Conservative Policy Solutions
Kevin Drum seconds my concerns about conservative public intellectuals and offers two example where the Right isn’t offering useful policy alternatives.
Conservatives on Global Warming
Take global warming. Here’s the rough conservative reaction to it starting in the early 90s:
- It doesn’t exist.
- It exists but it isn’t manmade.
- It’s manmade, but it’s too expensive to do anything about.
Even this is a generous assessment. A lot of conservatives are still stuck at #2, and sizeable chunk at #1. What this means is that they’re basically shut out of the conversation entirely. Which is too bad, because I’d actually be sort of interested to hear a conservative take on how to address global warming that accepts both its reality and the necessity of doing something about it. If we really are facing a global environmental catastrophe, what shape would a conservative solution take? I don’t think anyone knows.
On the first, I’d note that John McCain made quite a bit of noise about being a Teddy Roosevelt Republican and the need to do something about the problem. He launched a set of policies he dubbed the “Lexington Initiative” and mentioned it quite frequently. It was, however, not at all a centerpiece of his campaign. Newt Gingrich has been touting the need to adopt a sensible strategy on global warming for nearly two years now and included some interesting market-based suggestions in his book A Contract with the Earth. There was even a group blog called Terra Rossa, to which I was a very occasional contributor, that tried to suss out a center-right approach to energy and climate issues.
None of these initiatives took off.
In my own case, it’s just not a topic I’m particularly interested in at a wonkish level. I’m pretty sure global warming is happening and that human technology is a contributor to it and even think we’ll need government — indeed, intergovernmental — solutions. I just don’t have the scientific interest to get excited beyond the margins.
More generally, though, I think conservatives were skeptical of the motives of the environmental movement and this particular aspect of it and always viewed it as a backdoor attack on business and progress. That, combined with a general conservative faith in free markets to solve problems and lack of same in government, explains the general dearth of useful discussion of the issue on right-of-center blogs.
Presumably, though, there are conservatives who take the issue seriously. Presumably, too, their solutions involve market-based incentives. What are they? Who’s talking about these issues? Why am I not seeing it on the center-right blogs?
Conservatives on Wage Inequality
Kevin continues:
Likewise, conservative reaction to wage stagnation and growing income inequality has gone down a similar road:
- It doesn’t exist.
- It exists, but consumption inequality is what really matters.
- ???
Again, conservatives are dubious of motives here, as well as means. The Left generally hasn’t been helpful here, framing the problem as one of a handful of rich people making obscene amounts of money (Why, the CEO of Acme Corporation makes 10 gazillion times what the guy who mops the floors in the executive washrooms makes. It’s an outrage!) rather than figuring out to make people at the low end of the wage scale more competitive.
Second, most of us do in fact think absolute living standards matter much more than the distribution of income. Bill Gates’ lifestyle is of little interest to me; that of me and my family is of great interest. If our real purchasing power goes up a third and his triples, I’m pretty pleased.
That said, it’s important for a variety of reasons that there be a huge middle class rather than a division of haves and have-nots. We’ve still got that — we live in bigger houses and have more stuff than our parents did at comparable points in their lives — but it’s taking two incomes, constantly changing jobs, and 24/7 connection to the office to do it.
What’s the solution to that? The hackneyed consensus solution for decades has been “Education!” I’m not sure that’s sustainable anymore as an answer, given the diminishing returns on college degrees. If it takes an MBA to get a job flipping burgers, we’re not making much progress.
Just as surely, though, the answer isn’t some sort of salary cap on what executives can make — although I’m amenable to reforms on how executive compensation is set, given the incestuousness of corporate governance — or an arbitrary minimum wage that’s not related to a worker’s value to the firm.
I don’t have the answer. What are the smart folks on the center-right who actually focus on these issues (one presumes there are in fact people who fit that description)offering up as solutions?
I actually used the strange sentence “Take global warming.” earlier here today … I win on timestamp.
C-, since you fail to engage on the science-skepticism spinning off Creationism, and the general echoes of anti-intellectualism in the right’s general anti-science stance.
While that may be true in parts of the base, it’s not a serious concern with conservative intellectuals.
I suspect part of the reason you don’t see much among conservative intellectuals on global warming is they are probably much like you-not really interested in it at a wonkish level.
As for the wage issue-I think education is an answer, but the focus on a college education isn’t. Not everyone is cut out for college, and spending 30,000 dollars on a college degree that nets $10 an hour isn’t a good return. I would like to see education focus more on training those who aren’t interested in college or those who may not be suitable for college in areas of demand that do have a good return-there are a lot of trades that have a higher pay scale than many fields that require college degrees.
It isn’t necessarily going to fix wage disparities, but it would at least result in people with marketable skills that don’t have massive debt to repay.
But then I don’t think minimum wage increases result in fixing the issue either and that seems to be the answer congress has for the problem.
Well, if you are excluding people like George Will from your “conservative intellectuals” grouping … I might be for it … but I’m not sure he, nor the average conservative on the Clapham Omnibus, would agree.
They all are working on the Obama economic team.
On the subject of conservatives and global warming, there is a grassroots orgainzation that is taking on the subject of climate change. It’s called Republicans for Environmental Protection and can be found at http://www.repamerica.org. The slogan for the group is “Conservation is Conservative.” They have an executive summary about climate change (as well as the full report) at their website. You can see the summary here.
I did a blog interview with Jim DiPeso who is the policy director for REP. You can see my inteview here: http://neomugwump.blogspot.com/2008/11/green-conservative-interview-with-jim.html.
There are conservatives that are interested in climate change, it’s just that they aren’t as well known.
Dennis Sanders
James,
I think that in asking the hard questions that America’s Right needs to confront you are doing a better service than most. I am reminded of the work that the Left undertook circa 1994. Kudos.
One of the things about wage inequality that seems to get ignored is illegal immigration. To the extent that their immigration status is not factored in we might be making more out of this then really needs to be. A guy coming here to make $10/hour vs. $1.5/hour is clearly better off. As such fretting over the fact that this is dragging down wages strikes me as a bit much. If everyone is better off where is the problem?
Of course, if once we account for this and there is still a gap again, consumption really is the better measure of one’s welfare, so it shouldn’t be ignored. For example, health care benefits…are they included in these analyses? They should be. They after all raise one’s standard of living and it is somethign Kevin wants everyone to have. So why not count them?
So this idea that conservatives (I’m not one by the way) aren’t in the debate is stupid (typical of Kevin). The problem is he is defining the area of the debate and anyone outside of it is de facto anti-intellectual.
Rather dishonest of him, IMO.
A couple of points:
This is, a rather myopic, and self serving, point of view. First off, there are all kinds of ways to make “progress” (in the truest sense of the word), and very few of them involve “continuing to do things as we always have” (the image that comes to mind just now is urban sprawl). That is to say, “I make money this way, because I have always made money this way.” That could be little more than treading water. 2nd, why not a business opportunity?
The problem is that not all problems lend themselves to free market solutions. What is the free market solution to Global Warming (more accurately Global Climate Change)? Cheaper air conditioning? Drought resistant crops? Floating islands? All of which are narrow solutions to specific aspects of the problem, none of which can possibly deal with the overwhelming calamity that could arise. I saw one climate model that said the rainfall in the Ozarks will double in the next 30 years. What would that do to our lumber industry? Our oak/hickory forests are adapted to 40-45 inches per year.
So James, is it possible that conservatives have become so wedded to a narrowly idealogical world view that they have nothing/very little to add to this discussion?
I hate the idea of that.
So, Kevin Drum gets to define the problem, define the terms of the debate in a manner most suiting to him, strawman his opponents and question their motives for good measure, and you are surprised that there just isn’t anyone for him to carry on an intelligent conversation with.
Stunning. Truly he and his progressive friends should rule the world. And if it isn’t fixed in six months they should be tarred and feathered. Fair enough?
I’m late to the wage inequality half of this post, but wouldn’t the modern fight revolve around globalization and free trade?
It seems obvious that if we open our borders to all goods we are sentencing our workers to a global wage. That dings low-tech workers first, and high-tech later, as the developing world ramps up.
Those of us who believe in wealth creation will believe that ultimately it will raise all boats, and that the world wage will be a high one … but there will certainly be dislocations along the way, be they auto jobs moved to Canada or IT jobs moved to India.
The liberal criticism that 5 WalMart jobs might not make up for 3 “old style” jobs might have some merit.
Personally, I’m in favor of globalization and ultimately a world wage … but I think the pace could have been slower and more humane, for US workers.
Man # 1: I’m going to throw an apple at you.
Man # 2: Do you have an apple?
Man # 1: Guess.
I think the three “ways of thinking” are missing the most common amoung true conservatives. Prove that there is a connection between global warming and manmade carbon output. But, first, prove that there is something called “global warming” that isn’t just an ongoing cyclical change in the planetary scheme. This isn’t a “faith based initiative.” This is science.
Oh! And let’s not forget that while globalization lowered some boats, it was always argued that the total win could be measured in GDP.
GDP which was increasingly generated by what we now know to be a bloated and over-leveraged financial sector.
It might be interesting to see how GDP washes out with a financial sector falling back to it’s traditional size.
Because, quite obviously, not every one is better off.
The problem with illegal immigration is it’s illegal. As you well know Steve, there are a whole bunch of labor laws in this country (most of which you probably disagree with) none of which need be followed when one’s employees are illegal.
Lets take a simple one: Workmens Comp. Most employers have to carry workmans comp… but not if they hire illegal aliens. I mean, what’s an illegal going to do if he loses a hand on the job… SUE you?
To me the real cognitive dissonance is that “those” conservatives must reject the US National Academies of Science.
I mean, where do they go instead? In that link above George Will just rambles through a sloppy sophism.
Note, and I mean really note: You can’t complain about illegal immigration dragging down wages while also being for free trade over the border with NAFTA.
Maybe it’s more obvious to me, 150 miles from the border, but if someone works there and sends a product here, or works here and sells me the same product, what’s the diff?
(I’m pro-NAFTA and pro-guest-worker, so I have a non-hypocritical position.)
Yes lets limit trade. In fact, lets institute similar measures domestically. Each state in the union can charge tariffs!
Possibly. Transactions costs and all that you know. That is if free movement between countries suddenly materialized I’m not going to back my bags for Switzerland. Moving between countries is a huge step just in terms of language let alone issues like finding a job, and so forth.
Yes there will be change, but the idea that we can keep wages artificially above market clearing wages by political fiat simply isn’t going to work all that well in the long run. Protectionism tends to favor the industry getting the benefit, it isn’t clear the benefits flow to the workers since it is a rent as opposed to a gain in say productivity, and it raises prices for consumers. But WTF, worked for Hoover.
