Category Archives: Global Warming

University of VA Professor gets coal in his stocking – and likes it!

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Laurie David, Global warming crusader, is very right to challenge professors that take corporate contributions. Her Huffington Post post entitled A Conflict of Interest in the Halls of Academia suggests that taking money from companies that benefit from weaker environmental regulations may bias the science.   Good point, and worth follow up.
But she fails to point out a similar problem, but also one that should be of great concern to the clear minded. This is the fact that grant funding from the US Government may also have political strings attached. They are not as direct but funding does relate to the emphasis, direction, and scale of research.

It’s obvious (and appropriate) that big money grants for research on potentially catastrophic things is far more likely to go through, than, say, a grant to fund research into the basket weaving habits of pliocene hominids.

This is hugely important because bias can easily creep into this equation in the form of exaggerating the peril of the topic under scrutiny – not so much in the peer reviewed studies which are subjected to close methodological scrutiny – but in the quotes of scientists and the lack of concern by scientists when the popular press spouts alarmist nonsense about their research often interpreting anecdotal observations associated with the science or reviews of the science by non-scientists as part of the research.

I’m actually looking for a way to test this hypothesis scientifically.  Something along the lines of “scientists describe their own research topics as more life threatening than their own research suggests.”

Common sense suggests it is going on around us all the time, especially now with the dramatic difference between the actual science aboout Global Warming that suggests it’s a bad thing but unlikely to be catastrophic versus the popular alarmist concerns that suggest the tipping point is here and planetary peril is paramount.

If planetary health is at the top of your agenda the answer to the clear minded is obvious:

* Invest our tax money and time heavily in current catastrophic things like Malaria, AIDs, and Poverty. This type of work clearly has the highest ROI by any reasonable human measure.

* Decrease massive military spending in favor of infrastructure spending here and in developing nations and invest heavily in marketing the USA as helping and not crusading.

* Invest in Global warming remediation schemes that have a high ROI but don’t buy into all the catastrophe mongering going on.  It’s deflecting attention from actual catastrophic conditions we affluent type first world people tend to simply … ignore.

Global Warming Guilt

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Fresh from a great trip in the California Wilderness I feel guilty as usual for challenging Global Warming alarmism from folks I respect and admire and who seem to spend a lot more time than I do on this topic, such as Al Gore and a lot of respected scientists participating in the IPCC.

However it’s really hard for me to view the catastrophe claims without feeling that 1) the major concerns don’t come from the science, rather from emotion and narrow focus and 2) clearly poverty, hunger, and disease are far more pressing human concerns – all being present catastrophic human conditions, solvable with simple technologies and at relatively low cost.

Of course humans are not the only thing to worry about when you’re looking at problems on our earth. However the case for expensive Global Warming “remedies” vs other methods of protecting the environment seems to get much weaker the farther you go from the human consequences. For example Kilauea in Hawaii could care less about GW. In fact Volcanos spew considerable CO2 into the atmosphere naturally (though not as much as humans, contrary to some GW denier claims).

SO…. maybe the best way to figure this out is to take a little more time to carefully examine the main catastrophe claims and compare them to what the actual research suggests. Luckily, the Climate Crisis website, a companion to the film “An Inconvenient Truth” gives us a clear starting point in our quest with these catastrophes they clearly feel are 1) a big deal and 2) looming on the near horizon:
If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.
Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

…. TO BE CONTINUED ….

The price of flour depends on the grocery aisle.

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Wow, that may be the first time I’ve spell “Aisle” since learning to … spell.

OK, so I’m noticing that processed flour products really vary in price in ways that simply can’t be explained by supply of flour, demand for flour, or anything remotely related to flour.   At pennies a pound, flour is cheap.   So is bread at perhaps a buck a pound, maybe two if you get really good stuff. But crackers, which are also almost all flour, cost a LOT, especially premium crackers which can run you over $5 per pound.    And then there are cookies, which seem to vary in ways that are downright amazing.   Little specialty cookies from Pepperidge farms can approach $10 per pound where the coconut oil saturated oatmeal specials take us back to the dollar a pound that seems most consistent with the price of flour.    Obviously labor production costs vary, but I don’t think it’s that either.  Marketing?   Maybe, but many of the cheapies seem to have more marketing than expensive stuff (Wonder bread (cheap) vs our local artisan bread (expensive).    The latter spends a fraction of the former.

What does all this have to do with Global Warming?  Nothing.  I just thought I’d put in that spurious tag for fun.

The mystery continues…..

Hurricanes! Not.

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I’ve been assuming that Global Warming was in fact contributing to an increase in the severity and number of hurricanes, but wondering if the alarmists had been exaggerating the effects for psychological effect. But here is the NOAA Hurricane data and this more recent NOAA analysis.  Neither suggest any catastrophes are looming. In fact we may have one of the *least* severe Hurricane seasons on record this year unless some big ones are brewing out there in the twinkling eyes of …. mother nature.

Excuse me but I’d like people to separate the politics from the science. Why is this so hard for *scientists* to do these days? I’m rapidly, and with great frustration, coming to the conclusion that it is because alarmism fuels research and focuses more attention on scientists.

