New York Times Searches Far and Wide for the Most Qualified Experts on Climate Change

(Originally printed 1-31-10. Edited, and updated, 4-15-10)
Space on the prestigious NY Times opinion pages is very limited.  Most of that space, in turn, is taken up by the paper’s own editorials and columnists.

So one imagines that on the rare occasion that the paper ventures to outside sources from among its constant inundation of submissions, that it chooses its pieces carefully.  And, in its search for someone to provide an informative piece on climate change risk, the Times apparently must have heavily scoured experts from around the globe, finally settling upon one from New Zealand.

What follows is how this chosen expert’s fantastic work of reason, logic, and well tied in fact might have made its way onto the famed and highly selective pages of the “paper of record,” the NY Times:

(NEW ZEALAND PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR DENIS) DUTTON: I think we are overreacting on climate change.

NYT:   Why?

DUTTON: Because sometimes people overreact.

NYT:  Sometimes people also under react. Why are we over reacting, rather than under reacting, here?

DUTTON: Because apocalypses are intriguing.

NYT:  That’s not a reason for assigning over reaction. That’s a suggestion, if  it is determined that we are overreacting, why we are, not an argument that we are .

DUTTON: Err, uh, yeah, but, um, high seas, vicious storms, potentially catastrophic scenarios, people love this stuff, therefore we must be overreacting.

NYT: Are you saying we are overreacting to this because while most scientists are saying this will be a bad to really bad thing, we must be overreacting to what the scientists are saying because “people are fascinated with apocalypses?”

DUTTON: Yes.

NYT: That completely avoids the relevant facts of the issue, and is also a bit, well, ridiculous.  The main warning is we are doing something destructive to ourselves and our world long term. You are saying that doing potentially destructive things to ourselves is something we tend to overreact to?

While there’s plenty of things we overreacted to because they were sexy — like asteroids hitting the earth — there’s plenty of things we have repeatedly under reacted to, like the threat of al-Qaida before 9/11,  Nazi Germany, Glenn Beck today, along with plenty of other scientific warnings we ignored and which, as a result of, tens of thousands of people a year die of cancer today while even newborn babies are borne with debilitating neurological defects or learning disabilities, etc.

Also, and perhaps even more importantly, this entire climate concern thing is based on uncertain and very hard to pin point projections of unspecified times in the future, that also, in many fundamental respects, such as temperature changes or “bad weather,” seem normal; yet you are saying we are overreacting to threats that scientists are calling very real but that seem abstract to many? Wouldn’t  it tend to be the other way around?

DUTTON: No, no no.  People find apocalypses  intriguing!!! Don’t you get that?

NYT: An assessment of whether we are overreacting or underreacting comes from an unemotional, dispassionate (and, hard as that is today, well informed) analysis of the facts relative to our overall collective responses to them. Then, once and if you have determined that we are over or under reacting, you might offer “theories” as to why this is the case. You’ve both avoided and thoroughly confused the issue, and gotten the logic largely backward.  You have not shown or made an argument even supporting the claim that we are overreacting here; but rather simply speculated that we are overreacting here because “sometimes we do.” This is like saying asserting that right now it is raining in China (as opposed to not raining)because “sometimes it rains” when you have no knowledge of the pertinent facts. Besides, this also isn’t really about apocalypse, not that that matters.

DUTTON: Well, to some of the most extreme and exaggerated voices, it is.

NYT: So you are saying what makes this an overreaction is not the general warning that this is very counterproductive, if not highly destructive long term, but instead the abstract notion — that skeptics of climate change more than anyone have turned this into — that this is about saving mankind from assured destruction; and, that therefore the general warning by scientists that this is very counterproductive if not in some ways potentially catastrophic long term is an overreaction?

Is that why almost half the country thinks the issue is nonexistent or minimal, causing most scientists who actually study the issue to want to pull their hair out, because “people are fascinated with apocalypses and so are overreacting?”

DUTTON: Yes, and Yes.

NYT: That makes no sense. Also, what you are saying is “people are fascinated with apocalypses” so scientists are over-reacting to this because of apocalypses while people in general are under-reacting?

DUTTON: No. I’m just saying that we find apocalypses intriguing, so therefore, naturally, we are over reacting on climate change. Even we we are largely ignoring the issue while scientists repeatedly attempt to warn us, we are, don’t you see, overreacting, because we are fascinated with apocalypses!

NYT: It seems to us that you are saying is “people are fascinated with apocalypses” so scientists are over-reacting to this because of apocalypses while people in general are under-reacting.

But completely ignoring the fact here that most scientists say people are under-reacting, you are then in turn arguing here that people are nevertheless overreacting simply because people tend to sometimes overreact to potentially bad scenarios, even though there are plenty of times we under-react, and plenty of arguments as to why we under-react that would very specifically apply here.

So do you have anything more than the fact that while to potentially really bad scenarios “we overreact sometimes,” we under-react other times, we are overreacting this time, essentially based upon the reasoning that “we overreact sometimes”?

DUTTON: Yes, yes, of course.  Here goes. Here is my reason.  Drumroll please:

“It seems to me.”

NYT: Hey, whoa, that’s pretty darn good! It changes everything!!!

DUTTON: Yes!  And it’s awesome, isn’t it! Also, since this is a scientific issue, why should we bother with actual science, when instead we can bother with stuff that is even better than science!  Namely, science fiction. Because, New York Times, are you ready? I have even more.

NYT: Really, even more for why we are over reacting when the bulk of scientists continue to say we are under reacting, in addition to the amazingly relevant and op ed worthy fact that it “seems” to you that we are! Why, that would absolutely fantastic.

DUTTON: Yes, I am saying exactly that.  I have more. And like I said, it’s even better than science — who needs that anyway. Ready?

NYT: We have almost no room on our very limited and highly sought after op ed page for outside sources, but this clearly seems like it is going to be outstanding enough to make the cut.

DUTTON: Yes, yes, absolutely, because, in addition to the very strong fact that it “seems to me,” I even have yet another reason as to why I am claiming that people are overreacting, despite the fact that scientists — the one’s actually studying this issue — are saying that people are under reacting.  Are you ready?

NYT: Yes, Yes!

DUTTON: “Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein.”

Thus, you see, people are fascinated with this stuff, like Frankenstein; so, therefore, ergo, as a result, thus, voila, we are over reacting on climate change!

So now I’ve given yet another reason why in sometimes people overreact in general (just like we sometimes under react or vastly underestimate) without one bit even of suggestion or support as to why we are overreacting here! And no one will ever notice.

NYT:  Including us.

However, brilliant and relevant as this argument of yours now quite obviously is  is, it’s still, um, a largely tautological and unsupported sentence or two, not an op-ed. It’s very slight, but do you see the difference?  That is; Largely tautological and and unsupported sentence, versus complete op-ed piece.   Thus, in addition to mentioning apocalyptic visions and maybe a few more Frankenstein examples, can you largely fill in the bulk of the piece with a wholly irrelevant yet excruciatingly detailed example of a time when we over-reacted as opposed to under-reacted, perhaps regarding something which has absolutely nothing in common with the current situation save for the fact that we “over reacted” which, of course, since we already know that sometimes we overreact, sometimes we under-react, makes it about as relevant as the price of tea in China?

DUTTON: You mean like how if I theorized, with no support, that your publisher was having a steamy affair, I might write a piece about how on another occasion someone else had a steamy affair and provide excessive details about it, throw in the idea that “it seems to me” that therefore yours is also, and “support” it all with the idea that, much like apocalypses, people are fascinated with sex so therefore he probably is having an affair?

NYT: Exactly.

DUTTON: Okay, sure, absolutely. I will talk in excruciatingly irrelevant detail how many people over reacted to Y2K.

[Editor of ELA here:   Ahem, uh, "ahem."  Fear of  enormous breakdowns was not a widespread consensus. Yet with respect to those fears, which were based purely on the unknown of a one time, unique event rather than upon scientific reason and risk assessment of an extremely complex, centuries long global biological, ecological and physics problem, some thought the entire notion of an unavoidable enormous Y2k breakdown just because the years on many computers were in double rather than quadruple digits, was ridiculous, and said so repeatedly.  Including the editor of this site.  As for some of the practical implications it should also be noted that many Y2K computer problems and attendant  breakdowns were diligently worked on and avoided in advance precisely due to concerns.]

NY TIMES:  Yes!