This is basically a truism and I think you’ll find technology is by far the worse offender than out sourcing. But if you can get Lou Dobbs the STFU and STFD I’d be most appreciative.
So through political fiat we’ll just rule out the 5 WalMart jobs and hold our breath that we get the 3 “old style” jobs, and the other two workers who are now unemployed, why they can FOAD, right?
Yes because they are the most important.
Yes there is global warming just like there is global cooling. It’s called fluctuation.
A good place to go for market-based energy policy approaches is Lynne Kiesling.
Conservatives are skeptical about science being pushed into the political arena by those who want to use that science to advance their agendas. In the beginning the basic problem with accepting global warming was the recent turnaround from the global cooling scare from the 70’s. The overtly convenient “discovery” seemed manufactured or contrived to change economic policy more than advance science. A reasonable intellectual response would be to say it has yet to be proven or in less words, it’s not happening.
The next response as more (but insufficient) evidence mounted was the commonsense question of asking if it was truly man made. It is incumbent on the proponents of the theory to prove their position and until that time it is again reasonable to say it’s not man’s doing.
The last of Drum’s straw man points is the logical progression of dealing with any problem. Faced with the ultimatum of something must be done now it would make sense to then do a cost-benefit analysis. The results showed inaction could be the best response.
Drum’s complaint is baseless. Every step of this debate has been met with intellectual debate but since it conflicts with the left’s position it is somehow lacking? The conservatives responded in a logical and reasonable manner to this hoax. From the debunking of the Mann “hockey stick” to the failed NASA numbers to the current trend of lowering temps we are seeing it is the left who is lacking the intellectual chops in it’s rush to change the world economy.
This whole idea of conservatives being less intellectual is looking more like another urban myth being pushed by the left and not being countered by the right. If conservatives have one weakness it’s that we fight our political battles as gentlemen.
You jumped the gun on that one.
This is where I see the conservatives without a good talking point. Either they take the Lou Dobbs route, or they wave hands (or weak statistics) and say there is no wage-inequality issue.
Seriously, what if a rapid deconstruction of trade barriers has lowered household income and standard of living for the bottom half?
If that is factually true, what is the conservative response?
Should we go all protectionist like Dobbs? Chew the furniture like Verdon? Is there another course?
And you are a better source than the National Academies because … ?
Somehow this “turnaround” held sway without being factually true. The scientific community never did in fact warn about global cooling. There were a few scientists with isolated results, and those were very much inflated by the general press.
But the thing is repeated … because it is convenient to whom … ?
Hey I had one of those doomsday, the world is going to end type films back in the 70’s that promoted the idea of global cooling. It also predicted the world would run out of food-and while certain portions of the world do have issues with starvation it isn’t exactly the “we are going to run out of land to produce the food” the reality is that we produce much more food now than we did back then. I don’t think the predictions accounted for the kind of urbanization we experience and technological advances in farming.
But doom and gloom seemed to be the stuff of most science and social studies films I saw back in the 70’s. Most of it did not play out the way it was predicted.
As for illegal immigration-I am sure it plays a huge role in depressing wages-for both legal and illegal workers. There have been studies which indicate it and it makes sense. If you have a huge supply of workers willing to work for less than market value and without the costs of the required paperwork and other taxes, then wages are going to reflect that-whether the supply is legal or not.
I am think there needs to be a sane immigration policy that makes coming here legally to work easier and cheaper, but makes coming here to work illegally more painful for both the immigrant and those who employ them-I think part of the problem is we turn a blind eye to the illegal immigrant and slap the wrists of the employers, because it is hard policy to crack down on the immigrants and the businesses that want to employ them.
Global Warming. LOL
As a former physical chemist, the data and propositions are laughable on their face. As a strict analyst, I note that key proponents have recently suffered embarrassing data gaffes. And I note funding sources……
As a political observer, can the motivations be any more obvious?
And also as a strict analyst, even if true, the future greenhouse gas emmision projections from China and India alone – no matter US and European remedial actions – are so huge as to dwarf any economy debilitating actions we might take. The truth be told, if Global Warming has any merit we are effing doomed – so grab as many cases of 1990, 1998, 2000 and 2005 (I hope we live long enough for it to mature) Chateau Petrus as your bank account can stand, grab the prettiest and willingest lady you can find………and head for Rio… NOW!!!
Yes we can go the Americans are the best route like Odograph.
Seriously, you have nothing here other than sophmoric observations. You focus on trade because it is in the news, but ignore that empirically technological advancement is far more destructive to jobs than trade and globilization.
You think American jobs are paramount while ignoring the fact that removal of trade barriers can have beneficial effects for those in other countries, many of whom live in very harsh conditions. For example, American agriculture is heavily protected. This has two negative consequences:
1. It results in intensive farming in the U.S. with soil erosion and heavy use of various chemical pesticides.
2. Reduces the ability of other countries that have a comparative advantage in food production from engaging in food production and selling it to the U.S.
So it is reduces welfare in other countries, is hard on the environment, and raises food prices. But we are protecting those “3 old style” jobs that are apparently oh-so important.
No, I decided to shoot your high horse in the head before you could get on it.
Limiting trade is rarely a good way to increase output, welfare, and so forth. One would think this is obvious.
Is that the route I picked?
“I’m pro-NAFTA and pro-guest-worker, so I have a non-hypocritical position.”
Maybe you should have started with some reading comprehension. Being pro-NAFTA and pro-guest-worker is not actually American-first.
Would being a physical chemist equally allow you to pronounce choices in cancer treatment? Or in the safety of railway bridges?
Come on, if you remember that science you might remember the time someone is expected to put in to build expertise before claiming it.
Though this has been an issue previously only really considered by the illuminati, I think one way of attracting younger conservative voters is to make the environment more of a priority. The younger generation is very much more socially conscious.
I can’t help but notice Steve V, that you still have not addressed my point:
Am I an idiot? Or are these uncomfortable facts that you would rather not deal with?
Actually I didn’t see them.
However, I’m not an expert in labor law and how precisely it applies to illegal immigrants. However, my default answer would probably be I bet most of those laws would still apply.
Another point concerning wage inequality:
Charles Austin is largely right. Drum wants to pick the topic of debate, define the positions for his opponents then ignore anything that might actually be a valid reason why wage inequality might exist, then act disappointed in the anti-intellectual nature of “conservatives” broadly defined.
Has Drum looked at the Theory of Incentives by Jean-Jaques Laffont and David Martimort? What the “great intellectual” Drum cannot be arsed with such an intellectual text? I’m shocked, shocked I say.
Why might wage differentials be important? Well incentives, duh. You have to realize that workers value not only income but also leisure time. To the extent that a worker can gain both income and leisure time that is out of sink with their work effort the worker can be better off. In this case you could get high effort workers masquerading as low effort workers and getting higher welfare and less output. So wage differentials can work to induce workers to self-select.
Odograph,
Didn’t you write,
The implication here is that its okay to be humane to the U.S. worker who has a high living standard, and that we do this possibly at the expense of the non-U.S. worker who has a low standard of living.
You also want to go slow as well. I don’t see you as being quite what you are painting yourself as.
The problem with both arguments is that, to contribute to the discussion, a conservative must accept doubtful premises. Premises that must be proven before a discussion can even start.
The Questions are, “Are there undesirable consequences of the Earth increasing its temperature?” “Are there undesirable consequences of unequal wage rates?” Only a Socialist or an envious person would automatically say yes.
Have there been times warmer or colder than now? Yes. Were there catastrophic consequences of the Earth getting warmer? No, never. The catastrophe has always been from colder weather. That is where the deaths are–because crops fail and people starve.
Is there evidence that the climate is getting colder now? Yes, this has been true, according to satellite data, for ten years. Last winter was one of the coldest on record in many regions going back 30 to a 100 years. It snowed in Baghdad, for instance. Colder weather has already set in now, in many places. We will see as the season progresses.
A partial reason for this is that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has entered its cold phase. This means that we are in for colder weather for the next 30 years.
Also, Sun Spot Cycle 24 should have started two years ago. A lack of Sun Spots means colder weather in the future. We had, in September, the first occurrence, since January 1930, of a month go by without a single Sun Spot being seen. This is not good.
Will these facts change the minds of the Global Warming fanatics? Eventually, even they, and their pet scientists, will notice the evidence. Their behinds will freeze off.
But, I expect them to be stubborn. They will irrationally blame the colder weather on Global Warming.
They will, eventually, proclaim a new “Ice Age,” but they will have the same solution as Global Warming: more governmental action, more regulations, more taxes and less freedom. This is a political, not a scientific, movement.
Next, there are unequal wage or salary rates because some people’s efforts are more valuable than others. Socialists want to tear down some to build up others: they are levelers. The result of that, in Socialist countries, everyone starves together. That’s considered okay, because it is equal in misery; except for the bureaucrats and politicians who are more “Equal” than everyone else. Naturally, those aristocrats should be paid more.
Besides, what business is it of yours if the boards of directors of a company overpays their leadership? It’s not your money, that they are spending. If a company guesses wrong and overpays its management, then let the company might go belly up.
The problem here is that these are Socialist nonsense questions. The assumption is that the Left is correct when they have proven nothing.
Conservatives need not debate them, because it is up to the Socialists to prove their contentions correct. Both issues are false and conservatives should say so.
Don’t get dragged into discussing false questions. A consensus of politicized, third rate scientists proves nothing.
I wrote:
Steve Verdon thinks:
I’d love to hear you frame that as a Republican National Convention Speech. Could you get Sarah to deliver the line “Our wages are too high!”?
Anyway, you are choosing to parse my sentence in a weird way. I endorsed the world wage. It’s hard to turn that around as “at the expense of the non-U.S. worker” unless you think the equalization has to be … rapid?
How would that play on the golf course? “US Doctors should make wages more like those in Europe or Asia!”
If that’s who we’ve got at NASA they should be fired and we should get some new ones!
Of course, if the answer was that simple the Bush administration would have done it, rather than admitting defeat before those same NASA scientists.
Thank you Steve,
I am not an expert in labor law either… but I can say that those laws still do apply… BUT only if one has standing in a US court of law. But how much standing does one have from El Salvador? Find a lawyer to take that case on…
The point is, no illegal alien dare complain about labor law violations because as soon as he does… he is elsewhere.
“Overtime? Forget about it. He got hurt? He was a contractor. OSHA? Hahahahaheeeheeeehee….” “INS? I just discovered that this man who has been working for me for the past 6 months (who, by the by, doesn’t speak a word of English) is an illegal alien…” I’m OFF the hook!!!!
To be honest, I have been competing with these guys for years…. And I have nothing but respect for their work ethic, but we, here, in this country, have decided that a work ethic should be rewarded.