Global warming is clear but catastrophic consequences from it appear to be so uncertain, so ill defined that it would be immoral and foolish to base hugely expensive public policy decisons on delaying warming for a few years.

Let’s try an experiment for a few years.

1) Take $80 billion – each year – from our bloated defense and homeland security budgets.

2) Ignore Global Warming

3) Solve *every major human problem* on earth. (The UN estimates that approximately 80 billion per year would solve virtually all major health, water, food problems).

Global Challenges vs Global Warming. An Inconvenient Truth * * *

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I finally got to see “An Inconvenient Truth” On the upside I think Al Gore comes off like the fine, sincere, bright fellow he is.    A movie like this around election 2000 would have given Florida, and the Presidency, to Al Gore.   The film’s creative use of graphics and video is also very impressive.  This is educational media used in compelling fashion and all presenters should take note of this approach which cleverly blends animation, video, and lecture.

Unfortunately the fundamental premise of this film – that global catastrophe is looming just around the corner – is misguided and not supported by the science Gore claims he holds so dear.   As the film suggests, global warming is well established and it has become clear that much of that warming is a result of human processes (anthropogenic warming).   However, the film strongly implies that castastrophic sea level rises and weather conditions are “likely” when science says only that they are “possible”.   Many things are possible and it’s very foolish to allocate resources without addressing “how likely is this to happen?”.

The science Gore abuses to support the wild claims comes mostly from IPCC reports which actually suggest that sea levels will probably rise at most a few feet *over the next century*.  The best estimates suggest that global climate change is not creating catastrophic sea level rises and killer storms.

What is certain is that we have many current global catastrophes.  They are the hunger, disease, and bad water supplies that plague hundreds of millions of people on earth right now, killing tens of thousands of people *daily*.

First let’s solve those problems, which are much cheaper and easier to solve than global warming and have much clearer and immediate positive benefits.

Clear thinking people should work towards prioritizing issues of global concern and then solving as many of those significant global concerns as possible given the constraints of money, politics, and human ignorance.  Drive less?  Sure.   Support wise resource use?  Of course.   We should apply common sense principles to all problems and wiser use of resources is important.   It’s just not the world’s most pressing problem.  Not by a long shot.

Rather than simply jump on another alarmist bandwagon of the many that litter the historical landscape I’d hope folks will ask themselves “If I could allocate a billion dollars to solving some global problems, what would be the best use of that money?”

Need a hint? It’s been done here:  Copenhagen Consensus 

Dr. Schneider! Just say NO to alarmism. Alarmism misdirects resources.

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Later …. Wait, I think I'm being too hard on Schneider who later qualified the quote below to apply only to soundbite decisions when getting interviewed… ]

He apparently did not mean it to be as broad and sweeping as it sounds below]. However, I do think the quote reflects the current behavior of many scientists who are choosing to accept alarmism because it suits their needs.

My initial post:

A great intellectual frustration for me is trying to understand why super bright, well informed people who all subscribe to the idea of rational, scientific inquiry often disagree – sometimes violently – about the interpretation of well studied phenomena. I now think the answer can be found by noting how our pesky human intellectual inadequacies combine with our "tribal" tendency to agree with our friends and challenge our enemies, especially when we are under personal attack. This in turn focuses attention on a "too narrow" spectrum of information and people, which in turn leads to faulty analysis or suspect statements – even by very competent intellects.

Stephen Schnieder is an internationally respected Stanford climatologist and biologist and a key author of the IPCC report which is the key Global Warming reference work. He's also one of the harshest critics of Bjorn Lomborg and his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Back in 1996 Schnieder got to the heart of the challenge of mixing science and politics in the statement below and his answer to critics who often accuse him of alarmism based on the following statement he made in an interview:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. [bolding added]

Yikes Dr. Schneider – please JUST SAY NO to effectiveness if it is going to compromise your honesty – that should not be an ethical bind for a scientists who should be held to a higher standard of honesty.

I sure don't like his idea that "offering up scary scenarios" somehow serves the long term best interests of the public. It sure looks like Schneider would support Al Gore's alarmism as an important part of getting the public to act on an issue many hold very dear (reduction of greenhouse gases in the hopes of stopping global warming), but I think a more functional view is that the role of science should be to offer the unvarnished truth, and to *challenge* alarmists and political or economic vested interests when they report facts selectively or inaccurately. Only with accurate analyses can we allocated resources most effectively to the myriad problems of earth.

The irony of it all is that global warming alarmists cite potential human death catastrophes from global warming, yet simply ignore the *fact* that there are many human catastrophes going on *right now* in many parts of the globe. Before you ask me to focus my attention and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax money on the (slight) possibility that global warming will rise sea levels 20 feet, I ask you to focus your precious attention, and a few dozen billion, on the easy to solve problems of the world like clean water, intestinal disease, and malaria. Deal?

Lomborg is too scientific for his own good?