DUTTON: Done. Check  your in box. You now have a piece consisting in its entirety of; the assertion that we are overreacting on climate change because people sometimes overreact; the assertion that are are over reacting rather than under-reacting here because “it seems to me” we are; a reason offered as to why we sometimes overreact rather than reasons offered as to why we oftentimes greatly under-react  – as opposed to reasons why we may be doing either in this particular case; and an excruciatingly detailed example of a time when some overreacted– omitting the fact that since we already know that sometimes we overreact,and sometimes in advance we greatly underestimate  and “under react,” this is about as relevant as which trash can of the many in your building you should throw my inane climate change submission into, which I nevertheless hope that you publish.

NYT: We’ll publish it!

Hard to believe, right?  As the NY Times might very well put it:

If you don’t believe this, come read our pages, December 31, and see for yourself.

Simply saying “We overreact to some things, perhaps we are to climate change, here are some reasons why we are over-reacting here,” flawed as the conclusion that we are overreacting likely is, is fine. Dutton does not come close to doing that, however.  He suggests that sometimes we over react to things; he explains why he thinks we over-react to things sometimes (fascination with the eschatological), and then suggests that “we are over-reacting here” for no reason other than the completely tautological explanation that sometimes we do, along with the completely irrelevant reason why we sometimes do.

If anything, there would be far more driving the idea that we are under-reacting here.  Likely results are many years in the future.  The implications to many, of this, are extremely negative, because of the (flawed) perception that sensibly addressing this means we have to sacrifice our economy. There is a general lack of general scientific understanding among the populace. And our expectations are grounded in what we have come to expect, and the difficulty we seem to have grasping the ideas that 1) there is an enormous time lag here between both cause and effect, and 2) effects are very likely to be non linear (that is, potentially accelerating with increased input and cumulative effect).

Whether that last paragraph was a good or bad (but short) opinion piece, at least it offered reasons. Dutton offers none. What he offered is like suggesting “remember how in medieval times the plague hit, and people did not take it seriously enough;” then spending most of the time writing about how bad the plague was and how wrong everybody was; then offering up a bunch of reasons why in general people often don’t take things seriously enough (and they tend to number far greater than “fascination with eschatology”) and then concluding “it seems to me climate change is the same. The end.”  That would be an inane piece.  And, analogously, it is exactly the logic — and all of it — that the NY Times, incredibly, chose to publish, though a far better example of it at that.

Update: The  NY Times seems at times to be to science understanding and real journalism on this issue as Saddam Hussein was to democracy and open, fair elections in Iraq.  Even its leading “Dot Earth” climate blog, comments included, helps contribute more to the general confusion and misunderstanding on the climate change issue, than to expose and correct it.

This is yet another, and  particularly troubling, example of the fact that our “media” is increasingly becoming a stenographic  reflection of our worst common ignorances, misunderstandings, and rhetoric, than a necessary Fourth Estate investigative and illuminative check upon it.

False Equivalency And Specious Analyses Offered up as “Balance” on Highly Influential NY Times Climate Change blog

A recent climate change coverage post concluded:

How repeated comments on the estimable NY Times DotEarth blog, to the constant effect that there is no evidence or support for the consensus of most scientists, continue to get posted and not sufficiently undermined by other commenters and in particular the blog itself, is hard to fathom. Unless — as I have suggested on it back when I inefficiently if not foolishly ventured forth some comments myself — this leading science blog is supposed to serve more as a reflection of the ignorance and disinformation of our national debate, rather than a check and attempt to improve upon it.

ClimateProgress’s Joe Romm suggests a rather harsh but on point reason why this might be the case, in a piece scathingly entitled “Revkin’s DotEarth hypes disinformation posted on an anti-science website”:

One of the reasons for the collapse [in rigorous scientific media coverage] is the media’s refusal to draw a distinction between what scientists say based on actual observations and analysis in the peer-reviewed literature and what anti-science disinformers say based on their total lack of knowledge of the science and general willingness to misrepresent the facts or make stuff up.

The only area I might tend to disagree with Romm on — and it’s minor to his point above —  is the conscious willingness to make stuff up and misrepresent. Sure it’s done a lot, but often I think it is believed by those doing so (or at least the points that it tends to support are believed); it is frequently the way an ideological driven analysis and the human minds works. If  belief is fervently held and/or there are particularly strong (believed) reasons for it, arguments will be concocted that reinforce (and sell) one’s predetermined belief. (Here’s an example of this just posted in comments on Romm’s blog itself.) We see this in spades on the climate change issue — and in some ways, it almost defines it. Although if it were that obvious, then obviously, we wouldn’t be having the national (and even to some degree international) misinformed discussion on the issue that by and large, we are.

Romm’s piece was in reference to this Dot Earth column.  I had written a decent enough comment to that same Dot Earth piece, to which Revkin both responded (see bottom),  and also quoted from at length in a post the next day.  (Which nevertheless wouldn’t update to reflect more than my last name only, for reasons he would not state, or, apparently, change.)

But to that same initial post that Romm critiques, Revkin also printed a somewhat inane email from ideologue and meteorologist Roger Pielke Sr.; another, much worse comment from some random blogger (who mislead or was flat out wrong with respect to almost every substantive point therein); and as Romm  harshly but correctly points out, updated the piece with an analysis by Jerome Ravetz of Oxford University — who in a highly convoluted but poetically written piece of tripe compares “the science is settled” assertion with the gravity and apparent lack of full candor on the “Iraq has WMD’s” assertion. (Indicating, in the process, that he either knows little about either (see here, or the second half of here), or his fervent ideology on this issue has gotten in the way. Not to mention the fact that the Ravetz letter appeared on one of the most powerful disinformation sites out there.)

The WMD certainty or near certainty belief was widely held. But not that widely held. And by mid-March of 2003 when we commenced military action, outside of this country and a few others, it was not a belief that was widely held by those at all remotely involved in the process.  It had been mainly believed in the absence of actual data, based upon Iraq’s history and pattern of non cooperation. Unlike climate change, it did not require looking into a crystal ball regarding long term future scientific effects in what amounts to a long term and wild experiment upon the entire earth’s climate, with no “sister” or control earth’s by which to assess differences in hindsight. It required confirmation of something that either did or did not exist at the time.

After weapons inspectors went back into Iraq on November 27, 2002 and conducted viable weapons inspections in Iraq for the first time in numerous years (up until they were ordered out on the eve of our military action commencement on March 19, 2003),  they found no substantial evidence to support what every nearly major intelligence report emphasized was a presumption rendered in the absence of verified data from Iraq, and were universally saying to “wait.”

Ravetz might be very scholarly.  But to compare that to a widespread consensus opinion that — by the actions of putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to the point where atmospheric levels of said gases, in total global warming potential equivalent GWPe (that is, taking into account the relevant long lived gases as noted above, and their various heat trapping potential reduced to a common denominator) are now approaching heat levels not seen in many millions of years — we are effecting future climate, is asinine.

Then of course there is this comparison, which makes the equivalency of Ravetz’ “the science is settled,” and “Iraq had WMDs” assertions even more asinine;  We have to get off of fossil fuels anyway.  They are finite. Their continued reliance harms national security and sends hundreds of billions each year overseas to often unfriendly regimes for a natural commodity which (in the case of oil) we simply don’t have nearly enough of on our own; they are highly polluting otherwise; and in the case of coal even lead to often excessive ecosystem damage in their acquisition, and in usage to the bio accumulation of toxins, such as mercury, in our food supply.

Even more importantly, as far as the climate goes, we can’t ever know exactly how much we will effect it until well after the fact (not to mention sufficiently after the fact to have given us enough time to accommodate for the large multi decade plus lag between cause and effect, and to iron out the enormous inherent variability of climate itself on top of that); but it is an enormous risk that will likely affect our children and their children far more than us, and one that an overwhelming number of actual climate and geophysical scientists who have studied the issue are in agreement, for basic, sensible reasons, is quite high.  The entire question is one of risk assessment, not of certainty of ‘X’ or “Y”result.

Iraq was  a monumental unilateral military engagement (now, seven years later, still ongoing) based not upon a risk assessment that Iraq had WMDs (for even if they did, plenty of nation’s do, it is not necessarily a reason for pre-emptive military action);  but upon “the fact” that Iraq did have them, and that therefore pre-emptive aggressive military action was justified. The risk assessment itself was based upon the assertion of this fact.

There is nothing remotely corollary to the climate change issue, nor, by the very nature of it, can there be. The only “proof” or evidence that has come in has tended to bolster the perception of the underlying climate change problem — in may ways, rather powerfully and extremely coincidentally. Critics of this often however confuse this so called “proof” or (as better terminology), evidence, with the problem itself, when it is most decidedly not the problem, but (likely) merely some very early, and highly trailing, evidence of it.  It is no surprise that if Watt’s Up is going to find a professor from a seemingly eminent Institution somewhere (among the tens of thousands of professors from eminent Institutions), he would find one who does not get this, among other things.