I have one, they have one, I want them to get the same rewards as I. Not me, the same as them.
One last thing: A guy I have worked with for years, lost his leg 2 weeks ago…. A year and a half of operations, and they could not save it (gangrene), but there is a dollar limit on what a leg is worth, and not one dollar more. I came within less than a half inch of death last week (not a big thing, sh*t happens)(I only bled a little) but I would like to think my sons would get something for it… workmens comp… it ain’t much, but it is better than nothing.
Illegals… their bodies get a ride out in the desert (or woods)… if their lucky.
Louis, You crack me up!!! Where do you get this stuff?
I think there’s a large body of evidence, with a relatively new branch of science being utilized (see the “we’ve only been recording weather specifics for a hundred years” fact), that can plausibly be interpreted along two separate lines.
That being said, if one is interested in intelligent discussion of the issue without listening to the liberal illuminati drone incessantly about how evil we all are for drinking bottled water, there are some sound sources from an unexpected arena.
A growing number of evangelical Christians.
You heard me. Yep. And don’t think for a minute that just because the lingo shifts (“stewardship of creation”), the science is different. Nope. Lots of concrete data and studies. One recent book is by an M.D. who’s seen asthma cases skyrocket on summer days with lots of smog (Matthew Sleeth’s “Serve God, Save the Planet).
It’s pretty neat that ship’s logs report ocean temperatures back to 1670.
OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The liberal illuminati… They found me again…. HELP ME… Help me… help me….
Maybe it’s more obvious to me, 150 miles from the border, but if someone works there and sends a product here, or works here and sells me the same product, what’s the diff?
I think it’s more likely that we’re dealing with obliviousness on your part, rather than obviousness.
If a product is imported into the US, then the consumers don’t have to pay for the schooling of the children of the factory workers, their water system, their health care, their policing infrastructure, their transportation infrastructure but when we import the worker into the US in order to fabricate that good, that worker is likely a net tax recipient and, on the margin, isn’t contributing enough in tax revenues to balance the civic expenses expended on his behalf.
If you think that GM losing money on each vehicle, but making it up on volume is not a winning financial strategy then why on earth do you think that importing workers who are net fiscal drains on society is a good thing when done in large measure.
As for Kevin Drum’s request that conservatives offer insight on wage inequality, there are some inconvenient facts that weaken the liberal position:
1.) We’ve known since the early 80s that when IQ is controlled that the wage inequality between blacks and whites disappears. Further, we know that the return to education, for every year of additional schooling, that the returns to black males are the highest, followed by black women, white women, and at the bottom of the pack, white men.
2.) Whenever the Achievement Gap topic arises liberals like to defuse the issue by making note of the fact that there is more IQ variation within each group than there is between groups. Their conclusion is that between group differences are immaterial. That being the case, we also know that the within group wage variation amongst blacks, whites, and hispanics, is far, far larger than the between group income variation:
IF income variation is really a social problem, then we really should be focusing on reducing gini within group categories for that is where the bulk of the variation is found. To continually harp on the small racial gap simply plays into racist Democratic demagoguery and cedes the argument to the Democrats to frame on their own terms.
odo says: “Come on, if you remember that science you might remember the time someone is expected to put in to build expertise before claiming it.”
A fascinating statement. Too bad the leftist advocates are not held to such a standard….say, Al Gore.
Let me know when you want to argue point by point.
But please spare me simplistic citing of your faves. That will be boring. I can argue the technical facts. Can you?
Perhaps we can start with an easy, but basic, one. Does a CO2 increase in the atmosphere precede, or follow, atmospheric temperature change.
Why? Or why not. Please be specific.
Do you understand the meta-argument in that? If I debate you “point by point” I accept that you and I are the preeminent climate scientists in the world! WE get to decide.
But then, I haven’t put in the 10-20 years to become an expert. I haven’t even put the time and effort that old Al Gore has done.
Have you? Where’s your power point movie 😉
TangoMan, you are talking about tax base, and I am talking about jobs migration. Globalization has certainly meant jobs migration.
I just bought a laser thermometer that doesn’t seem to work. I called the 800 number and got an Indian gentleman. That’s OK with me, but I wonder why some see a big distinction between that and someone sneaking in to illegally answer the same phone here.
From a jobs standpoint it’s the same. From a tax services viewpoint it is different, that’s true … but can we run a “consumer” society taxing our legal workers as jobs leave? How many jobs, eh?
It’s a really interesting question, how much of the last “recovery” was funded by debt, from Asia, to under employed and over consuming Americans.
Don’t think expanding debt and jobs migration are disconnected. There was a feedback loop.
I can’t leave this dumb question alone. It is dumb because no one in their right mind would expect a multi-variable non-linear system to produce one answer, (“precede, or follow”).
Will isn’t a Creationist. Indeed, he’s an atheist.
He’s arguing that global climate change is an ongoing, natural phenomenon and that science has done a lousy job of understanding it in the past.
Whoops. I thought we were past that. The National Academies have an answer. NASA has an answer.
And yet the conservative “value network” likes to dance around it, cast it as a “lousy job” without providing a stronger scientific case on their own.
They don’t actually engage the National Academies or NASA and win. They inhabit the back-threads at blogs and try to engage random strangers in “point by point” arguments.
If they, or you, or will, are right about that “lousy job” get out there and win at science!
G.A.Phillips<—-pro-intellectualism in the Rights general pro-science stance.
you are told about a global flood by God with us pointing to it in it’s overwelming evidence now and in history and you don’t believe.
Then you are told by the likes Algore and his spiritual leaders, oops I meant scientific colleges who have not but hypothetical evidence and you do believe.
I’m sorry. The Flood is overwhelmingly proved? Could you please provide some links to the relevant scientific studies that demonstrate that?
I’m sorry. Scientific data is now only hypothetical these days? The Bible is now factual?
G.A., I think you put your underwear on backwards today. Also, time for the Zoloft.
Allegedly, that was the McCain campaign, and they spent the last three months calling the President-elect a terrorist coddling socialist.
Ho-hum…
S.O.S. now = “Same Old Scatology”!
NPR had a story this morning, saying that the average American 30 year-old male makes less in inflation adjusted dollars than did a similar 30 year-old male in the 1970s.
Two income families and easier credit have helped maintain the high living standard which Steve and I have been discussing.
I’m really asking the OTB folks to engage on this. You don’t have to like my prescription (globalization, but not all at once), but I think you should acknowledge the problem and name your better solution.
What this whole discussion shows, James, is that the know-nothings have won your party. Seriously. There’s no debate among climatologists of any repute on this, nor has there been for quite some time, yet most of your rightish commenters STILL think this is just Global Cooling Deux, even though THAT never happened either (not in the scientific journals; just as speculative thinking by a few scientists and a lot of writers).
When will enough be enough for the few people on your side who don’t disavow science that’s politically inconvenient? At some point you have to decide whether you’d rather keep aligning yourself with those who would turn us back to the Middle Ages.
At some point down this road, even your own lower personal tax rate won’t make up for the lack of global competitiveness we endure as we abandon science and logic.
Odograph,
Ahhh, screw what is right, lets go for what is politically expedient. And it isn’t that our wages are too high, but that we are using protective barriers to insulate industries we shouldn’t. The idea that wages across the board have to fall isn’t clear at all. When it comes to economics, you get an F.
But that is the implication. We will go slow so that the U.S. worker doesn’t suffer. The flip side is that wages in other countries rise at a slower rate and hence keep them at lower incomes, some income levels which are extremely low. But he, you think its the best thing to do politically, so it must be right.
Ahhh yes, now lets cater to the special interest groups too. Great idea Odograph.
I think the problem here is the “lather, rinse, repeat” manner in which many seem to be doing this.
Equating an article in Time and Newsweek to dozens of articles in ‘Science’ and ‘Nature’ and hundreds in relevant peer reviewed scientific journals is not a good start.
Neither is drawing equivalence between a film and the scientific literature.
Fine for the initial response, but this response has been moved back to steps one and two so many times that I have lost count. The three questions really properly belong to 1 the 80s, 2 the 90s, and 3 the present decade. Just because you weren’t paying attention doesn’t mean people weren’t actively seeking the answers to those questions.
Why then the dearth of peer reviewed articles that support your position?
No.
Certainly China, India, and the rest of the developing world need to participate in any amelioration efforts.
Silly on its face. Desertification, coastal flooding, and other consequences of warming global climate can and have had disastrous consequences. Here is a simple search that can point you to dozens of peer reviewed articles that enumerate some of the consequences. I can cite specific articles on request.
Actually no. There was a spike in 1998 due to a strong El Niño. Following that temperatures returned to near 1997 levels and continued to rise until at least 2008. Start on any recent year other than 1998 or graph 3 or 5 year averages and the warming trend is visible. Choosing one anomalously warm or cool year as the starting point to determine a trend or lack thereof is not an honest exercise. Whoever you borrowed this information from was either ignorant or had an agenda.
For a good graph of warming trends Google nasa climate change graph and pick either of the first two links. I don’t want to lose this comment due to overlinking or I would just link one here.
One year does not make a trend and one season even less so.
Which has of course been accounted for in the climate models.
That is not what it means. Refer to the previous link.
current data suggests that sun spot activity appears to be a second order effect. One ref of several – Bard and Frank (2006) “Climate change and solar variability: What’s new under the sun?”.
So in your world the vast majority of the real world’s scientists including the vast majority of climate scientists are the pets of a cabal of climate fanatics? Do you really expect this line of attack to convince any but the rabidly anti-intellectual?
Drew,
OK. I’ll take you up on that, but to separate the wheat from the chaff each point either of us makes should be backed up with peer reviewed research from respected and relevant journals. Are you game Drew?
Steve, you are chewing the carpet again, and trying to make this about me …
Am I the reason family income in the bottom half has stagnated in the last 25 years?
Here (pdf) is the before-tax family income for the 5 quintiles. Look all the way back at the starting (1979) values for the bottom quintiles.
If conservative policies can change that, and “raise all boats” … why exactly didn’t they?
(Conversely Steve, if you are going to go beyond my position and really open trade (and guest workers?), explain how you’ll stop China say from populating each market segment with low cost workers.
I worry that you are telling a “just so” story … open trade and “just so” all wages world-wide will raise, before your uncle the car-builder or support-technician can be out of a job.)
See, that’s the problem right there, Grewgills. The problem isn’t who has the better science (it’s obvious the scientists do), but how to *weigh the evidence*.
Most of the naysayers and nutties here opining about global warming (or evolution) simply do not know how to weigh evidence properly. What they have is *information* that they seemingly cannot convert to *knowledge*. Instead of being pushed in the direction by the *preponderant* evidence, they focus on the one or two seemingly contradictory results and say, “See, I told you so.”
