Global Warming w/o Tiggy

[Challenger Grim]

Here, we can agree. Eventually, reality will decide what we should have done. And again, personally, I don't see that there's a whole lot we can do effectively. The underlying problems are (1) too many people in the world; and (2) no clean way to meet energy demands. Combine these, and we're in for interesting times. But ecology is thumpingly consistent in telling us what happens to species that outbreed the carrying capacity of their environment. Our environment is the whole planet. VERY interesting times are coming.

No, there's a very easy, very effective way to deal with "too many people in the world". And that's why AGW proponents unnerve me, because I'm sure I'll be among the first targeted.

And Ehrlich warned of interesting times coming once before. And yet like the rapture, predictions keep failing...

[phank]

No, there's a very easy, very effective way to deal with "too many people in the world". And that's why AGW proponents unnerve me, because I'm sure I'll be among the first targeted.

Paranoia will destroy ya! But despite lack of any such "targets", I think doing nothing (not just about AGW, but about pollution, fresh water shortages, resource depletion generally) is far and away the easiest and most effective way to deal with overpopulation. Nature will take its course.

And Ehrlich warned of interesting times coming once before. And yet like the rapture, predictions keep failing...

Erlich, Malthus, the Club of Rome, all had the right idea but very incomplete models. Not that our models today are anywhere near reliable because there are too many factors that can't be quantified well and can produce wide swings. Just how elastic IS energy demand? How sensitive to price IS conservation? How sensitive is the world's supply of arable land to climate change (not all of it warming by any means, but just different)?

I think these predictions didn't "fail", so much as they were premature and based on inputs not well understood in many ways. We simply do not know how many people the earth can support, probably to within a factor of two. But we DO know that the ocean isn't producing nearly as many fish, and that weeds and bacteria and such have evolved faster than our ability to combat them, and that people are changing their world in a great many ways with ultimate results nobody can really predict. Notice that overpopulation is extremely common among all organisms, and there are no exceptions to the resulting population implosions. This is true of everything from yeast to locusts to lemmings. People will be no exception, but I wouldn't trust anyone's timeframe very much.

To quote Dave Van Ronk, "Doctor says cocaine's for horses, it's not for men. He says it'll kill me but he won't say when."

[Challenger Grim]

Paranoia will destroy ya! But despite lack of any such "targets", I think doing nothing (not just about AGW, but about pollution, fresh water shortages, resource depletion generally) is far and away the easiest and most effective way to deal with overpopulation. Nature will take its course.

Erlich, Malthus, the Club of Rome, all had the right idea but very incomplete models. Not that our models today are anywhere near reliable because there are too many factors that can't be quantified well and can produce wide swings. Just how elastic IS energy demand? How sensitive to price IS conservation? How sensitive is the world's supply of arable land to climate change (not all of it warming by any means, but just different)?

I think these predictions didn't "fail", so much as they were premature and based on inputs not well understood in many ways. We simply do not know how many people the earth can support, probably to within a factor of two. But we DO know that the ocean isn't producing nearly as many fish, and that weeds and bacteria and such have evolved faster than our ability to combat them, and that people are changing their world in a great many ways with ultimate results nobody can really predict. Notice that overpopulation is extremely common among all organisms, and there are no exceptions to the resulting population implosions. This is true of everything from yeast to locusts to lemmings. People will be no exception, but I wouldn't trust anyone's timeframe very much.

To quote Dave Van Ronk, "Doctor says cocaine's for horses, it's not for men. He says it'll kill me but he won't say when."

Then by your "logic" no model can ever fail. Nothing can ever be proven false, "it just needs more work".

And that's why we laugh.

[phank]

Then by your "logic" no model can ever fail. Nothing can ever be proven false, "it just needs more work".

And that's why we laugh.

You really need to stop and think. Models aren't either worthless or perfect, pick one. Models improve with (1) additional valid data; and (2) more accurate descriptions of the interactions among all the data. Models are never perfect, the question is whether the predictions they make are useful, because they are close enough often enough to make the model worth running. ALL models need more work, always. Science is like that also - never perfect, always needs more work. One of the "articles of scientific fath" decrees that no theory is ever complete, that improvements are always possible, that there will always be more to learn.

But if you are after perfection, and laugh at anything that's easily good enough but not perfect enough for you, then you will laugh all your life while others accomplish.