As for the “climategate” scandal which Ravetz also makes such a WMD type fuss over, see the summary of my email to Revkin below, highlighted in bold: As noted therein:

How much attention have the critic providers of alternative work to Michael Mann’s [and Phil Jones']  work received? To a tee, they all manipulated data more than Mann [or Jones] did.

But one doesn’t hear about how their data compilations comprise the “science scandal of the decade.”  Yet most if not all of the data compilations put together by critics targeting the methodology and even integrity of Jones or Mann were repeatedly shown to have been more manipulated, if anything.  Yet nothing remotely approaching the same level of widespread public  scrutiny and condemnation has ever been applied.

The reason for this? There are very few people who decided it would be a good thing if the future climate was being royally screwed up; but countless — including many who have (or wrongly believe they or we have) strongly vested interests — who have predetermined that it would be a good thing if we are not, and have sought diligently to arrive at the end result conclusion, where belief is driving the analysis rather than vice versa.

Thus Mann and Jones’s work has been pilloried as a sort of  scandal of the decade. (Despite the fact that data supporting Mann’s hockey stick is still stronger than data not supporting it, and the fact that if the earth has shifted even more in the past than we think, thus rendering Mann’s “hockey stick” less oblique than as presented, this only means the climate is even more sensitive to or apt to ultimately, easily change, not less.)  Whereas creative critiques “proving” otherwise or any number of other fallacious or misinformed claims, has not nearly been so illuminated.  Indeed, media sources, often scurrying to provide the false patina of “balance” but providing anything but, have often promoted these as some sort of ’side’ to a ‘debate,’ and ideological interests have zealously pushed this point further.  (Revkin himself even recently and quite strongly played into this general trend of seeking false balance rather than simply the best and most relevant scientific inquiries of all types — and why I think he was well off base to do so.)

The disinformation site Watts Up With That, where Ravetz’ inanely contorted piece appears — the same one that Revkin promoted along with the Watts Up site itself  – engages in more misrepresentation on the underlying issue than Mann or Jones ever did – and does so on a fairly ongoing basis.)

(In reading Ravetz’ highly contorted but well presented piece, however, I can’t help but think that if pro climate change advocates assessed this in broader language, and stopped falling prey to the desire to overemphasize trailing temperature data — which is not the basis for the problem — at least some understanding would be improved.)

As Romm puts it:

The reason I am writing this post, however, is not any of the above.  It’s the staggering update Revkin has:

[UPDATE, 8 p.m.: In an interesting guest post on WattsUpWithThat, Jerome Ravetz, a longtime student of the intersection of science and society, explores the panel's travails and related issues.]

No, no, a thousand times no.

In general, you can assume that if Watts has reprinted a piece, it is filled with anti-scientific disinformation.  It’s kind of like the laws of thermodynamics.  If someone tells you they have a perpetual motion machine, you don’t actually have to look at the design closely to know that, in fact, they don’t.

Now the least Revkin could do is quickly skim this nonsensical piece to see if, yes, it is in fact a perpetual disinformation machine, like all of Watts’ other posts.  It’s just pure anti-scientific garbage masquerading as … well, it’s masquerading as mostly anti-scientific garbage.

A decent enough example of the ideologically driven Watts Up With That disinformation site is found here, noting:

The idea that weather does not define climate was examined here.  But A. Watts’ “Watts Up With That?” webblog elected to simply re post verbatim excerpts — note that the site often simply reposts large chunks or an entire article verbatim without much or any additional commentary, insight or analysis — from an original snowfall article,with the simple, snarky introduction:

More from the “weather is not climate department.”

Read through the 154 comments to the snowfall article to see if this kind of subtle (and very often not so subtle)‘arguing’ doesn’t have a profound effect on shaping and misinforming the discussion. Unfortunately, as a perusal of the comments on the site at any point in time aptly illustrate, it does.  (Here’s an interesting related video, which Watts improperly had YouTube take down, and which was then put back up: see from minutes 3:56 on — as the earlier part is peripheral, and it is true, someone does have to defend smokers.)

Watt’s article completely neglected to mention that this unprecedented summer snowfall in Australia also happened during one of the hottest, and driest, Australian summers on record, following an even hotter summer, and during the continuance of Australia’s worst long term drought on record (which also included its worst short term drought on record).

The link to the very popular but designedly anti climate science site Watt’s Up, and Ravetz’ misunderstanding of the state of science and what “settled” means and does not mean, along with his misunderstanding of the scientific basis for, and the fact of, the overwhelming relevant scientist consensus that we are now in the process of affecting future climate (see endnotes here for support), not surprisingly, was also provided by another near constant misinforming and/or misinformed commenter on Revkin’s blog; to whom Revkin directly responded:

I added a link to it earlier tonight…. Thanks for posting here. Well worth reading.

No, Andy, it wasn’t.

To the same post yet again, Revkin also highlighted a comment by yet another clearly driven ideologue — who for some perhaps not so coincidental reasons seem to get attracted to Revkin’s Dot Earth blog like moths to light. (It’’s a venerable NY Times blog and considered influential, hence a good place to go to try and influence public opinion, and Revkin puts up with, and occasionally even promotes, a good deal of misrepresentation, and worse.)

This commenter was responding to an IPCC statement to the effect that “[the data] show that recent warming is inconsistent with internal climate variability and other external influences alone,” and wrote:

This statement is simply absurd! How can these people sit there and make statements about what is and what is not consistent with internal climate variability when they have no idea what all of the elements of climate variability are? Ask them to explain what elements of climate variability are responsible for overriding the effects of CO2 for the most recent twelve years, and they have absolutely no clue.

Number one, 12 years are not that consequential climate wise — the longer term trend of statistically significant warming over the past 150 years, is– depending upon what happens within those twelve years. (Proving the negative of a causal effect on an inherently variable and long term system always takes a certain amount of accumulated data,proving the opposite, or the high likelihood of the opposite, depending upon the actual data itself, also takes a lot of data, but to varying degrees less depending upon the extremity of the data itself.)

Number two, whether or not some aspects of the IPCC’s generalized language and explanations could have been better or not, this commenter badly confuses the inability to precisely map climate with both precision and short term precision, with any ability whatsoever to ascertain broad parameters of climatic effect.

And, number three, those same 12 years which this commenter asserts negated any impact of CO2 (which impact, again, is far more significant long term, and with a large time lag to boot, anyway) have witnessed ten of the eleven warmest years on record. Just another tiny little oversight.  But to him, because we can’t do the near impossible and model it down to all of the huge variability, it is then “absurd” that we can know anything at all.

It’s a scientifically specious, or just extremely misinformed comment.  Yet Revkin highlighted it.

But he’s highlighted worse.

And linked to worse pieces, as Romm points out.

As I wrote to Revkin recently, in part explaining my decision to not waste time posting comments on that blog unless and until standards for accountability and for true, dispassionate, science objectivity rather than false balance equilibrating are improved, essentially:

You [recently gave] a speech at Warren College about changing mindsets, in a world that is different than the one that exists out here. And the reason the world is different is due to facilitating and playing into the misrepresentation and misleading and ideological driven zealotry where any workable and self believable and thus highly sellable manipulation is arrived at or contrived in order to fit the “fact” into a pre arranged belief…

By allowing [this] to go unchecked, by providing the forum for it, by sometimes even highlighting for “thoughtfulness and interesting-ness” what is misleading, manipulated (unintentionally or otherwise), misrepresented, or the comments of those who engage in this, is promoting it. It is promoting, and not checking or improving upon, the basis of our misinformed collective understanding. Not the “understanding” of journalists, or scientists, or only those who have studied the issue intensely, but of all of us, that which shapes our world and our collective response through sensible policies (or not) of what is whether we like it or not, a decidedly collective challenge.

…How much attention have the critic providers of alternative work to Michael Mann’s [and Phil Jones, who together comprise "climategate" as referred to above] work received? To a tee, they all manipulated data more than Mann [or Jones] did. Yet is this nearly as frequently pointed out (or even one tenth as big a deal made about it), do the ideologues call these people criminals and worse, like they do Mann and Jones? Of course not. They call them heroes. I don’t know if you fully get what is driving what can’t even fairly be called a double standards — because double standards pale in comparison — and how putting up with it only perpetuates and furthers the problem; in which case, that is, facilitating or putting up with it, then, really, there is no point in working on the issue.