I’ve had similar discussions with nutties over these very issues more times than I care to remember. I would send them link after link to the major research articles from the major research organizations and institutions from around the world–the primary evidence–and they will reply with a link to some report by some guy on Fox News and pretend that that one report is equivalent to what the scientific consensus is.
There is simply no getting through to these nuts. I mean, G.A. reallio and trulio believes that the Bible is primary evidence “proving” the Flood and that the rest of us are just idiot fanatics wasting out time trying to brainwash the masses with the scientific method. Damn our Vulcan logic, say their Bones to our Spock.
The “discussion” above highlights the problem. While there may be conservatives actually thinking about these issues, I see two problems: in practice, Republican administrations have downplayed, ignored and denied scientific findings and expertise pretty much across the board, and particularly in climate science and economics, where it clashed with desired ideological decisions. Second is the deliberate appeal to folks who distrust expertise, and the notion that everyone’s opinion is equally valid–Sarah P., anyone?
The only academics or scientists denying the existence and dangers of climate change are the same ones who denied the tobacco/cancer link, and for the same reasons. And the promoters of endless deregulation, Laffer curves and tax cuts as panacea are the same types, ignoring real world outcomes and economic predictions. The notion that a middle class can survive while pursuing policies that result in the biggest income and wealth disparities since the twenties, and allocating 65% of income growth over the last 8 years to less than 10% of income earners, is at best unlikely on it’s face. And to justify it by noting that, while real wages for the majority of the people are decreasing, it’s ok because they have better tv’s is, unfortunately, typical of conservative thought, to the extent you can find any.
“I’m pretty sure global warming is happening and that human technology is a contributor to it and even think we’ll need government — indeed, intergovernmental — solutions. I just don’t have the scientific interest to get excited beyond the margins.”
I’ve criticized Yglesias and Ezra Klein in the comments of their respective blogs on this point. If you present yourself as a generalist and if you feel that global warming is a serious problem, then you are failing by your own lights if you don’t give it serious attention.
I personally feel it is one of three civilization-threatening problems (the others being nuclear weapons and big meteors). If you don’t share my convictions, well, please at least have the courage of YOUR OWN convictions. Never mind your “scientific interest”: honor the public interest by informing yourself and then informing your audience of what you do believe to be the scope of the problem.
Start with the IIPC. Then move to realclimate.org. If you can stomach sources who are really angry with the Republican party read gristmill.org and climateprogress.org.
Odograph says:
“I can’t leave this dumb question alone. It is dumb because no one in their right mind would expect a multi-variable non-linear system to produce one answer, (“precede, or follow”).”
Your obfucatory BS answer, and your inability to deal with basic solution chemistry, are duly noted.
Do please advise us as to the oh-so-complex “multi-variable, non-linear” considerations that we have so carelessly missed, and that obviate basic solution chemistry. (This ought to be good…snicker.)
Oh, and you ignored my last request. This time please be specific……..if you can.
For “multi-variable, non-linear” all I have to do is point you at the origins of chaos science, and Edward Lorenz’s atmospheric simulations.
If you want this as a hobby, take it up with those other guys. They obviously have more energy than I.
Here is a dissenting view that says we are not in a global warming situation:
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
I suggest that this view must be proven wrong before touting any further huge expenses related to GW. It appears that cloud physics are not sufficiently well-known for climate models to be reliable predictors of future weather changes over decades.
Nice try, odo. I asked for specifics, you gave me a generalist reference.
I infer you have absolutely no capacity to argue your points, hence your implicit “I punt” reference to ‘making it a hobby.’
I thought so. You, like all the other GW frauds, running on empty when confronted with logical inquiry.
I only wish I were surprised.
Amazing, that page begins:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”
And yet you want us to make the opposite conclusion?
FWIW also, I think “any further huge expenses” is a strawman. There have been no huge expenses, not compared to bailouts and etc. And certainly many of us who see an AGW risk, would be willing to start with simpler and cheaper responses as further science is done.
Did you read that Drew? I quote:
You asked for a single answer about CO2 changes and climate change. In a world with quasi-periodic regimes, that’s ridiculous.
Neither in the 1970s, nor at any other time, was the scientific community worried that “global cooling” was a threat to mankind. Newsweek magazine does not count, unless you also think the scientific community was actually really planning on cloning dinosaurs in the 1990s.
I mention this because just by skimming this thread I have seen at least three self-proclaimed “conservatives” assert that they doubt global warming science now because they still remember all the global cooling scareytalk from the 1970s. Which never happened, and so they do NOT remember it.
This unseriousness and dishonesty represents the intellectual state of conservatism today. Talk radio repeats falsehoods so often, so aggressively, so relentlessly, that listeners actually incorporate the statements into their own memories and reconstruct their entire life history to make the party dogma true. It’s as false and damaging as children being coached into believing they were sexually abused.
Most conservatives that I am in contact with, myself included, seem to reach the following conclusions:
1. There have always been Haves and Have Nots.
2. There are now “Super-Haves”.
3. There has always been envy and tension between Haves and Have Nots, now exaggerated by the advent of the Super Haves.
4. By and large, the Super Haves have obtained their wealth by legitimate means in our economy. Thus, they have a right to their wealth, and a right to pay only a fair tax.
5. The idea of taking excessive wealth from one group in order to distribute it to another, poorer group is the Robin Hood Syndrome. That is, it is stealing. Further, it is using a proportional monitary income measure to enforce the amount of takings (stealing) per individual. It is the leveling idea from socialism and communism, which conservatives should reject.
6. Fairness in taxation does not exist in the US now, either for the wealthy or for the less fortunate. The wealthy can avoid a lot of taxes by many dodges, and they have both the motive and the means to do so; over 40% of the less fortunate pay no tax at all, and some receive money back as well. Everyone should pay some tax as a supported member of this society.
7. A fair tax is a tax on consumption not income, but it must also account for the poorest of the poor by ensuring a basic livable income for all. So we all are prepaid a living wage to begin with. Then they pay a flat percentage of that income for taxes, probably somewhere around 18%, for all that they consume.
8. All other forms of taxation should be revoked.
Payroll taxes, excise taxes, state income taxes, the lot. The federal government block grants a percentage of the total revenues to each state, by a formula to be determined.
9. The IRS is shrunk into near oblivion.
This fair tax proposal has been championed by Neal Boortz and John Linder in: Fair Tax: the Truth http://www.fairtax.org
Gobbledeygook, odo. A pure case of throwing sand in people’s eyes.
I asked about a very simple, undeniable (and by the way – every day observable) characteristic of our physical world.
Physics doesn’t change. Solution chemistry doesn’t change. So all of the Lorenz, non-linear, multi-variate, Green Theorem, chaos theory, quasi-periodic, Newtonian, fractiles, relativistic, asymptotic, gluons, sea quarks, Laplace transforms, Feynman diagrams, Einstein-Rosen bridges, Maxwell equations, smeared quantum positions, mojo or voodoo or any other BS you want to throw up in the air as a substitute to basic thermodynamic reality may cause heart flutters as an argument in your sewing circle………but not here.
And you told me just a week ago you ran with a sophisticated dinner crowd.
I’m not trying to be difficult, or obtuse,odo.
1. The vast majority of CO2 on the earth is in solution in our oceans.
2. Just like a cold soda, more CO2 is soluble in cold water than than warm.
3. The primary hypothesized effect of greenhouse gases and global warming is their ability to prevent re-radiation of heat into space.
Think about that for a breif moment. I’ve given you all you need to know to complete the question I asked. Do you stare at your navel and then begin citing Lorentz and “quasi-periodic regimes? (woo, sounds “intellectual”…snicker) Or do you deal with the cold hard facts of physics?
It is NOT Gobbledeygook. If you understand this line, you understand the problem with asking for a fixed relation between CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere at large:
Sure, a fixed relationship can be found in the lab. It is easy there to keep “all else being the same” and limit yourself to a single variable producing a linear relationship.
But that’s not the real world.
Here is Real Climate talking about Dr. Lorenz’s contributions on the occasion of his passing:
“Gobbledeygook?” Maybe you lost this one with your first question and answer.
that article in APS does more than just show the attempt at science against climate change, it shows the politicization of the whole thing:
http://www.webcommentary.com/aps.htm
there is a letter from the author of the article a little way down that page. now, i don’t know if monckton is a good scientist – i suspect he is probably not – but pretty clearly the APS was at best misleading in its disclaimer.
*******
odograph and others who bray about anti-science while turning scientific findings into articles of faith and thereby establish themselves as the anti-science bookend to many of the other commenters above…
i am sure someone has taken a model built 10 years ago to predict the climate and compared it to actual recordings. can you provide a link? (i did a quick google but i came up with nothing. i am sure someone who spends their time on the internet arguing about climate change can find it)
Few, if any, commentators here, or at the APS site have tackled the paper’s content itself, rather focusing on the header by the society, or upon the fact that APS did not execute a peer review prior ro publication because it was a sort of letter form.
Thus goes the politization, not the science. Inexcusable!
manning, I’ve freely admitted that I outsource my climate science to the National Academies and to NASA.
What’s actually wrong with that? Whoever really looks into this should spend 10-20 years serious study, in a peer reviewed environment. Those folks do.
How many times do I have to repeat? Your game is to ask me to be a climate expert, so that you can then disprove me.
I am not a climate expert. I trust the real experts.
Again, if you think you’ve got the science, take the game to them and win with it!
If you’ve got the science, conquer the National Academies and NASA. Rule them.
Heck, with 8 years of Bush/Cheney you certainly had every opportunity. Their NASA administrators and their White House staff (Philip Cooney) were actively looking for the best anti-AGW case.
Get out of here and do it, if you really can.
been out of town today… this thread exploded… ALL the way ACROSS (and off) THE SCREEN!!! (not the first time this has happened) What is up with that? Any clues? I would like to take part, but scrolling back and forth is ridiculous.
odograph, you are not addressing what i asked. i asked you a question in earnest while making fun of you. you can provide a link that i can look at or you can say that you don’t know of one. retorting some nonsense about my game is further evidence of what i made fun of you for.
DO…..YOU….HAVE …. A….LINK….TO….CLIMATE….MODELS…..FROM….10….OR ….SO….YEARS….AGO……THAT…..PREDICTED….ACCURATELY
odograph, there is little point in arguing with Anthropologic Global Warming fanatics. There is quite nothing to say, because they will, as you did, dismiss your evidence out of hand, and demean your sources. They will not argue your evidence or your case.
They will imply that you must prove them false, when the opposite is true; they must prove their theories true. They must continue their proof whenever any contrary evidence, or doubts, present themselves. Science is never settled; a consensus can be wrong. The world is not flat.
