept of cost benefit analyses, a most important tool.
What? Students should not be introduced to cost benefit analysis?
Semantic nonsense. Worstall should be ashamed.
This is the exact same argument evolution denialists use to claim there is division over the theory of evolution. Arguments within the field over the implications and extent of an AGW effect do not imply there is division over the existence of global warming itself - as his question implies.
This is yet another attempt, consistent with global warming denialists in general, to create the appearance of a debate when one does not actually exist.
Yes Tim, rising temperatures will make rice easier to grow by destroying its ability to fertilise itself.
Oh, wait...
Logarithmic. Each doubling results in a constant rise in forcing ...
Actually that insane $@#$ing farce of a "test" starts off with a bang, really:
"The Environmental Protection Agency was created during the administration of"
and when you answer, correctly, according to every source including the EPA that it was Nixon (in 1970):
"Sorry! The EPA was created during the Carter administration."
Simple as that.
It also tells you that the environment has improved since 1970, that there is an unusually adversarial environmental process in the US, and that "command-and-control" theorists think they know best.
The US gets closer and closer to "Jennifer Government" texts every year.
Good Lord! It writes! Worstall, how dare you show your face? Seriously, it takes a lot of slacker gall to phone it in as obviously as you do.
Hint: go to EPA.gov/earthday/history.html and note the many EPA activities before there WAS a Carter administration.
Also, marking people off for not agreeing with a flat-out lie like the "deeply divided" BS is academic fraud. I hope that practice test doesn't have any real-world analogues.
I am personally grateful, the next time I say the denialists are obvious hacks, and they ask me for a name, I am giving them Worstall.
Oh, and FYI, denialist trolls, that is one part of the actual "beef" with Wilson's book alleging to be about American government.
"On the one hand, a warmer globe will cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal communities; on the other hand, greater warmth will make it easier and cheaper to grow crops and avoid high heating bills."
This statement is not, as Worstall claims, "Entirely true"; an honest statement would note that as heating bills drop, air conditioning bills would rise. How could you do a proper cost benefit analysis while ignoring half of the facts? How dishonest of Worstall and the author of that statement.
As for claiming global warming will make growing crops cheaper and easier, where exactly? And what about the crops destroyed by drought and heat?
The Editors saw this already:
Although this is the best part:
Marion Delgado:
Ideas for new quiz questions:
Who is fat?
[ ] Al Gore
[ ] Michael Moore
[ ] All of the above
[ ] None of the above
Answer: All of the above
Who founded America?
[ ] God
[ ] George Bush
[ ] The Founding Fathers
[ ] All of the above
Answer: All of the above
Which of the following Nobel Prizes is a true Nobel Prize?
[ ] Nobel Prize for Chemistry
[ ] Nobel Peace Prize
[ ] Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine
[ ] Ignobel Prize
Answer: Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine
Maybe students of "American Government Institutions and Policies" should be taught kooky 9/11 conspiracy theories because "historians are deeply divided." "Teach the controversy" and all that crap.
I'm still wondering whether the textbook makes any mention of those world-renowned individuals known as cdesign proponentsists.
"On the one hand...on the other hand..."
What a foolish argument.
On the one hand, a warmer globe will will cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal communities;
on the other hand, it will allow the spread of certain diseases into areas formerly too cold...
on the other hand, it will allow poison ivy to spread farther north...
on the other hand, it may cause more frequent or severe drought in some areas...
on the other hand...it's a lot more than 2 possibilities. To present only 2 and then to suggest doing a cost analysis based on only those 2, is ridiculous.
And furthermore:
I see some commenters have noted the similarity with evolution-denialists. The comparison immediately came to mind minutes ago as I heard on Public Radio how the consensus of scientists who had devoted years and millions of dollars and reached a consensus about global warming were all shown to be wrong (at least in the mind of) by a 16-year old high schooler who had done no research of her own. Just like the evolution scientists who have been "disproven" by lawyers and preachers.
Holly stick: You are quite wrong when you claim the following: 'This statement is not, as Worstall claims, "Entirely true"; an honest statement would note that as heating bills drop, air conditioning bills would rise. How could you do a proper cost benefit analysis while ignoring half of the facts? How dishonest of Worstall and the author of that statement.'
Even the systemically dishonest Lord Stern (the more dishonest you are in England, the higher up the greasy pole you get, from Prof. to Sir to Lord)admits that extra air con costs less than the heating saved from AGW (Table 5.1). In this case, Holly stick is even more dishonest, with difficulty, than Lord Stern.
