Open Thread 19

1) Book recommendation: Can We Afford theFuture? The Economics of a Warming World? by economist Frank Ackerman, 2009. I put a short review at Amazon.

This leads me to:
a) Bad Science
b) Bad Economics
c) Clever Politics
...and Bjorn Lomborg, again...

2) One of Ackerman's chapters is about Lomborg & Copenhagen Consensus, from an *economist's* view. An almost identical article is: Hot, Itâs Not: Reflections on Cool It!, which can be paired with economist Gary Yohe's
Björn Lomborg has been a persistent global warming naysayer and his claims misrepresent my findings.

3) Tim last went at the a) science in August.

Ackerman and Yohe talk about b) economics.

4) And for c) politics, I cleaned up my old ThingsBreak discussion and added some new material in Lomborg and Playing the Long Game.

The science is often wrong, and the economic methodology not so good, but the *political* cleverness is high, especially for a conservative thinktank, and want to confuse centrist/progressive people, in ways that direct attacks on science don't.

I.e., create a list in which AGW is guaranteed to be last, and something like third-world HIV/AIDS first.
How often has anyone seen a conservative thinktank lead the charge to raise taxes to help improve third-world HIV/AIDS? Does that happen in Oz?

Anyway, Eli thinks Lomborg should just be mocked, but I still think one needs to understand the political cleverness.

5) From outside, it seems like Oz contrarians are still putting most of their effort behind a) and maybe b), but haven't yet done much with c). Is that a fair assessment?

Looks like DailyTech's at it again.
Any ideas on this one?

http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Report+Disputes+Human+Cause+for+Globa…

David Ahlport:

From what I can see, the "report" a.k.a. "new study" ãå°ç温æåï¼ãã®ç§å¦ççå®ãåãã looks more like some sort of back-and-forth discussion between Akasofu, Itoh, Emori, etc.

I suspect that the discussion didn't exactly end very well for the 'skeptics', otherwise the Daily Tech will be tooting their horns like mad. :)

John Mashey:

Thanks for your recommendations, and your efforts.

Best regards,
trane

Akasofu-san wa bakayaro des'.

Bakayaro? well, that might be a little extreme for Akasofu.
It does look like PSYCH-5 from anti-science reasons, i.e., scientist going off the rails around retirement time.

Since open thread (thanks) let me ask:
Does Noetherâs Theorem generalize to universes analogous to ours but with other number of space dimensions? It seems like it should, but Iâve seen various statements that action etc. has special properties in three-D space. Yeah, NT is all about things being constant, but to make the point wouldnât you need a progressing time frame to work it out in? tx

"How often has anyone seen a conservative thinktank lead the charge to raise taxes to help improve third-world HIV/AIDS?"

[joke] they're too busy saving the third world from the scourge of malaria that mass murderer rachel carson released upon them. [/joke]

Another nugget from the archives of the "2008 International Conference on Climate Change": Marc Morano says that James Inhofe isn't getting paid enough by oil companies.

I was driving on I-5 through downtown Seattle the other day, and I noticed that they sure have a lot of street lamps blazing away. Seems we could do without all those lights burning up all that energy, especially given the importance of doing something about AGW. Here's a question: If every city and town in the world stopped using half of their street lights, how much would that reduce our CO2 output in both absolute and relative terms?

Ater all of the quacking from the climate change Denialists about how the the whole planetary warming issue is a scay-um because the Antarctic is CoolingTM, it seems after all that it is not.

Oopsie.

Was that the sound of their already tenuous and poorly-supported 'case' slithering down the drain?

Um, I seem to have misplaced my intended second link for the post at #11, about the lack of Antarctic cooling.

For some links to the scientific literature, see Real Climate's thread on the subject.

Have you addressed this?
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&Conten…

Bernard J.: The Heartland Institute is suffering from a case of Antarctic Warming Derangement Syndrome.

To answer my own rhetorical question, "Was that the sound of their already tenuous and poorly-supported 'case' slithering down the drain?", the response is of course "no". 'Their' case continues to be trumpeted with a zomboid life that just refuses to die.

For example, Marohasy's brigade of the scientific equivalent of spoon-benders is collectively twisting fact and fallacy to create a climatological balloon-dog. I will desist from linking: it really isn't worth reading unless one is morbidly curious, and in that case a simple front page entry would take one there. Wear waders if venturing in...

The reason I raise it at all is that Jen seems particularly bothered by this latest paper. She accuses "some high profile scientists, including from the CSIRO, hav[ing] been so bold as to falsely claim even the Antarctic is warming", and also takes a swipe at Michael Mann - "famous for managing to falsely recreate past temperatures so they accord with the popular global warming consensus. Indeed Dr Mann is responsible for the infamous hockey-stick graph that suggested the medieval warm period did not exist".

She also seems to impute that Nature's peer-review of science is compromised. All-in-all, I can't help but wonder if the IPA is attempting to impress some clients?