The point that went over your head was that you don’t fight your opponent by accepting his doubtful presumptions. That was why this article was absurd. It assumed questions which are in doubt and then blamed Conservatives for persisting in having open minds. It was Scientistic bigotry.
The evidence of AGW is mixed, so any possibility of projecting a hundred years in the future is fruitless. Worse, the evidence seems to be coming in to make a laughing stock of anyone who believes in AGW. But, I am reminded that some people will never be convinced; there is a Flat Earth Society, after all.
It is true that a single season does not make a trend. But, the satellite data showing no warming since 1998 should provoke doubts about AGW. It would to any intellectually honest person.
If we have a string of cold winters, then, perhaps, there is a lesson to be learned here. How high a mountain of evidence is necessary to dissuade an AGW fanatic? Must it be as high as Everest?
You clearly do not understand the nature of science. A consensus of government employed scientists at NASA or of those people receiving grant money controlled by AGW fanatics is not good a source for truth.
All it takes is one person, a real scientist, say, who has a good case to dispute all those in the AGW consensus. That is why there is a concerted attempt to muzzle the detractors.
It will take some time for the doubts about AGW to sink into the public consciousness, since there are many biased people, like you, who will not look at the evidence fairly. But, given enough time, even the scales might fall from your eyes. Or like many fanatics, you will go to your grave a believer.
I do not know what the truth here is. I am not building a case: I am expressing doubts. The hysteria of the AGW consensus is troubling. There seems to be enough contrary evidence to reserve judgement. It is ridiculous to assume that there is a flaw in a FAILURE to jump to conclusions.
Even so, I wish you knew the rudiments of logic. Or that you were willing to argue cases, rather than dogma.
Well, odograph, outsourcing your truth to a set of experts is certainly useful, right up to the point where they are wrong.
A scientific consensus presupposes that each of the participants has the knowledge and capability of all the others, that they can make a learned, collective judgement, that they have no bias such as federal grant money to influence them, and that they have no ulterior motive in chanpioning a cause beyond the limits of the science involved.
Especially, a political motive such as wanting a left wing win in the elections, or wanting power to gravitate to the scientists rather than the politicians, or wanting a global government to rise in power, thinking that will solve mankind’s wars and unequal distribution of wealth.
We do not hear about the underlying political motivation of these scientists, or their Gorish supporters, now do we? They drag their opinions before the public together with a long resume of accomplishment, but nary a word about their political leanings.
The NASA chief is already in deep trouble over his throttling of dissent ofer GW within NASA and its contractors, and use of false reporting. Now why would such a man do that sort of thing? Because he is a political animal first, and because billions of dollars are at stake in appropriations to NASA, and because he is caught up in the lie. He is no longer a scientist. He is no longer useful, nor are his opinions. I suspect we will find the same motivations in the NAS and the APS, because the have significant programs and budgets to defend too, and adopting GW gives them a cause celebre to demand more and more. Motives are the key here, far more than the science, since the science is actually incomplete.
You might look into the Heidelberg Accord by over 4,000 scientists of all discipines that disagree with the prevailing rush to GW as the big bad boy on the street.
Bottom line is that things are not as they seem at our scientific institutions, so there are questions that must be anawered before giving them our trust or allocating them substantial money for GW actions.
Drew,
I’m still waiting. The challenge stands for you or anyone else willing to take it (manning? louis?).
Let’s go point by point and back up every assertion with peer reviewed articles from respected and relevant scientific journals.
As the saying goes, put up or shut up.
Mannning, you HAD the government. That didn’t help.
If the case you all wish to make in this back-thread could really be made you wouldn’t be whining that I won’t read your evidence.
You’d have won.
BTW, it should be obvious to you that I am a really lousy AGW proponent. I don’t care about the argument that much. I’m lazy. I don’t really respect the other side.
So don’t argue with me. Get out of here and win on the science.
Then you can come back and say “See Odo! NASA has changed it’s mind!” And I’ll say “Doh!”
odograph, scienceblogs.com/denialism will help you figure out why dialog with denialists is seldom worth the effort. This bunch is no different than the creationists–it’s about belief, not evidence. I will say the ex-scientist types who mastered one concept way back when, and think it explains the universe, are more entertaining than some. It’s “basic solution chemistry” for the win, and the world’s best climate scientists don’t even know it!!!
odograph, you admit you have no idea what you are talking about and yet advocate so heavily. you are what is called a troll. you are pathetic.
does anyone know of a model from 10 or so years ago that fit the data and has now predicted reasonably well? its a legitimate question. (i don’t really know anything about climatology and would not venture an opinion other than the left has long since left rationality behind in regards to the environment)
Yes, ap, many models have been pretty accurate when run against past data. This is one of many, many, many lies thrown up against the wall by GW denialists.
manning, you’re a really bad person for perpetuating lies. Do you have kids or grandkids you care about, even a little bit? The consensus is strong and not at all political – it preexisted Bush’s administration, and climatologists of whatever political stripe would call you an idiot for what you’ve said here.
M1EK, do you have a link you can post? i would like to read it and then any flaws that have been found. i don’t like to be on the wrong factual side of anything and i haven’t really seriously researched or put thought into climate change. but since it appears it is going to be THE issue of the day for many many people, i should probably be moderately informed. my main problem is i find it hard to trust a source that acts smug and above reproach(think dissemblers like odograph and enviro-nut hippies). a reasonable person who admits the shortcomings of modeling a system with infinite variables would be a start.
also to be fair, the GW advocates have throw nearly as much non-sense against the wall and there is a great deal of political opportunism in the embrace of climate change. some people i am sure are true in their intentions, others…not so much.
M1EK, nevermind. I looked at your blog. It appears you are a Penn State fan. I can not trust anything you say! 😉
Sometimes the truth hurts, M1EK. Historically, when scientists form a consensus around a new theory, they are universally wrong, so said A.N. Whitehead, in so many words.
I suppose you are calling the 4,000 scientists that signed the Heidelberg Appeal liars also. If so, I am in very good company. I have marked recent reports from over 20 well-respected environmental scientists that challenge the idea of significant manmade global warming. This, as opposed to hundreds of hangers on of Algore, and several biased organizations of politicized scientists who see a buck or two in holding onto the myth of human culpability.
Good science will in the end prevail, despite the political roadblocks being set up, and the railroading of legislation to the end of spending huge bucks on dubious green theories.
This entire argument shows how biased the pseudo-scientific community has become: calling manmade global warming “settled science” when it is nothing of the sort.
Via John Hawkins at Right Wing News:
WASHINGTON (7-15-08) — Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports.
Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered [http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/index.cfm] demonstrates that later this century a doubling of the concentration of CO2 compared with pre-industrial levels will increase global mean surface temperature not by the 6 °F predicted by the IPCC but, harmlessly, by little more than 1 °F.
The paper reveals the following:
• The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
• CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
• Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
• The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
• The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;
• “Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
• Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
• The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
• It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
• Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
• In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.
Settled Science? No!
Seems I have more company.
manning, you are a liar – and history views liars unkindly. The crap you posted is equivalent to the ‘science’-for-hire thrown up by the tobacco industry during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
This is not a question among the specialists in the field. Continuing to assert otherwise shows you to be a liar or a fool; and you don’t type like a fool.
All of the above puts me firmly in the camp of number 2: It exists (barely, and plus or minus), but it isn’t driven much at all by manmade CO2.
Consequently, for conservatives, there seems to be little impetus toward making far-reaching policies, or massive expenditures, or wailing at the wall, or stoking up hysteria in the population, because of GW.
Obviously, this does not mean that conservatives would ignore new, validated scientific evidence should it arise later on. Scientists are encouraged to expand their investigations to get at the truth.
So we have the contrast here, between liberals crying “the sky is falling” every other minute, with the consevatives, who watch their gyrations with amazement at their ease of being manipulated by some misguided, mistaken scientists and politicians that have much to gain were GW to be considered a real threat.
Not that conservatives are anti-science, far from it, I believe we are for responsible science, conducted with all of the facts bearing on the issue available, with the latest instruments and processing equipment, and peer reviews that are done by qualified scientists in the field.
There should be no massive influence applied by scientists or hangers on or politicians to stop a debate and to force acceptance of the majority view on the subject, or to suppress the opinions of other qualified scientists in the field.
manning,
Read the other article and the position of APS as well.
I haven’t had time to read and absorb all of what Monckton wrote, but will try to get through it in the relatively near future. With the holidays coming up it will probably be at least a week.
That said, I do not think it wise to put too much stock in one essay that has not yet withstood any peer review. You seem put considerably less stock in the many articles with opposing positions that have withstood this process. Why is that?
Sorry didn’t notice this at first.
From the article at the APS site:
Calling this paper peer-reviewed is a bald faced lie.
Calling it proof is hyperbole at best.
I think a troll has to be in the minority. At least he needs an inflammatory position. It’s not really inflammatory to say you accept the conclusions of the US National Academies of Science, of NASA.
It’s not inflammatory to say you agree with … well borrowing from a poll:
And yet some want to make it about big bad Odo.
I’ll give you this much … I feel like I can give you some casual posts. I feel like I don’t have to work that hard. Why? Because you are a fringe group. Because you don’t have the science.
If you had the science you’d take the game to them.
Put another way, answering me (or taunting me) isn’t going to change the game. To change the game you’ve got to win the science.
To be brutally honest about my motives, GG, I am unconvinced by just about everything I have read regarding the presumed and forecast terrors of GW, especially when the “loyal opposition” of skeptics rear their heads and say “wait one second!”
Thus, I am quite prone to be accepting of challenges to the orthodoxy, and I feel very comforted that literally tens of thousands of others with a technical bent–even thousands of PhD types–agree with me. Even unto signing a petition to that effect.
It all has to do with the fundamentals of earth sciences and physics, which most intellectually honest practitioners say are not well understood, not capable of providing a sound and reliable basis for prediction of long term future events, and not well-enough measured, analyzed, nor modeled to date. Thus, there is room at the inn for Doubting Thomases.
There is a further doubt as to the honesty of many of the salesmen running around trying to incite fear in the public by using outright lies about the environment. Algore comes to mind here, Nobel prize and all, as being a shoddy salesman in for the buck. I will not enumerate his falsities here.
This feeds upon the distrust I have in the motives of those who support International governmental solutions, meaning forming some kind of dictatorship to effect a massive, world-wide program of prevention of man made CO2 from rising into the atmosphere. This, incidentally, would break the US economy–worse so now. Friend Algore has proposed such, and draws upon a stable of like-minded scientists to buttress his argument, especially in the UN. So I distrust those like-minded scientific trolls that back Algore.
In short, I believe that there is as yet insufficient, validated scientific data to make an unbiased conclusion, and every reason to doubt the motives of the Algore crowd and the scientists that are enthralled by the idea.