Anyone spot the Gish Gallop. Dr Lambert notes that uncertainty does not equate with disagreement ... and Worstall brings up a different issue, the importance of cost benefit analysis in decision making. I'm gong to put this down as another nice example of how the denialists use the same tactics as the creationist/IDiots.
For completeness' sake...
What? Students should not be introduced to cost benefit analysis?
Not by people who think cost-benefit analysis is equivalent to "on the one hand... On the other hand...", no.
Nice one RC. You're standing out on your doorstep again aren't you!!
From Stern Part II pg.4:
"In higher latitude regions, climate change will reduce heating demands, while increasing summer cooling demands; the latter effect seems smaller in most cases Yep, RC's on the ball so far...but "In lower latitude regions, overall energy use is expected to increase, as incremental air-conditioning demands in the summer outstrip the reduction in heating demands in the winter. In Italy, winter energy use is predicted to fall by 20% for a warming of 3°C globally, while summer energy use rises by 30%."
PS. RC, whereabouts on your greasy pole hierarchy does a Viscount cling?
Posted by: Marion Delgado
"Good Lord! It writes! Worstall, how dare you show your face? Seriously, it takes a lot of slacker gall to phone it in as obviously as you do."
He's a pro. This is his chosen career, his profession. As long as his paycheck clears the bank, he's good to go.
That's very important to keep in mind; these people are not a transitory thing. The tobacco fraudulent science lasted decades, and many moved into other lines of fraud when that stopped paying. But only when it stopped paying.
I have to say that starting off with that Nixon/Carter gaffe didn't do a lot to convince me about the textbook's devotion to accuracy. Then, later in the same quiz, they tell us that Superfund was created during the Nixon Administration, which apparently continued until 1980.
Also, some of the questions are bizarrely partisan - the second one says that the result of Environmental Impact Statements is that "Opponents have used EIS as a way to block, change and delay projects". Well, yes - that's the POINT of EIS statements, to allow the public to review federal decisions with major environmental impacts. So why the negative phrasing, as if that was an unforeseen bad consequence of their implementation?
Thanks, Hugh, for that nice fact-filled answer, and since Reality Check has now been banned, I need only respond to his post with a smug smile.
"Not by people who think cost-benefit analysis is equivalent to "on the one hand... On the other hand...", no."
Errm, that is the very definition of cost benefit analysis. That on the one hand we have certain costs about this course of action that on the other, we have certain benefits.
I'm really not sure what you think it means but that one works for me.
About the rest of the stuff above. What in fuck is anyone talking about the EPA for? Or even calling me a "denialist"? Jesu Christe, I've said often enough that CC is happening, that humans are responsible for it. My only arguments have ever been two: is it immediate and catastophic( I think no) and, what do we do about it?
"He's a pro. This is his chosen career, his profession. As long as his paycheck clears the bank, he's good to go."
Barry? You can fuck right off. I'll put up with being wrong (as Tim L will tell you, when proven so I've said so) but mere insults will be met with the same. Prove that or apologise: or, of course, fuck off.
Oo, a potty-mouth.
Very credible.
Doing a proper cost-benefit analysis is hard. From Wikipedia:
Then again, of course Worstall or Wilson or Diluilio don't really care about teaching students to do a proper cost-benefit analysis, who just want students to be able to correctly answer multiple-choice questions on prepackaged talking points.
Tim Worstall,
Does this mean you're admitting that the scientific community is not deeply divided over climate change?
"Does this mean you're admitting that the scientific community is not deeply divided over climate change?"
Over it's existence and the anthropegenic nature of it? Sure, I'll admit that....I say so regularly too.
Where the division is is how bad it's going to be (thus the continuing discussions of climate sensitivity, for example) and amongst another group of scientists, what we should do about it?
The economists are deeply divided (Nordhaus, Tol, Dasgupta (?) Stern and so on) about adaptation versus mitigation still, just as an example. And the relative costs of each course of action and the benefits that might accrue from them.
If you think that I'm a climate change "denialist" then sorry, but you are entirely wrong. I'm interested in where we go from here, in the economics of the matter, perfectly happy to start from the point that the IPCC is describing where we currently are.
#28
A stable climate has never exist. All that climate can do is to change. So saying there is agrement on climate change is a dumb strawman.
Thanks God, there are many things the scientific community (whatever that means) agrees on, like the fact that no AGWer knows how to explain why oceans and the atmosphere haven't warmed over the past 5 years despite unabated fossil CO2 emissions (apart from the versatile & cheap: "it's natural variability, stupid").