I imagine that was my ultimate point to Revkin. If it — an estimable blog at the (still somewhat?) august NY Times, or any such ideal journalistic endeavor– is going to try to seek a “common ground” based upon the misinformation perpetuating and entrenching pretense of false equivalency, and vastly differing standards of scientific and logical rigor, then there is no point in pursuing it or engaging in it in the first place. It becomes more a part of the problem, then of the solution.

Don’t Worry, Winds Are Not a Part of Climate

Regarding climate change, if all the ice melts and northern albedo (heat reflectivity) is decreased, leading to significantly reinforced additional warming, it may not count, because it will all be due to “winds.”

But winds are not separate from climate, they constitute a key part of it.

On the popular NYTimes DotEarth blog, here are the first four, of five, comments today in response to a column examing the idea of winds pushing ice southward where it has tended to melt faster, and perhaps serving as a more direct cause of half of the floating ice melt than direct overall ambient warmth itself. (The first two are in full, the next two in part):

Mark Serreze at NSIDC coined the term “death spiral” in 2008 – the same year he incorrectly bet on an ice free pole for that summer.

Arctic ice area is currently normal, which is quite different from a “death spiral.”
http://arctic-roos.org…
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers

_____

The well-informed amongst us knew all along, of course, that any 2007 ice “crisis” was a result of the winds having pushed a lot of ice out to sea.

Somehow, however, I don’t think the information we knew and you so well lay out made it to the headlines and to the desperate calls to “save the Polar Bears.”

In fact the Department of the Interior rather adroitly used the 2007 ice “crisis” to list the Polar Bear as an endangered species in May 2008… at at time when there were 5 times more Polar Bears that 60 years ago. One might even think the DOI wasn’t using science, but politics!
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers

_____

Since no one mentioned it, I thought I should bring up well documented earlier Arctic ice summer melts.

The big 1922 Arctic ice summer melt. The Washington Post headline on Nov 2, 1922, was
“Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”
(discovered by John Lockwood)

http://www.washingtontimes.com…

_____

New light shed, or existing ignored light?

To begin, shall we all adjust our Arctic warming clock down approximately 45% accounted for, according to NASA, aerosols or soot:

“The researchers found that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the level of aerosols. Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades. The results were published in the April issue of Nature Geoscience.”

The soot comes primarily from burning wood,coal and dung, and is partially combusted carbon residue.   But don’t worry, it “doesn’t count.”

The other aerosols here are mainly man made pollutants as well.  They don’t count as well.

Also don’t worry, whatever the state of the earth’s climate 50 years from now, it won’t be because of “climate change;” but instead, anything we can think to label as something other than “climate change.”

Including perhaps, one the most critical components and products of climate — wind itself.

But even the Dot Earth post itself tends to potentially somewhat underplay the role that wind plays in climate, as if understanding some short term mechanisms for specific changes somehow conflicts with the broader understanding of the direction of change that the globe’s increased heat trapping potential is likely to lead to. It is almost as if one expects to hear the following one day when and if climate really ratchets up: “Climate change is not real, increased heat in oceans driving climate, not climate change!” when of course climate change is increased heat retention in oceans (as noted below).

That basic, underlying effect — increasing heat leading to increased heat retention by oceans which ultimately drives climate –  we tend to understand at least to a minimum degree, even if it has been largely overlooked in coverage of the climate change topic. But just because we don’t understand all of the other mechanisms does not mean that when we do find a particularly apparent direct sub climate component cause and effect that “appears” to be coincidental to the actual changes that we would expect to see as a result of “climate change,” does not mean that it doesn’t count. What the climate does on its own or not is a part of the inherent variability that we are dealing with. The conditions we create + that inherent variability will combine to form the end results of what we observe;  in other words, it all counts. Climate change acts upon the system as is, with all its attendant variability, not the system ‘norm,’ as their is no ‘norm.’

If warmer temps lead to thinner ice, which combined with strong winds pushed ice to warmer waters where it melts even faster, whether those winds were a part of the change we are wreaking, coincidental, or a little bit of both, ultimately does not matter.  Things will act in tandem regardless.

I wrote to Andy Revkin, the estimable former NY Times environmental reporter who runs the Dot Earth blog, half suggesting, half asking the following, hoping that Revkin would have something to add that I was missing:

Why the leap to thoroughly disassociate wind patterns from climate?  In the long run, things will happen climate wise:  what largely makes climate change the issue that it is, is the changing systems’ response to those components that make up the forces of weather and climate over time.  As bases change, susceptibility to more change increases.  Even if the specific pattern can not be directly tied to climate change itself (this is always a questionable concept as ultimately climate encompasses everything, but it is understandable given our desire to isolate out and explain various observations), such variability, in part attributable to us or not (again see parenthetical) still produces a different effect than it would upon a more stable base. It is how climate tends to ultimately lurch –and it has geologically, and no reason it might not at some point now.

Even given this caveat about the original article, the comments were still out of sync with what it was conveying, leading the 5th commenter to note:

[I] Suggest you all read the article and ignore the effort to reinterpret the information in the first two comments, and doubtless many to come.

Leading to this question: Why such an exacerbated attempt on the part of commenters on this popular NY Times future climate and ecology blog, to spin everything in a direction away from the basic science of climate change?

Since this winds up repeatedly undermining its purpose, and causing it to become a source of as much if not more disinformation as information, one might ask why the Dotearth blog itself puts up with it or doesn’t at least try and correct it?

Lest one think the above comments are not that bad — and they are not in comparison with the usual — here is a typical example from an earlier post, by someone who in other, often far more misleading, comments, claims to be a mathematical physicist. From this page here:

As the story points out, people always worry – as they should – about changes in climate, freezing and warming alike.

The idea that the cause of these changes, which have always been around, is us is new.

This idea does not appear to be rooted, or search confirmation, in the cold reality of measured data. It seems motivated by a general, vague feeling of guilt.

Actually, the idea is rooted in the fact that due to specific, easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities, we are in the process of taking CO2 that was sequestered deep undeground over hundreds of millions of years, and releasing it back into the atmosphere in what is almost a geologic instant.

And it is rooted in the fact that because of this, as well as an increase in nitrous oxides, a tremendous increase in methane, the development and release of fluorocarbons, and significant net deforestation, we are now at a level of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in total global warming potential equivalent (GWPe) likely not seen in millions of years; and are rapidly adding to that level, at geologically breakneck speed. And the fact that the greenhouse effect, due to these greenhouse gases, is the reason the earth is warm and teeming with life as we know it, rather than largely a frozen ball hurtling almost lifelessly through space.

And because there is no reason, based in physics,  biology, ecology, or climate science, to presume or believe that the greenhouse effect reaches a certain level and “magically” shuts off when greenhouse gases reach a certain point in their range — say, by wild coincidence, that point where they stood just before we started ferociously adding to them beginning in earnest about 150 years ago, and even more so the past several decades.  And there is every reason to believe that the greenhouse effect doesn’t magically “shut off.”

And, perhaps most importantly of all, it is rooted in the fact  that climate is not instantaneous, or linear in response to changes in climate stressors or some type of external forcing. (That is, it takes time for increased trapped atmospheric heat to slowly effect climate sub systems, most notably oceans,which then being to change appreciably many decades after the actual causation; and climate does not respond in an even, symmetrical, fashion.)  Climate is a complex, highly variable phenomenon, with trapped heat but a fleeting precipitator of gradual, increasing system changes which then in turn change climate; including, yes, prevailing winds, and ultimately the oceans themselves, the main driver of climate here on earth.

And, over time, the oceans are, in fact retaining more and more heat.

The main basis for concern over any potential effect on the climate is not rooted in anything we have seen, but in fact of the underlying physics of and biological science of the matter. The problem, or “challenge,” could have been realized, theoretically, in advance even of any anthropomorphic activities. In fact the beginnings of our increasing atmospheric trapped heat climate awareness actually had their origins decades ago when the earth was in the process of a short cooling process. (A cooling process that itself was still part of a longer term statistically significant warming trend, which has now at this point seen the eleven warmest years in modern record, all in the last thirteen years of our history.)

But to this commenter, its just a new angle to dismiss all of this, which is just one step short of dismissing the fact that the sun rises in the East — now it’s based in “guilt.”  The day before on the desire of the UN or Al Gore to “control the world.” The day before that on Neanderthal Democrats’ (and some Republicans’) misanthropic desires to return us to the stone age, the day before that it is to get ‘funding money’ (unlike all science the planet over, one presumes), the day before that because — unlike far heavier investments in non “green” technology — vested interests in “green” technology, who invested after it was seen that maybe older energy sources were a long term problem, were nevertheless just self interested, the day before that it was….  But this comment was about average on that blog, and not even nearly among the worst.