It's interesting to observe that she doesn't actually use any real (or any other!) science to make her case and to support her claims.

Real Science (linked at #12 above) nicely answers most of the guff that the IPA/AEF pseudoscientific ra-ras are making up in the comments section, and it is a much more informative read than the AEF sewer.

A video I made for the Heartland Institute. :)

On Jen's meltdown--I'm seeing a lot of this lately. The big tactic of denialists lately seems to be to accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being liars. I just got called a liar by one nut on landshape.org because I said humanity emits 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year (no, he said, it only emits 8 billion, ignoring the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide), and by another because I said 0.4% annual growth rate in CO2 could add up to a much larger fraction of ambient CO2 over many years. Not just wrong, you understand, though I was right and they were wrong, but a liar.

Of course some deniers, like McIntyre and McKitrick, have been into the "they're all frauds" meme for a long time.

Darn and blast, I said "Real Science" at #15, when I meant "Real Climate".

Although it's the same in the end, whatever the contrarians might otherwise wish...

Strange Bedfellows?

Not for the first time Anthony Watts has [put up a blink comparator showing the changes in the GISS US temperatures between 1999 and 2008](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/25/the-hardest-part-is-trying-to-inf…)

The only source given is 'hat-tip 'Zapruder'. No hyperlink. However the image properties reveal it originates from the Dutch blog Zapruder.nl, [specifically](http://zapruder.nl/portal/artikel/lies_damned_lies_and_climate_change)

This is a strange choice of sources for Mr Watts, who recently chastised a poster for citing BigCityLib because of said liberal's lack of seriousness. Zapruder features forums on the legalisation of cannabis, '9/11 truth' and on the home page not-so-subtly associates those who believe AGW is a reality with a certain happily-defunct political movement.

Nice. To avoid embarrassment if you visit Zapruder, I suggest you Clear History shortly after.

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Check out Monckton's nice graph too. I hope he uses it as 'evidence' in a (non-phantom) lawsuit.

Lot o' hot weather in south-eastern Australia at the moment, and it's upsetting the punters [watching the tennis](http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2476662.htm).

I always notice when the AGW denialists jump up and down like a jack-in-the-box on a pogo stick when the weather is cooler than the mean, and use such occurences as 'proof' of their contrarian insight.

I wonder if, in the spirit of fairness and balance, they will now immediately proclaim their errors and announce that AGW is proceeding apace.

Or will they suddenly come to understand the difference between weather and climate?

_"Or will they suddenly come to understand the difference between weather and climate?"_

No, it's too inconvenient for them.

Anyway, even if they do, then they will point to it once being this hot (>=40°C) for 4 consecutive days (IIRC) in about 1904 I think it was.

Bernard J, my thoughts exactly as I watched the roof close and fervent reporters chronicling the temp going down inside. Thank the Cosmic Muffin that The Coming Ice Age is averted!!!!!!!

Algooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee!

Best,

D

Dano.

It fascinates me that the denialist crowd has been silent to the extent that they don't even seem to be willing to pipe up in circuitous passing about how the current heatwave here is just 'weather', even when the MSM might be inclined to link it to AGW.

Apparently they are keen to not draw attention to their similarly invalid (at least) claims that record low temperatures prove 'global cooling'.

I am becoming ever more curious to know if they really have had a Damascan revelation about 'weather versus climate', or if they are just deliberately keeping their heads low so that their double standards aren't hoisted above the castellations, by their own petards, for all to see.

Reminds me of Connor McCleod in his first battle in the movie Highlander, when he wonders aloud (as the rival clan parts around him crying "no, not that one") why no-one will
fight him.

Perhaps the trolls here are similarly leaving this thorn for someone else to deal with.

Anyone noticed the [Arctic sea ice extent](http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/arcticseaicenews/) recently?

January '09 must be having the Coolists grinding their teeth.

Since open thread (thanks) let me ask:
Does Noetherâs Theorem generalize to universes analogous to ours but with other number of space dimensions? It seems like it should, but Iâve seen various statements that action etc. has special properties in three-D space. Yeah, NT is all about things being constant, but to make the point wouldnât you need a progressing time frame to work it out in? tx

Since open thread (thanks) let me ask:
Does Noetherâs Theorem generalize to universes analogous to ours but with other number of space dimensions? It seems like it should, but Iâve seen various statements that action etc. has special properties in three-D space. Yeah, NT is all about things being constant, but to make the point wouldnât you need a progressing time frame to work it out in? tx

Since open thread (thanks) let me ask:
Does Noetherâs Theorem generalize to universes analogous to ours but with other number of space dimensions? It seems like it should, but Iâve seen various statements that action etc. has special properties in three-D space. Yeah, NT is all about things being constant, but to make the point wouldnât you need a progressing time frame to work it out in? tx