They also agree AGWers (aka reality denialists) would better have a rock solid plan B for the next 10 years when the quiet sun and a full strength negative PDO will wreak havoc this AGW farce.
Where the division is is how bad it's going to be (thus the continuing discussions of climate sensitivity, for example) and amongst another group of scientists, what we should do about it?
the scientific community is NOT deeply divided over the theory of global warming.
minor differences on forcing do not make a DEEP DIVISION. what should be done is NOT the "theory of global warming".
The economists are deeply divided (Nordhaus, Tol, Dasgupta (?) Stern and so on) about adaptation versus mitigation still, just as an example. And the relative costs of each course of action and the benefits that might accrue from them.
wow. mathematicians are deeply divided about sentence structure in modern English. wow.
Tim Worstall,
Your comment that the economists are 'deeply divided' about the costs and benefits of 'adaptation' versus 'mitigation' is meaningless without more substance.
The economists that you talk about are also divided into two camps: the neoclassical economists (like Nordhaus) who think that humans are more-or-less exempt from the laws of nature, and downplay the effects of climate change because they argue that it will mostly affect 'unmanaged ecosystems', and the more ecologically minded economists like Dasgupta, Daly, Viedermann etc. The former group, of which the late Julian Simon was another, appear to believe that there are no constraints on material growth; once constraints are approached, then good old human ingenuity will step in and we will forever increase the planet's human carrying capacity.
This ignores the fact that the world's major and most productive ecosystems - coastal marine, freshwater and terrestrial - are all in terminal decline. Forget the impacts of the material economy in driving wetland loss and eutrophication, fraying food webs, the rapid depletion of soil quality, falling water tables, and mass extinction - many of the neoclassical economists believe that these things don't much matter anyway, because humans have evolved above and beyond any natural limitations. I recall Peter Huber, a conservative American economist, writing some years ago in his book, 'Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists' that 'Humanity can survive just fine in a planet covering crypt of concrete and computers'. What's alarming is that there are many people in positions of power who believe this nonsense.
The problem, as I see it as a population ecologist, is that the neoclassical economists are living in something of a fantasy land, where the effects of climate change (and other anthropogenic processes) on the functioning of our global ecological life support systems are excluded from their tidy little econometric models. This is because many of the neoclassical economists just don't seem to understand how important 'unmanaged' ecosystems are. So they perpetually push the 'adaptation' mantra, irrespective of the costs of human activities on natural systems and their potential longer term consequences for the material economy.
Thanks Jeff, that has beautifully contextualised for me Nigel Lawson's statement "Well it's only the humans that really matter" made on R3 last week. He said this in response to the interviewer's expressed concern that his polemical rant (I won't call it an interview-based discussion) on how adaptive the human race had proven itself to be in the past (ergo there is no problem for the future) took no account of the stresses being placed on [as you refer to them] 'unmanaged ecosystems'. I was shocked I tell you, shocked!!
Jeff Harvey has made the point about 'adaptation' versus 'mitigation' in the context of ecosystems so much more eloquently than my brief attempt several days ago.
I look forward to a response (or several) from the denialist camp on this, and in particular to my request, made several times now, to explain why natural systems, both non-living and (because it is close to my heart) living, are not reliable integrators of the effects of climate warming.
So far the silence on this has been deafening.
The only recent peer-reviewed publications I could find by Nordhaus are a bunch of articles criticizing the assumptions of the Stern report, and the good old "PPP vs. MER" talking point which was already addressed by Nakicenovic.
And an article which argues that carbon taxes are better than Kyoto-like targets for stopping global warming. Not exactly the same as Doing Nothing...
Yeah, if that's called "economists are deeply divided", then I'm a penguin.
Nordhaus does not believe "that humans are more-or-less exempt from the laws of nature" and (as bi says) he does support a carbon tax.
Nordhaus 2007: ""To Tax or Not to Tax: Alternative Approaches to Slowing Global Warming," volume 1, issue 1, winter Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2007, pp. 26-44. How can countries best coordinate their policies to slow global warming? This study reviews different approaches to the political and economic control of global public goods such as global warming. It compares quantity-oriented mechanisms like the Kyoto Protocol with price-type control mechanisms such as internationally harmonized carbon taxes. The analysis focuses on such issues as the relationship to ultimate targets, performance under conditions of uncertainty, volatility of induced carbon prices, the inefficiencies of taxation and regulation, potential for corruption and accounting finagling, and ease of implementation. It concludes that price-type approaches such as carbon taxes have major advantages for slowing global warming."