But I don't really get that impression from you. I get the impression that you've decided what you wish to believe, and you cite those who believe the same as reliable sources, and this is a non-negotiable position, so you choose not to discuss, like, the actual data or analysis. Why bother, since evidence doesn't matter to someone taking an adversarial position?

My reading is, current models are making increasingly accurate predictions in some ways, but in other ways there's no known means of validating them. Will the gulf stream stop? Models can be made to predict what sorts of things might be expected if it does. But will it? Models can't tell us that - or rather, any predictions about the gulf stream result from inputs that aren't necessarily valid. But it's a mistake to take the position that if we do not understand fully (or even AT ALL) WHY something is happening, therefore it's not happening.

[Challenger Grim]

But I don't really get that impression from you. I get the impression that you've decided what you wish to believe, and you cite those who believe the same as reliable sources, and this is a non-negotiable position, so you choose not to discuss, like, the actual data or analysis. Why bother, since evidence doesn't matter to someone taking an adversarial position?

Yeah, I'm sure you went back through all 67 pages to see everything I've said.

No, the deal is that it's all been said before and I no longer have the patience to repeat myself. So I just laugh and enjoy my drinking game.

[phank]

Yeah, I'm sure you went back through all 67 pages to see everything I've said.

No, the deal is that it's all been said before and I no longer have the patience to repeat myself. So I just laugh and enjoy my drinking game.

OK, I guess I'll accept you as an authority and agree with whatever position you take, since you know so much more than I do. Unless, of course, Briggs might object to this approach...

But if I decide to cite BRIGGS as an authority, I wonder what he'd say. Might be an interesting experiment.

[Challenger Grim]

OK, I guess I'll accept you as an authority and agree with whatever position you take, since you know so much more than I do. Unless, of course, Briggs might object to this approach...

But if I decide to cite BRIGGS as an authority, I wonder what he'd say. Might be an interesting experiment.

No. By all means do your own legwork and homework.

The first thing you'll learn reading Briggs is that he's frequently trying to get people to realize that they don't know more than they think and to stop making assumptions.

[phank]

No. By all means do your own legwork and homework.

That sounds good on paper, but...

The first thing you'll learn reading Briggs is that he's frequently trying to get people to realize that they don't know more than they think and to stop making assumptions.

And this is a very good thing, provided we realize that a couple of hours (or even full days) of legwork are not any sort of substitute for many years of academic study followed by decades of professional experience. The basic problem is, I AM NOT QUALIFIED TO JUDGE who is right or wrong in matters like this. Or in most matters, to be honest. I spent my lifetime becoming very expert in one narrow field, totally unrelated to climatology. I'm no more going to become an expert climatologist with a little legwork, than a climatologist is going to become a concert pianist with a few hours of practice!

Now, this doesn't mean I can't kind of get the gist of what the real experts are saying, in many different fields. Most of the time (but certainly not all the time) I think I understand material at the level of Scientific American or Science News. But when I attack Science magazine, reading the actual peer-reviewed papers, I understand how far short I fall of any genuine understanding. Those articles are couched in terms I've never seen before, and when I try to find out what the term means, I find it refers to an entire body of literature I wasn't even aware of, and it ASSUMES some pretty extensive knowledge of that literature. And there are a LOT of those terms. Again, a few hours reading overviews is NOT a substitute for a lifetime of effort.

And that means that nearly all of us have no sensible option, but to read what the experts are saying and accept it. And when the experts disagree, people who are complete outsiders are certainly not qualified to judge who might be more nearly correct. We have to use different measures, outside the realm of the specialty itself. So we look at who has which vested interests, who is getting paid by whom, who has an axe to grind, how the experts line up politically (and whether their politics matches our own), whether there is a consensus emerging AND whether that consensus lines up with politics. We all feel qualified to judge the politics. Few of us are qualified to judge the influence of partial pressures of gases under various dynamic atmospheric conditions, etc.

So when there IS a consensus, and that consensus is reflected in a consistent and growing body of peer-reviewed materials, this is as persuasive as it gets. When I read someone dismissing this essential element of the scientific enterprise because "editors are too busy" or because "reviewers only want their own stuff cited", then we have a problem. What he is saying is very clear: The consensus disagrees with my preferences, therefore it is wrong and believing it constitutes falling for fallacious appeal to authority. Uh huh, right. I should ignore those with a lifetime of experience, and instead make up my own mind with a little legwork. And I should practice the piano for a few hours so I can be a concert performer too!