How repeated comments on the estimable NY Times DotEarth blog, to the constant effect that there is no evidence or support for the consensus of most scientists, continue to get posted and not sufficiently undermined by other commenters and in particular the blog itself, is hard to fathom. Unless, of course, as I have suggested on it back when I rather inefficiently ventured forth some comments myself — this leading science blog is supposed to serve more as a reflection of the ignorance and disinformation of our national debate, rather than a check and attempt to improve upon it.

.

An Email to Climatologist Roy Spencer on the Basis for Climate Change Concern

On March 6, I sent the following email to climatologist, and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer. It goes to a very common fallacy underlying the issue of climate change — one that seems to be widely held by the media, and by some scientists.

[Introduction]

I just briefly perused your website, and found it both interesting, and well presented. I do take issue with several of the assertions and assumptions, but I thought it more relevant here to take issue with one very significant, in fact central, statement which you make, and for which, you have some apparent support [Edit: The word support is a bit misleading here; what was meant was that the idea is held by others.] Namely, on this page here:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/

“Since computerized climate models are the main source of concern over manmade global warming.”

I don’t think that they are. The great science historian Naomi Oreski has correctly noted, for example, “Indeed, one could reject all climate models and still accept the consensus position because models are only one part of the argument—one line of evidence among many.”

For some people, they may be the main source of concern. There are a few reasons for this. Perhaps the most important is the overwrought desire to achieve a level of precision and exacting prescience, which makes it far easier to convey that this is a problem than does the more conceptually difficult idea of a range of risks in combination with a range of probabilities as to what those risks are based in turn then again upon a known set of factors.

Models also give a potentially powerful way to further our understanding, and begin to test certain ideas. (Unfortunately, however, models DO NOT give us a way to test the idea that our activities now will have a very strong effect on future climate, and I believe confusion over this is prevalent.) They give a way to further refine, and work with, data.

They provide a starting point rather than an ending point; namely, this is a problem, here are the ranges, we can update and possibly further refine with further observation, but there’s not much else without something approximating modeling. They hold out the ideal of that much else. They are obviously an invaluable aspect of the study of this phenomenon, and are heavily focused on for the reasons just stated (and perhaps others). This DOES NOT, however make them the basis for concern.

Some over-reliant statements by climate scientists upon models notwithstanding (and quite consistently I believe), I would strongly assert to all those who do claim that computerized models are the main source of concern over climate science, that this view is highly mistaken. I don’t believe that computerized models are even close to the main source of the most legitimate concern over manmade climate effect. I also believe there are plenty of leading scientists who, for the most part, agree. (Not that, as you I am sure are well aware, general agreement or disagreement proves or disproves the vitality of an assertion, but it is often relevant to note.)

Of course, we could now examine the actual causes for (for lack of a better word) “concern,” but then that would make this email untowardly long. But I wanted to emphasize to you that this idea that models form the basis and rationale for why our atmospheric greenhouse gas altering activities pose a robust long term problem, is highly mistaken.

Of course, to accept this, you might have to re work some of the approach you have taken to the issue. Thus you might not accept it. But I believe you would then be in grievous error on the issue.

[closing]

As of yet, I have not received a response; any responses received will be duly noted.

A Senate Letter on Huge Gains From Increased Efficiency Vehicles

This was shared during the ‘cash for clunkers’ debate last summer. It is posted here unedited, for reference, and because the analysis is increasingly relevant today.
____________________
Here is the analysis that I referenced. Although it makes the case against both bills, you can also use almost any part of it to make the case against moving forward with the House version, or for positively altering it.  It is also reasonably brief, as, obviously, respect for your time is paramount. Therefore much was left out in terms of further example, support, analysis, and proscriptive remedies.  But please also do not hesitate to follow up, or have someone from your office, follow up, with respect to any and all questions and concerns.

Also please note that a big part of getting bills accomplished, as you obviously are probably having to deal with every day, is getting everybody on the same page, and putting forth the most pertinent points, in a broad based, and appealing way.  This point is also lightly touched on below, but it is worth noting here that I have shared this analysis with a broad spectrum of experts on the matter. Not one mainstream environmentalist has disagreed with it, and not one conservative analyst has taken great issue either, simply because of the large national security, oil reliance ramifications.   The economics has been backed up and supported, as well. And everyone, in terms of actual voters, that I have shared the basic ideas with, have been in agreement as well.

In ‘06, the U.S. was responsible for 6.17 billion metric tons of net greenhouse gas emissions.   Using this figure as the baseline, S. 1200 would, according to the press release, save an amount equal to .00745% — 75/1,000,000 — of our net greenhouse gas emissions over the House (and Stabenow) version,  and .031% — 31/100,000 — of our net greenhouse gas emissions in total. It would also save less than .035%  or 35/100,000 of our total passenger vehicle oil use (using 8 million barrels a day as the base figure), over the House version, and .14% — 14/10,000 — in total.

But even these figures may be overly optimistic.  They don’t appear to take into account that some of the subsidized transactions would occur anyway (and that there are energy costs involved in the production of each replacement vehicle, although that consideration can be exceedingly misleading).  [Editorial update: In hindsight, the bills had a slightly better effect, because a lot of people did choose to use them for  higher efficiency cars than the bills required for subsidy, most notably the now highly reputed Ford Fusion.]

More importantly, they also don’t consider that the subsidized vehicles, unlike those being targeted for replacement, can not otherwise, for all practical purposes, be scrapped a year or two down the road and replaced by far more efficient vehicles as these become available — but will instead perpetuate the status quo for years. These vehicles may also ultimately decrease our future fleet average, if we otherwise come close to achieving our new vehicle sales fleet mpg average target   (35.5 mpg for cars and light trucks combined by 2016, with smaller, incremental increases in earlier years.)

Here are the basics:  The ultimate goal of any pro-Detroit assistance is to create job opportunity and growth.  Other vehicle stimulus packages will have this same macro economic effect. If there is a concern, nevertheless, to help Detroit specifically, there is a way to do this and have this very same bill, with a little tweaking — have not just far more broad based appeal over the House version — but be far more effective.

It is also critical to keep in mind that properly framed — and I have already gotten feedback from people in both political parties outside of the beltway — almost everybody is on board with reducing gasoline usage for one or both of the following reasons:  Decreasing CO2 emissions and moving us toward the necessary greater international credibility on the issue (particularly with respect to nations such as India, and China), and improving our national security by mitigating our needless reliance upon foreign oil — here emphasized for framing purposes.

I will skip the lengthier analysis of vehicles on the market and the necessary restructuring of this legislation in order to meet the same expressed, and desired, ends, and yet at the same time meet them in a way that is more broadly appealing as well.  That needs to be done via separate inquiry and/or in person. But the follow-up proscription suggested below will also give some critical insight into how practical and effective such a measure can potentially be — even with respect to our Detroit based companies.

It may also be far more cost effective than many other subsidy, or technology study programs, to extend a properly constructed reward program with progressively, and aggressively, higher efficiency targets. (And at the same time, be more politically palatable than significantly raising oil based fuel taxes. Note also that at least some of this idea is not dissimilar from S. 247 introduced back on Jan. 14.  But the similarities and differences, and how some of that can be reintroduced while having even more appeal and at the same time more vigorously serve to prompt the market itself to develop, produce, and purchase far more and higher mpg and alternative fuel vehicles — the necessary requirement for us to effect these dual problems of oil and emissions — are subsequent points to make.)

This would not only prompt such vehicle replacements, but shift the development, production, and demand aspects of the market in this direction as well. This, in turn, would also have the critical, and underestimated effect, of altering market parameters in the proper direction and thus rendering further significant market movement and design improvement far more likely and easier to build upon.  This sounds somewhat conceptual, but it is a key requisite element for solving these challenges.

Consider two American candidates for significant cash for clunker type targeting, and compare them in stark contrast to the vehicles that we would nevertheless be subsidizing the purchase, and thus perpetuation (and even increase) of, under the current proposals:  The Chevy Volt, and Ford’s Fiesta ECOnetic diesel. (Note that diesels are not currently popular here merely because there has not yet been a reason for them to be, which as a basic truism of market capitalism, will change when the reasons change.  Emissions aside, they can now also easily be made as clean, or cleaner, than gasoline internal combustion engines. In fact, Volkswagen’s recently introduced Jetta TDi (diesel) has been extremely well received in the U.S. thus far.)