FWIW mannning, I can agree with much of that sentiment … but I think “reservations” lead to moderate effort, rather than the hard line.
If you say “I’m not convinced, so let’s do the easy stuff first” that rings as rational to me.
OTOH, “I’m not convinced, so let’s do nothing” … seems a bit immoderate, to say nothing of egocentric.
GG–The earlier post covered the header to that article, and one or more references took up the controversy surrounding the APS statement. So, no new news. What is new is a succinct summary of the contents.
Yes, RWN went a step too far, and I missed it in my fumblitis. Mea culpa!
What have you read? Have you been reading the journals or the popular accounts? Those are two very different things.
If you are referencing what I think you are, many of those thousands did not sign. The organizers looked at papers and determined what they felt supported their position and added the scientists names. Many of those scientists protested when they found out their names were included stating that their research was misrepresented.
Yet you don’t distrust the motives of people who claim scientists added their names to a petition when those same scientists deny it. Odd.
If you were convinced that anthropogenic climate change were occurring and that the potential consequences were dire what would you propose? Is there any way to effectively tackle a problem of this type and magnitude short of international governmental cooperation?
In short you distrust the vast majority of scientists period.
Too bad you used “many” in your description of disgruntled scientists. Many, out of 31,000? So what?
As I said, I distrust scientists that turn political on a dime because someone else, an authoritarian figure, said they should. I distrust scientists that sign up for GW without having personally vetted the evidence. I distrust scientists not in a related field making sweeping statements about GW. I distrust amateur scientists trying to pretend full knowledge of the GW facts, when they obviously don’t have it, I distrust the current gaggle of modeleers that glide merrily over their critical assumptions to present a largely fictitious story. Reminds me of the Club of Rome disaster.
Other than that, science is a wonderful field to be in, and I admire quite a number of scientists of integrity.
I wonder, of those scientists that thought they were included in the petition improperly, how many were simply backtracking out of it because their mentors or bosses objected strongly? Since I have no details of this beyond the statement issued, any further comment by me would be guesswork.
Prudence is a virtue. It would be prudent to thoroughly investigate all phenomena concerned, even out into the solar system, where many believe lies the true culprit–the Sun. Clouds appear to have a major effect that is not so well understood. This should be investigated too.
Prudence also dictates that we make reasonable efforts to clean up our air, land and water to make the planet more habitable.
But to cry that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” just now is not prudent.
then
Yet if you make even a very partial vetting of the list (not necessarily names signed, but listed) and you find that the bulk of the names (BAs in some science to PhDs) are of people in completely unrelated fields. Many of the names I saw in a quick scan were MDs. You say you distrust scientists not in a related field that make sweeping statements about GW yet you give this list so much weight, why is that?
Every survey I have seen of scientists and climate scientists indicates that greater than 80% agree that global climate change is happening, it is anthropogenically caused or accentuated, and has moderate to large likely impacts. You discount this, yet trumpet a list of dubious value (names added without consent and the bulk of names from entirely unrelated fields). Again, why is that?
BTW Wikipedia has a nice round up of scientific organization’s statements on global climate change. Note that the single organization that has a statement contrary to the others is the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Why do you think that is? Are they the only scientific organization that is seeing things clearly? or is there perhaps some conflict of interest?
Prudence would dictate basing one’s decisions on the best available evidence. Prudence would also dictate that when seeking information on a highly technical field that you place additional weight behind the opinions of experts in the field. Yet you discount the opinions of the vast majority of those experts in favor of conspiracy theories about their motives. Why do you do this? Is it for any reason other than that they disagree with you? Is that prudent?
Recent research has shown that sunspots are not a likely explanation for global climate change. I have provided one reference. There are others. The bulk of publications promoting this hypothesis predate 2000 and use data ending in the mid 1980s.
And once again, if you want to go over this point by point why not provide cites for your assertions?
Just lazy, I guess, GG. I really haven’t had the time to vet 31,000 signatures on a petition, nor to vet the vetters that themselves could have an influence on the final results. In fact, I have no intention to do so.
If the herd mentality dictates that we mortgage our nation doubly to the alter of a (poorly)predicted global warming, there isn’t d*mn much I can do about it, besides objecting loudly. If your herd wins, so be it. Meanwhile, I am stocking up on some cold weather clothing for this year, and a few to follow. I could use a bit of warming at this point!
Why is it that your GW begins with a sharp multi-year cold period?
The Viscount has spoken again:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/obama_on_the_urgency_of_combat.html
In other words you’ve got nothing.
You put more stock in a dubious list than in the overwhelming consensus of scientists and climate scientists because you are lazy?
You discount the opinion of virtually every scientific body that has spoken on the issue because you are lazy?
You discount the vast majority of peer reviewed scientific literature in relevant journals in favor of right wing web sites because you are lazy?
All of that and you have the nerve to call those with a differing opinion imprudent and intellectually dishonest. Amazing.
You personally haven’t done the work to prove or disprove anything. You have merely taken the word of a few people you don’t even know, haven’t credentials for them at hand, and do not know their work in any detail. You have skimmed a few articles from the faithful, and assume all is proven. You are trusting the full and hidden community to back you up, without doing the necessary homework!
You are foolish in the extreme to bet our economy and our citizen’s livelihoods on such specious grounds. It matters little whether there are 60-70-80-90 or 99% of the current community that believes in GW, despite the cold spell of the past 11 years and counting, since they are provably not working with all the facts in hand–not yet anyway. False, premature consensus is endemic to science.
If you challenge this statement, then point me the way to a detailed, full and complete explanation (oh and peer reviewed too!) of all of the actions and reactions of cloud cover around the world in modulating earth’s surface temperature over time, versus the same for CO2.
Faith is such a wonderful thing!
Wrong I have read selections of the available literature and reviews (not popular press accounts or biased web sites), and looked to the views of the people doing the primary research. It is you who have put your faith in the minority opinion, biased web sites, and littel or no reading of the primary literature.
I am the only one here who has linked to or referenced any of the peer reviewed literature. If you disagree with the conclusions of the articles I have cited or with the credentials of those who wrote them please be specific.
When 80%+ of the community with expertise in a given field think that the evidence is conclusive that deserves some weight in the calculations of those without that expertise. Apparently you disagree.
When virtually every major scientific body in the world with any expertise in the field also agrees publicly with that consensus that deserves some weight. You apparently disagree.
Again look at the temperature graphs I have linked to. Your statement is demonstrably false.
Clouds, particularly marine boundary layer clouds, produce the largest uncertainty in current models. That does not mean that current models have no real predictive power, nor does it mean that all decisions should be put on hold until it is possible to perfectly model the earths environment. Demanding this is ridiculous. Should residents of coastal areas wait until it is absolutely certain that a particular hurricane will make landfall where they are or should they react when it is shown to be likely that it will do so?
More and more clouds. Your statement is no response, but merely suggests a probable uncertainty influence of some cloud formations near land on models.
I suggest to you that the models you refer to, or others of like kind, have most likely made significant assumptions about cloud physics that are not substantiated with definitive measures or models of their behavior on a global basis.
This limits their usefulness to local geographical and short-term predictions on the order of weeks, not decades of certainty.
We do not have the computing capacity to perform a really accurate full-earth model with clouds over a century, nor do we have the data to feed such a grand attempt, as yet. But it will come, eventually, I believe.
Extrapolating current gross model results over decades is a dicy business at best, but the pack, all 80% of them you refer to, in my opinion, will swallow the model results whole, will not really look at them critically, and will feel justified in promoting or supporting panic programs anyway.
I have witnessed this rather blind acceptance of models many, many times–with disgust–even from scientists that should know better. It takes a few dedicated and trained men to take a model apart to find where the assumptions or approximations used send the results astray. Most often, it is not the model builder that finds the errant assumptions, or, perversely, the modeleer knows the errant or marginal assumptions, and defends his use of them to the death. Regression analysis and variations on the assumptions certainly helps to clarify what the model can do, but one must still produce a result with an uncertainty factor relative to something real, not a morass of stuff or unjustified hockey stick curves.
Science is not a voting proposition. Better science, better measures, and much better physical models will prevail in the end, but not just yet.
Try these objectors:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2007/globalwarming/SkepticalScientists.asp
and then:
OK, so, weren’t you the guy who was just telling us all about how prudent you were? Yet, here you are, basically calling the people who study this stuff day in and day out idiots. Unlike the almighty MANNING, of course, who, though he doesn’t study this stuff even one day a week; doesn’t have his own supercomputers to perform climate modeling; doesn’t have research grants to travel to wherever to take measurements with high-priced sophisticated equipment bankrolled by universities and private companies; doesn’t go to yearly meetings of the climatologist professional society to network and collaborate with peers; probably doesn’t even have a subscription to a leading climatology publication; yet apparently knows more than the scientists who live and breath this stuff to make the bold assertion that those lazy climate scientists are not looking at the data critically; and even if they are they really should be more aware of how “dicey” it all is; and even then should be aware that, really, only a lucky few are equipped with the intellectual ability and fortitude to really interpret the climate models–one of the few apparently being Manning.
Are you *&^$^& serious, Manhole? Do you even realize how stupid you sound? And the stupid just doesn’t stop for you, does it?
OK. Great. A list of objectors. WTF am I supposed to do with that? You’re supposed to be citing research studies supporting your argument, not “lists.” Frankly, most of us would have been more impressed with a list of the top 400 swimsuit models.
Grewgills, I admire you’re intestinal fortitude trying to reason with obtuse, backward-minded, anti-modern, head-in-the-sand nutjobs like Manning, but I think it’s pretty clear Manning comes to his conclusions first, then finds “proof” for them later. Save your breath for someone who can be reasoned with–like a monkey, or a cuttlefish.
Well, Eric, go to the site, and click on the link that takes you to the writeups of the objections of each man that was listed, oh ye of no faith, and a filthy mouth.
You will find that their technical opinions on GW are quite in line with mine, with the obvious difference that they are highly credentialed scientists and workers in the field.
You obviously are a coolaid drinker of the GW clan. What a pity.
In fact, I will make it easier for you:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
I might add, for the benefit of the challenged, these scientists formed their opinions on or prior to 2007, and were highly influential in forming my opinions, not at all in the vacuum that Eric proposes so nastily. Most of them are converted from belief in GW as a peril, almost reflexively, to non-belief on the basis of a much closer look at the scientific facts as they see them.
Sadly, it seems that few others here have even read their opinions, till now. Try hard to read them! Follow the links, too. You might learn something.
As you later mention this link merely restates the names mentioned in Inhoffe’s committee report back when it was his committee.