What it comes down to is, who should we believe and why? Should we believe Briggs, or the growing body of climatological consensus? Should we believe Scientific American, or the coal industry? And WHY should we pick either one over the other? It's not like we know enough about the topic to decide on the merits.

[FLovell]

>Yawn< -- Frank

[shadowmaster]

What it comes down to is, who should we believe and why? Should we believe Briggs, or the growing body of climatological consensus? Should we believe Scientific American, or the coal industry? And WHY should we pick either one over the other? It's not like we know enough about the topic to decide on the merits.

Try this Phrank

sm

[Augustine2004]

For years the consensus was, tectonics is bunk. Looking back, it seems clear that politics was driving 'science.' Phank has to explain why he thinks the AGW 'consensus' is not political, that it is a real consensus based primarily on expert evaluation of available evidence and theory.

[phank]

For years the consensus was, tectonics is bunk. Looking back, it seems clear that politics was driving 'science.' Phank has to explain why he thinks the AGW 'consensus' is not political, that it is a real consensus based primarily on expert evaluation of available evidence and theory.

I consider this a false dichotomy.

First, plate tectonics was initially a hypothesis. But how could it be established definitively? There was plenty of circumstantial evidence, both geological and biological. But until the plate movement could actually be measured, and that rate of movement correlated with the geological and biological evidence, the support was considered inadequate. And the notion of whole continents drifting around the surface of the planet was regarded as an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. Eventually that evidence was sufficient. There was no politics involved, because whether or not plate tectonics was correct, there wasn't anything anyone could DO about it, so no political concerns could be raised.

AGW is something politically very different. If it's accurate, then there ARE many things we can do about it, all of which are frighteningly expensive in money, lifestyle changes, business activity, agriculture, and so on (and on and on). And all these things are extremely political, to the point where it is not possible to say anything about AGW one way or another without being immersed in the political implications of whatever you say. They simply can't be avoided. But the fact that all aspects of AGW are necessarily political, doesn't mean they aren't real. Nobody just decided one day to FABRICATE the notion of global warming, just to stir up trouble. This was a clear trend on the evidence. There was initially some question as to whether human activity was a contributing factor, and of so, how much? And if it IS a contributing factor, then it's a political matter, plain and simple.

Still, there are very real physical changes going on no matter what any politician might say. And the evidence, EVEN IF all investigators are suffering from a crippling case of confirmation bias, continues to mount and continues to point in the same direction. The consensus itself isn't directly political, BUT the ramifications of course must be. I compare it, again, with smoking cigarettes. This was a highly political dispute for a long time, with scientists employed by competing interests, producing conflicting results purchased by their employers. So was the consensus that smoking was harmful entirely an artifact of which political viewpoint had the most money or votes? Might the actual damage smoking causes be a non-political, real physical danger?

[shadowmaster]

I consider this a false dichotomy.

First, plate tectonics was initially a hypothesis. But how could it be established definitively? There was plenty of circumstantial evidence, both geological and biological. But until the plate movement could actually be measured, and that rate of movement correlated with the geological and biological evidence, the support was considered inadequate. And the notion of whole continents drifting around the surface of the planet was regarded as an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. Eventually that evidence was sufficient. There was no politics involved, because whether or not plate tectonics was correct, there wasn't anything anyone could DO about it, so no political concerns could be raised.

AGW is something politically very different. If it's accurate, then there ARE many things we can do about it, all of which are frighteningly expensive in money, lifestyle changes, business activity, agriculture, and so on (and on and on). And all these things are extremely political, to the point where it is not possible to say anything about AGW one way or another without being immersed in the political implications of whatever you say. They simply can't be avoided. But the fact that all aspects of AGW are necessarily political, doesn't mean they aren't real. Nobody just decided one day to FABRICATE the notion of global warming, just to stir up trouble. This was a clear trend on the evidence. There was initially some question as to whether human activity was a contributing factor, and of so, how much? And if it IS a contributing factor, then it's a political matter, plain and simple.