Nordhaus is one of the (many) good guys.
"I look forward to a response (or several) from the denialist camp on this, and in particular to my request, made several times now, to explain why natural systems, both non-living and (because it is close to my heart) living, are not reliable integrators of the effects of climate warming.
So far the silence on this has been deafening."
_#34
As far as science is concerned, it's up to the claimant to explain what they mean by "reliable integrators" (whatever that means) and to demonstrate their claim. The burden of proof is on the claimant, not on the "denialist".
But you're not scientist, are you ?
Demesure asks:
Um, yes I am.
For over two decades. My bona fides are on Deltoid to find if you care to look.
Where are yours?
This only indicates to me that you are probably not a scientist yourself, otherwise you would
1) understand what I mean by the term 'integrator',
and
2) understand why I challenged the denialists to address (and in particular to refute) the significance of such.
"The problem, as I see it as a population ecologist, is that the neoclassical economists are living in something of a fantasy land, where the effects of climate change (and other anthropogenic processes) on the functioning of our global ecological life support systems are excluded from their tidy little econometric models."
You might think that way: I certainly don't. The "neoclassical economists" are to my mind the one group that actually take such things seriously. They identify the essential problem, which is that these are all Commons Tragedies (as described by Garrett Hardin) and thus have to be solved by management of acccess to the resources. This can be done in a social or private manner (again, as described by Hardin) and which works better depends upon the specific circumstances of each resource. But that access does have to be managed, whether through regulation or property rights, and that's the insight which such economists bring to said problems.
Tim W wrote, "The "neoclassical economists" are to my mind the one group that actually take such things seriously. They identify the essential problem, which is that these are all Commons Tragedies (as described by Garrett Hardin) and thus have to be solved by management of acccess to the resources".
This has nothing whatsoever to do with what I was writing about. I was saying, if you bothered to read my post, that many of the neoclassical economists expunge natural systems from their econometric models. Why? Because they believe that resources are eternally substitutable; that we will become more efficient at using them if things appear to run short; and because they believe the human mind has infinite wisdom for dealing with apparent problems. These three tenets underpin their thinking. They also believe that the value of nature is about 2% of GDP, or essentially 'marginal'.
I also don't agree that, by privatizing the biosphere, somehow this will be a pancea for protecting critical ecosystem services. I do agree that we need to internalize the value of many of these services because only then will we realize their importance before they are lost. But this is another discussion entirely. And let us not forget that many in the business community are vehemently opposed to full cost pricing, because this will affect their profit margins. They have promoted externalization of the costs of economic activity for years and continue to do so.
Tim Worstall wrote, The "neoclassical economists" are to my mind the one group that actually take such things seriously.
Nonsense. Neoclassical economists are, as a group, a bunch of clowns. If they weren't a bunch of clowns, they'd overwhelmingly support land value taxation as extremely efficient and extremely fair. But because they're apologists for the rich and powerful, they don't.
But that access does have to be managed, whether through regulation or property rights, and that's the insight which such economists bring to said problems.
Most neoclassical economists will support the "property rights" solution, even though their associated analyses are flawed. For example, many of them will base their reliance on property rights solutions on the Coase Theorem, even though the Coase theorem is false in this context because multiple equilibria can exist because willingness to pay and willingness to accept are not the same. Neoclassical economists don't understand that, and in fact have gone so far as to define it out of existence when evaluating survey results.
Frankis,
Nordhaus is one of the good guys? Unless he's had a change of heart, I doubt it. He's an advocate of adaptation, and in his earlier articles argued that, because climate change will mostly affect what he dismissively termed as 'unmanaged ecosytems', then we ought to focus on ways of adapting to its effects. And it doesn't look like he's shifted much ground since then. For example, in a 1990 Economist article he wrote:
"Studies of the impact of global warming on the United States and other developed regions find that the most vulnerable areas are those dependent on unmanaged ecosystems - on naturally occurring rainfall, run-off and temperatures, and the extremes of these variables. Agriculture, forestry and coastal activities fall into this category. Most economic activity in industrialized countries, however, depends very little on the climate. Intensive-care units of hospitals, underground mining, science laboratories, communications, heavy manufacturing and microelectronics are among the sectors likely to be unaffected by climatic change".