The link to Inhoffe’s disingenuous report no longer works as he no longer runs the committee. I did read over it before and at the time followed up on some of the statements referenced and to interviews with the some of the scientists mentioned. Suffice to say his report suffers the same flaws with respect to scientists’ work being misrepresented as the so called petition you earlier mentioned. Either you have been mislead or you are deliberately misleading others.
This is beginning to sound more and more like a previous discussion about the relative merits of evolution v ID.
You continue to go to ideologically based sources such as right wing web sites and Inhoffe’s committee report and discount virtually all of the peer reviewed scientific literature. You appear to reflexively distrust science and the bulk of scientists for no apparent reason other than that their opinions differ from yours on key issues and you castigate them as the ignorant and/or dishonest ones.
I doubt that any evidence will sway your opinion on either of these issues so I will cease wasting my time.
1. It wasn’t 4000 scientists with any expertise in climatology; it was 4000 people self-selected for their opposition to the theory; and as noted in other places, many weren’t happy their name was used in this fashion.
2. You’re a liar. Period. Your kids and grandkids should line up for the chance to kick you square in the nuts.
HTH, and DIAF.
Well, you couldn’t absorb the opinions of naysayers, so you take your childish frustrations out on me personally. What maturity! I didn’t record that any of those 400-odd scientific testifiers before the Senate Minority Committee had a gun at their heads, either.
Yes, you read it over some time ago, and automatically rejected each and every one of them without comprehension..
How childish to point the finger at the committee head rather than the expert testimony from really top people in the field. Blinders!
Well, you pulled me back in.
I am not aware of any of them actually testifying to the Senate. I am aware that the vast majority of them did not. What did happen was Inhofe’s team scoured the literature for any statements (or excerpts of statements pulled out of context) could be used to push forward their agenda.
Some of these statements (or excerpts) merely disparaged popular accounts as exaggerating the real threat as presented by the IPCC report such as,
Dr. Hendrik Tennekes
This does not support yours or Inhofe’s position and does support the IPCC’s position while complaining about popular media accounts, an entirely reasonable position. Others echo this reasonable position that the actual science is ignored in favor of less accurate popular accounts.
Others have had their statements pulled out of context and their views misrepresented. An example is Kurzwell who believes the climate science is accurate but thinks that nanotech will render fossil fuels obsolete within 20 years thus removing the threat of continuously expanding use. Another is Plimer who disagrees with how climate change is being addressed though he does believe that it is occurring and is anthropogenically magnified.
Others are indeed scientists but have done no climate research such as Hammond, Lomborg, and Zichichi.
Others such as Khandekar, Courtney, Lindzen, Singers, and Wojick lobby for or are otherwise supported by fossil fuel corporations.
The list is also padded with economists, who obviously have no expertise in climate science.
There is more but I am tired of this.
Without spending more time than I can afford, I can’t chase down each and every one of these written opinions to verify or deny that they are a correct view of the individuals now. Not only the 400 mentioned here, but the many others–even the 31,000, and the 4,000 that presumably signed the Heidelberg document– that have been quoted as signing statements aginst the GW hysteria.
That a few of those who at first signed had second thoughts is obviously probable, because of the witchhunts and retributions they might have faced, that others have faced, including denial of publication of papers and the drying up of funding, not to mention the vilification and virtual shunning that some have been subjected to for their beliefs.
I hope that scientists of integrity and plain old guts persist in their pursuit of the truth about GW, and the science that undergirds it. I hope that the avenues of research about the influence of the sun, its orbit, cloud formation and physics, and the earth’s periodic attitudes to the sun, cosmic rays, and the EM fields of concern proceed effectively and urgently, since I believe they have much more influence than does CO2 on our surface temperature.
Independent of these efforts, I hope that we do take sensible, effective and relatively economical steps to clean up our environment, and to influence other nations to do so as well, because we need to leave a healthy world for our children.
My rant about modeling came from about 35 years of
employing realistic modeling and simulation in my professional efforts in the defense industry with considerable success. Model-driven design was a reality that was proven by multiple trials of the eventual MD products by third parties. Along the way, all that I complained about was experienced by me and my teams. It was par for the course, and I believe that, by analogy, the same takes place in the environmental modeling arena.
End of the story here, for me.
The 400 did not testify and the problems I previously stated make that list of questionable value.
The 4,000 and 31,000 are in no way verified. I could sign up a hundred times with a hundred fake names all with PhDs. With no degree verification process the list is of little to no value.
Nonsense. Look at the survey of scientists that I provided earlier. It asks about repercussions for scientists who disagree with the current consensus. It was 2-3% for anything, there was no stat for job loss of severe persecution likely because those are so rare as not to register.
That already is and has been happening since at least the 80s.
There at least we agree.
A few discrepancies in a list of hundreds or thousands do not invalidate the conclusions. Dismissal of the entire results by specious or trumped up challenges to the few is outright dishonesty. But, then, that is the debate trick being used here.
As I said before, to disprove the results, one must disprove the entire lot. This neither of us can do in any practical manner.
Since most of the written conclusions in the lists of true scientists support my belief that CO2 is a very minor contributor to GW, I will continue to side with that skeptic view, until proven wrong by new science.
I only needed to look at a small subset to find those discrepancies in the list of 400 (those 30 or so listed on the Inhofe site).
The list of thousands has no rigorous (or even not so rigorous) way to check the validity of any of the degrees claimed by those who sign it. I could sign up a hundred times tomorrow with a hundred different names each claiming a PhD in some relevant science. That makes the list of no real use. If the names and degrees were verified then the list would then be of marginal value. Remove the economists and others with degrees and research irrelevant to the science being discussed and it would become less irrelevant. Absent those actions it is onanism for climate change deniers and nothing more.
That is a ridiculous position and certainly one you do not hold yourself to. Showing incredibly flawed methodology is sufficient. The presenters of the petition make no real attempt at verification of the names or degrees claimed by the signatories. That in itself makes the listing worthless.
Only true if you limit your list of true scientists to the minority of scientists that agree with your position.
Again, if you believe that the ‘real’ science backs up your position then substantiate your assertions with cites to the peer reviewed scientific literature. Why not do this and move the discussion to one of the scientific merits rather than the dubious value of lists compiled by agenda driven organizations?
Grewgills, Manning can’t do this because he is intellectually incapable of doing so. These guys talk about how scientific they are, and how “prudent” they are–and, indeed, appropriate scientific language to sound all sciency–but in reality these guys only believe in the Sasquatch, Yeti, Area 51 alien, X-Files-type conspiracy “science.”
People like Manning show an amazing propensity to hold us to an impossibly high standard of “proof” that they do not for themselves. They simply do not want a few provable examples: they want *all* instances of examples. That’s why when we show them, for example, transitional forms like Archaeopterix (or the various hominids) to demonstrate evolution is likely true, they don’t believe it because we can’t show them every, single transitional form that ever lived. Of course, they have no problem citing the Bible as “proof” of the opposite and stopping there.
Sorry about the digression into Evolution, Grewgills, but you’ll find that the people who don’t believe in Global Warming, even in concept, are birds of a feather with those who don’t believe in evolution: There’s some sort of common disconnect that makes them incapable of believing those who study this stuff day in and day out and their considered opinion, though they have no problem trusting the experts over noncontroversial, nonideological issues–like the Theory of Gravity, or of Combustion, et cetera.
Again, Grewgills, you’re wasting your breath here. Manning is anti-modern and can’t be persuaded with ALL. THE. EVIDENCE. IN. THE. WORLD.
Forgot to connect the dots in that that’s why Manning doesn’t believe in Global Warming, because since we can’t account for every single variable in climate modeling or provide every example of proof, it doesn’t exist or isn’t the problem we think it is.
When the underpinnings of the enviromental models you use for describe and predict behavior do little but scare people to death without moving the real problem forward you have created a failure. Go back to the drawing board and do better this time. Oh, you are not at the board? You are not actively doing environmental seience? Your opinions will be treated as they deserve, bystander!
What are you on about? By that standard all descriptive models regardless of accuracy are necessarily failures if an accurate description happens to be disconcerting. That is a ridiculous position to hold.
If you cannot back up your statements with verifiable data and instead rely on dubious ideologically driven web sources then your opinions deserve little weight. Why not back up your assertions with relevant peer reviewed sources or the accepted temperature records? I think we all know the real reason.
Perhaps I sould state what I meant in different way.
I have seen no evidence that the current predictions of temperature rise over 100 years using the GW models being touted is given a defensible error budget.
I have seem no evidence that the full models have been released to the public, together with all key assumptions. In these circumstances, I distrust the results, and consider them scare tactics.
It is a fact that many scientists that have seen the full picture and have gone into the matter seriously have recanted their opinions on GW, whether it has been 31,000, 4,000, 400, or some other number. (see previous reference)
It is a fact that many environmental scientists doubt the impact of CO2 on GW is the primary factor involved, and that we can make effective changes to CO2 emissions that would help in a subatantial way.
Given that you have read little to none of the primary literature and I would wager do not know the error bars built in to any of the current models this is hardly surprising or of great concern.
Have you really looked? I don’t currently have good or easy access to a good research library and don’t have the necessary subscriptions to get the full text of most articles right now. I did have easy access to a good research library less than a year ago and did recall the model assumptions being made explicit in the methods of the modeling papers. Do you feel that these lists are incomplete or the assumptions are invalid? If so could you be specific?
This should give you a more or less full description of the current NASA model (GISS model E). It does require a subscription, but if you really want the information, rather than just an excuse to hold on to your current view, you can either subscribe or go to a research library.
Change many to a small minority and that statement becomes correct. That a small minority of the scientists that have direct contact with the models and data (whether that number is on the order of 10s or 100s) is of little concern. The vast majority that have that same level of access and understanding agree with the conclusions. Why do you so readily discount the opinions of the many in favor of dogged defense of the opinions of the few on this topic?
A great many compared to what? Certainly not compared to those with the opposing viewpoint. By that measure they are at least a 4:1 minority. You tout these ‘large’ numbers of scientists yet reflexively discount any mention of the at least 4x greater numbers of scientists with the diametrically opposed views. Why is that?
That is a much thornier question and in need of more prioritized research.
OK, I will modify that statement to “a small but significant minority of climate scientists, chemists and physicists, only about 31,900,”…
A few quotes from S. Fred Singer, an Atmospheric Physicist, on March 19, 2007:
“There is no proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from human activity.
None of the schemes for greenhouse gas reduction currently bandied about will do any good; they are all irrelevant, useless, and wildly expensive:
• Control of CO2 emissions, whether by rationing or elaborate cap—and—trade schemes
• Uneconomic “alternative†energy, such as ethanol and the impractical “hydrogen economyâ€
• Massive installations of wind turbines and solar collectors
• Proposed projects for the sequestration of CO2 from smokestacks or even from the atmosphere
ctivity
The best evidence supporting natural causes of temperature fluctuations are the changes in cloudiness, which correspond strongly with regular variations in solar activity.”