The Volt gets 100+ mpg equivalent its first forty miles after charge — enough to cover most routine commutes and trips — and 48-50 mpg when running via gasoline generator thereafter.  The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic gets 65 mpg. (There is also a Fiesta Van ECOnetic version due out in a few months, that gets in the 70s.  In fact, Fiesta’s full size transit van ECOnetic, which is not available in the U.S., but which requires the correct policies in order to be, gets 32.6 — an enormous improvement over what is on the road in terms of work vans today.)

Replace a vehicle that gets 18 mpg, with one that gets 65, and this would prompt the market to develop even better and more efficient versions of such vehicles; and we would save 482 gallons of gas, and 9352 lbs. of CO2, over a typical 12,000 mile driving year, for that one vehicle alone.  This is the energy and exhaust equivalent of driving a vehicle that gets 35.5 mpg — the new CAFE requirement average for the year 2016 — for 17,110 miles, using air as its fuel, and emitting nothing but air.

What if the vehicle to be replaced was one of the 24 mpg vehicles, say, one year from now; only it can’t, because it is almost brand new. What would the savings have been otherwise, by switching over to the 65 mpg vehicle?  315.4 gallons of gasoline, and 6118.67 lbs. of CO2, over 12,000 miles of driving distance.  Enough, again, in a net emissions and oil usage sense, to fuel that soon to be standard 35.5 mpg vehicle for 11,196 miles, on pure air.

Yet Ford is not currently planning to bring the ECOnetic to America. According to Mark Fields, Ford America President;

We just don’t think [Americans] would buy that many diesel cars.

Of course we wouldn’t, when we are considering the subsidization of replacement vehicles that get 24 mpg, instead.

Unblemished Risk Assessment on Climate Change Reduction.

Cornell economics Professor Robert Frank offers up a solid op-ed in today’s New York Times on the economics of climate change. (Calling it a big step up from this recent climate monstrosity in the Times is an understatement):

Organizers of the recent climate conference in Copenhagen sought, unsuccessfully, to forge agreements to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. But even an increase that small would cause deadly harm. And far greater damage is likely if we do nothing.

The numbers — and there are many to choose from — paint a grim picture. According to recent estimates from the Integrated Global Systems Model at [M.I.T.], the median forecast is for a climb of 9 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end, in the absence of effective countermeasures.

The gist of the piece is that based upon non political, objective, logic based risk assessment, and basic economics, there really isn’t a decent case against immediate climate change redress. Summarizing, Frank notes:

In short, the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small, and it involves just a few simple changes in behavior.

The real problem with the estimates is that the outcome may be worse than expected. And that’s the strongest possible argument for taking action. In a rational world, that should be an easy choice, but in this case we appear to be headed in the wrong direction.

(A few quick examples of how the market could be motivated to effect much of this change on its own, while preserving personal choice and promoting growth at the same time,  are here.) Ironically, the piece could have painted a stronger picture for action and been more objective and accurate at the same time.  For example, it concludes:

Most people would pay a substantial share of their wealth — much more, certainly, than the modest cost of a carbon tax — to avoid having someone pull the trigger on a gun pointed at their head with one bullet and nine empty chambers. Yet that’s the kind of risk that some people think we should take.

First, and more controversially, this follows the common and likely erroneous presumption that addressing climate change sensibly “costs” money rather than simply serves to shift what constitutes GDP.   But more pointedly, Frank’s assessment is based upon a probability of 10 percent of a rise of 12 degrees or more.  Yet the same M.I.T study Frank relies upon for this, as noted earlier in the piece, projects the median rise to be 9 degrees. (In other words, half of the projections come in above 9 degrees, half lower, if no remediation action is taken.)  Thus, to continue the analogy, the other chambers are not “empty.”

Frank notes this himself earlier:

Essentially, the risk is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, the money spent to curb greenhouse gases wouldn’t have been needed to save the planet. And yet that money would still have prevented substantial damage. (The M.I.T. model estimates a zero probability of the temperature rising by less than 3.6 degrees by 2100.)

Thus, NONE of the chambers are empty; and half of them are not that far off from the 12 degree “bullet.” But what was left out of this assessment is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, there are still other significant reasons why the expenditures would not have been a waste.

First off, as noted above, they won”t serve as “true” expenditures in the long run — but will shift what we do spend our GDP dollars on. So if they “do nothing,” we probably would have preferred having more flat screen TVs (metaphorically speaking) and instead we will have more historically stable CO2 levels.  But since in the long run happiness is not correlated with absolute levels of wealth, but rather an ongoing increase in growth and job opportunities, even this is fairly trivial, again, in the long run. (Implementing cleaner, less destructive fuels prompts jobs and GDP growth the same as building a few extra flat screen TVs does.)

But they won’t do nothing, even apart from the climate change issue.  Much of the climate change challenge stems from fossil fuel use.(The rest stems from deforestation, changing agricultural practices and grazing ruminant livestock, and other sundry causes.) We have to get off of these anyway. They are finite. Extremely so in the case of oil. We might as well get off of them now.

And in addition, fossil fuels also cause considerable harm in addition to being largely responsible for an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to levels that on a sustained basis may well be unprecedented in the past fifteen million years:

They are responsible for a large proportion of our atmospheric pollution, CO2 (which is not a “true” pollutant), aside.  In the case of coal, they are also responsible for a majority of the toxicological poison mercury that is bio-accumulating in our food chain. Also in the case of coal, they are responsible for a significant amount of degradation to the natural landscape and watersheds where coal is mined. (Sometimes even causing the irreversible destruction of entire mountain tops).  And in the case of oil, they are responsible for unnecessary national security vulnerabilities created by relying upon, and sending hundreds of billions of dollars to, foreign oil selling regimes overseas that we often view as hostile to our interests.

Another interesting aspect of the piece is when Frank notes that we may be “headed in the wrong direction.” Quoting Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Frank notes:

“Global warming is bad, but it doesn’t make us feel nauseated or angry or disgraced, and thus we don’t feel compelled to rail against it as we do against other momentous threats to our species, such as flag burning.”

But we’re also headed in the wrong direction for a few other reasons. Number one is an incessant parade of nonstop misinformation on the topic, along with poor media coverage of it.

Number two is that climate change is abstract. We can’t feel it, touch it, taste it, see it, or smell it. Sure, we see and feel the weather everyday, but climate change is a decades long process; the weather at any particular time is all but irrelevant, and of course, all over the board.

Number three is that, perhaps given a natural desire to believe such conclusions, people tend to confuse the lack of precision or absolute certainty on climate change with the certainty of the physics that underline the phenomenon; including the certainties that heat drives climate (ultimately through the oceans), heat trapping gases trap heat, and levels of heat trapping gases have ratcheted upward at geologically breakneck speed to extremely high levels — and are still climbing.

Number four may be the most infrequently mentioned, yet, after misinformation, perhaps the most important.  An increase in atmospheric trapped heat is ultimately going to warm or otherwise alter the planet, and produce some sort of radical change (likely warming) through the oceans.  It takes an extremely long time to heat up oceans. (And, as we would expect, oceans are slowly retaining more and more heat.) Decades, if not more.  For this reason, among others, there is a considerable lag in climate change between cause and effect.

That is, given natural variability, we won’t “know” the effects of climate change (as opposed to mere, bizarre, variability) for years. And even then we still won’t because there will be multiple decades of effect built up in the pipeline.

It’s abstract, it’s in the future, and there are considerable cause and effect, and potential variability lags on top of that.  Those things, however, do not make it any less real. We are, however, very counter productively, treating it as if they do.

If we purchase a stock at 100 dollars, and we knew it had an 80 percent probability of going to zero, and a 20 percent probability of going to 125, we would sell it in an instant. And at a steep discount from 100 dollars, also. We would never go “but we don’t know with certainty that it is going to go to zero” as a rationale for doing nothing.

But that is precisely what we are doing, with respect to climate change.  The precise number of the effect is all but irrelevant when it comes to future harm.  What matters is the range of likely outcomes, their expected probabilities, and likely, attendant harm for each.  Somehow — perhaps through natural confusion over the science, and the four reasons listed above along with the one posited by Gilbert and Frank — we are completely confusing this.

The suspicion here is that misinformation driven by ideology is in fact playing the leading role, with the other factors merely facilitating the process and allowing for easy and in many cases, perhaps even earnest, confusion and misinformation promulgation on the issue.

Creating Jobs, Spurring the Economy, Solving Energy Problems, and Lessening Government Dictate, with One Same Swift Strategic Approach

The best way to create jobs is to solve another problem at the exact same time.