His views since then seem to have changed little as this excerpt from his new article (July 24, 2007) on global warming and economic modeling indicates:
"Economic studies suggest that those parts of the economy that are insulated from climate, such as air-conditioned houses or most manufacturing operations, will be little affected directly by climatic change over the next century or so. However, those human and natural systems that are unmanaged, such as rain-fed agriculture, seasonal snow packs and river runoffs, and most natural ecosystems, may be significantly affected. While economic studies in this area are subject to large uncertainties, the best guess in this study is that economic damages from climate change with no interventions will be in the order of 2½ percent of world output per year by the end of the 21st century".
Again, Nordhaus downplays the effects of climate change on natural systems as this affects the material economy. First of all, we have no idea of determining whether or not 2.5 percent of world output is trivial or not. More importantly, at present we know very little about the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. We do know that conditions emerge from literally trillions of interactions amongst billions of organisms over variable spatio-temporal scales that enable humans to exist and persist via the provisioning of a range of critical ecosystem services. We also know that for most ecological services there are no technological substitutes. Even where there are, they are so expensive and inefficient that human society would be unlikely to effectively replicate them (examples are pollination, nutrient cycling, break down of wastes, and maintenance of soil fertility).
As humans continue to simplify the planet's biological systems, there will be much more severe penalties imposed on civilization because many of these services are likely to break down. This is an oft-repeated warning that many of the neoclassical economists continually ignore. There's no doubt that nature is quite resilient up to a point (it has had to be, given the extent of the human assault thus far). But there is no guarantee that natural systems will continue to provide vitally important services if we continue to head down the current path.
Therefore, given how little we know about the effects of anthropogenic-driven global changes, including warming, on biomes, ecosystems, communities, species and populations, its positively ridiculous to make such an absolute prediction about the effects of warming on the global economy, and especially one that looks so utterly puny.
Kurt Cobb makes a good critique of the Nordhaus perspective from which I gleaned this information:
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2007/07/upside-down-economics.html
Tim Worstall
Tim Lambert already gave an example. Why do you ignore that and push your own preferred example? I can only conclude that you agree with Tim Lambert's criticism that you were wrong in the example he chose and are hoping we won't notice by diverting attention to another example.
I don't believe you need to win at every post to win the overall race, Jeff. I don't need Nordhaus to understand ecology very well. As an economist what is good is that he simply sets about doing what an economist ought, which is consider the efficient and inefficient ways in which economic policy might be implemented given current understanding of the science.
For anyone interested here are some clippings - sorry, they run together a bit as I have them here - from Nordhaus' most recent paper (PDF) on the subject (the one cited by Jeff).
Personally I don't think that's a bad effort. Nordhaus is a serious, capable and honest economist. It helps I suppose that I also happen to agree with him that the optimal approach to the problem lies with a universal carbon tax that starts now at a rate not likely to cause too much economic shock, but with the promise of sure and steady increases in its rate to be made clearly known to all market participants well before their introduction. The rate should be adjusted over time in response to the best available data and modelling as they become available.
"Nonsense. Neoclassical economists are, as a group, a bunch of clowns. If they weren't a bunch of clowns, they'd overwhelmingly support land value taxation as extremely efficient and extremely fair. But because they're apologists for the rich and powerful, they don't."
Not sure where you get that from. Friedman, I think we can all agree, was neoclassical? And he's on record as being a supporter of land value taxation as being the least distortionary tax possible. I also support it myself, even if not quite to the extent that some Georgists do. Similarly, tax Ricardian rents (very much the same thing). Entirely mainstream neoclassical suggestions.
"It helps I suppose that I also happen to agree with him that the optimal approach to the problem lies with a universal carbon tax that starts now at a rate not likely to cause too much economic shock, but with the promise of sure and steady increases in its rate to be made clearly known to all market participants well before their introduction. The rate should be adjusted over time in response to the best available data and modelling as they become available."
Agreed too.
Friedman was a monetarist, for God's sake! He was THE monetarist! Not an NCE guy!
"(the more dishonest you are in England, the higher up the greasy pole you get, from Prof. to Sir to Lord)"
This is a valid point, just look at Viscount Monckton or Baroness Thatcher.
"This is a valid point"
Does my lowly position on the totem pole thus make me honest then?
Friedman was a Keynesian. Constraining the money supply to stem inflation and/or an over-heating economy is simply the complement to deficit pump-priming.
luminous writes:
Friedman was a Keynesian.
After having said that, why should any of us pay any attention to anything you have to say about economics, ever again? It's like writing "Nixon was a Democrat" or "Louis Agassiz supported evolution."
BPL,
Friedman was trained in Keynesian economics. He may have had political beliefs divergent from Keynes, but his analytical methods are grounded in Keynes.