Just one of the many scientists that could be quoted as having virtually the same opinion.
Now, I will make a bet: Singer will be discounted for some extraneous reason, perhaps one of these:
Oh, he isn’t up to date.
He is a shill for the energy industry.
He is not really a climate scientist.
No one listens to Him!
…
…
But Scientist Z has disproved all of this!
Etc.
Let us wait and see what is posted next!
If he IS discounted, there are hundreds, yea thousands, that have made similar statements to be quoted next. Until, of course, this thread is cut off.
Manning,
Why do you still refuse to back up a single statement with any peer reviewed scientific literature?
The methodology used to come up with this number is fatally flawed for the reasons previously stated and now repeated in brief. It includes anyone who claims to have a bachelors in any science or economics and neither the names or degrees are verified. Would you accept such a list unless you desperately wanted validation for your position?
Re: Singer
It is reasons 1 and 5. I will give relevant cites as soon as you offer even one relevant peer reviewed scientific article that is not hopelessly out of date (say since 2000) to support any of your assertions.
#2 Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chair (2004) of the New England Section of the American Physical Society (APS), has been studying climate-change science for four years.
He said:
“I was impressed by an hour-long academic lecture which criticized claims about ‘global warming’ and explained the implications of the physics of radiative transfer for climate change. I was pleased that the audience responded to the informative presentation with a prolonged, standing ovation. That is what happened when, at the invitation of the President of our University, Christopher Monckton lectured here in Hartford this spring. I am delighted that Physics and Society, an APS journal, has published his detailed paper refining and reporting his important and revealing results.
“To me the value of this paper lies in its dispassionate but ruthlessly clear exposition — or, rather, exposé — of the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. The detailed arguments in this paper, and, indeed, in a large number of other scientific papers, point up extensive errors, including numerous projection errors of climate models, as well as misleading statements by the IPCC. Consequently, there are no rational grounds for believing either the IPCC or any other claims of dangerous anthropogenic ‘global warming’.â€
Lord Monckton’s paper reveals that —
â–º The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
► CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
â–º Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
â–º The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
â–º The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;
â–º “Global warming†halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
â–º Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
â–º The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
â–º It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
â–º Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
â–º In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.
Ome more skeptic that agrees with Lord M. 31,899 to go.
My statements are backed up by many highly compenent scientists in the field. If you read the open literature, most scientists currently are wary of the peer review process as being highly biased towards the popular GW theory, and against any sort of publication that punctures a hole in their huge balloon and the money grants they receive. It is dead easy to arrange for either favorable or unfavorable peer reviews, or even denial of publication if the matter goes heavily against the fad of the day. Hence, the heartfelt open and technically competent statements by top scientists are to be preferred to the seriously biased peer process.
As it turns out, there are literally thousands and thousands of such statements from very respected scientists in the field. Their testimony is largely blocked from view, except for statements such as in the Senate committee, or in petitions or Accords. If you insist on your biased peer concept, I will insist on publishing statements from these highly respected scientists that counter your ideas. (Although not here necessarily, amd not forever.) I would make a bet that the credentials of most of these scientists far exceed yours, and hence, have far higher credibility.
If science is to be about finding the truth, blocking or suppressing such differing opinions is a traitorous act to science itself. Let them be aired for open criticism. The very idea of not even reading statements from qualified scientists because they are, in someone’s slanted opinion, ill-informed, out of date, or simply not up with the science, is to be condemned as deadly bias.
Such attitudes are arrogant in the extreme, and deserve to be shown for what they are.
#3 Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,†Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,†Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.†“We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,†Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,†Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,†he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: “It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases
As an aid to understanding, there is a comprehensive site for Deniers.
http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/tunga/OSGWD.htm
Rather than do things one at a time, you can go to this site and roam to your heart’s content. Virtually every GW hoax is covered, sometimes by multiple articles, each by well-known scientists.
I suppose there are at least 150 to 200 articles there, but I didn’t bother to count them. The main point here is that GW is most definitely not “settled science”. It is a scientific area in its early stages, and highly prone to exaggeration.
Seems that the entire list of signees of the 31,000 person survey is posted on line, so there are tons of personal statements of position against the prevailing GW theory to sample, if needed.
BS.
This is a convenient excuse for someone who simply cannot find support for their argument in the scientific literature. You set up Cato, AEI, and various crank websites and newspapers (from your 100+ article link) as more reliable reporters of science than ‘Science’, ‘Nature’, and every other relevant scientific journal because of some crank conspiracy theory.
Apparently you believe there is a global conspiracy among scientists that involves the editorial boards of every scientific journal and has them send all articles to a coterie of scientists that they know will dishonestly review any article that dares challenge the theory that this cabal has endorsed. Where do you think they meet? Is it the same place the ‘evolutionist’ cabal meets to marginalize the ‘science’ of intelligent design?
Yes. In the sub-basement of the Rotshschild’s secret bank headquarters somewhere in Europe, attended by the Illuminati, Freemasons, and Knights Templar, and guarded by the Yeti, Sasquatch, and Area 51 aliens.
They believe just about anything BUT actual considered scientific opinion. Funny, though, how they never have any problem believing the experts when it comes to, say, architecture or automotive design. But when it comes to GW or evolution, suddenly there’s a worldwide conspiracy to silence “the truth” and the whole peer-review process is fundamentally flawed.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Manning and his nutjob ilk, Grewgills.
Two of them right here on OTB! And just anything to complain about will do, and they ignore the statements by real scientists! The “kill the messenger” idea may play in your world, but not in the real world.
Of course there were journalists reporting as well! Nothing wrong about that, per se, but you purists want nothing but PhDs writing. Never heard of accurate journalism, I suppose.
Now, one can wonder just why you two keep on responding here. You want the last word, is my guess. You can’t bear to leave my post alone as the final word, so you keep trying. The more you try, the more abusive and out of line you become, and the less and less you remark about the actual subject at hand. Sounds like two losers to me.
If you are so adamant about GW, how about returning to the subject at hand and writing up here your own statements of belief on GW?
I have given you 31,900 people and references to their statements of belief, including mine. I have given you about 200 references that deny virtually every aspect of the GW hoax.
All you do is try to ignore these references, but never to make any statement of your own beliefs about GW.
Your positions so far should therefore be passed up as merely noise. Is this because you cannot refute the statements of real scientists? Seems so.
I have yet another 31,000 or so to go, many of which are redundant, of course, since most say that there is no significant relation between manmade CO2 in the atmosphere and the current minor surface warming on earth. Can you prove otherwise right here?
I don’t believe you can. In fact, you can’t!
Depends on constitutes proof.
If it is your apparent standard of 100% proof positive with no remaining detractors (able to be published or otherwise), then no answer to any scientifically posed question has ever been or will ever be proved. If on the other hand the standard is what is most likely given the current evidence then it has been well shown in the links to the literature from my previous posts.
As far as my view on the connection of CO2 and climate they are currently primarily informed by GISS model E.
Some additional info about model predicted effects and actual outcomes can be found here.
As to consensus some more info is here.
I would include more but the spam filter would kick out the comment and no amount of evidence will change your view anyway.
Feel free to take the last word, which I will go ahead and assume will contain any reference to any peer reviewed scientific literature due to the evil, communist, tree hugger, liar, scientist cabal that apparently runs all of the journals.
#4 Desperate for some peers to review anti-GW work, they scoured the selections that appeared in the Senate report. Amazingly, they found quite number of peers that agreed to, ah, peer-review the work of some of the scientists, and, strangely, to publish the works in those peers-reviewed publications!
The first of a number of these peer-reviewed pieces is included here:
A June 29, 2007 scientific analysis by Gerd Burger of Berlin’s Institute of Meteorology in the peer-reviewed Science Magazine challenged a previously touted study claiming the 20th century had been unusually warm.
Excerpt: “Burger argues that [the 2006 temperature analysis by] Osborn and Briffa did not apply the appropriate statistical tests that link the proxy records to observational data, and as such, Osborn and Briffa did not properly quantify the statistical uncertainties in their analyses. Burger repeated all analyses with the appropriate adjustments and concluded “As a result, the ‘highly significant’ occurrences of positive anomalies during the 20th century disappear.†(LINK) Burger’s technical comments in Science Magazine state: “Osborn and Briffa (Reports, 10 February 2006, p. 841) identified anomalous periods of warmth or cold in the Northern Hemisphere that were synchronous across 14 temperature-sensitive proxies. However, their finding that the spatial extent of 20th-century warming is exceptional ignores the effect of proxy screening on the corresponding significance levels. After appropriate correction, the significance of the 20th-century warming anomaly disappears.†(LINK)
#5 New peer-reviewed study finds global warming over last century linked to natural causes: Published in Geophysical Research Letters:
Excerpt: “Tsonis et al. investigate the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation. By studying the last 100 years of these cycles’ patterns, they find that the systems synchronized several times. Further, in cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability. The authors show that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century. Authors: Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, and Sergey Kravtsov: Atmospheric Sciences Group, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. See August 2, 2007 Science Daily — “Synchronized Chaos: Mechanisms For Major Climate Shifts†(LINK)
#6 A September 2007 peer-reviewed study counters global warming theory, finds carbon dioxide did not end the last Ice Age. Excerpt: Deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before atmospheric CO2, ruling out the greenhouse gas as driver of meltdown, says study in Science. Carbon dioxide did not cause the end of the last ice age, a new study in Science suggests, contrary to past inferences from ice core records. “There has been this continual reference to the correspondence between CO2 and climate change as reflected in ice core records as justification for the role of CO2 in climate change,†said USC geologist Lowell Stott, lead author of the study, slated for advance online publication Sept. 27 in Science Express. “You can no longer argue that CO2 alone caused the end of the ice ages.†Deep-sea temperatures warmed about 1,300 years before the tropical surface ocean and well before the rise in atmospheric CO2, the study found. The finding suggests the rise in greenhouse gas was likely a result of warming and may have accelerated the meltdown — but was not its main cause. “The climate dynamic is much more complex than simply saying that CO2 rises and the temperature warms,†Stott said. The complexities “have to be understood in order to appreciate how the climate system has changed in the past and how it will change in the future.†(LINK)
#7 Harvard-Smithsonian Center Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon co-authored with Dr. Art Robinson and Noah Robinson, a November 2007 study that found mankind’s emissions are not harming the atmosphere. The paper, published in journal of American physicians and Surgeons was titled, “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” The study reported: “A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that in creases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth’s weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth.” The study also found, “There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape.” (LINK) & (LINK )
So there are peers, and peers, and peer reviews. So what? Peers do not change the physics.