Tax the crap out of gasoline. Yeah, unpopular; but Dems have the majority in Congress, and tend to support it (as do some moderate Republicans). Just do it, sell it, it’s about national security and getting off of sending billions to hostile foreign regimes.

Do it more as a value added tax in addition to just end user tax. Take all the funds from this tax and use thusly: Give hardship relief, but only on a well communicated sliding scale so that people begin AND CONTINUE to make adjustments themselves. All of this will go right back into the economy while encouraging the market itself to further adjust and create.

Next, bag the tax credit idea and instead do immediate credits for solar penal installation on roofs. Make it a big credit too, so that anyone living in a sunny area is getting some power from the sun, and almost no environmental cost, increasing further development and economies of scale in this industry, and transitioning us over to cleaner, more independent, fuels.

No tax credits; they are abstract, and the full value is never realized.

Tax electricity. That’s right. Electricity, generated from coal. Sounds politically bad? Right now we tax hard earned income. That’s bad. Instead, we will be shifting some of that burden onto a revenue raising program that at the same time inspires the market, and ends the undue non true capitalism penalization of industries and end uses that don’t rely upon excessive externality cost electrical use or production.

Same hardship remuneration applies, while people incrementally, with six month at a time decreases in hardship assistance, learn to adapt with positive change:

We can’t ask what is perceived to be sacrifice of industry (though we are de-facto subsidizing some industries now too, with other ones right now unduly penalized because their lack of harm is not integrated into their price) yet just give handouts to the economically disadvantaged without asking them to learn to adjust also — and there is PLENTY of adjustment that can be made short and, increasingly, longer term, when money is at stake — at the same time.

DON’T pour money into R & D. This is a common call by many, but it is a waste. Let the market do it. Then the money not only inspires the research, but concomitantly the development and implementation at the same time, for no additional cost. It’s a waste to simply give industry money for “research, if they do x or y or promise to look at z.”

Take the same money, and later use for deficit reduction. Right now, trying to bring jobs back, use it for reward. Not as efficient as economic discentive (e.g, a tax on coal fired electricity) but choose broad behavior parameters that are already established, and again, grant immediate purchase and investment credits.

Not for bicycles or stuff like that that also has other uses (cool and helpful as bicycles are), that’s another waste. But for stuff which only serves to produce or use far cleaner energy.

Use the rest for direct stimulus in the way of immediate construction, but smaller scale that also indirectly enriches communities, towns and cities, and DOES NOT further support more fossil fuel based uses or needs. Bike paths can be construction ready anywhere, and have the opposite effect, encouraging biking. Don’t put up electric lights unless they are solar powered. Install solar charging stations, wind or geothermal powered, for local electric vehicles, bike and walking paths, tennis courts, etc.

And those are just a few quick examples.  Everything in such a jobs or stimulus bill needs to be designed to either discourage fossil fuel based behavior while encouraging the opposite, while not regulating people and letting them and the market decide, while inspiring the market further at the same time, all while stimulating jobs and the economy rather than further dragging it down.

If Dems with a solid majority can’t sell that, what can they sell? (Oh, yeah, I forgot:  Apparently nothing. But that can change when they learn not necessarily how to do it, but that they must do it. Who might teach them that?)

Use the market to solve the climate change, pollution and energy security problems all at the same time, without increasing government encroachment, and while creating jobs and spurring economic growth all at the same time.

NY Times Tom Friedman: More Bills is the Stimulus and Image Rehabilitation America Needs!

Friedman, January 30:

It is a shame because here we are as a country scrounging around for a few billion more dollars of stimulus to help our unemployed and small businesses — when the biggest stimulus of all is hiding in plain sight. And that is ending our political paralysis and the pall of uncertainty it is casting over everything from the cost of my health care to the cost of my energy to the way our biggest banks can do business.

Are we really being held back because we don’t know what our health care is going to cost?  Because we don’t know the cost of energy? Who is being held back by this.  What legislation would change this.

Energy prices have fluctuated for decades. Setting a bill that helps motivate us toward better alternatives would certainly be good for the environment, good for national security, and probably, in the long run (despite constant presumption to the contrary) good for the economy. But it does not necessarily mean we will suddenly know any better what “energy” costs. This is the nature of the market.

Friedman is sometimes perceptive (and at other times, not so much). But his quoted paragraph above seems like pure babble, that otherwise sounds and “appears” clever; something that there is far too much of masquerading as informed commentary these days.

As for the paralysis that Friedman speaks of, paralysis is not necessarily bad, if it keeps bad legislation from being passed. But he blames both sides for this paralysis on the one hand, while calling the Republicans the party of “just say no” on the other.

He also says the two “sides” should meet in the “middle.”  Why should the two sides “meet in the middle.” What if the “middle”as defined in this fashion is not right? What if the Republicans are right on some things (though right now, it is hard to see what) and Democrats are right on some others (not much easier to see what).  Does “meet in the middle” mean we pass the best bills? Doesn’t articulate the best principles, and reasons why they apply, create the best bills?  And is it really a failure to “meet in the middle” that is prohibiting this?

Democrats have a solid majority of the House, 59 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and the support of the White House. If they put together a good bill, couldn’t they also sufficiently show why it is a good bill to the few Democrats or Republicans holding it up?  (And if Democrats are so worried about a filibuster, maybe they ought to stop letting themselves be bossed around constantly by the minority party. After all, it’s not like they could stop anything themselves when they were the minority party for most of this decade (with bad ramifications, too.))

If Democrats can not put together a good bill, then there is nothing to pass. If they can put together a good bill, and show why it is, and they are still blocked by a few recalcitrant Democrats and almost the entire Republican Party, then maybe the issue is not one of “two sides not being able” to “come together,” but others negatively paralyzing the system.  Others who then lose at the voting booth, if this is 1) the actual case, and 2) once again, effectively shown.

Of course, with Rahm Emanuel, who doesn’t seem to believe in showing anything, leading White House strategy,* it’s up to Democrats in Congress, or the DNC; or maybe once again we will have the “paralysis” that Friedman writes about until Republicans can come back in and start passing things again, just like most of this past decade.

In other words, it comes down to two things, particularly with a significant majority in both houses, and the support of the White House. Putting together a good bill or bills, and effectively showing this, both to the country, and to their fellow Congresspeople: Not, as Friedman says, simply “meeting in the middle” regardless of what the various parties are claiming they want. That leads to more of the same over burdensome special interest favoring legislation that people like Friedman are often complaining about (and often correctly), in the first place.

As for why the rest of the world is starting to view our country as more unstable — the concern driving Friedman’s article — it’s not because we are not passing bills, with possibly the small exception of energy. The reason for the energy exception is that the world knows climate change is a global problem and we are still the leader of the free world, and by far largest per capita contributor to the climate change problem. (A problem that almost half the country seems to have become convinced does not exist, by the way.) And we are not seeming to do much to lead on this issue.

But for the most part, the world is not viewing the U.S. as potentially less stable than normal because of a failure to pass health care or some derivative and market traders favoring cap and Trade system, whereby much of the money that should be going into productive growth and problem redress instead goes into traders pockets;** it is probably because of the massive run up in debt, the recent financial crisis, and all of the heavy rhetoric that continues to emanate out of this country, combined with, perhaps, to some very small degree, what Friedman references; A Congress that can’t seem to get anything done — despite the fact that many think that in general, a Congress not getting anything done is a good thing sometimes.***

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*Emanuel has been routinely credited with orchestrating a masterful Democratic victory in Congress in 2006.  There is little conventional wisdom in an America that is currently chock full of erroneous conventional political wisdom, that is as off base as this.  It is the equivalent of taking over a football game in the fourth quarter, leading 31-0, and squeaking out a 30-28 victory when the ball sails wide right on a field goal try in the waning seconds.   Most people will vehemently disagree with this — particularly those in a media which endlessly parroted this assessment as if unambiguous fact  – but that’s the nature of conventional wisdom that has become entrenched as gospel.  But in 2006 the Bush administration was becoming very unpopular, concern over Iraq and foreign policy strategy was becoming alarmingly high yet the Bush Administration unfortunately was not up for re-election, and there was more anti – incumbent Congressional fervor than at any point in modern history (only to be outdone, yet again, by 2008 of course), and second term majority parties typically lose almost what the Republicans lost in 2006 under normal circumstances.

**On the flip side of this, a cap and trade system does offer some efficiency advantages. By allowing the market to fully determine how it wants to meet certain targets, more effective measures can be accomplished at less cost to the initial polluter in the first place. But in the long run, all this system is doing is rewarding an inherent right to pollute to certain entities, above which threshold they can not go — or must purchase credits from someone else. If an inherent right to pollute does exist where such pollution is contributing to a potentially alarming (and still underestimated) global problem, then everyone should have the right equally. Yet such a system is fundamentally predicated on the opposite principle — past behavior.