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After reading "The Skeptical Environmentalist" I was astonished at how effectively Lomborg challenged many of the ideas about the environment I'd been holding dear for so long. I was especially impressed by the case he makes for allocating resources based on analysis of the lives saved and a cost benefit approach rather than the often irrational, politically motivated spending that saves only a few but costs a lot.

This led me to a fascinating email exchange with the editor of Scientific American, which had blasted Lomborg in a very long critique of the book. The SA critique was written by four internationally recognized experts, but in my view they'd done little more than attack Lomborg personally and suggest – speciously – that his objective was to disparage a scientific approach to problem solving.

What consistently impresses me the most about Lomborg is his willingness to take on his critics point by point, addressing their concerns with citations and what only appear to be legitimate personal criticisms. (Such as noting that climatologist Schneider used to warn about potentially catastrophic global cooling but now warns of potentially catastrophic global warming).

I suggest that Lomborg is thinking very clearly and applying science appropriately, but has challenged his critics effectively and aggresssively enough that they've responded in an emotional fashion rather than a scientific one.

The enthusiasm many scientists seem to show for Al Gore's excellent but misguided propaganda film "An Inconvenient Truth" reflects poorly on the state of scientific thinking. I think it reveals the limitations we primates, even those primates high on the scientific food chain, have with mathematical constructs and allocation of risks, costs, and benefits.

Later: Wadard does NOT agree with me or Lomborg – the debate continues over at Global Warming Watch:

Here's a clear thinking piece by Lomborg

Copenhagen Consensus

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An alternative to many pseudoscientific approaches to addressing global needs is the Copenhagen Consensus which seeks to suggest spending priorities for major global development projects according to their return on investment. Note their focus on health issues like AIDS and Malaria rather than Global Warming. They see warming as problematic but too difficult and expensive to fix. I’d like to see advocates for Kyoto protocol compare the costs with alternative approaches, but they seem to avoid this approach. I’d argue this approach is a moral imperative. Spending limited resources in the wisest way should be of primary importance to us as we seek to address global problems.
“The problem with Kyoto-type emission reduction plans is that the marginal costs rise exponentially and the benefits, if there even are any, rise linearly. So no matter which angle you look at it carbon dioxide restrictions on even a modest scale use up more social resources than any benefits they generate.”

Ross McKitrick
University of Guelph in Ontario

Almost 5000 dead and counting

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No, not from the Indonesian earthquake – indeed a terrible tragedy. Global warming? Ha – not even the most alarmist proponents make this claim. Nope, not from terrorism, which tragically took perhaps 5 or even 10 lives today despite *trillions* of dollars spent fighting wars and providing security across thousands of first world venues.

Malaria killed the 5000. Today. And yesterday. And tomorrow. 1-3 Million per year with some indications the count has been historically too low on this disease.

But let's not worry about Malaria because the cost to dramatically reduce transmission is …. $2.50 for nets that protect people while they sleep. $5.50 for the really good nets that can protect people for 5 years.

More death news you won't see on CNN or FOX. Yet today (nor yesterday or the days before) I didn't see anything on CNN or FOX about this ongoing life and death battle with parasitic diseases where the death toll eclipses that of *all wars ever fought for all time*.

CNN did, however, have a long report lamenting the fact that that about 100 people per week die waiting for organ transplants. We better get to work on that, because why spend $2.50 for a net to save a kid's life when you can spend $250,000.00 giving a rich guy a extra few years?

Save the world, ignore global warming

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As I noted before I actually admire and respect Al Gore for his passion regarding the environment and his sincerity about creating a better world. However I wonder if his global warming alarmism is misguided.

Here is a short and articulate summary by the controversial "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg of the view that Global warming is happening but that those suggesting dramatic measures are proposing we waste time and innovation better spent on problems we *can* solve.

Personally, I'm incredibly frustrated by how *every source I've read* suggesting global warming remedies fails to even attempt a cost benefit analysis when this should be a key concern due to the overwhelming costs associated with, for example, Kyoto Protocol implementation.

Lomborg suggests:
… in a curious way, global warming really is the moral test of our time, but not in the way its proponents imagined. We need to stop our obsession with global warming, and start dealing with the many more pressing issues in the world, where we can do most good first and quickest.

Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" suggests that many of the sacred cows of the environmental movement, including Global Warming, are supported more by political and ideological rather than scientific and mathematical motivations.

Lomborg has been villified in some scientific circles and if I can get permission I'll post some very interesting correspondence I had with the editor of Scientific American, which challenges Lomborg in what I feel are more personal rather than scientific ways. Lomborg's critics are notoriously vicious with ad hominem attacks on Lomborg rather than attacking his math and scientific assumptions. I'd suggest this is a strong indication that we should be paying more attention to Lomborg's analyses of pressing global concerns and that we should be careful to review the motivations of ALL of those involved in the global environmental debate.

Wikipedia on Global Warming – an excellent summary

EPA's Global Warming Site
Cooler Heads Coalition – industry funded I think. Note the paper about Terraforming Mars using injected greenhouse gasses! These guys seem to LIKE global warming!