Still, there are very real physical changes going on no matter what any politician might say. And the evidence, EVEN IF all investigators are suffering from a crippling case of confirmation bias, continues to mount and continues to point in the same direction. The consensus itself isn't directly political, BUT the ramifications of course must be. I compare it, again, with smoking cigarettes. This was a highly political dispute for a long time, with scientists employed by competing interests, producing conflicting results purchased by their employers. So was the consensus that smoking was harmful entirely an artifact of which political viewpoint had the most money or votes? Might the actual damage smoking causes be a non-political, real physical danger?

That the temperature is rising (GW) is relatively confirmed. However, the notion that we (AGW) are causing it, and that we can (unilaterally in the USA) reverse it, are not confirmed well enough to warrant the potential crises that you want to enact. Moreover, we do NOT have a good understanding of the variables or how to control them. You can destroy society, but it is not likely that you can control the climate. Hell, we cannot even control the local weather.

It is simply a non-scientific, liberal bias that calls for the draconian measures that you advocate.
Humans can survive climate changes -- as they have for millennia.

SM

[phank]

That the temperature is rising (GW) is relatively confirmed. However, the notion that we (AGW) are causing it, and that we can (unilaterally in the USA) reverse it, are not confirmed well enough to warrant the potential crises that you want to enact.

Who wants to enact a crisis? Certainly not I. The extent to which human activities are contributing the warming are highly problematic. We know we are producing greehouse gases, but how much responsibility do these bear? As far as I know, this is being studied pretty damn hard.

Moreover, we do NOT have a good understanding of the variables or how to control them. You can destroy society, but it is not likely that you can control the climate. Hell, we cannot even control the local weather.

I agree with you. Even if, just hypothetically, we were able to establish that human activity is (say) 90% responsible, give or take 2%, that does NOT mean there's anything useful or helpful we can do about it, without the cure being far more expensive than the disease! It's not like people are going to stop generating power or driving vehicles or transporting goods or cutting forests or farming or fishing or whatever, or even slow these down, I think even a 1% reduction in any of these things would be an economic calamity.

And I recognize the danger of thinking that if we're responsible, we ought to be able to fix the problem. That does not necessarily follow.

It is simply a non-scientific, liberal bias that calls for the draconian measures that you advocate.

If you can find a single change I have advocated, in this thread or any other, I would appreciate it if you could link to it, or quote it, or provide any reference at all. I have NEVER recommended ANY activity. I have argued that people bear some significant responsibility for part of the warming increase. But that's as far as I've gone.

And I'll repeat for those who STILL can't read: DOING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW WOULD BE STUPID because we don't have a good enough handle on all the variables, or how they all interact, or what the costs of doing anything effective would be.

Humans can survive climate changes -- as they have for millennia.

SM

Sigh. Yes, of course you are correct. But you might wish to reflect that the global human population during previous significant climate cycles was about three orders of magnitude smaller than it is now, and the same ratio applies to our footprint - the percentage of the world's fish we eat, land we cultivate, resources we consume. As an analogy, plenty of trains have passed by during our existence and we managed to dodge them. But the sheer size of our population, and the necessary real-time interdependencies, mean we have tied ourselves to the tracks. This train will be harder to dodge.

And yes, some people will surely survive. To paraphrase Everitt Dirkson, hey, a billion lives here and a billion lives there, and it might add up to a real popultion decline. In the long run, it will.

[shadowmaster]

If you can find a single change I have advocated, in this thread or any other, I would appreciate it if you could link to it, or quote it, or provide any reference at all. I have NEVER recommended ANY activity. I have argued that people bear some significant responsibility for part of the warming increase. But that's as far as I've gone.

And I'll repeat for those who STILL can't read: DOING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW WOULD BE STUPID because we don't have a good enough handle on all the variables, or how they all interact, or what the costs of doing anything effective would be.

My bad. I thought you were.

Sigh. Yes, of course you are correct. But you might wish to reflect that the global human population during previous significant climate cycles was about three orders of magnitude smaller than it is now, and the same ratio applies to our footprint - the percentage of the world's fish we eat, land we cultivate, resources we consume. As an analogy, plenty of trains have passed by during our existence and we managed to dodge them. But the sheer size of our population, and the necessary real-time interdependencies, mean we have tied ourselves to the tracks. This train will be harder to dodge.

And yes, some people will surely survive. To paraphrase Everitt Dirkson, hey, a billion lives here and a billion lives there, and it might add up to a real popultion decline. In the long run, it will.

We have too many people.
As Asimov once pointed out: If we do not decrease the birth rate, then somehow the death rate must increase.

SM