In the long run, simply taxing the processes is more efficient and less costly.  (Former Bush economics advisor, Bruce Bartlett, in Forbes, agrees.)  Politically unpalatable as this sounds, it is the most efficient and most “market equalizing” approach to leveling the playing field between harmful and nonharmful production processes. There is no reason that a “tax” should be frowned upon until and unless this country has no taxes; which so long as we have government and not anarchy, is a bit far fetched.  And of the many taxes that are levied, this would probably be the fairest and by far the most productive. Not only does it raise revenue, it avoids having to simply prohibit behavior that destroys the environmental quality of the world for everyone, which behavior some people might otherwise be willing to pay for — which is everyone’s right, so long as that harm is somehow integrated into the marketplace, and marketplace decisions.

Cap and trade does not accomplish this nearly as efficiently in the long run, but instead creates an entire separate market that has no value in and of itself, other than to avoid this more straightforward approach and the politically unpalatable tax word.

Not that some haven’t tried to use the term  anyway, for cap and trade (and, creatively, there is some small truth to it).  But then these “some” — in this case ex half term Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, here also argue that the way to getting off of the energy sources that are compromising national security, polluting our environment, and contributing massive amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere via the geologically instantaneous release of carbon that took millions of years to accumulate, is “the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive!.” And, of course, if there is one thing that is correctly known with certainty in the otherwise uncertain “art” of economics — and what, essentially, compromises “economics 101,” is that of course the answer, completely the opposite of what Palin insisted, does lie in making the behavior we want to move away from, scarcer and more expensive, relative to the behavior that we want to move toward.

Here, something that is not quite as efficient, but that can speed up the process, and add political appeal, is to take the funds derived from discouraging the energy reliance sources and processes that we need to move away from, and using part of it to encourage production and usage of the (cleaner, non finite) energy sources and processes that we need to move toward.

***The most recent incarnation of the health care bill in the Senate, to many — as much as this country probably needs health care reform to reign in rocketing public and private costs, extreme inefficiencies, and to provide better coverage and care for people — serves as an example of precisely this.

An Economics Challenge For “Freakonomics” Author and Economist Steven Levitt

Here is Steven Levitt’s December 23 NY Times blog column.  Notice that a central point he makes is that it might be far cheaper in the future to remove carbon from the air. Thus he argues that geo-engineering now to “stabilize,” with carbon capturing later to “remove” is wise; while lessening net atmospheric emissions of GHC is unwise.

Forget about the fact that Levitt makes this assertion upon the assumption that carbon reduction costs can be reduced by one thousandth to one millionth based upon the “outlier” that computing speed was increased by such magnitudes; forget about the fact that the effect of climate change lags up to many decades behind its cause (largely due to the time it takes to warm oceans, as well as the fact that as stable systems start to break down, change can progress in an increasingly non linear fashion), meaning we have already put into place what we will see decades from now; forget about the fact that CO2 is only one greenhouse gas (albeit right now, the predominant one); forget about the fact that geo-engineering is a big abstraction involving great uncertainty and heavy additional risk; and forget that any significant improvement in carbon capture technology costs, let alone improvement on the order of “one thousandth to one millionth,” is still somewhat speculative, whereas the fact that greenhouse gases trap heat, heat ultimately drives climate, and climate can change rapidly, and radically, are not.

Let’s accept all these things as inconsequential, thereby giving Levitt’s reasoning a chance.  Upon what does he base this idea of essentially doing nothing but rigging up some geo-engineered spraying of the skies now, and half a century later trying to tackle super high GHG concentration levels by atmospheric carbon removal?

Two things.  1) His presumption that to lessen GHG emissions now “costs” money; and 2) that this “cost,” however defined, somehow ransacks our GDP long term, rather than merely goes into changing the composite make up of it.

The comment below was posted on this same December 23 blog column by Levitt. It addresses both the  most fundamental underlying point of his column — the implicit, “excessive” costs of reducing our GHG emissions — and the central assertion from it.  There is nothing wildly inappropriate, or vulgar, in the comment.

The only thing that the comment does, apart from addressing the central premise of Levitt’s post, is put a direct challenge to Levitt regarding the conceptual economic thinking underlying it.  This is a challenge that seems fair, given that 1) a great many scientists say that failing to address climate change is likely to result in profound, catastrophic, and economically immeasurable costs, and the great majority say we will see significant negative impact at a minimum, with a good likelihood for a lot more; and 2) the main thing that is holding us up (aside from misinformation being spread, by those worried about this very same, main thing), is this perception of great “cost” to our GDP.

After you read through what was a simple comment on a blog, not a carefully crafted editorial for publication, say, on the NY Times pages – consider what Levitt’s response to it was. Also consider that Levitt published a book in large part on climate change, with extreme scientific errors in it, as noted (and supported) in a link to one of the links noted in the comment below.

Here is the comment, but for two comma adjustments, exactly how it was posted on Levitt’s blog on on December 23.

Steven,

What do you think about this idea? That you may have it somewhat backwards on the cost side of the equation — and may be overly attached to conventional, and quite possibly sadly mistaken “wisdom,” on the topic of what constitutes real long term economic “cost.”

I would love to discuss this with you at some point. Here is a link where the idea is further developed, and here is a shorter link where the practical implications of how to inspire the market to solve this greenhouse gas problem (now, when it needs to be, not half a century from now), without onerous, draconinan regulations,  are examined.

As for the idea you posit above:

If carbon capture will get cheap and scalable, then the current focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions (as opposed to keeping the temperature of the earth stable via geoengineering in the short run until carbon capture becomes routine) looks misguided.

Think about that for a moment. Addressing the root of the problem, stopping what is causing the problem, is “misguided.” Hoping for a different solution way down the road (while we add to a problem which is not at all linear), on the other hand, is not.

Nevermind that on top of that, the predominant causes — fossil fuels — are finite and have to be moved off of anyway, and are otherwise quite polluting (particularly in the case of coal) and national security compromising (in the case of oil).

I propose, publicly, here, that for your next book you and I write it together, and we explore this presumption that “cost” in the long run is actually a real cost in the sense of lost value, rather than simply constituting a different composite makeup of GDP.

Or, if you are that stuck on the idea that measurable value is absolute, not relative, as if everything of value can be broken down into the same standard of measurement simply because we have to have one standard measure of currency from which we must make decisions with microeconomic implications — and thus can’t get off this notion that shifting over to smarter fuels hurts our production rather than redefines it — then debate me on it instead.

But I think, being a guy who has at least expressed willingness to take on new ideas and think outside of the box, that it is something that perhaps it is time to explore, no?

Apparently it is not, because not only did Levitt shrink from the challenge,; he blocked the entire comment. From a blog.

Although the chances of this are very remote, queries so far to ascertain whether in fact there was some sort of mix up, have been sent, and any responses will be posted accordingly, with updates to this post, and all due apologies to Levitt if the case warrants.

Also, note that two of the three links above that were included in the original comment, are to directly relevant and purely economic concepts. The third link is to a post on Levitt and Dubner’s book, Superfreakonomics, otherwise predominantly related to similar, GDP “cost” and “production” economic concepts. That link, then in turn links to yet another post (that is, two links removed from the NY Times blog), that paints a fairly critical — but accurate, and extremely well documented and supported – analysis of one of the fundamental errors in Levitt’s book, “Superfreakonomics”: Namely, the idea postulated therein that solar panels do more harm than good in terms of climate change because dark solar panels “absorb heat.”

Perhaps Levitt felt challenged by the Post. But that is the whole point. It was to challenge him on this point. No one is doing that. We instead keep taking for granted this “presumption” that using heavily market based incentives to switch over to sensible fuels kills our economy rather than simply redefines it. And Levitt, outside the box, creative economic thinker, according to conventional wisdom on “Freakonomics” that he is, could have ignored it. Or explained why he feels it is incorrect.

He did neither. Instead, unless he has someone monitoring comments for him so as to make him “look good” (which is just as bad), apparently prevented anybody else from seeing it as part of the discussion, notwithstanding that it went to the heart of that column, and even to other assertions by him (including in his book), arguing against net GHG emissions redress.

Again, any followup by Levitt regarding what happened (as well as his views on the economics assumptions, if he feels so inclined to share his responses to the argument that GDP is ultimately made up of “costs,” no matter what they are), will be duly posted.